A CREW OF MALAYS.
We sat chatting thus until something after nine. The comfort of this
cabin after the lugger, the knowledge that Helga and I would each have a
comfortable bed, comparatively speaking, to lie in, the conviction that
our stay in the barque must be short, and that a very few hours might
see us homeward bound, coupled with a sense of security such as never
possessed me in the open lugger, not to mention the influence of my one
pretty big tumbler of rum punch, had put me into a good humour.
'Is not this better than the lugger?' I said to Helga, as I motioned
with my cigar round the cabin, and pointed to the slippers upon my feet.
'Think of my little windy bed under that boat's deck, Helga, and
recollect your black forepeak.'
She seemed to acquiesce. The Captain's countenance was bland with
gratification.
'You tell me you have not travelled, Mr. Tregarthen?' said he.
'I have not,' I replied.
'But you would like to see the world? All young men should see the
world. Does not the poet tell us that home-keeping youths have ever
homely wits?' and here he harangued me for a little with commonplaces on
the advantage of travel; then, addressing Helga very smilingly, he said,
'_You_ have seen much of the world?'
'Not very much,' she answered.
'South America?'
'I was once at Rio,' she answered. 'I was also at Port Royal, in
Jamaica, and have accompanied my father in short voyages to one or two
Portuguese and Mediterranean ports.'
'Come, there is extensive observation, even in that,' said he, 'in one
so--in one whose years are still few! Did you ever visit Table Bay?'
She answered 'No.'
He smoked meditatively.
'Helga,' said I, 'you look tired. Would you like to go to your cabin?'
'I should, Hugh.'
'Well, I shall be glad to turn in myself, Captain. Will you forgive our
early retreat?'
'By all means,' he exclaimed. 'Let me show you the cabins.'
He went to the cuddy door and bawled for Punmeamootty. 'Light a
lantern,' I heard him say, 'and bring it aft!'
After a minute or two the steward made his appearance with a lantern
swinging in his hand. The Captain took it from him, and we passed out on
to the quarter-deck where the hatch lay. After the warmth of the cuddy
interior, the wind, chilled as it had been with the damp of the squall,
seemed to blow with an edge of frost. The rays of the lantern danced in
the blackness of the wet planks. The vessel was rolling slowly and
plunging heavily, and there were many heavy, complaining, straining
noises aloft amid the invisible spaces of canvas swinging through the
starless gloom. The cold, bleak roar of seething waters alongside
recalled the raft, and there was a sort of sobbing all along the dusk
close under either line of bulwarks.
'Let me help you through this little hatch, Miss Nielsen,' said the
Captain, dangling the lantern over it that we might see the aperture.
If she answered him, I did not hear her; she peered a moment, then put
her foot over and vanished. The steps were perpendicular--pieces of wood
nailed to the bulkhead--yet she had descended this up-and-down ladder in
an instant, and almost as she vanished was calling to me from below to
say that she was safe.
'What extraordinary nimbleness in a young lady!' cried the Captain, in a
voice of unaffected admiration. 'What an exquisite sailor! Now, Mr.
Tregarthen!'
I shuffled down, keeping a tight hold on the edge of the hatch, and felt
my feet before there was occasion to let go with my hands. There was
very little to be seen of this interior by the lantern light. It was the
forepart of the steerage, so far as I could gather, with two rows of
bulkheads forming a little corridor, at the extremity of which, aft, I
could faintly distinguish the glimmering outlines of cases of light
cargo. Forward of the hatch, through which we had descended, there stood
a solid bulkhead, so there was nothing to be seen that way. The doors of
the cabins opened out of the little corridor; they were mere
pigeon-holes; but then these 'tweendecks were very low, and while I
stood erect I felt the crown of the wideawake I wore brushing the
planks.
Never could I have imagined so much noise in a ship as was here--the
squeaking, the grinding, the groaning; the jar and shock of the rudder
upon its post; the thump of the seas outside, and the responsive
throbbing within; the sullen, muffled roar of the Atlantic surge washing
past; all these notes were blended into such a confusion of sounds as is
not to be expressed. The lantern swayed in the Captain's hand, and the
shadows at our feet sprang from side to side. There were shadows, too,
all round about, wildly playing upon the walls and bulkheads of the
vessel with a mopping and mowing of them that might have filled a lonely
and unaccustomed soul down here with horrible imaginations of sea
monsters and ocean spectres.
'I heartily wish, Miss Nielsen,' cried the Captain--and, in truth, he
had need to exert his voice to be audible amid that bewildering
clamour--'that you had suffered me to provide you with better
accommodation than this. Jones could have done very well down here.
However, for to-night this will be your cabin. To-morrow I hope you will
change your mind, and consent to sleep above.'
So saying, he opened the foremost of the little doors on the port side.
It was a mere hole indeed, yet it somehow took the civilized look of an
ordinary ship's berth from the round scuttle or thickly-glazed porthole
which lay in an embrasure deep enough to comfortably warrant the
thickness of the vessel's side. Under this porthole was a narrow bunk,
and in it a bolster, and, as I might suppose, blankets, over which was
spread a very handsome rug. I swiftly took note of one or two
conveniences--a looking-glass, a washstand secured to the bulkhead (this
piece of furniture, I made no doubt, had come direct from the Captain's
cabin); there was also a little table, and upon it a comb and brush, and
on the cabin deck was a square of carpet.
'Very poor quarters for you, Miss Nielsen,' said the Captain, looking
round, his nose and whiskers appearing twice as long in the fluctuations
of the lantern light and his fixed smile odd beyond words, with the
tumbling of the shadows over his face.
'The cabin is very comfortable, and you are very kind!' exclaimed Helga.
'You are good to say so. I wish you a good night and pleasant dreams.'
He extended his hand, and held hers, I thought, rather longer than mere
courtesy demanded.
'That will be your cabin, Mr. Tregarthen,' said he, going to the door.
I bade Helga good-night. It was hard to interpret her looks by that
light, yet I fancied she had something to say, and bent my ear to her
mouth; but instead of speaking, she hurriedly passed her right hand down
my sleeve, by no means caressingly, but as though she desired to cleanse
or dry her fingers. I looked at her, and she turned away.
'Good-night, Helga!' said I.
'Good-night, Hugh!' she answered.
'You will find a bolt to your door, Miss Nielsen,' called the Captain.
'Oh, by the way,' he added, 'I do not mean that you shall undress in the
dark. There is an opening over your door; I will hang the lantern
amidships here. It will shed light enough to see by, and in half an
hour, if that will not be too soon, Punmeamootty will remove it.
Good-night, Mr. Tregarthen!'
He left me, after hanging up the lantern by a hook fixed in a beam
amidships of the corridor. I waited until his figure had disappeared up
the steps of the hatch and then called to Helga. She heard me instantly,
and cried, 'What is it, Hugh?'
'Did not you want to say something to me just now?' I exclaimed.
She opened the door and repeated, 'What is it, Hugh? I cannot hear you!'
'I thought you wished to speak to me just now,' said I, 'but were
hindered by the Captain's presence.'
'No, I have nothing to say,' she answered, looking very pale in the
frolic of shadows made by the swinging lantern.
'Why did you stroke down my arm? Was it a rebuke? Have I offended you?'
'Oh, Hugh!' she cried; then exclaimed: 'Could not you see what I meant?
I acted what I could not speak.'
'I do not understand,' said I.
'I wished to wipe off the grasp of that man's hand,' she exclaimed.
'Poor wretch! Is he so soiling as all that, Helga? And yet how
considerate he is! I believe he has half denuded his own cabin for you.'
'Well, good-night once more,' said she, and closed the door of her berth
upon herself.
I entered my cabin wondering like a fool. I could witness nothing but
groundless aversion in her thoughts of this Captain Bunting, and felt
vexed by her behaviour; for first I considered that, as in the lugger,
so here--some days, ay, and even some weeks, might pass without
providing us with the chance of being conveyed on board a homeward-bound
ship. I do not say I believed this; but it was a probable thing, and
there was that degree of risk, therefore, in it. Then I reflected that
it was in the power of Captain Bunting to render our stay in his vessel
either as agreeable as he had the power to make it, or entirely
uncomfortable and wretched by neglect, insolence, bad-humour, and the
like. I therefore regarded Helga's behaviour as impolitic, and, not
having the sense to see into it so as to arrive at a reason, I allowed
it to tease me as a piece of silly girlish caprice.
This was in my mind as I entered my cabin. There was light enough to
enable me to master the interior, and a glance around satisfied me that
I was not to be so well used as Helga. There were a pair of blankets in
the bunk, and an old pewter basin on the deck that was sliding to and
fro with the motions of the vessel. This I ended by throwing the concern
into the next cabin, which, so far as I could tell, was half full of
bolts of canvas and odds and ends of gear, which emitted a very strong
smell of tar. However, I was sleepier than I was sensible of while I
used my legs, for I had no sooner stretched my length in the bunk, using
the Captain's slippers rolled up in my monkey-jacket as a pillow, than I
fell asleep, though five minutes before I should have believed that
there was nothing in opium to induce slumber in the face of the
complicated noise which filled that interior.
I slept heavily right through the night, and awoke at half-past seven. I
saw Punmeamootty standing in the door, and believe I should not have
awakened but for his being there and staring at me. I lay a minute
before I could bring my mind to its bearings; and I have some
recollection of stupidly and drowsily imagining that I had been set
ashore on an island by Captain Bunting, that I had taken refuge in a
cave, and that the owner of that cave, a yellow wild man, had looked in,
and, finding me there, was meditating how best to despatch me.
'Hallo?' said I. 'What is it?'
'You wantchee water, sah?' said the man.
'Yes.' said I, now in possession of all my wits. 'You will find the
basin belonging to this berth next door. A little cold water, if you
please, and, if you can possibly manage it, Punmeamootty, a small bit of
soap and a towel.'
He withdrew, and in a few minutes returned with the articles I required.
'How is the weather?' said I, with a glance at the screwed-up porthole,
the glass of which lay as dusky with grime as the scuttle of a whaler
that has been three years afishing.
'Very proper wedder, sah,' he answered.
'Captain Bunting up?'
'No, sah.'
'You will be glad to get to Cape Town, I dare say,' said I, scrubbing at
my face, and willing to talk since I noticed a disposition in the fellow
to linger. 'Do you hail from that settlement, Punmeamootty?'
'No, sah: I 'long to Ceylon,' he answered.
'How many Cingalese are there aboard?'
'Tree,' he answered.
'Do the rest belong to the Cape?'
He shook his head and replied, 'No; one Burmah man, anoder Penang,
anoder Singapore--allee like that.'
'But your work in this ship ends at Cape Town?'
'Yes, sah,' he answered, swiftly and fiercely.
'Are you all Mahometans?'
'Yes, allee Mussulmans.'
I understood by _allee_ that he meant all. He fastened his dusky eyes
upon me with an expression of expectation that I would pursue the
subject: finding me silent, he looked behind him, and then said, in a
species of English that was not 'pigeon' and that I can but feebly
reproduce, though, to be sure, what was most remarkable in it came from
the colour it took through his intonation, and that glitter in his eyes
which had made them visible to me in the dusk of the previous evening,
'You have been wrecked, sah?' I nodded. 'But you sabbee nabigation?'
I could not restrain a laugh. 'I know nothing of navigation,' said I;
'but I was not wrecked for the want of it, Punmeamootty.'
'But de beautiful young lady, she sabbee nabigation?' said he, with an
apologetic, conciliatory grin that laid bare a wide range of his
gleaming white teeth.
'How do you know that?' said I, struck by the question.
'Me hear you tell de captain, sah.'
'Yes,' said I, 'I believe she can navigate a ship.' He tossed his hands
and rolled up his eyes in ludicrous imitation, as I thought, of his
Captain's behaviour when he desired to express admiration. 'She
beautiful young lady,' he exclaimed, 'and werry good--kind smile, and
berry sorry for poor Mussulmans, sah.'
'I know what you mean, Punmeamootty,' said I. 'We are both very sorry,
believe me! The Captain means well'--the man's teeth met in a sudden
snap as I said this--'the man means well,' I repeated, eyeing him
steadily; 'but it is a mistaken kindness. The lady and I will endeavour
to influence him; though, at the same time, we trust to be out of the
ship very soon, possibly too soon to be of any use. Anything in sight?'
'No, sah!'
He loitered still, as though he had more to say. Finding me silent, he
made an odd sort of obeisance and disappeared.
Helga's cabin-door was shut. I listened, but could not collect amid the
creaking noises that she was stirring within. It was likely she had
passed an uneasy night and was now sleeping, and in that belief I gained
the hatchway and mounted on deck.
The first person I saw was Helga. She was talking to the two boatmen at
the foot of the little poop ladder, under the lee of the bulwarks, which
were very nearly the height of a man. The decks were still dark with
the swabbing-up of the brine with which they had been scoured. The
galley chimney was hospitably smoking. A group of the coloured seamen
lounged to leeward of the galley, with steaming pannikins and biscuits
in their hands, and, as they ate and drank, they talked incessantly. The
fellow named Nakier stood on the forecastle with his arms folded,
persistently staring aft, as it seemed to me, at Helga and the boatmen.
The sun was about half an hour above the horizon; the sky was very
delicately shaded with a frosty network of cloud, full of choice and
tender tints, as though the sun were a prism flooding the heavens with
many-coloured radiance. Over the lee-rail the sea was running in a fine
rich blue streaked with foam, and the wind was a moderate breeze from
which the completely clothed masts of the barque were leaning with the
yards braced forward, for, so far as I could tell by the sun, the wind
was about south-east.
All these details my eye took in as I stepped out of the hatch. Helga
advanced to meet me, and I held her hand.
'You are looking very bonny this morning,' said I. 'Your sleep has done
you good. Good-morning, Abraham; and how are you, Jacob? You two are the
men I just now want to see.'
'Marning, Mr. Tregarthen,' exclaimed Abraham. 'How are _you_, sir? Don't
Miss Nielsen look first-rate? Why, she ain't the same lady she was when
we first fell in with ye.'
'It is true, Helga,' said I. 'Did Captain Bunting smuggle some cosmetics
into your cabin, along with his washstand?'
'Oh, do not joke, Hugh,' said she. 'Look around the ocean: it is still
bare.'
'I've bin a-telling Miss Nielsen,' exclaimed Abraham, 'that them
coloured chaps forrads are a-talking about her as if she were a
diwinity.'
'A angel,' said Jacob.
'A diwinity,' said Abraham, looking at his mate. 'The cove they calls
boss--that there Nakier yonder, him as is a-looking at us as if his
heart was agoing to bust--what d'ye think he says--ay, and in fust-class
English, too? "That there gal," says he, "ain't no Englishwoman. I'm
glad to know it. She's got too sweet a hoye for an Englishwoman." "What
d'ye know about hoyes?" says I. "English bad, bad," says he; "some
good," here he holds up his thumb as if a-counting wan; "but many veree
bad, veree bad," he says, says he, and here he holds up his fower
fingers, like a little sprouting of o'er-ripe plantains, meaning fower
to one, I allow.'
'It's pork as is at the bottom o' them feelin's,' said Jacob.
'Abraham,' said I, in a low voice, for I had no desire to be overheard
by the mate, who came and went at the rim of the poop overhead in his
walk from the taffrail to the break of the deck, 'before you accept
Captain Bunting's offer----'
'I _have_ accepted it, Mr. Tregarthen,' he interrupted.
'When?'
'Last noight, or call it this marning. He was up and down while I kep' a
look-out, and wanst he says to me, "Are you agreeable, Vise?" says he;
and I says, "Yes, sir," having talked the matter o'er with Jacob.'
'I hope the pair of you have thought the offer well out,' said I, with
a glance at the Captain's cabin, from which, however, we stood too far
to be audible to him in it. 'I saw Nakier haranguing you yesterday
afternoon, and, though you told me you didn't quite understand him, yet
surely by this time you will have seen enough to make you guess that if
the Captain insists on forcing pork down those men's throats his ship is
not going to continue a floating Garden of Eden!'
'Whoy, that may be roight enough,' answered Abraham; 'but them coloured
chaps' grievances han't got nothen to do with Jacob an' me. What I
considered is this: here am I offered fower pound a month, and there's
Jacob, who's to go upon the articles for three pound; that'll be seven
pound 'twixt us tew men. Ain't that money good enough for the likes of
us, Mr. Tregarthen? Where's the _Airly Marn_? Where's my fifteen pound
vorth o' property? Where's Jacob's height pound vorth--ay, every farden
of height pound?' he exclaimed, looking at Jacob, who confirmed his
assurance with a prodigious nod. 'As to them leather-coloured
covies----' he continued, with a contemptuous look forwards; then
pausing, he cried out, ''Soides, whoy _shouldn't_ they eat pork? If
it's good enough for me and Jacob, ain't it good enough for the likes o'
such a poor little parcel o' sickly flesh as that there Nakier and his
mates?'
'It is a question of religion with them,' said I.
'Religion!' grumbled Jacob. 'Religion, Mr. Tregarthen, don't lie here,
sir,' putting his hand upon his waistcoat, 'but here,' pointing with a
tarry-looking finger to where he imagined his heart was. 'There hain't
no religion in dishes. I've heerd of chaps a-preaching in tubs, but I
never heerd of religion lying pickled in a cask. Don't you let them
chaps gammon you, sir. 'Tain't pork: it's a detarmination to find
fault.'
'But have they not said enough in your hearing to persuade you they are
in earnest?' said Helga.
'Why, ye see, lady,' answered Abraham, 'that their language is a sort o'
conversation which there's ne'er a man along Deal beach as has ever been
eddicated in, howe'er it may be along o' your part o' the coast, Mr.
Tregarthen. What they says among themselves I don't onderstand.'
'But have they not complained to you,' persisted Helga gently, 'of
being obliged by the Captain either to go without food every other day
or to eat meat that is forbidden to them by their religion?'
'That there Nakier,' replied Abraham, 'spun a long yarn yesterday to
Jacob and me whilst we lay agin the galley feeling werry ordinary--werry
ordinary indeed--arter that there bad job of the _Airly Marn_; but he
talked so fast, and so soft tew, that all that I could tell ye of his
yarn, miss, is that he and his mates don't fancy themselves as
comfortable as they might be.'
I said quietly, for Mr. Jones had come to a halt at the rail above us:
'Well, Abraham, my advice to you both is, look about you a little while
longer before you allow your names to be put upon the articles of this
ship.'
At that moment the Captain came out of the door of the cuddy, and the
two boatmen, with a flourish of their hands to Helga, went rolling
forward. He came up to us, all smiles and politeness. It was easy to see
that he had taken some trouble in dressing himself; his whiskers were
carefully brushed; he wore a new purple-satin scarf; his ample black
waistcoat hinted that it belonged to his Sunday suit, or 'best things,'
as servants call it; his boots were well polished; he showed an
abundance of white cuff; and his wideawake sat somewhat jauntily upon
his head. His two or three chins went rolling and disappearing like a
ground swell betwixt the opening of a pair of tall starched collars--an
unusual embellishment, I should have imagined at sea, where starch is as
scarce as newspapers. He hoped Helga had slept well; he trusted that the
noises of straining and creaking below had not disturbed her. She must
really change her mind, and occupy Mr. Jones's cabin. After shaking me
by the hand, he seemed to forget that I stood by, so busy was he in his
attention to Helga. He asked her to step on to the poop or upper deck.
'These planks are not yet dry,' said he; 'and besides,' he went on
smiling always, 'your proper place, my dear young lady, is aft, where
there is, at all events, seclusion, though, alas! I am unable to offer
you the elegances and luxuries of an ocean mail steamer.'
We mounted the ladder, and he came to a stand to survey the sea.
'What a mighty waste, is it not, Miss Nielsen? Nothing in sight. All
hopelessly sterile. But it is not for me to complain,' he added
significantly.
He then called to Mr. Jones, and all very blandly, with the gentlemanly
airs and graces which one associates with the counter, he asked him how
the weather had been since eight bells, if any vessels had been sighted,
and so forth, talking with a marked reference to Helga being near and
listening to him.
Mr. Jones, with his purple pimple of a nose of the shape of a woman's
thimble standing out from the middle of his pale face, with a small but
extraordinary light-blue eye twinkling on either side of it under
straw-coloured lashes and eyebrows resembling oakum, listened to and
addressed the Captain with the utmost degree of respect. There was an
air of shabbiness and of hard usage about his apparel that bespoke him a
man whose locker was not likely to be overburthened with shot. His walk
was something of a shamble, that was heightened by the loose pair of old
carpet slippers he wore, and by the frayed heels of his breeches. His
age was probably thirty. He impressed me as a man whose appearance
would tell against him among owners and shipmasters, who would therefore
obtain a berth with difficulty, but who when once in possession would
hold on tight by all possible strenuous effort of fawning, of agreeing,
of submissively undertaking more work than a captain had a right to put
him to.
While we thus stood I sent a look around the little _Light of the World_
to see what sort of a ship we were aboard of, for down to this time I
had scarcely had an opportunity of inspecting her. She was an old
vessel, probably forty years old. This I might, have guessed from the
existence of the cabins in the steerage; but her beam and the roundness
of her bows and a universal worn air, that answered to the wrinkles upon
the human countenance, likewise spoke her age very plainly. Her fittings
were of the homeliest: there was no brasswork here to glitter upon the
eye; her deck furniture was, indeed, as coarse and plain as a smack's,
with scars about the skylight, about the companion hatch-cover, about
the drumhead of the little quarter-deck capstan, and about the line of
the poop and bulwark rail, as though they had been used over and over
again by generations of seamen for cutting up plug tobacco upon. She had
a very short forecastle-deck forward, under which you saw the heel of
the bowsprit and the heaped mass of windlass; but the men's sleeping
quarters were in the deck beneath, to which access was to be had only by
what is commonly called a fore-scuttle--that is to say, a little hatch
with a cover to it, which could be bolted and padlocked at will. Abaft
the galley lay the long-boat, a squab tub of a fabric like the mother
whose daughter she was. It rested in chocks, on its keel, and was lashed
to bolts in the deck. There were some spare booms secured on top of it,
but the boat's one use now was as a receptacle for poultry for the
Captain's table. On either side of the poop hung a quarter-boat in
davits--plain structures, sharp-ended like whaling-boats. Add a few
details, such as a scuttle-butt for holding fresh water for the crew to
drink from; a harness-cask against the cuddy-front, for storing the
salted meats for current use; the square of the main-hatch tarpaulined
and battened down; and then the yards mounting the masts and rising from
courses to royals, spars and gear looking as old as the rest of the
ship, though the sails seemed new, and shone very white as the wind
swelled their breasts to the sun, and you have as good a picture as I
can put before you of this _Light of the World_ that was bearing Helga
and me hour by hour farther and deeper into the heart of the great
Atlantic, and that was also to be the theatre of one of the strangest
and wildest of the events which furnished forth this trying and
desperate passage of my life.
Captain Bunting moved away with an invitation in his manner to Helga to
walk. I lingered to exchange a word with the mate from the mere desire
to be civil. Helga called me with her eyes to accompany her, then,
hearing me speak to Mr. Jones, she joined the Captain and paced by his
side. I spied him making an angle of his arm for her to take, but she
looked away, and he let fall his hand.
'If Abraham Wise,' said I, 'agrees to sail with you, Mr. Jones, you will
have a very likely lively fellow to relieve you in keeping watch.'
'Yes; he seems a good man. It is a treat to see a white face knocking
about this vessel's deck,' he answered in a spiritless way, as though he
found little to interest him when his Captain's back was turned.
'You certainly have a very odd-looking crew,' said I. 'I believe I
should not have the courage to send myself adrift along with one white
man only aboard a craft full of Malays.'
'There were three of us,' he answered, 'but Winstanley disappeared
shortly after we had sailed.'
As he spoke, Nakier, on the forecastle, struck a little silver-toned
bell eight times, signifying eight o'clock.
'Who is that copper-coloured, scowling-looking fellow at the wheel?' I
asked, indicating the man who had been at the helm when Helga and I came
aboard on the preceding day.
'His name is Ong Kew Ho,' he answered. 'A rare beauty, ain't he?' he
added, with a little life coming into his eyes. 'His face looks rotten
with ripeness. Sorry to say he's in my watch, and he's the one of them
all that I never feel very easy with of a dark night when he's where he
is now and I'm alone here.'
'But the looks of those Asiatic folk don't always express their minds,'
said I. 'I remember boarding a ship off the town I belong to and
noticing among the crew the most hideous, savage-looking creature it
would be possible to imagine: eyes asquint, a flat nose with nostrils
going to either cheek, black hair wriggling past his ears like snakes,
and a mouth like a terrible wound; indeed, he is not to be described;
yet the captain assured me that he was the gentlest, best-behaved man he
had ever had under him, and the one favourite of the crew.'
'He wasn't a Malay,' said Mr. Jones drily.
'The captain didn't know his country,' said I.
Here Abraham arrived to take charge of the deck. He had polished himself
up to the best of his ability, and mounted the ladder with an air of
importance. He took a slow, merchant-sailor-like, deep-sea survey of the
horizon, following on with an equally deliberate gaze aloft at the
canvas, then knuckled his brow to Mr. Jones, who gave him the course and
exchanged a few words with him, and immediately after left the deck,
howling out an irrepressible yawn as he descended the ladder.
It was not for me to engage Abraham in conversation. He was now on duty,
and I understood the sea-discipline well enough to know that he must be
left alone. I thereupon joined Helga and Captain Bunting, not a little
amused secretly by the quarter-deck strut the worthy boatman put on, by
the knowing, consequential expression in his eyes as they met in a
squint in the compass-bowl, by his slow look at the sea over the
taffrail and the twist in his pursed-up lips as he went rolling forwards
to the break of the poop, viewing the sails as though anxious to find
something wrong, that he might give an order and prove his zeal.
At half-past eight Punmeamootty rang a little bell in the cabin, and we
went down to breakfast. The repast, it was to be easily seen, was the
best the ship's larder could furnish, and in excess of what was commonly
placed upon the table. There was a good ham, there was a piece of ship's
corned beef, and I recollect a jar of marmalade, some white biscuit, and
a pot of hot coffee. The coloured steward waited nimbly, with a singular
swiftness and eagerness of manner when attending to Helga, at whom I
would catch him furtively gazing askant, with an expression in his
fiery, dusky eyes that was more of wonder and respect, I thought, than
of admiration. At times he would send a sideways look at the Captain
that put the fancy of a flourished knife into one's head, so keen and
sudden and gleaming was it. Mr. Jones had apparently breakfasted and
withdrawn to his cabin, thankful, no doubt, for a chance to stretch his
legs upon a mattress.
In the course of the meal Helga inquired the situation of the ship.
'We are, as nearly as possible,' answered the Captain, 'on the latitude
of the island of Madeira, and, roundly speaking, some hundred and twenty
miles to the eastward of it. But you know how to take an observation of
the sun, Mr. Tregarthen informed me. I have a spare sextant, and at noon
you and I will together find out the latitude. I should very well like
to have my reckoning confirmed by you;' and he leaned towards her, and
smiled and looked at her.
She coloured, and said that, though her father had taught her
navigation, her calculations could not be depended upon. But for her
wish to please me, I believe she would not have troubled herself to
give him that answer, but coldly proceeded with the question she now
put:
'Since we are so close to Madeira, Captain Bunting, would it be
inconveniencing you to sail your barque to that island, where we are
sure to find a steamer to carry us home?'
He softly shook his head with an expression of bland concern, while he
sentimentally lifted his eyes to the tell-tale compass above his head.
'You ask too much, Helga,' said I. 'You must know that the deviation of
a ship from her course may vitiate her policy of insurance, should
disaster follow.'
'Just so!' exclaimed the Captain, with a thankful and smiling
inclination of his head at me.
'Besides, Helga,' said I gently, 'supposing, on our arrival at Madeira,
we should find no steamer going to England for some days, what should we
do? There are no houses of charity in that island of Portuguese beggars,
I fear; and Captain Bunting may readily guess how it happens that I left
my purse at home.'
'Just so!' he repeated, giving me such another nod as he had before
bestowed.
The subject dropped. The Captain made some remark about the part of the
ocean we were in being abundantly navigated by homeward-bound craft,
then talked of other matters; but whatever he said, though directly
addressed to me, seemed to my ear to be spoken for the girl, as though,
indeed, were she absent, he would talk little or in another strain.