“Why should I care for life or death? The one is no good, and the
other no harm. What is existence but sense of self, severance for one
troubled moment from the eternal unity? We disquiet ourselves, we fume,
and pant—lo, our sorrows are gone, like the smoke of a train, and our
joys like the glimmer of steam. Why should I fear to be mad, any more
than fear to die? What harm if the mind outrun the body upon the road
of return to God? And yet we look upon madness as the darkest of human
evils!
“How this gliding river makes one think of life and eternity! Not
because the grand old simile lives in every language. Not because we
have read and heard it, in a hundred forms and more. A savage from the
Rocky Mountains feels the same idea—for ideas strongly stamped pierce
into the feelings.
“Why does the mind so glide away to some calm sea of melancholy, when
we stand and gaze intently upon flowing water? And the larger the
spread of the water is, and the grander the march of the current, the
deeper and more irresistible grows the sadness of the gazer.
“That naval captain, so well known as an explorer of the Amazon, who
dined with us at Nowelhurst one day last July, was a light–hearted
man by nature, and full of wit and humour. And yet, in spite of wine
and warmth, he made the summer twilight creep with the sadness of his
stories. Nevertheless, we hung upon them with a strange enchantment; we
drew more real pleasure from them than from a world of drolleries. Poor
Clayton tried to run away, for he never could bear melancholy; but all
he did was to take a chair nearer to the voyager. As for me, I cried;
in spite of myself, I cried; being carried away by the flow of his
language, so smooth, and wide, and gliding, with the mystery of waters.
“And he was not one of those shallow men who talk for effect at
dinner–parties. Nothing more than a modest sailor, leaving his mind to
its natural course. Only he had been so long upon that mighty river,
that he nevermore could cease from gliding, ever gliding, with it.
“Once or twice he begged our pardon for the sweep of hazy sadness
moving (like the night on water) through his tales and scenery. He is
gone there again of his own free choice. He must die upon that river.
He loves it more than any patriot ever loved his country. Betwixt a
man and flowing water there must be more than similitude, there must be
a sort of sympathy.”
“_Tap–Robin_, ahoy there! Ahoy, every son of a sea–cook of you. Heave
us over a rope, you lubbers. Would yer swamp us with parson aboard of
me?”
This was Mr. Jupp, of course, churning up Cradʼs weak ideas, like a
steam–paddle in a fishpond. Perhaps the reason why those ideas had been
of such sad obscurity, and so fluxed with sorry sentiment, was that the
vague concipient believed himself to be shipped off for an indefinite
term of banishment, without even a message from Amy. Whereas, in truth,
he was only going for a little voyage to Ceylon, in the clipper ship
_Taprobane_, A 1 for all time at Lloydʼs, and never allowed to carry
more than twice as much as she could.
How discontented mortals are! He ought to have been jollier than a
sandboy, for he had a cabin all to himself (quite large enough to
turn round in), and, what of all things we Britons love best, a happy
little sinecure. He was actually appointed—on the strength of his
knowledge of goods earned at the Cramjam terminus, but not through any
railway influence (being no chip of the board, neither any attorneyʼs
“love–child”—if there be such a heterogeny), only through John
Rosedewʼs skill and knowledge of the world, Cradock was actually made
“under–supercargo” of a vessel bound to the tropics.
The clipper had passed Greenhithe already, and none had hailed her or
said “Farewell.” The _Taprobane_ would have no tug. She was far too
clean in the bows for that work. Her mother and grandmother had run
unaided down the river; even back to the fourth generation of ships,
when the Dutchmen held Ceylon, and doubtless would have kept it, but
for one great law of nature: no Dutchman must be thin. But even a
Dutchman loses fat within ten degrees of the line. So Nature reclaimed
her square Dutchmen from the tropics, which turned them over. Most
likely these regions are meant, in the end, for the Yankee, who has no
fat to lose, and is harder to fry than a crocodile.
But who can stop to theorize while the _Taprobane_ is dancing along
under English colours, and swings on her keel just in time to avoid
running down Mr. Rosedew and Issachar? Mr. Jupp is combining business
with pleasure, being, as you may say, under orders to meet the _Saucy
Sally_, and steer her home from Northfleet to the Surrey Docks. So
he has taken a lift in a collier, and met Mr. Rosedew at Gravesend,
according to agreement, and then borrowed a boat to look out alike for
_Saucy Sally_ and _Taprobane_.
When words and gifts had been interchanged—what Amy sent is no matter
now; but Loo Jupp sent a penny ‘bacco–box, which beat fatherʼs out
and out (as he must be sure to tell Cradock), and had “Am I welcome?”
on it, in letters of gold at least—when “God bless you” had been said
for the twentieth time, and love tied the tongue of gratitude, the
_Taprobane_ lay–to for a moment, and the sails all shivered noisily,
and the water curled crisply, and hissed and bubbled, and the little
boats hopped merrily to the pipe of the rising wind.
Then Mr. Rosedew came down the side, lightly of foot and cleverly;
while the under–supercargo leaned upon the rail and sorrowfully watched
him. Ponderously then and slowly, with his great splay feet thrust into
the rope–ladder, even up to the heel, quite at his leisure descended
that good bargeman, Issachar Jupp. This noble bargee had never been
seen to hurry himself on his own account. He and his deeds lagged
generally on the bight of a long and slack tow–rope.
The sailors, not entering into his character, thought that he was
frightened, and condemned his apprehensive luminaries, in words of a
quarter the compass. Then Mr. Jupp let go with both hands, stood bolt
upright on the foot–rope, and shook his great fists at them. “Let him
catch them ashore at Wapping, if the devil forewent his due; let him
catch them, that was all!” Thereupon they gave him a round of cheers,
and promised to square the account, please God.
Mr. Rosedew and the bargeman looked up from the tossing wherry, and
waved their last farewell, the parson reckless of Sunday hat, and
letting his white locks glance and flutter on the cold March wind. But
Cradock made no reply.
“All right, govʼnor!” said Jupp, catching hold of the parson; “no call
for you to take on so. Iʼve a been the likes o’ that there mysel’ in
the days when I tuk’ blue ruin. The rattisination of it are to fetch it
out of him by travellinʼ. And the _Tap–Robin_ are a traveller, and no
mistake. Dʼrectly moment I comes to my fortinʼ, Iʼll improve self and
family travellinʼ.”
Zakey, to assert his independence as his nature demanded, affected a
rough familiarity with the man whom he revered. The parson allowed it
as a matter of course. His dignity was not so hollow as to be afraid
of sand–paper. The result was that Issachar Jupp, every time, felt
more and more compunction at, and less and less of comfort in, the
unresented liberties.
As he said “good–bye” at the landing–place—for he had seen the _Sally_
coming—he put out his hand, and then drew it back with a rough bow
(disinterred from long–forgotten manners), and his raspy tongue thrust
far into the coal–mine of his cheek. But John Rosedew accepted his
hand, and bowed, as he would have done to a nobleman. Even if a baby
smiled at him, John always acknowledged the compliment. For he added
Christian courtesy, and the humility of all thoughtful minds, to a
certain grand and glorious gift of radiating humanity.
Cradock Nowell was loth to be sent away, and could not see the need of
it; but doubtless the medical men were right in prescribing a southern
voyage, a total change of scene and climate, as the likeliest means
to re–establish the shattered frame and the tottering mind. And so he
sailed for the gorgeous tropics, where the sun looks not askance, where
the size of every climbing, swimming, fluttering, or crawling thing
(save man himself) is doubled; where life of all things bounds and
beats—until it is quickly beaten—as it never gets warm enough to do in
the pinching zones, tight–buckled.
Meanwhile John Rosedew went to his home—a home so loved and
fleeting—and tried to comfort himself on the road with various
Elzevirs. Finding them fail, one after another, for his mind was not in
cue for them, he pulled out his little Greek Testament, and read what a
man may read every day, and never begin to be weary; because his heart
still yearns the more towards the grand ideal, and feels a reminiscence
such as Plato the divine, alone of heathens, won.
John Rosedew read once more the Sermon on the Mount, and wondered how
his little griefs could vex him as they did. That sermon is grander in
English, far grander, than in the Greek; for the genius of our language
is large, and strong, and simple—the true spirit of the noblest words
that ever on earth were spoken. How cramped they would be in Attic
Greek (like Mount Athos chiselled); in Latin how nerveless and alien!
Ours is the language to express; and ours the race to receive them.
What man, in later life, whose reading has led him through vexed
places—whence he had wiser held aloof—does not, on some little touch,
brighten, and bedew himself with the freshness of the morning, thrill
as does the leaping earth to see the sun come back again, and, dashing
all his night away, open the power of his eyes to the kindness of his
Father?
John Rosedew felt his cares and fears vanish like the dew–cloud among
the quivering tree–tops; and bright upon him broke the noon, the heaven
wherein our God lives. Earth and its fabrics may pass away; but that
which came from heaven shall not be without a home.
Meditating, comforted, strengthened on the way, John Rosedew came to
his little hearth, and was gladdened again by little things, such as
here are given or lent us to amuse our exile life. Most of us, with
growing knowledge and keener sense of honesty, more strongly desire
from year to year that these playthings were distributed more equally
amongst us. But let us not say “equably.” For who shall impugn the
power of contrast even in heightening the zest of heaven?
Amy met him, his own sweet Amy, best and dearest of all girls, a
thoroughly English maiden, not salient like Eoa, but warmly kind, and
thoughtful, and toned with self–restraint. But even that last she
threw to the winds when she saw her father returning, and ran with her
little feet pattering, like sweet–gale leaves, over the gravel, to the
unpretentious gate.
“Darling father!” was all she said; and perhaps it was quite enough.
Of late she had dropped all her little self–will (which used to vex her
aunt so), and her character seemed to expand and ripen in the quiet
glow of her faithful love.
Thenceforth, and for nearly a fortnight, Amy Rosedew, if suddenly
wanted, was sure to be found in a garret, whose gable–window faced
directly towards the breadth of sea. When a call for her came through
the crazy door, she would slam up with wonderful speed her own little
Munich telescope, having only two slides and a cylinder, but clearer
and brighter than high–powered glasses, ten stories long perhaps, and
of London manufacture: and then she would confront the appellant,
with such a colour to be sure, and a remark upon the weather, as sage
as those of our weather–clerks, who allow the wind so much latitude
that they never contrive to hit it. But which of the maids knew
not, and loved her not the more for knowing, that she was a little
coast–guard, looking out for her _eau de vie_? Of course she saw fifty
_Taprobanes_—every one more genuine than its predecessor—and more than
fifty Cradocks, some thirty miles away, leaning over hearts of oak,
with a faint sweet smile, waving handkerchiefs as white as their own
unsullied constancy, and crying with a heavy sigh, “My native land,
good night!”
Facts, however, are stubborn things, and will not even make a bow to
the sweetest of young ladies. And the fact was that the Ceylon trader
fetched away to the southward before a jovial north–east wind, and, not
being bound to say anything to either Plymouth or Falmouth, never came
near the field of gentle Amyʼs telescope.
That doctor knew something of his subject—the triple conglomerate
called man—who prescribed for Cradock Nowell, instead of noxious
medicines—_medicina a non medendo_—the bounding ease and buoyant
freedom of a ship bound southward.
Go westward, and you meet the billows, headers all of them, staggering
faith even in the Psalmistʼs description (for he was never in the Bay
of Biscay), and a wind that stings patriotic tears with the everlasting
brine. Go eastward, and you meet the ice, or (in summer) shoals and
soundings, and a dreary stretch of sand–banks. Go northward, and the
chances are that you find no chance of return. But go full–sail to the
glorious south, and once beyond the long cross–ploughings and headland
of the Gulf Stream, you slide into a quiet breast, a confidence of
waters, over which the sun more duly does his work and knows it, and
under which the growth of beauty clothes your soul with wonder.
When shall we men leave off fighting, cease to prove the Darwinian
theory, and the legends of Kilkenny (by leaving only our tails behind
us, a legacy for new lawsuits); and in the latter days ask God the
reason we were made for? When our savage life is done with, and we
are no longer cannibals—and at present cannibals are perhaps of more
practical mind than we, for they have an object in homicide, and the
spit justifies the battle–field—when we do at last begin not to hate
one another; not to think the evil first, because in nature prior;
not to brand as maniacs, and marks for paltry satire, every man who
dares to think that he was not born a weasel, and that ferocity is
cowardice—then a man of self–respect may begin to be a patriot. At
present, as our nations are, all abusing one another, none inquiring,
none allowing, all preferring wrong to weakness, if it hit the breed
and strain; each proclaiming that it is the favoured child of God,
the only one He looks upon (merging His all–seeing eye in its squint
ambition)—at present even we must feel that “patriotism” is little more
than selfishness in a balloon.
Poor Cradock, wasted so and altered (when he left black London) that
nothing short of womanʼs true love could run him home without check,
began to feel the change of sky, and drink new health from the balmy
air, and relish the wholesome mind–bread, leavened with the yeast of
novelty. A man who can stay in the same old place, and work the blessed
old and new year at the same old work, dwell on and deal with the same
old faces, receive and be bound to reciprocate the self–same old ideas,
without crying out, “Oh bother you!” without yearning for the sea–view,
or pining for the mountain—that man has either a very great mind, or
else he has none at all. For a very great mind can create its own food,
fresh as the manna, daily, or dress in unceasing variety the fruit of
other intellects, and live thereon amid the grand and ever–shifting
scenery of a free imagination. On the other hand, a man of no mind
gets on quite contentedly, having never tasted thought–food; only wind
him up with the golden key every Saturday night, and oil him with
respectability at the Sunday service.
Now the under–supercargo of the _Taprobane_ was beginning to eat his
meals like a man, to be pleased with the smell of new tar, and the
head–over–heel of the porpoises, and to make acquaintance with sailors
of large morality. In a word, he was coming back, by spell and spate,
to Cradock Nowell, but as yet so merely skew–nailed to the pillar of
himself, that any change of weather caused a gape, a gap, a chasm.
Give him bright sun and clear sky, with a gentle breeze over the water
spreading wayward laughter, with an amaranth haze just lightly veiling
the union of heaven and ocean, and a few flying–fish, or an albatross,
for incident in the foreground—and the young man would walk to and fro
as briskly, and talk as clearly and pleasantly, as any one in the ship
could.
But let the sky gather weight and gloom, and the sullen sun hang back
in it, and the bright flaw of wind on the waters die out, and the
sultry air, in oppressive folds, lean on the slimy ocean—and Cradockʼs
mind was gone away, like a bat flown into darkness.
Sometimes it went more gradually, giving him time to be conscious that
his consciousness was departing; and that of all things was perhaps
the most woeful and distressing. It was as if the weak mind–fountain
bubbled up reproachfully, like a geyser over–gargled, and flushed the
thin membrane and cellular tissue with more thought than they could
dispose of. Then he felt the air grow chill, and saw two shapes of
everything, and fancied he was holding something when his hands were
empty. Then the mind went slowly off, retreating, ebbing, leaving
shoal–ground, into long abeyance, into faintly–known bayous, feebly
navigated by the nautilus of memory.
It is not pleasant, but is good, now and then to see afar these
pretty little drawbacks upon our self–complacency—an article imported
hourly, though in small demand for export. However, that is of little
moment, for the home consumption is infinite. How noble it is to vaunt
ourselves, how spirited to scorn as _faber_ Him who would be father;
when a floating gossamer breathed between the hemispheres of our brain
makes imperial reason but the rubbish of an imperious flood. Then
the cells and clever casemates, rammed home with explosive stuff to
blow God out of heaven, are no mortar, but a limekiln, crusted and
collapsing (after three days’ fire), a stranded cockle, dead and
stale, with the door of his shell a bubble; and so ends the philosopher.
Upon a glaring torpid sea, a degree or two south of the line, the
_Taprobane_ lay so becalmed that the toss of a quid into the water was
enough to drive her windward, or leeward, whichever you pleased to call
it. The last of the trade winds, being long dead, was buried on the
log by this time; and the sailors were whistling by day and by night,
and piping into the keys of their lockers; but no responsive dimple
appeared in the sleek cadaverous cheek of the never–changing sea.
What else could one expect? They had passed upon the windʼs–eyes so
adverse a decision—without hearing counsel on either side—that really,
to escape ophthalmia, it must close its eyelids. So everything was
heavy slumber, sleep of parboiled weariness. Where sea and sky met one
another—if they could do it without moving—the rim of dazzled vision
whitened to a talc–like glimmer. Within that circle all was tintless,
hard as steel, yet dull and oily, smitten flat with heat and haze. Not
a single place in sky and sea to which a man might point his finger,
and say to his mate, “Look there!” No skir of fish, not even a sharkʼs
fin, or a mitching dolphin, no dip of wing, no life at all, beyond
the hot rim of the ship, or rather now the “vessel,” where many a man
lay frying, with scarcely any lard left. And oh, how the tar and the
pitch did smell, running like a cankered apricot–tree, and the steam
of the bilge–water found its way up, and reeked through the yawning
deck–seams!
But if any man durst look over the side (being gifted with an Egyptian
skull, for to any thin head the sunstroke is death, when taken upon
the crown), that daring man would have seen in blue water, some twenty
fathoms below him, a world of life, and work, and taste, complex, yet
simple, more ingenious than his wisest labours. For here no rough
rivers profane the sea with a flood of turbulent passion, like a foul
oath vented upon the calm summer twilight; neither is there strong
indraught from the tossing of distant waters, nor rolling leagues of
mountain surf, as in the Indian Ocean. All is heat and sleep above,
where the sheer dint of the sun lies; but down in the depth of those
glassy halls they heed not the fervour of the noon–blaze, nor the dewy
sparkle of starlight.
“Typhoon by–and–by,” said the first mate, yawning, but too lazy to
stretch, under the awning of a sail which they wetted with a hydropult,
a most useful thing on shipboard, as well as in a garden.
“Not a bit of it,” answered the captain, looking still more lazy, but
managing to suck cold punch.
“We shall see,” was all the mate said. It was a deal too hot to argue,
and he was actually drinking ale, English bottled ale, hoisted up from
a dip in blue water, but as hot as the pipes in a pinery.
The under–supercargo heeded not these laconic interchanges. The
oppression was too great for him. Amid that universal blaze and
downright pour of stifling heat, his mind was gone woolgathering back
into the old New Forest. The pleasant stir of the stripling leaves,
the shadows weaving their morrice–dance, and trooping away on the
grass–tufts at the pensive steps of evening; the sound and scent of
the vernal wind among the blowing gorse; the milky splash of the
cuckoo–flower in swarded breaks of woodland, the bees in the belfry of
cowslips, the frill of the white wind–flower, and the fleeting scent
of violets—all these in their form and colour moved, or lay in their
beauty before him, while he was leaning against the side–rail, and it
burned his hand to touch it.
“Wants a wet swab on his nob,” said the first mate, tersely; “never
come to himself sure as my name is Cracklins.”
“Donʼt agree with you,” answered the captain, who always snubbed the
mate; “heʼs a sight better now than at Blackwall. Poor young gent, I
like him.”
“So do I,” said the mate, pouring out more boiling beer; “but that
ainʼt much to do with it. Thereʼs the wet swab anyhow.”
About an hour before sunset, when the sky was purple, and the hot
vapours piling away in slow drifts, like large haycocks walking, a
gentle breeze came up and made little finger–marks on the water. First
it awoke shy glances and glosses, light as the play upon richly–glazed
silk, or the glimpse upon mother–of–pearl. Then it breathed on the
lips of men, and they sucked at it as at spring–water. Then it came
sliding, curling, ruffling, breaking the image of sky upon sea, but
bringing earthly life and courage, hope, and the spirit of motion. Many
a rough and gruff tar shed tears, not knowing the least about them,
only from natureʼs good–will and power, as turpentine flows from the
pine–wood.
“Hearty, my lads, and bear a hand.” “Pipe my eye, and be blessed to
me!” They rasped it off with their tarry knuckles, and would knock down
any one of canine extraction, who dared to say wet was the white of
their eyes.
The gurgling of the water sounded like the sobs of a sleeping child,
as it went dapping and lipping and lapping, under the bows and along
the run of the sweetly–gliding curvature. Soon you could see the quiet
closure of the fluid behind her, the fibreing first (as of parted hair)
convergent under the counter, the dimples circling in opposite ways
on the right and left of the triangle, and then the linear ruffles
meeting, and spreading away in broad white union, after a little
jostling. You may see the same at the tail of a mill–stream, when the
water is bright in July, and the alder–shade falls across it. For the
sails were beginning to draw again now, and the sheets and tacks were
tightening, and the braces creaking merrily, and every bit of man–stuff
on board felt his heart go, and his lungs work. Therefore all were glad
and chaffing, as the manner is of Britons, when the man in the foretop
shouted down, “Land upon the port–bow.”
“I have looked for it all day,” said the captain; “I was right to half
a league, Smith.”
The skipper had run somewhat out of his course to avoid a cyclone to
the westward, but he had not allowed sufficiently for the indraught of
the Gulf of Guinea, and was twenty leagues more to the eastward than
he had any idea of being. Nevertheless, they had plenty of sea–room,
and now from the trending of the coast might prudently stand due south.
They had passed Cape Lopez three days ago, of course without having
sighted it, and had run by the log three hundred miles thence, despite
the dead calm of that day. So they knew that they could not be very far
from the mouth of the river Congo.
As they slipped along with that freshening breeze, the water lost its
brightness, and soon became of a yellowish hue, as if mixed with a
turbulent freshet. Then they lay to in fifteen fathoms, and sent off
a boat to the island, for the intense heat of the last few days had
turned their water putrid. The first and second mates were going, and
the supercargo took his gun, and declared that he would stretch his
legs and bring home some game for supper. What island it was they were
not quite sure, for there was nothing marked on the charts just there,
to agree with their reckoning and log–run. But they knew how defective
charts are.
When the water–casks were lowered, and all were ready to shove off,
and the mast of the yawl was stepped, and the sail beginning to flap
and jerk in a most impatient manner, Cracklins, who was a good–natured
fellow, hollaed out to Cradock—
“Come along of us, Newman, old fellow. You want bowsing up, I see.
Bring your little dog for a run, to rout up some rabbits or monkeys for
Tippler. And have a good run yourself, my boy.”
Without stopping to think—for his mind that day had only been a dream
to him—Cradock Nowell went down the side, with Wena on his arm, and
she took advantage of the occasion to lick his face all over. Then he
shuddered unconsciously at the gun which lay under the transoms.
“Look sharp, Cracklins,” shouted the captain from his window; “the
glass is down, I see, half an inch. I can only give you two hours.”
“All right, sir,” answered the mate; “but we canʼt fill the casks in
that time, unless we have wonderful luck.”
The land lay about a mile away, and with the sail beginning to tug,
and four oars dipping vigorously,—for the men were refreshed by the
evening breeze, and wild for a run on shore,—they reached it in about
ten minutes, and nosed her in on a silvery beach strewn with shells
innumerable. A few dwarf rocks rose here and there, and the line of the
storms was definite, but for inland view there was nothing more than
a crescent terrace of palm–trees. The air felt beautifully fresh and
pure, and entirely free from the crawling miasma of the African coast.
No mangrove swamps, no festering mud, no reedy bayou of rottenness.
But the boat–crew found no fresh water at first; and they went in
three parties to search for it. The mate with three men struck off to
the right, the boatswain with three more made away to the left, only
Cradock and the supercargo walked directly inland. Wena found several
rabbits, all of a sandy colour, and she did enjoy most wonderfully her
little chivies after them. Most of the birds were going to rest, as the
rapid twilight fell, but the trees were full of monkeys, and here and
there a squirrel shook the light tracery of the branches.
Tippler and Cradock wandered inland for half a mile or more, keeping
along a pleasant hollow which they feared to leave, lest they should
lose the way back, and as yet they had seen neither spring nor brook,
although from the growth and freshness they knew that water must be
near them. Then suddenly the supercargo fired his gun at a flying green
pigeon, whose beauty had caught his eyes.
To his great amazement Cradock fell down, utterly helpless, pale as a
corpse, not trembling, but in a syncope. His comrade tried to restore
him, but without any effect, then managed to drag him part way up the
slope, and set him with his back to an ebony–tree, while he ran to
fetch assistance. Suddenly then an ominous sound trembled through the
thick wood, a mysterious thrill of the earth and air, at the coming of
war between them. It moved the wild grapes, the flowering creepers,
the sinuous caoutchouc, the yellow nuts of the palm–oil–tree, and the
pointed leaves of the ebony.
When the supercargo ran down to the boat, the men were pushing
off hastily, the water curling and darkening, and a sullen swell
increasing. A heavy mass of cloud hung to leeward, and the tropical
night fell heavily, till the ship was swallowed up in it.
“Jump in, Tippler! Just in time,” cried the first mate, seizing the
tiller–ropes; “not a moment to lose. We must go without water; we shall
have enough out of the sky to–night. I could not tell what to do about
you, and the signalʼs ‘Return immediately.’”
“But I tell you, we canʼt go, Cracklins. Poor Newman is up there in a
fit or something. Send two men with me to fetch him.”
“How far off is he?”
“Nearly a mile.”
“Then I darenʼt do it. We are risking our lives already. The typhoon
will be on us in half an hour. Said so this morning—skipper wouldnʼt
listen. Jump in, man, jump in; or weʼre off without you. Canʼt you see
how the sea is rising? Ease off the sheet, you lubber there. We must
down with the sail in two minutes, lads, soon as ever weʼve got way
on her. Lend a grip of your black fist, Julep, instead of yawing there
like a nigger. Now will you come, or wonʼt you?”
Tippler was a brave and kind–hearted man; but he thought of his wife
and children, and leaped into the boat. Although he was not a sailor,
he saw the urgency of the moment, and confessed that nine lives must
not be sacrificed for the sake of one. The power of the wind was
growing so fast, and the lift of the waves so menacing, that the nine
men needed both skill and strength to recover their ship, ere the storm
burst.
And a terrible storm it was, of the genuine Capricorn type, sudden,
deluging, laced with blue lightning, whirling in the opposite direction
to that which our cyclones take. At midnight the _Taprobane_ was
running under bare poles, shipping great seas heavily, with an electric
coronet gleaming and bristling all around truck and dog–vane. And by
that time she was sixty miles from her under–supercargo.