SHE CONVERSES WITH HER SWEETHEART
The utmost I dared hope was that my sex would remain concealed until
we had rounded the Cape of Good Hope. When once our ship had entered
the great Southern Ocean, there would be no more land to touch at
until Hobart Town was reached. Often at home, whilst thinking of Tom
and resolving to follow him, had I studied the map of the world--or
rather those portions of the globe which a ship traversed in her
passage from the Thames to Tasmania; and I knew that there was no land
betwixt Agulhas and the great New-Holland continent, saving two little
islands, one called St. Paul’s and the other Amsterdam Island, the
latter of which it was then customary (I had read or been told) for
ships to sight to verify their reckonings. But it was a desert island,
not such an island as the doctor would set me ashore on; so that after
we should round the Cape I had no fear of being landed; nor was it
very conceivable that the doctor, however suspicious he might prove,
would think it needful to tranship me should an opportunity occur,
seeing that our destination would not then be very remote, with the
proper machinery for inquiry at hand there should the doctor or Captain
Sutherland think proper to charge me.
I was relieved, however, by finding that, during the remainder of that
day, Captain Barrett took no further notice of me. The heat was very
great. The doctor said it was like a furnace in the ’tweendecks, and
that some of the convicts who were sick in the hospital were suffering
fearfully. The heels of three or four wind-sails penetrated the
hatches, but the air blew small and fiery hot, and the gushing of it
down those canvas pipes made no sensible difference in the fever of the
atmosphere of the ’tweendecks, filled with the breath and the heat of
the bodies of the two hundred and thirty convicts.
At dinner in the cuddy, on the afternoon of the third day, dating from
the incident of the singing of the hymn in the hatch, the captain spoke
of a partial eclipse of the moon that was to happen that evening at
about nine o’clock. I stood behind the captain’s chair when this was
said, for I must tell you that I now regularly waited at table, though
Frank was above me, and I had to do work which Mr. Stiles would not
have put the young German to.
The doctor lifted his head from the soup-plate which he overhung and
exclaimed: ‘A partial eclipse of the moon? That will be an interesting
sight!’
Captain Barrett and the subaltern asked several questions about this
eclipse. The conversation flowed on. I fetched a second or third
course from the galley, and whilst the captain carved, the doctor,
looking at him, said: ‘I have a great mind to allow the convicts, in
divisions, to witness this eclipse. The spectacle might produce a very
salutary effect upon the minds of many. The loneliness of the ocean,
the sight of the familiar face of the moon being slowly darkened--it
will provide me with a fine subject for our address to-morrow, and the
prisoners will be more likely to benefit from my discourse by having
beheld the eclipse. You are sure, sir, that the hour is nine?’
‘About nine. I will presently let you know for certain,’ answered the
captain.
‘We should require the guard drawn up on the poop,’ said the doctor.
‘Give your orders, Ellice,’ said Captain Barrett.
‘The soldiers and the women will enjoy the sight,’ said the doctor; ‘it
is insufferably hot in the prison. These occasional indulgences often
do much good.’
‘How long does the eclipse last?’ asked the subaltern.
‘I believe the disk is less than a quarter obscured,’ replied the
captain.
‘That should give time for each division to take a peep,’ exclaimed
Captain Barrett.
Here I was sent into the pantry, and lost what followed. I gathered,
however, on my return, from what the doctor and the others let fall,
that the matter was settled, and that the convicts in divisions, the
guard being under arms on the poop, were to be brought up on deck to
view the partial eclipse of the moon.
Dinner was over in the cuddy by seven. The captain and military
officers went on to the poop to smoke, and I carried coffee to them
whilst Frank waited upon Mr. Bates and his brother mate. The doctor,
who did not smoke, and who drank his wine well watered, descended the
booby-hatch to acquaint the prisoners with his intentions, and to make
the necessary arrangements. It was a true tropic night, splendid and
silent. Often do I recall that night, and always with a bitter sense of
the blindness of the human mind, of our incapacity to see one minute
ahead of us. The moon at this hour was rising, and the lunar dawn lay
in a streak of dim red along the eastern seaboard. I do not remember
the hour; it was not yet eight bells; in the west was a fast-waning
flush, for we floated in a part of the ocean where the night crosses
the sea in a stride. Not a breath of air! The waters stretched flat as
a surface of polished ebony, and only at intervals there ran a sighing
sort of movement over the sea, which sent a delicate stir through the
canvas, and set the dew raining from aloft in little pattering showers.
In the south there was much lightning; the leap of the violet sparks
flashed up the battlements and ragged brows of a mass of electric
cloud. The water reflected the play, and sometimes a little note of
distant thunder came humming across the glass-smooth surface. Elsewhere
under the brightest of the stars hung tremulous wakes of silver fire.
Even now, early as it was, the mighty shadow of the ocean night was
majestic and awful with the wild, flashful colouring of lightning in
the south, and the dustlike multitude of stars over the three glooming
spires of our ship, and the rising moon rusty-red and imperfect and
distorted, as though lifting heavily through some noxious belt of
African river vapour.
What I saw, however, was quickly embraced by my sight. Having put the
gentlemen’s coffee upon the skylight, I durst not linger.
The steward found me plenty to do till a quarter before nine. I then
went to my cabin to refresh myself with a wash. When I came into the
cuddy again, I found the lamps turned down and heard a sound of many
feet in motion. I stepped into the recess and found nobody there. I
walked a little way forward along the gangway alley, and looking up at
the poop, saw the guard drawn in a line near the rail. The awning was
furled, and the moonlight sparkled on their firearms, and the bayonets
glanced as the lightning leapt in the south.
A division of convicts was in the inclosure, standing in dusky groups,
and at every man’s feet stretched his shadow, with scarcely a move of
the clean black line of it, so reposefully did the ship sleep. I saw a
crowd of seamen on the forecastle and heard women’s voices, and guessed
that the wives had gone forward to view the eclipse.
The moon was now bright. You could distinguish faces by her beam. I
went slowly along the gangway alley, looking hard at the prisoners,
and when about midway I saw a man standing alone, with his arms folded
and his eyes fixed on the moon. It was Tom. I stopped. I must tell you
that this fore-and-aft barricade, which was designed as a convenience
more than as a prison barrier, was not above five feet high, and formed
of strong wooden rails, sufficiently wide apart to disclose the figure.
I coughed, and then Tom saw me.
I advanced very slowly in the direction of the forecastle and then came
to a stand and seemed to look at the moon; and when I warily turned
my eyes upon the inclosure I observed that Tom had advanced as I had
and was abreast of me, though he had drawn nearer to the fore-and-aft
barricade. My heart beat quickly, for if I could speak to him now it
would be the first time since that day when I had whispered as I passed
and when he had discovered that I was on board.
I walked a little way farther. This carried me out of sight of the
poop, unless any one should come to the head of the port poop-ladder
and stare along the alley. The yards were braced forward, and the
corner of the foresail lay between me and the moon, and plunged in
shadow that part of the deck where I again halted. I saw that Tom had
walked with me on the other side of the barricade, and when I stopped
he stopped, too, so close that had he sighed I should have heard him.
The shadow that was upon me was upon him and stretched athwart the
deck, darkening the two galleys and the great mass of long-boat; but
under the yawn of the foresail the forecastle whitened out in the
light, with the silvered figures of many persons upon it, and beyond
hung the jibs, falling like streaks of snow to the bowsprit and
jibbooms. Outside the shadow in the inclosure the moonshine lay like
frost upon the planks, and the shapes of the convicts, in their pale
apparel, showed like figures in yellow wood. They moved or stood in
groups; here and there was a lonely shape. The nearest group to where
I had come to a stand was at a distance of about twenty paces, close
against the fore-and-aft barricade. The yet distant lightning flashed
upon the canvas, and high as the royals which crowned the towering
fabric of cloths the sails flashed and faded in the electric play as
though to the revolution of some gigantic violet-tinted lantern.
I kept my back upon Tom and seemed to be looking up at the sky; he
stood with his right side toward me gazing aft as though he heeded me
not. We spoke swiftly under our breath.
‘How is it with you, Tom?’
‘This coolness and freshness and moonlight--it is heaven after the hell
below. My brave heart, my beloved girl, how is it with you?’
‘Well; I am happy. I am with you. Our time is coming. In our new home
all this will be no more than a horrid dream.’
‘A dream!’ said he, with fierceness in his whisper. ‘It is no dream to
be ruined and have one’s heart broken. They have made a devil of me. I
am no longer fit for you. You don’t know my heart.’
‘Whatever you are, I am. If they have made you a devil I will be a
devil too. I am yours and one with you, and live for nothing but for
you. Ask me to set this ship on fire to-night and I’ll do it.’
‘Ay, yours is the true woman’s spirit. I have no right to such a love.
It is too noble for a wretch. Don’t let them ruin two lives. Curse
them! See what they have made of me! I would to God you were not here.’
‘Oh, Tom!’
‘Ay, but to see you dragging the dirty burthen of the cuddy along
the deck--to think of my proud and beautiful girl masquerading as a
boy--ordered about by wretches who would be glad to clean her doorsteps
and windows at home--and for a convict! But you know I am innocent.’
‘Whisper softly,’ said I, marking a note of bitter temper, a tone as
of ferocity in his speech. It hissed in his feverishly rapid whispers
and seemed as a revelation to me of a change of nature. ‘Do not
gesticulate; the sentry at the head of the poop-ladder seems to be
watching us. I have settled it thus: On our arrival I will take steps
to qualify as a landholder, and you shall come to me. Leave me to act
and keep up your heart, and do not say you wish I was not here.’
‘This ship will never arrive!’ said he.
‘Why do you say that?’ I whispered, turning to look at him and then
giving him my back again.
‘That’s what I mean by wishing to God you were not here,’ he answered,
whispering passionately, as though he could not contain himself. ‘This
ship will never arrive! I could save her and I could save life by a
word. If I thought you were in danger--but not with me! Not with me!
Abram and others have taken their oaths upon it, and they cannot do
without me. They don’t know that you are a girl. They must not know it!
You are my dear friend and that is enough; and they believe you to be
friendly toward them and would help them if you could. They’ll not harm
you. I’d strangle myself sooner than utter a word that should save
this ship! I’m here for a crime I never committed. They have made a
devil of me! I’ll take no active part. I’ll have no blood upon my head,
but I’ll help them in the way they want when they call upon me.’
‘What can I do?’
‘Nothing but wait.’
‘I’d give my life to free you!’
‘Oh, your devotion breaks my heart! I was worthy of it once.’
‘When is this thing to happen?’
‘The ship will be in the hands of the convicts to-morrow.’
I fetched a deep breath and turned cold.
‘And Will--and Will, Tom?’ I said in a whisper that shuddered with the
icy fit.
‘I have stipulated for Will. They’ll not hurt him.’
‘How will they be able to do it?’
‘Some of the crew are with them. For three weeks this has been secretly
working out. I’m the only navigator among the convicts, and they
depend on me.’ He added, after a pause, during which my breath came
and went hysterically: ‘If you fear for yourself or for Will; if you
think this thing should not be done--for it will be attempted, and if
it is attempted it will be done--go to the captain of the ship, tell
him that the convicts, backed by a portion of his crew, have planned
to seize the vessel, and that to save her the sentries must be doubled
throughout, no convicts allowed on deck, no messmen to pass the
main-hatch sentry, the prison victuals to be passed through the door
of the steerage bulkhead by the soldiers, mates, and trustworthy petty
officers of the ship.’
‘Why should I tell him this?’
He was silent.
‘Sooner than speak, I would fling myself into the sea.’
‘It will be a bloody business.’
‘But if it gives you your liberty!’
‘They have driven me to it!’ he cried, raising his voice; and he
stamped on the deck in the passion of the minute.
‘Gangway there!’ shouted the forecastle sentry. ‘What are you doing at
that barricade? Come out of it!’
I instantly walked forward, and whilst I walked I heard the voice of
the doctor on the poop.
‘Let the people fall in. Let the captains rank them on the starboard
side, where they’ll get a good view.’
I went up the forecastle ladder, at the head of which stood the sentry.
He was the husband of the pretty young woman--the Dick who had been on
duty when I visited the barracks.
‘Is it you?’ said he. ‘You mustn’t get yarning with the convicts. It’s
against the orders.’
‘Yarning!’ said I. ‘If a prisoner wishes me good-night and asks me
questions about the moon, I may stop to be civil, I hope?’
‘It’s against the orders,’ said he, and with a swing of his figure he
resumed his walk.
The greater part of the crowd on the forecastle stood in the bows or
head of the ship. The whole of the crew was assembled; the soldiers’
wives, some of them holding children by the hands, swelled the crowd.
I stepped to a part of the forecastle rail where the deck was vacant
and looked out to sea. The hush on the ocean this side the storm was
unutterably deep, and the distant tempest did not vex it, though the
great masses of vapour had risen considerably and the lightning was
running all over the breast of it in rills of fire, and the thunder
boomed along the level plain of sea as though some leviathan mermen or
Titans of the brine were playing at bowls upon the horizon.
I looked up at the moon and beheld the shadow of the earth touching
the crystal edge of the satellite like a ring of smoke. The reflection
flowed gloriously under the luminary in a spreading wake of greenish
silver, whose hither extremity trembled to the vessel’s side. The
convict ship, sleeping upon the dark and breathless surface of water,
her white sails gently fanning at long intervals to a delicate motion
of the hull; the dark figures of the convicts grouped in a mass on one
side of the main-deck, their faces pale in the night-beam as they
gazed at the moon; the crowd of seamen and women talking in subdued
voices in the bows of the ship, where beyond them soared the jibs
floating like gossamer in the moonlight; the dark ocean stretching,
stirless and silent, into the north, star-studded, whilst southward
it was lighted up by the distant, sunbright and violet flames of the
electric clouds; the face of the patient, silver moon, with a shadow
of the earth painted in a corner of her--this was a scene so rich in
poetry, so vital, besides, with a strange, bitter human significance,
that at any other time I would have abandoned my whole spirit to it and
lost myself in contemplation.
But I could think of nothing but my conversation with Tom, the change
my quick ear had detected in his nature, his assurance to me that I
did not know his heart--above all, his statement that before to-morrow
night the ship would be in possession of the convicts. I believed him,
but I could not realise his meaning. Yet I remember very well that
conversation I had overheard between two sailors who talked of the
convicts, knowing that Tom--I guessed they meant Tom--was the only
navigator among the prisoners.
I tried to settle my spirits, but my heart flung a fever into my blood
and I longed to laugh out, to cry out, to run about. As the shadow
deepened upon the moon, the crowd upon the forecastle fell silent.
I looked over the side into the dark water and beheld a fish-shaped
phantom of phosphorus sliding slowly along close under the surface;
there was a little bubbling of fire about the centre of this strange
shape where the fin of it projected. I knew what it was, yet glanced
once or twice only without curiosity and went on thinking.
Would they spare my cousin Will? Would they spare me? How could Tom be
sure? The liberation of the convicts would be like the disgorging of
hell. How could Tom foretell what would follow the demons’ seizure of
the ship? But I cared not. Let Tom but gain his liberty and it mattered
nothing to me what followed, though my own life should be forfeited.
By the magic of sympathy the change that I had noticed in him was
working in me. I felt as though a devil had entered into me, even as
Tom had whispered that they had driven him to it: that injustice and
labour and punishment, maddening to an innocent heart, had made a devil
of him.
I was in the way of the walk of the forecastle sentry; that is to say,
at the extremity of it, and twice he halted at my side to look at the
moon, but never spoke. I heard the doctor talking to the prisoners. He
addressed them from over the rail of the poop, and no doubt made the
most of this solemn occasion of eclipse and the terror of the gathering
storm and the mighty scene of loneliness in whose heart the ship
slumbered.
I was forced to the quarter-deck presently by a ridiculous argument
between the boatswain and the cook. The cook declared that it had long
ago been proved that the earth was flat; therefore, as that corner of
shadow upon the moon was round, it could not be cast by the earth. Mr.
Balls, with a loud, hoarse laugh, exclaimed that those who believed
the earth to be flat were misled by the shape of their own heads.
‘Not that I’m a-going to argue,’ said he, ‘that that there shadder’s
the earth’s. For the matter of that, who’s going to say it’s a shadder
at all? The moon has a hatmosphere, I suppose, and why shouldn’t its
hatmosphere be shaped as our’n is with mucky thicknesses like to what’s
blazing away yonder? Who’s a-going to prove to me that that there
shadder, instead of an eclipse, as they calls it, ain’t a storrum?’
I walked aft and sat upon the coamings of the booby-hatch where I was
alone. A fresh division of convicts had been brought up, and the doctor
stood over my head haranguing them. He spoke of the enormity of the
crimes they had committed, and begged them to consider the moon as a
likeness of their soul and the shadow overcreeping it as the darkness
of sin and death. ‘But presently,’ said he, ‘that shadow will pass, and
the brightness of the moon will look forth in splendour, and the sea
beneath it will smile and rejoice in her light. Be it even so with
you, my brother sinners; pray that the shadow that is upon you may pass
away, that the light which is within you may purely shine again.’