SHE HELPS TO KEEP WATCH
I got into the bunk, but it was long before I fell asleep. The light
was brilliant. The port was open, but the wind was aft and breezed
through the gangways, and but little entered the cabin. I lay thinking
over Tom’s talk with the others, and my spirits danced and my heart
beat with happiness. Isolation! There could be none where Tom was.
And then we should be man and wife before he settled down upon that
wonderful, remote, heaven-kissing island of the South Atlantic. My
imagination made a paradise of it. I figured a handful of quaint
cottages, a little community of people simple of heart, pure of
life; I dreamed of wild-fowl gaily painted, of the huge breakers of
the Atlantic roaring in foam and ramparting our ocean hiding-place,
of sweet, cold fruit in volcanic hollows, and a monstrous mountain
marble-topped with snow. A hundred like imaginations made up the
picture. But above all--but above all--was the promise of Tom’s safety
in that mid-ocean island; no other visitors than rough whale-men; in
eighteen or twenty years but one man-of-war, and always the world on
either hand, the Capes for choice of fresh retreats, any one of them as
happy as a dream of Heaven to me whilst Tom should be at my side.
I awoke exceedingly refreshed. I guessed by the colour of the light
that the afternoon was far advanced. The door of the cabin opposite
stood hooked open, and in the bunk in that berth lay Tom sound asleep.
I crept to his side and gazed at him. His expression was wild, as
though some violent dream troubled his brain; his lips stirred and he
breathed hard and short, frowning sometimes, with a tremble in his
eyelids as though he was about to look at me. I put my lips to his
forehead, whereupon he sighed deeply, ceased to mutter, and his face
took an expression of repose.
Fearing to break his rest, I softly stepped out.
Some cold meat, biscuit, and other food were upon the table. Through
the deck-house window I spied the head of Will standing at the wheel.
I was hungry, and cut some beef and quickly made a meal, meaning to
relieve Will at the wheel. A bottle of wine stood on a swing tray. I
drank half a wine-glass of it. It was an excellent cordial sherry or
Madeira brought from the store-room, where I had observed a number of
such bottles.
When Will saw me he exclaimed, ‘You have had a fine sleep! Your cheeks
are red with it.’
‘How long have you been standing here?’
‘About an hour. I relieved Butler, who is lying down in one of the
cabins.’
Mr. Bates at that moment came out of the caboose. He grinned as he
walked aft and said, in his slow way, ‘I never expected to turn cook
when I shipped as chief officer, Miss Johnstone. But the galley fire
must be seen to if we’re to have hot water for a cup of tea. You seem
the better for your sleep.’ And he stationed himself alongside of me,
first casting a look upon the compass and then glancing aloft.
The breeze had freshened whilst I slept; the swell was no stronger,
but now the wind was freckling it with little featherings and dartings
of foam. The brig was making good way, and hissed smartly onward. The
west was rich with hot colours, and the sun hung there in a rayless,
swollen mass, not distorted, but so huge that it filled me with wonder.
Many little clouds, coloured to the complexion of blood, sailed across
our mast-heads into the deepening violet of the east, where the ocean
flowed like a sea of gilt--a marvellous contrast with the blue it
brimmed to. ‘It reminds me,’ said Mr. Bates, pointing to it, ‘of a
Chinese plain in the rice harvest.’
‘We are under the sail of the morning,’ said I.
‘Yes,’ he answered. ‘But I expect we’ll roll up the topgallant-sail and
mainsail when Butler wakes up.’
‘Shall the four of us be able to manage till we reach Tristan?’ said I.
Mr. Bates gazed at me thoughtfully without speech.
‘Marian,’ said my cousin, ‘can’t you get this island scheme out of
Butler’s head?’
‘I like it!’ I cried quickly.
‘The island’s a long way off,’ said Mr. Bates.
‘How far?’ said I.
‘About two thousand miles, Miss Johnstone.’
‘How long will it take us to get there?’
‘Perhaps a fortnight, perhaps a month,’ answered Mr. Bates.
‘I’m jolly sorry now,’ said Will, sinking his voice, ‘that we fell in
with this brig. Not but that she isn’t deucedly useful and the very
bucket to pray for--with such a cargo in her hold to salve, too, not to
speak of the hooker herself--if it wasn’t for that smothering island of
Tristan. But you’re never in earnest in deciding to settle there?’
‘Shall we be able to manage without further help, Mr. Bates?’ said I.
‘Why,’ said he, ‘it’ll be a tight fit. You’re pleased to speak of four
of us.’ He smiled and gazed up at the masts. ‘Call us three sailors
and four helmsmen. But at sea what must be done often will be done.’
‘If Captain Butler will let me wear my boy’s clothes,’ said I, ‘I’ll
go aloft and try to be of use. But you can’t climb in petticoats, Mr.
Bates.’
‘Marian, Butler will do anything for you,’ said Will. ‘Clap a purchase
on his love and rouse this beastly island scheme out of him. We want to
get home.’
‘Who?’ I asked.
‘Mr. Bates and I.’
‘I am pledged to stand by Captain Butler, Johnstone,’ said the mate.
‘He saved my life, and I’ll stick to him till he sees his way to let me
go.’
I seized the worthy man’s hand and pressed it.
‘Will,’ said I, ‘were you to live to be a hundred, the whole of the
wishes of your long life would weigh with me no more than a grain of
sand against Tom’s safety.’
‘But will he be safe at Tristan?’ cried Will.
‘Where would you carry him?’
‘Anywhere but to Tristan,’ answered the lad. ‘Won’t the man, Glass,
that he talks of, discover who he is? Everything leaks out, even
away down on a mangy rock in the middle of the sea. You’ll blab in a
nightmare. They’ll not keep a convict----’
‘Never call him that, Will, or I’ll kill you!’ I shrieked, rounding
upon him in one of my old swelling fits of rage, breast heaving, eyes
sparkling, cheeks on fire.
‘I meant no insult!’ exclaimed Will. ‘Butler’s as innocent as I. I
spoke of him as they’d think of him down in that island if they found
out who he was. Or, let him hide there if he chooses. Is such an island
as Tristan fit for you to live and die on----’
‘Oh, Mr. Bates,’ I exclaimed, passionately, ‘Will knows what I have
sacrificed, what I have suffered, and he talks now as if I did not love
Tom!’
‘Come and take the air on top of this deck-house, Miss Johnstone,’ said
the mate. ‘We shall disturb Captain Butler if we stand here.’
My temper, however, soon cooled. I loved my cousin too heartily to be
long angry with him. He was little more than a boy, too. He believed in
Tom’s innocence, and had not meant to pain me. Mr. Bates and I walked
with soft tread on the roof of the deck-house that Tom might sleep.
Up there we got the full sweep of the breeze and a wide sight of the
sea. I watched the magnificent picture of the dying day, the perishing
glories in the west, the liquid gloom in the east with a trembling
star just above the water-line shining like the white lantern of a
lighthouse, and I conversed earnestly with the mate on Tom’s scheme,
explained that in any case he and I must go into hiding, and that the
safest retreat must be the best, even though it should be a barren,
melancholy rock in the middle of the ocean.
‘He was sentenced to fourteen years,’ said I. ‘If he returns before his
time is up, and is caught, he will be transported for life.’
‘Yes,’ said the mate, ‘he told me that. And not long since it was a
hanging offence.’
‘But what would be his punishment if they caught him now?’ said I.
‘He, a convict, consents to take charge of a ship seized by convicts!
They’d prove him a ringleader and kill him.’
I walked and talked for about half an hour with this kind and worthy
man, told him a great deal about my early days, of my first meeting
with Tom at Uncle Johnstone’s, and entered at large upon my reasons for
sailing in my sweetheart’s ship as a stowaway instead of following him
in a passenger vessel. I then got him to talk about his own life and of
his wife and his children, and whilst we walked the evening drew down.
The brig was now rushing forward at a fine pace. Her topsails were
large sails and her maintopgallant-sail was set, the weather clew of
the mainsail was up, the lee clew aft, the staysails were down, the
trysail brailed up, and the only sail aforemast was the fore-topmast
staysail. The wind had quartered the brig, and under her wide wings and
over the smooth western heave that was now shrilly ridging the vessel
drove along.
‘She is a fine little ship,’ said Mr. Bates, standing with me at the
after end of the deck-house. ‘Our lighting upon her is a wonderful
and solemn thing, and perhaps, after all, we shall one day learn that
she was derelict for the reasons related in that queer letter we found
below.’
Just then Tom came up the ladder. He held my hands whilst he asked me
if I had slept well.
‘My nap has made a new man of me,’ he said. ‘What’s the weather going
to be? Bates, there’s a frisky spit in the water, isn’t there? But
there’s no weight of wind as yet to hurt. Let’s give her all she’ll
take. She walks, by Jericho! A fortnight of this will be bringing the
corporal aboard.’
‘What shall I do? Make me useful, Tom. Shall I get supper?’ said I.
‘Yes,’ he answered. ‘Is the galley fire in, Bates?’
‘Ay, sir.’
‘Tom,’ said I, ‘I’d like to shift these petticoats for my _Childe
Harold_ dress. You want seamen; I’ll make you one.’
‘You’ll keep dressed as you are, Marian,’ said he.
‘Very well, dear, but don’t rate me for being slow.’
I then went down the steps to the little caboose. The fire made a light
here. I lighted a lamp, returned to the cabin for some tea, lighted the
lamp there and also lighted the binnacle lamp for Will, who told me he
was growing confoundedly sick of steering. I told him I’d take a spell
at the helm when I had got supper ready. My labours aboard the convict
ship had thoroughly qualified me, and no old hand as a steward could
have gone to work more adroitly and with a clearer perception of needs.
I brought a large pot of tea to the table, rearranged the food that was
already there and added to it, and by eight o’clock all was ready and
the interior of the deck-house as shining and comfortable a sea-picture
as the eye could wish to rest on--quite hospitable and civilised,
with a white cloth, good cutlery, and glass and crockery equal to the
_Childe Harold’s_.
Before I was done, however, Tom and Bates had clewed up the
maintopgallant-sail and furled it. They had also hauled the mainsail
close up to the yard, and I was in the cabin when Tom asked me to
hold the wheel that Will might help him furl that big sail. This they
accomplished smartly; they were three sailors and strong, and after the
rig of the convict ship the brig’s fabric of yards and spars seemed no
more than a long-boat’s.
Having got hold of the wheel, I would not let go till one or all of
them had supped. I was not hungry, and was much refreshed by my sleep,
and I found a sort of pleasure in grasping the spokes and controlling
the meteoric flight of the little vessel through the star-clad blowing
darkness. I steered her as easily as I had steered a Thames wherry,
and was proud and thankful to be of so much importance and use at such
a time as this. And there was another feeling that swelled my heart
whilst I held that wheel. It was as though Tom were mounted behind
me, and I, with the reins in my hand, was thundering him to safety
away from all risk and possibility of pursuit, across a boundless dark
plain.
Presently Will, with a pipe in his mouth, steps out and lays hold of
the wheel.
‘You again,’ said I.
‘Ay,’ said he, ‘but not for long. Get you in, old woman. They’re
scheming watches and want you.’
‘Will,’ said I in his ear, ‘not another word against Tristan.’
‘Such a rat-hole to choose!’ said he. ‘No post-office, no bank, no
docks, no tea-gardens! He’ll let me get home some day, I hope! But I’m
mum on the matter from this moment. I don’t like your looks when you
threaten me. You’d slit my throat to please Tom!’
I boxed his ear and entered the cabin.
I sat down beside Tom, who gave me some tea, and I made a light supper.
He told me that he and I would keep watch till midnight, and Bates and
Will till four. They would then relieve us. We did not sit long. Whilst
I ate, our talk was all about Tristan. He seemed very resolved.
‘We’ll heave-to off the island,’ said he, ‘and I’ll go ashore or send
for Glass. There may be a parson on the island by this time. I hope
so. It won’t do to go away to the Cape and get married, Marian. Table
Bay is all too public. The town’s full of English, and then this brig’s
consigned there, and they’ll want the story of our falling in with her
and how it came about.’
‘They’ll print what they hear; they have newspapers,’ said the mate.
‘We’ll see what help the islanders can give us. I’d sooner head west
than east for a parson, Marian.’
‘One should go west to get married. Heading east makes time, and the
less time the better when the job’s over--occasionally,’ said the mate
with a dull smile.
‘We’d return in the brig to Tristan,’ continued Tom, who seemed not to
know that the mate had made a joke, ‘and Bates and Will would proceed
for the Cape with a yarn of falling in with the _Old Stormy_ that’ll
utterly sink my name out of the matter.’
So saying, he went to his berth, and returned with a seaman’s jacket
and a good, almost new, shawl for the neck. He wrapped me up, saying
that I’d be obliged to stand sometimes at the wheel, whilst he looked
about him; and that of a night, though a man be under the Line, yet, if
it blows, he’ll need plenty of clothes at the helm.
I took the wheel from Will, who went to a cabin to sleep. Bates lay
down in the berth he had chosen; and Tom’s and my watch began. It was
then drawing on to nine o’clock. There was no moon as yet. The wind
blew somewhat strong off the quarter, but it came warm. The dew was
very heavy; and every time the brig rolled the reflection of a large,
beautiful star just past the maintopsail yardarm shot like a summer
flash of lightning along the wet deck. The brig was under very easy
canvas, though the whole topsail and foresail swept her along in foam.
The sea throbbed black over the rails, with here and there a little
burst of phosphoric light in some head of curling yeast.
Sometimes Tom came to the wheel and held it, and then we talked
shoulder to shoulder for half an hour together. Sometimes I’d sit in
the cabin for rest and shelter, then steer the brig whilst Tom mounted
to the roof of the deck-house to take a view of the sea.
About ten I think the moon rose and shone very yellow; the sea looked
vast, dark, and lonely when the orb floated clear of the dusky
atmosphere over the edge of the ocean, and cast a sickly flickering
wake upon the black tremble of waters under her. There was a little
clock in the cabin; it had been set right at noon that day: when it was
midnight by it I roused Will and the mate, and Tom and I went to sleep
in our respective berths.