This discovery marked a new departure in our relations towards each
other. Hitherto I had looked upon You Sing as I might have done upon
a big faithful dog, but never dreamed of crediting him with any
intelligent initiative. His behaviour so far had certainly justified me
in this opinion; but now he became completely transformed. In the most
energetic pantomime, and with strangely severe struggles to enunciate a
few words of my language, he endeavoured to explain to me the origin of
all these treasures. I did not find it hard to understand the general
drift of his attempt to enlighten me, because I had already suspected
something of what I was now gathering from him. Roughly, it was to the
effect that the cargo we had relieved the junk of was the accumulated
hoard of a nest of pirates who had long been preying upon such
seafarers as they dared attack without fear of reprisals, and who were
all deliberately slain after they had been plundered and their vessels
scuttled. Then the wretches had turned their bloody hands against each
other, and by so doing somewhat atoned for their innumerable crimes by
ridding the world of two-thirds of the gang. The survivors then loaded
up all the most valuable of the stored plunder into the most seaworthy
junk they possessed, and, divesting her of all suspicious appearance,
sailed for some port where they intended to dispose of their loot.
Again Nemesis overtook them; they had befouled the seas too long. They
stealthily murdered one another as opportunity served, until there were
hardly enough of them left to handle the junk. You Sing was a slave
who had done their cooking, having been spared for that purpose alone
out of the entire crew of a large barque they had surprised one night.
Doubtless his turn to perish had nearly arrived, when, going down
into their store-room under the cabin for some rice, he found himself
in a sort of trap from which he was unable to escape. There he would
certainly have perished of starvation, instead of sharing the unknown
fate of the remnant of his tyrants, but for our intervention. And in
various quaint ways he gave me to understand that he considered his
life to belong to this ship and her crew, of whom the child asleep and
my small self were now the sole representatives.
I could not bring myself to the point of heaving all those pretty
things overboard; but seeing what a dread he had of them, I stowed
them all in the late skipper’s berth under his bed-place, in two large
drawers, which I locked, and hung the key round my neck. Then, for the
first time, I began to think about working the ship. Unfortunately, I
had not the faintest idea of which was the best direction to steer in,
for I did not know, within at least a thousand miles, our position.
I imagined, of course, that we were somewhere south of Formosa, and
between that great island and the Philippines; but that was vague in
the extreme. And I was in hourly terror of being sighted by a wandering
junk of whatever character, feeling certain of a barbarous death at the
hands of any of You Sing’s countrymen who might happen to find such
a prize as the Blitzen. How I longed for the sight of a smoke-wreath
festooning the horizon! That vision would have nearly sent me crazy
with joy. But I suppose we were far out of the track of steamers, for
we saw no sign of one.
Aided most manfully and sensibly by You Sing, I clewed up the royals
and topgallant sails with a view of making the vessel easier to
handle, and with a great deal of labour managed to haul up the courses
(mainsail and foresail) as well, taking the gear to the capstan where
it was too heavy for our united efforts, until those great squares of
canvas hung snug as they could be without being actually furled. Then,
after long cogitation, I decided to make for the coast of China, which
I knew must be west of us, and trust to a merciful God to bring us in
sight of either some civilized port or ship before any of those calm,
merciless pagans came across us. Now we each took a regular trick
at the wheel (You Sing learned to do so in less than half an hour);
and little Elsie, all her high spirits gone, and docile as You Sing
himself, even took a spell at steering when we would let her. Heaven
alone knows what our track would have looked like on the chart, but
it’s my belief that we _were_ getting to the westward at the rate
of about twenty miles a day for the best part of a week (I lost all
count of time); and, though it seems hard to believe, I was actually
beginning to feel quite important as the commander of a big vessel on
the high seas. We fed well and we slept well--at least Elsie and I did;
as for You Sing, I don’t know whether he ever slept at all. He did all
the cooking, kept everything clean and tidy, and was ever ready when
called upon. Besides all this, he had won his way into the affections
of Elsie; and I almost felt a pang of jealousy when I heard her clear
laugh at some of the quaint antics he cut in order to amuse her. Had
it not been for the one haunting dread of being overhauled by a junk,
I believe we should have been quite happy; for the terror of the past
tragedy had faded from our minds, and the sea was kind and gentle, the
soft breeze blew sweetly, though it varied a great deal, making our
task of trimming the yards in order to keep the vessel somewhere near
her course--due west--an uncommonly heavy one.
Then it fell a flat calm. Now, I had, even at that early age, all a
sailor’s horror of a calm, and this one troubled me more than any I
had yet experienced. The silence was almost unbearable. I could not
rest day or night--it lasted three days--for more than an hour or so
at a time; and when I fell asleep from sheer weariness, I always woke
with my heart thumping furiously and in an icy sweat of fear. The
inaction got upon my nerves, so that I began to hear strange noises,
and to imagine that the dead crew were among us, grieving because we
were yet alive, and scheming to secure our company. This state of mind
grew upon me to such an extent that at last I dared not leave You Sing,
clinging to him as the one hope I had of ever again seeing the land of
the living. He--grave, careful, and kind as ever--accepted this entire
change in our relative positions with the same serene behaviour as
before; and in my worst mental trouble I had only to look into his eyes
to be completely comforted. Elsie, strange to say, seemed quite happy.
She was carelessly kind to me; but she loved our Chinese friend. A word
or two from him, in an unintelligible jargon, would set her dancing
with delight, and it was only during his unavoidable absence from
her for a short time that she ever seemed to feel the misery of our
position.
On the tenth evening (I think) of our loneliness, and the third of the
calm, I was lolling against the useless wheel watching, with eyes that
observed naught, the fantastic efforts of You Sing to amuse Elsie,
when an appalling feeling of dread suddenly came over me. It was as
if I was going to be violently sea-sick, and affected my limbs to such
an extent that I slid down from the wheel to the deck. This disabling
sensation was happily only momentary in its effect, so that I was
able to rise to my feet again almost immediately, though trembling
violently. Whatever mysterious cause had thus affected me I could not
tell, and it was evidently peculiar to myself, for my two shipmates
were still merry at their play. But I was desperately uneasy, fearing
that I was going to be very ill. I left the deck, and descended into
the cabin, seeing, to my astonishment, several rats prowling uneasily
about. They took scarcely any notice of me, and I was too upset to obey
the momentary impulse to chase them. I sank down on a settee and tried
to collect myself, but I was too uneasy to sit still, and soon wandered
out on the main-deck again.
Aimlessly I slouched forrard and climbed up on the forecastle head.
As soon as I reached it, on looking ahead, I saw a sight that
thickened my blood. Right before the vessel rose a dense mass of inky
cloud, extending over an arc of the horizon of about one-sixth of
its circumference. It was dome-shaped, and upon its apex rested the
descending sun, his glowing disc changed into a dull bronze-green ball
that shed no light around. It looked as if the glorious orb was sick
unto death. As I watched with growing anxiety, the painfully changed
luminary sank slowly into that black mountain of gloom and disappeared.
But above it the clear sky reflected its ghastliness, not by reason
of its rays ascending, for it appeared to have none, but as if some
unknown light from the bowels of the earth had broken through the sea,
and was thus disfiguring the beautiful face of the heavens.
Tearing myself away from the disabling fascination of the sight, I
returned to the poop, noticing with much satisfaction that my trembling
had almost ceased. I found You Sing and Elsie sitting on a hen-coop,
watching with solemn faces the rising gloom ahead in perfect silence,
all their pleasant play at an end. Meeting You Sing’s eye, I read
therein a reflection of my own concern, and in an instant we understood
each other. Doubtless, it being his native country, he understood the
ominous signs far better than I, although even the child could see and
feel that something terrible was impending; and as I went up to her
to coax her below he murmured in my ear two words of pure Chinese,
which, because they have passed into the English language, I understood
at once: “_Ty foong!_” They rang through my brain like a sentence of
death; but I actually felt some relief at knowing the worst. For if we
were about to encounter a typhoon in our utter helplessness either to
prepare for it by furling sail, or to handle the vessel in any way,
what hope could there be of our survival? But there _is_ a certain
satisfaction in knowing that, whatever happens, it is no fault of
yours; that you can do nothing of any service, but just endure and
hope. And that was exactly our position.
We got Elsie down below without alarming her, laid in a stock of
fresh water in the cabin, and barricaded the doors opening on to the
main-deck. Then we got some old sails up from the locker and covered
the cabin skylight, lashing it down as securely as we knew how. The
cabin being as secure as we could make it, we braced the yards sharp
up on the starboard tack (although I don’t know why I chose that side,
I’m sure), for I had a dim idea that we should stand a better chance
so than with the yards square as they were, since I knew very well
that in heavy gales of wind a vessel ought to be hove to, and that
that was always effected by bracing the yards forrard. Then I let go
the topsail-sheets and lowered the upper topsails down on the cap. We
also hauled all the jibs and stay-sails down, making them as snug as we
could. Last of all, I put the helm hard down, and lashed it there. My
hope was that in the first burst of the tempest the big sails that were
loose would blow away, and that the vessel would then heave herself to
naturally, although I knew well enough that if caught by the lee she
would probably capsize or drive under stern foremost.
While we had been thus busy the rising pall of clouds had imperceptibly
grown until exactly half of the concave above was perfectly
black--black as the adit of a coal-mine. The other half astern was of
an ugly green tint, as unlike the deep violet of the night sky in those
latitudes as could well be imagined. Its chief peculiarity, though, was
its light. That segment of the sky was full of glare, diffused light
that was even reflected on to the vessel, and yet could not be traced
to any definite source. The contrast between this uncanny radiance and
the crêpe-like darkness of the other half of the sky was tremendous,
and of itself enough to inspire fear in the breast of any creature
living.
Presently, as we watched in strained silence, came the beginning of
what we were to know; a twining golden webwork of electric fires all
over the swart roof of cloud, or whatever that gloom was built of, and
in a hot puff of wind the destroying genie of the tropics uplifted the
opening strains of his song. All cries of uttermost woe were blended
in it as it faintly fell upon our ears, indistinctly, as if echoed and
re-echoed from immeasurable distances, but growing louder and wilder
with every burning breath. Then, in one furious blast, accompanied
by a cracking blaze of lightning, the typhoon burst upon us. It was
just sufficiently on the starboard bow to avoid catching us aback,
and the vessel paid off, heeling over to its force until her lee rail
was awash, and the gleaming foam toppled inboard in a smother of pale
light. Lower and lower the sky descended, until it seemed as if we
might have reached upward and touched it; and, unable to bear the sight
any longer, I fled below, followed by You Sing, and securely fastened
the scuttle behind us.
Elsie was asleep when I peeped into her room, for which I felt
profoundly thankful; since how could we have comforted her? I sat down
by You Sing’s side and looked up wonderingly into his impassive face
which, as usual, was lighted by a tender smile as he met my troubled
gaze. He took hold of my hand and patted it, murmuring his shibboleth,
“’Ullo, Tommy;” and, in spite of my terrors, I smiled. Outside, the
uproar was beyond description; but except that we lay over at a most
dangerous angle we were fairly steady. The force of the wind did not
permit the sea to rise, and so between sleeping and waking that awful
night passed.