BETWEEN MIDNIGHT AND MORNING
Through the main deck to the gun-room and up into the forecastle there
drifted smoke from the cookroom in the hold, which was the way of those
old ships. At times it set choking the men at the pumps; it eddied
about the water cask before the mainmast and about the riding butts by
the heel of the bowsprit, and went curling out of the hawse pipes. It
crept insidiously into the forecastle, and the men cursed fluently when
their eyes began to smart and their noses to sting.
There were seven men in the forecastle and Martin Barwick was one of
the seven, although his watch was on deck and he had no right to be
there. Philip Marsham, whose watch was below, had stayed because he
suspected there was some strange thing in the wind and was determined
to learn if possible what it was. Two of the others were younkers of
the Rose of Devon, who suspected nothing, and the remaining three were
of the rescued men.
There was a step above and a round head appeared in the hatch. The dim
smoky light gave a strange appearance to the familiar features.
"Ho, cook!" Martin cried, and thumped on the table. "Come thou down
and bring us what tidings the boy hath brought thee in the cookroom.
Yea, though the cook labour in the very bowels of the ship, is it not a
proverb that he alone knows all that goes on?"
Slipping through the hatch, the cook drew a great breath and sat him
down by the table. "She was the Blue Friggat, I hear, and seven weeks
from Virginia--God rest the souls of them who went down in her!"
"From Virginia!" quoth Martin. "Either th' art gulled, in truth, or th'
art the very prince of liars. From Virginia! Ho ho!" And Martin laughed
loud and long.
Now it was for such a moment that Philip Marsham was waiting, nor had
he doubted the moment would come. For although Martin had gone apart
with the men who had come from the foundered ship, the fellow's head,
which was larger than most heads, could never keep three ideas in
flourish at the same time. To learn what game was in the wind there was
need only to keep close at Martin's heels until his blunders should
disclose his secrets.
"The Devil take thee, thou alehouse dog!" the cook cried in a thick,
wheezy voice. "Did not the boy bring me word straight when he came down
for a can of boiling water with which this Captain Jordan would prepare
a wondrous drink for Captain Candle?"
"And did not I part with this Captain Jordan not--Wow-ouch!" With a
yell Martin tipped back in his chair and went over. Crawling on his
feet, he put on a long face and rubbed his head and hurled a flood of
oaths at the sailor beside him, a small man and round like an apple,
who went among his fellows--for he was one of those the Rose of Devon
had rescued--by the name of Harry Malcolm.
"Nay," the little round man very quietly replied, "I fear you not, for
all your bluster. Put your hand on your tongue, fellow, and see if
you cannot hold it. I had not intended to tip you over. It was done
casually."
"And why, perdy, did'st thou jam thy foot on mine till the bones
crunched? I'll have thy heart's blood."
"Nay," the man replied, so quietly, so calmly that he might have been
a clerk sitting on his stool, "you have a way of talking overmuch,
fellow, and I have a misliking of speech that babbles like a brook. It
can make trouble."
Martin stopped as if he had lost his voice, but continued to glare at
the stranger, who still regarded him with no concern.
"It is thy weakness, fellow," he said, "and--" he looked very hard at
Martin--"it may yet be the occasion of thine untimely end."
For a moment Martin stood still, then, swallowing once or twice, he
went out of the dimly lighted forecastle into the darkness of the deck.
"He appears," the little man said, addressing the others, "to be an
excitable fellow. Alas, what trouble a brisk tongue can bring upon a
man!"
The little man, Harry Malcolm, looked from one to another and longest
at Phil.
Now Phil could not say there had been a hidden meaning in the hard look
the little man had given Martin or in the long look the little man had
given Phil himself. But he knew that whether this was so or not, there
was no more to be got that night from Martin, and he in turn, further
bepuzzled by the little man's words and after all not much enlightened
by Martin's blunder, left the forecastle to seek the main deck.
Passing the great cannon lashed in their places, and leaving behind him
the high forecastle, he came into the shadow of the towering poop on
which the lantern glowed yellow in the blue moonlight, and continued
aft to the hatch ladder. Already it was long past midnight.
He imagined he heard voices in the great cabin, and although he well
enough knew that it was probably only imagination,--for the cabin door
was closed fast,--the presence of the Old One on board the Rose of
Devon was enough to make a man imagine things, who had sat in Mother
Taylor's cottage and listened to talk of the gentlemen who sailed from
Bideford. He paused at the head of the ladder and listened, but heard
nothing more.
An hour passed. There were fewer sounds to break the silence. There is
no time like the very early morning for subtle and mysterious deeds.
Boatswain Marsham was asleep below and Captain Candle was asleep aft,
when Captain Jordan arose and stretched himself, and in a voice that
would have been audible to Captain Candle if he had been awake but that
was so low it did not disturb his sleep, vowed he must breathe fresh
air ere he could bury his head in a blanket for the night.
Emerging from the great cabin, Captain Jordan climbed first to the
poop, whence he looked down on the brave old ship and the wide space of
sky and darkly heaving sea within the circle of the horizon. To look
thus at the sea is enough to make a philosopher of a thinking man, and
this Captain Thomas Jordan was by no means devoid of thought.
But whereas many a one who stands under the bright stars in the small
morning hours feels himself a brother with the most trifling creatures
that live and is filled with humility to consider in relation to the
immeasurable powers of the universe his weakness during even his brief
space of life--whereas such a one perceives himself to be, like the
prophets of ancient times, in a Divine Presence, the Old One, his
face strangely youthful in its repose, threw back his head and softly
laughed, as if there high on the poop he were a god of the heathen, who
could blot out with his thumb the ship and all the souls that sailed
in her. His face had again a haunting likeness to the devils in the
old wood-cuts; and indeed there is something of the devil in the very
egotism of a man who can thus assert his vain notions at such an hour.
Presently descending from the poop and with a nod passing on the
quarter-deck the officer of the watch, he paced for a time the
maintop-deck. He pretended to absorb himself in the sea and the damage
the storm had done to the waist; but he missed nothing that happened
and he observed the whereabouts of every man in the watch.
Edging slowly forward, he stood at last beside a big man who was
leaning in the shadow of the forecastle.
"We meet sooner than you thought," he said in a low voice.
"Yea, for we were long on the road and entangled ourselves wonderfully
among those byways and high-ways which cross the country in a manner
perplexing beyond belief."
"Saw you your brother?"
"In all truth I saw him--and the Devil take him!"
The Old One laughed softly.
"It is plain thy brother hath little love for a shipwrecked mariner,"
quoth he, "yet there is a most memorable antiquity about the use of
ships, and even greater gluttons than thy brother have supped light
that worthy seamen might not go hungry to bed. We will speak of him
another time. What think you of this pretty pup we have met by the
way?--Ah, thine eye darkens! Methinks thou hast more than once felt the
rough side of his tongue."
"He bears himself somewhat struttingly--" Martin hesitated, but added
perforce, since he had received a friendly turn he could not soon
forget, "yet he hath his good points."
"He was one too many for thee! Nay, confess it!"
"Th' art a filthy rascal!" Martin's face burned with anger.
"I knew he would be too cunning for thy wool-gathering wits. Truly I
believe he is a lad after my own heart. I have marked him well."
"But hast thou plumbed his inclination with thy sounding lead?"
"Why, no. At worst, he can disappear. It has happened to taller men
than he, and in a land where there are men at arms to come asking
questions."
"Hgh!"
"This for thy whining, though: we shall play upon him lightly. Some are
not worth troubling over, but this lad is a cunning rogue and hath book
learning."
"Came you in search of this ship?"
"It was chance alone that brought us across her course. Chance alone,
Martin, that brought your old captain back to you."
Watching Martin, as he spoke, the Old One again laughed softly.
"Yea, Martin, it touches the heart of your old captain to see with what
pleasure you receive him."
"Th' art a cunning devil," Martin muttered, and babbled oaths and
curses.
"We must sleep, Martin--sleep and eat, for we are spent with much
labour and many hardships, and it is well for them to sail our ship for
us a while longer. But the hour will come, and do you then stand by."
The Old One went aft. The ship rolled drowsily and the watch nodded.
Surveying her aloft and alow, as a man does who is used to command, and
not as a guest on board might do, the Old One left the deck.