"Well," continued the commander, his voice making use of the breeze as
he stood aft of the group, "I could not have slept more than three or
four hours on a stretch, when I was woke by a fellow shoving his lantern
in my face, and saying it wasn't me he wanted; for which I gave him a
hearty objurgation, and turned over a swing of the cot to go asleep
again. The sailor grumbled something about the parson being wanted for
the captain; and all at once it flashed on my mind where we were, with
the whole of last night's ticklish work--seeing that, hard rub as it
was, it had clean left me for a time. 'Try the aftermost berth, then,'
said I, slipping out in the dark to put on my trousers.
"The fact was, on going below to our state-room, I had found my own cot
taken up by someone in the confusion; and as every door stood open at
night in that latitude, I e'en made free with the nearest, which I knew
was the missionary's. In a minute or two I heard Westwood meet the mate,
who said he thought the captain would like to see him, and hoped they
hadn't 'disturbed the other gentleman.' 'Oh no, I daresay not,' said
Westwood, rather nervously, guessing, I daresay, what he was wanted for;
while Finch slipped quietly past to listen at the state-room door, where
both he and I might hear the 'other gentleman,' whoever he was, snoring
pretty plain.
"When the first officer shut the door to, however, turned the key, and
put it in his pocket, I nearly gave vent to a whistle. 'I see!' thought
I; 'but, my fine fellow, it seemed you never were meant for a good
jailer, anyhow!' He was no sooner gone than I walked forward toward the
captain's cabin, near the after-hatchway, anxious enough to see how the
poor man was, since I had had such a share in bringing him to a point,
one way or another. Westwood was standing against the light out of the
open door, and I looked in along with him, at the cot slung high to the
beams like a lump of shadow, the lamp striking across below it on all
the captain's little affairs--his glazed hat and his wet coat, the names
of two or three old books even hanging in shelves against the
bulkhead--and into the little state-room off the cabin, where the
surgeon was stooping to mix a draught.
"The hard-featured Scotch mate stood holding the captain's wrist with
one clumsy flipper, as if trying to feel his pulse, fumbling about his
own face with the other, and looking more concerned than I'd thought
possible for him. 'Well, I've slept--a good deal,' said the captain, in
a weak voice, putting up his hand slowly to rub his eyes, but seemingly
quite composed, and knowing nothing of what had happened--which rid me
of the horrid notion I could scarce help before, that he had known what
he was about. His head was close shaved, and the look of a sailor clean
gone off his face with the bluff, honest oak-colour it commonly had,
till you'd have wished him decently in his bed thousands of miles off,
with women slipping out and in; only the blood from his arm hanging down
on the sheet, with the sharp point of his nose and the shape of his
knees coming up off the shadow, kept it all in one with the wild affair
on deck a few hours gone.
"'She's on her course, you say?' added he, listlessly. 'Must be a _very_
light breeze though, Mr Macleod.' 'So it is, sir; so it is, no doubt!'
replied the second mate, soothing him; 'did ye say we'll _pent_ the
ship, sir?' 'Ay, before we go into port, Mr Macleod, to be sure,' said
Captain Williamson, trying to put a cheerful tone into his voice; 'she's
had a good deal of buffeting, but we mustn't let 'em see it, you know!
Didn't you lose a mizzen-topmast somehow, though, Mr Macleod?' ''Deed
ay, sir,' said Macleod, hastily, afraid he was getting upon the scent of
what had happened; 'the first officer's watch it was, sir--will _I_ tell
Mr Finch ye're wanting to speak to him about it, Captain Williamson?'
and he began to shuffle towards the door.
"'Finch? Finch?' said the sick man, passing his finger over his eyes
again; 'what voyage _is_ this, Mr Macleod?' 'Why--why,' said the
Scotchman, starting, and rather puzzled himself. 'Oo, it's just _this_
voyage, ye know, sir! Mr Finch, ye mind, sir?' 'No, no; don't let him
leave the deck for a moment, Macleod!' said the captain, anxiously:
'harkye, James, I'm afraid I've trusted overmuch to the young man all
along! I'll tell ye, Mr Macleod, I don't know whether I was asleep or
not, but I _heard_ him somewhere wishing he had the command of this
ship! I shouldn't like him to take her off my hands! Have you seen the
Scilly lights yet, Mr Macleod?'
The mate shook his head; he had contrived to persuade the poor man we
were far homeward bound. 'If you'd only get the pilot aboard, Mr
Macleod,' the captain went on, 'I'd die contented; but mind the
charts--mind the charts--I've got the charts to mind for another sort of
voyage myself, James!' 'Hoot, hoot, captain!' said the Scotchman, 'what
sets ye for to talk after that fashion--you'll be up an' about decks
directly, sir! What were ye saying about top-m'sts now, sir?' Captain
Williamson gave the second mate a glance that looked into him, and he
held down his head, for the man evidently believed fully, as none of us
could help doing, that there was death on the captain's face.
"'James, James!' said the captain, slowly, 'you've no notion how some
things weigh on the mind at a pass of this kind! Other things one don't
remember--but there's one in particular, almost as it were
yesterday--why, surely you were with me that voyage, Mr Macleod! when I
let some o' the passengers take a boat in a calm, and all----' Here he
stopped, seemingly overcome. 'There was one young creature amongst 'em,'
he went on, 'the age of my own girl, Macleod--my own little Nan, you
know--and now--now I miss _her_--and, and----' The poor man gave a great
gulp, clutching the mate's arm, and gazing him in the face. 'Wasn't it a
long time ago?' said he, very anxiously; 'if it wasn't, I would go mad!
They were all drowned--drowned--I _see_ that black squall coming down on
the swell _now_, man, and the brig, and all of us looking out to the
wind'ard!' 'I mind something about it,' replied Macleod, stoutly, though
he looked away: ''twas none o' your fault, though, Captain
Williamson--they were just _fey_, sir; and more than that, if ye mind,
sir, they took the boat again' all orders--on the sly, I may say.'
"Westwood was on the point of starting forward to make known how the
case stood, on the strength of our finding the paper in the bottle, when
I pressed his arm, and whispered that it could only make things worse,
and cheat the sick man of a notion more likely to do him good than
otherwise. 'It's a heavy charge, Mr Macleod, a heavy charge!' said he,
falling back again; 'and one Mr Brown needn't envy.' 'Mr _Finch_, sir,
ye mind,' put in the second mate, setting him right; 'but keep up your
heart, sir, for any sake!' 'I feel I'll last over the time o' next full
tide,' said the captain, solemnly. 'I don't want to know how far we're
off, only if there's any chance at all, Macleod, you won't spare canvas
to carry her in.'
"The Scotchman rubbed one of his hard cheek-bones after the other, and
grumbled something or other in his throat by way of agreement. The whole
thing was melancholy to see, after last night's stir, with the dim lamp
or two twinkling along the gloom of the steerage, the dead quietness of
the ship, and the smothered sort of glare under the captain's cot
bringing out the mere litter on the floor, to the very cockroaches
putting their ugly feelers out of one of his shoes in a corner; he shut
his eyes, and lay for a minute or two seemingly asleep, only murmuring
something about a breeze, and then asking them to shove out the port,
'twas so close. The second mate looked to the surgeon, who signed to him
to do it, as if it didn't much matter by this time; while he gave him
the draught of physic he was mixing, however.
"The Indiaman was beginning to swing slowly before the first of the
flood, stern off at her anchors; and whenever the port was opened, 'twas
so still otherwise that you heard the tide clearly in the cabin,
rippling along the timbers to the copper upon her bows--plash, plash,
and lap, lip, lap, like no other earthly sound that a man can hear--and
you even began to note it on something else a good bit off, though it
seemed to be all quite dark out-board. The captain's eyes opened by
degrees, till we saw them looking at us out of the shadow of the cot,
and the second mate started as if to mend his mistake; only 'twas plain
enough, by that time, the captain _knew_ the sound, half raising himself
up and listening. A few early mosquitoes came in, and, after dancing
about to refresh themselves in the light and warmth under the cot, began
to bite savagely; everyone of us had a distant horn sounding in his ear,
and each was rubbing it or his nose, except the sick man; but not one of
them settled on him. As the starboard port slued gradually opposite to
the nearest shore, a low, deep hum was carried in over the water, ebbing
and flowing, and full of dim, creeping noises, like things stirring in
their sleep, as if the little cabin had been an ear to the ship. At
times the tree-frogs broke out in a loud clicking chirrup; then, between
the fits of it, when all seemed still again for a moment or two, you
heard a low, half-smothered, small sound, deeper down, as it were, fill
up the break with its throbbing and trill-trilling, as if just _one_
land-cricket or a grasshopper did it, till it came out as clear as
though it were a child's rattle close by, and all of a sudden stopped;
when back floated the huge whispering hum again, with a damp smell of
leaves on a cold breath of the land-air, that died away as quickly as it
reached us. The bewilderment on Captain Williamson's white face for that
minute's time was cruel to witness, and Macleod would certainly have
closed the port, but for the captain's seizing his arm again, with a
wild, questioning sort of a look into the second mate's eyes. 'Oh, good
God!' faltered out the captain, 'it's--it's _land_!----where--where----?'
'For goodsake, sir,' said Macleod, 'don't ask me the now--take a bit of
sleep, sir.'
"We could hear one another breathing, when ting-tang went four bells on
deck. You heard it going across to the shore, as it were; and a few
moments after, out of the humming far and wide along the land, back came
the sound of another bell, toll upon toll, like some clock striking the
hour a long way off. Then a third one followed on it, from a different
direction, ringing clearer in the air; while the murmur and the rush
seemed to swell up the more all round, and the plashing of the tide made
the ship heave at her anchors. The mate shivered, Westwood and I
started, but some extraordinary notion or other gleamed over the
captain's face as he sat up. He was quite in his senses, too,
apparently, though it seemed to be neither more nor less than sheer joy
that overcame him, for he let out a long breath, and his eyes were
glistening as if the tears stood in them. 'James--James Macleod!' said
he quickly, with a husky voice,' you oughn't to've deceived one you've
sailed so long with; but you meant me a good surprise, and 'twas kindly
done of you! _I_ know the very run o' the clocks off Greenwich Reach,
man; d'ye think one could mistake the sound of Lon'on town, fidgeting
when it wakes, either?--we 're--we're _home_ already!'
"And he fell back in the cot, with the drops running down his cheek,
smiling happily all the time at Macleod in a way that went to one's
heart; while the Scotchman stared helplessly to the surgeon, who slipped
to the port and closed it. 'I know by your way, James,' continued the
poor man, 'you wanted to send up to Virginia Row for 'em _all_; but
don't send for an hour yet; better go up yourself and break it to
'em--_break_ it to 'em, be sure of that, James; I shouldn't wonder but I
pulled up, after all. Ah--that first one we heard was Greenwich
Hospital--t'other is Dicksons' brewery or Redriff----' Here his eyelids
began to drop, owing to the sleeping-draught he had got, when suddenly
they opened wide again.
"'Ha!' said he, listening, and putting up a finger, 'but I haven't heard
St Paul's strike six yet; it's seldom so long after; ought to be heard
from here of a morning; let's----' By little and little, however, the
sick man's eyes closed, and you heard him murmuring, as his finger sank
down, 'Macleod, say--to her--say--luff, luff, my lad, keep her her
course--' till his shrunk face was as quiet on the pillow as if he'd
been really at home the first night after a voyage.
"'Oh man, doctor!' said the second mate, heaving a breath, 'isn't it
terrible! Good forgive me for a lee to a dying man! Take an old seaman's
word for it, Dr Small, yon clock ashore was no mortal soond, sir; ye may
keep your drogues for them they'll do good to. 'Twas neither more or
less than the captain's _dregy_!' 'Phoo!' answered the Scotch surgeon,
who was one of your sceptical chaps, as I heard say, 'some other vessels
here, of course, that's all.' The sailor gave him only a smile of pity
for not being able to distinguish the sound of a ship's bell. 'There
can't be a town hereabouts, Collins?' whispered Westwood. 'A town--no!'
said I; 'it's the best wilderness sign you can have--the African
bell-bird!'[22] 'Ah, ah!' said the surgeon, laughing, 'there now,
Macleod--of course it can be explained naturally, like other things.'
The second mate gave me a doubtful scowl; but seeing Westwood, whom he
had always seemed to think rather in the way before, his eye softened.
[22] _Sc._--The South African and South American _campanero_, or
bell-bird, whose peculiar note may be heard two or three miles
off, chiefly in the loneliest parts of the Brazilian or Benguela
forest.
"'You'll be wanting to see the captain as soon as he wakes up, sir,'
said he. 'I'm terrified to face him--but if ye'd just slip in when he
comes to himself, sir, I'm thinking, reverend sir, ye might wile him off
yon terrible notion o' his.' Westwood shook his head, seriously, not
knowing what to say. 'Ay, ay, sir,' continued Macleod, as he half closed
the door, 'no doubt a man ought to be upon better things; but it's hard
for him, when he's got a wife and weans six thousand miles away, and
wants them alongside in a couple of hours--uncommon hard, sir! She's a
douce, careful body, too, Mistress Williamson, like the captain's self;
and I heard her fleech sore with the captain before we sailed, for to
bide quietly ashore this time, for good. Poor woman! if she didn't e'en
go the length o' pairtin' in anger the last morning, wae's me! till the
very moment when (he telt me himself, sir), she out with her arms round
his neck, crying like to choke! An' all to--but if the captain had a
fault, 'twas the love o'--good forgive me, though, when it was but
studying his faim'ly, Mr Thomas! If it was only an auld tarry deevil
like me, now, with neither kith or kin!' 'Except cousins, Mr Macleod,'
said the surgeon, as he wiped his lancet on his coat-tail--'plenty of
them in the High----' But he caught Westwood's eye, and was ashamed to
finish his heartless joke, though the rough second mate was too full of
his feeling to hear it; when Westwood said something about our all
thinking too little of these things beforehand, but how the captain was
plainly a man that had done his duty carefully, which no doubt would
ease his mind. The mate looked up, and eyed him sideways for a moment:
'Eh? what?' said he bluntly; 'it's not so little I mind o' what I used
to hear at the kirk langsyne, as not to know that's not the right
doctrine. D'ye think, sir, _that's_ what'll put him over, when he finds
out this is not Greenwich Reach? There's the Methody minister with the
glasses, though!' he broke out, when again a look of despair came over
his broad hard-favoured countenance. 'They're always upon works, too,
I've heard!' said he, turning and murmuring to himself; 'oh, if I could
but hoist out a bit screed o' the truth myself to comfort the poor
fellow with! Lord, how didn't I think of the Shorter Carritch--let's see
how't went--"What is the chief end of"--no, it's "What is faith
in--faith in the only rule to direct us"--no, no--"Baptism is a
sacrament--where--whereby"'--and he was still overhauling some old
catechism in this fashion, twisting himself all the time as if he were
twisting a stiff rope the wrong way, with a look of misery none of us
could have had the heart to laugh at, when a middy's voice came
squeaking down the dark after-hatchway: 'Mr Macleod, sir, the chief
officer wants you on deck.'
"Westwood slipped quietly off, and the young surgeon was beginning to
talk easily, to rid his mind of something, perhaps, till I asked if
there wasn't any chance. 'Oh, the captain, you mean?' said he; 'don't
think there is--he's a bad subject! If we were out at sea now, Mr
Collins, the _calenture_ would make him think the waves all grass, or
something as green as--as the cawdets used to call----' I looked at the
fellow sternly, and he changed his key, though with a surprised air.
"'You're blessed early up, though, you two!' said he. 'I suppose that
cursed squall kept you idlers awake; but how they managed without the
first mate I can't think. Clever fellow, Finch! but wasn't it a curious
trick of the poor skipper to box him up below here? I fancy he'd a guess
we would all soon be under the mate's command! It's a queer thing the
brain, isn't it, Mr Collins? For exaumple, now, there's the captain, it
makes him think something or other a clock near London, with everything
accordingly! Macleod fancies it a soopernatural knell, and twaddles
about some Calvinist stuff he learned at school. Then you and me, you
know, imaugines it's a bird--now, which is it after all?
_Nothing_--maybe, eh?' The fellow capped all with a sneer, as much as to
say I was a fool, which I had stood from him several times before;
though now I could have kicked him, more for his heartless way than
aught else. 'I tell you, Mr Small,' said I, 'what I think _you_--you're
neither more nor less than a----' but I turned on my heel. 'I'm off,
however,' said he, 'to turn in again.'
"Through the half-closed door one could see the sick man's face sleeping
so quiet in the shadow from the lamp, you heard not a breath. I looked
up the after-hatchway. It seemed still quite dark; and a patch of the
deep dark-blue sky showed high over the square opening, with two or
three keen sparks of stars, green ones and blue ones--you'd have thought
the ladder, short as it was, went up to somewhere clean above the world.
But the moment I got on deck, I saw it was really lighter--the heavy fog
creeping slowly astern of the ship on both hands; the white mist rolling
faster over it before the sea-breeze against her bows, which had swung
seaward by this time from the tide, that rushed like a mill-stream upon
both her tight cables; while the muddy river-water, bubbling, eddying,
and fronting away past, spread far up in the middle, into the dusk
astern. _Such_ a jabbering, croaking, hissing, shrieking, and yelling,
too, as burst into one's ears out of the dark, as if whole legions of
monkeys, bull-frogs, parrots, paroquets, and what not, were coming
together full upon us from both sides, one band nearer than the other;
till the heavy boom of the surf round the point, and the roar of the
tide coming in over the shallows about the river-mouth, pretty well
drowned it.
"The sudden change was a good relief, Babel though it seemed after the
closeness below, with what had been going on; and I looked ahead towards
the sea, which lay away out off our larboard bow, round the headland,
and over the opposite point; a cold watery streak of light showing it
from where the breakers rose plunging and scattering along the sandy
bar, to the steady grey line of horizon, clipped by one of the two brown
chops we had got into. It looked dreary enough as yet, the mouth of it
being wider than I'd fancied it from seaward at night; though even with
full water over the long spit of sand in the middle, there was no
draught at all for the Indiaman except by the channel betwixt it and the
bold point to our right; and pretty narrow it appeared from our present
berth, heaving, as it did, with the green swell that set in, while
meantime the mist scudding across the face of the headland let us see
but the hard lump of bare black rock underneath.
"In less time than I've taken to speak, however, the full space of sky
aloft was turning clear, the sea far away suddenly shone out blue, with
the surges tipped white; you saw a sparkling star high over it sink
slowly in, and the fog spread off the water near us, till here and there
you caught the muffled-up shape of a big tree or two looming through,
not half-a-mile off our starboard quarter; the mist creeping over the
headland till the sharp peak of it stood out against its shadow on the
shoulder of a hill beyond, and old Bob Martin's single clump of cocoas
on the rise waving in landward from the brisk sea-breeze.
"One passenger after another came peeping sleepily out of the
companion-hatch at the men clearing away the wreck of the spars, and
swabbing the quarter-deck down; but scarce had Smith, one of the young
writers, reached the poop, when he gave a shout that covered both
poop-ladders in no time, with people scrambling over each other to get
up. Next minute you'd have fancied them a knot of flamingoes with their
wings out, as the bright red daybreak brought out the edge of the woods
far astern, through a hazy lane in the purple mist, topped so with stray
cocoa-nut trees and cabbage-palms, dabbled like brushes in the colour,
that they scarce knew them to be woods at all, and not a whole lot of
wild savages fresh from other business of the kind, coming down with all
sorts of queer tools upon us; more especially when one heard such a
chorus of unaccountable cries, whistling and screaming, as seemed to
struggle with the sound of the sea ahead of us, and the plash alongside.
"The huge round sun struck hot crimson along the far turn of the reach,
with all manner of twisted blots upon _him_, as it were, and the very
grass and long reeds seemingly rustling into his face, so one didn't for
the moment know him either; while the muddy chocolate-coloured eddies,
sweeping and closing beyond the ship's rudder, glittered and frothed up
like blood; and every here and there, along the streak of light, the
head of a log or a long branch came dipping up terribly plain--no wonder
the old _Seringapatam_ had apparently turned tail to it all, ready to
bolt if she could.
"Almost as soon as you took your hands off your eyes, though, and could
see without a red ball or two before them--_there_ was the nearest shore
growing out toward our starboard bulwark all along, crowded with wet
green woods, up into steaming high ground--all to eastward a dazzle of
light, with two or three faint mountain-peaks shooting up far off in it,
and a woody blue hill or so between; while here and there a broad bright
hazy spoke of the sun's great wheel came cutting down into the forest,
that brought out a patch full of long big leaves, ten times greener than
the rest, and let you look off the deck into the heart of it amongst the
stems over the bank. The jabber in the woods had passed off all at once
with the dusk, the water deepening over the bar, and the tide running
slower, so that everyone's confused face turned breathless with delight
as it grew stiller and stiller.
"The whole breadth of the river shone out by this time, full and smooth,
to the opposite shore three times as far away, where the wood and
bulrushes seemed to grow out of the water; a long thick range of low
muddy-looking mangroves, with a cover of dark green, rounding from the
farthest point one saw, down to some sandy hummocks near the mouth, and
a ridge of the same drifted up by the wind off the beach. Beyond that
side there was nothing, apparently, but a rolling sweep of long coarse
grass, with a few straggling cocoa-nut trees and baobabs, like big
swollen logs on end, and taken to sprouting at top: a dun-coloured heave
of land in the distance, too, that came out, as it got hotter, in a long
desert-like, redbrick-dust sort of a glare. The sole living things to be
seen as yet were some small birds rising up out of the long grass, and
the turkey-buzzards sailing high over all across, as if on the look-out.
"The air was so cool and clear, however, from the tornado overnight--not
a cloud in the sky, and the strange scent of the land reaching us as the
dew rose off it--you could see far and wide, with a delicious feeling of
it all, that kept everyone standing fixed on the spot where he first
gained the deck, even the men looking over their shoulders with the
ropes in their fists, and the fresh morning breeze lifting one's hair.
Surprised as the passengers were, nobody spoke a word, except the three
or four children shouting, dancing, and pointing together, without being
noticed, till, all at once, the whole poopful burst into one confusion
of questions and exclamations, running hither and thither, shaking hands
and jostling each other like distracted people.
"I had a spy-glass at my eye, making out the other shore, when, turning
round in the middle of it, the first thing I saw was Violet Hyde's face,
as she stood with one little foot on the stair-head behind me, holding
the rail with one hand, her eyes sparkling, and her parted lips
murmuring like one in a dream: 'Oh, Mr Collins!' exclaimed she,
breathless; 'what is this? Where are we--is it Fairyland? A _river_!'
'Yes, in Africa,' I said; 'but whether it's the Bembarooghe or the----'
'That fearful, fearful evening!' continued she, shuddering: 'I saw the
frightful sky, and heard the storm--and now!--_Were_ we not in some very
great danger, sir?' 'Yes, ma'am, we were,' replied I, as stiffly as I
could; 'but, happily, it's over now!' And I gave my cap a lift to move
off, uneasy as I was, every moment, lest Sir Charles should catch me
speaking again to his daughter. However, Miss Hyde was gazing eagerly
at the land, and I had to wait. 'What lovely, lovely green!' she half
whispered: 'oh, if one could only tread upon it!--so un-English those
strange tall trees look! are they not cocoa-nut trees and--and----'
Suddenly, her voice faltered, and she turned round with her bright blue
eyes swimming in tears--'How--how thankful we should be that we are
not--like our poor, poor friends, who were lost!' exclaimed she. I
thought of the poor captain below in his cot, but next moment I was
explaining, to her sheer amazement, how the real truth of the matter
stood, though, if possible, it seemed to horrify her still more. 'I
can't think what they may be,' I rapped out; 'but if I had the command
of this ship, I'd up anchor this very hour, and go out--at least as soon
as the tide ebbed; but, at any rate, at the Cape I mean to get hold of
some schooner or other, and if it were to China, why, I'll cruise after
'em till I----' 'Then you think,' began she, and an arch inquisitive
sort of look danced in both her eyes as she turned away to watch the
shore again, saying slowly, 'You _are_ a--a naval gentleman then, Mr
West--Mr Collins?' I tried to stammer out something by way of an
explanation, but it wouldn't do, and I said, 'At any rate, I'm no
better, by this time, than an idler aboard _here_, ma'am!'
"All at once, I caught a side-look from her eyes, that wasn't meant for
me, as she glanced over the poop-netting. Half provoking and half sweet
it was, though, and it made my brain somehow or other seem to spin
round, till a little after, before I well knew what I was about, I was
holding the long spy-glass for her to see the bank of the river--her
warm breath coming on my ear as I stooped before her, near enough to
have kissed the muslin on her shoulder, while her rosy mouth changed
with every new spot that the glass brought near; and she had to hold one
taper forefinger on the other eyelid to keep it shut, so that I could
dwell on her face as if she'd been asleep. 'There, there!' exclaimed
she, 'are actually flowers--with such immense leaves! And now--an
enormous tree, with roots hanging from the branches, and other stems
growing up into them. Why, yes!--is not that a banyan-tree, Mr----?' and
she looked away at _me_, when of course the tree was vanished, and
instead of that, the rather undeniable expression of a fellow in love,
two or three inches off, bent fair upon her. Violet Hyde coloured a
little, and looked in again. 'And, I think,' continued she, 'I see--oh,
two such beautiful creatures--deer, I think, coming out to drink from
the river!' All this time, the ecstasies of the rest kept up the noise
and confusion; the young lady's-maid was gaping open-mouthed at the
shore, not even noticing her young mistress's straw bonnet fall off, and
I had just picked it up with one hand, to put it quietly over that
matchless nut-brown hair of hers, shining suddenly in the sun, like
silk, when the judge's voice rang out sharp from the other stair,
'Violet, child, you'll have a sunstroke. Kitmagar, you scoundrel,
_beebee sahib punkah lao_, sirrah!' I held on to the telescope like grim
death, while that eternal punkah was hoisted over us both, the judge
eyeing me somewhat coolly for the first moment. 'Well, well, Mr
Westwood,' said he, however, 'you've got rid of that proud freak of
yours; such behaviour as yours yesterday, I assure you, I shouldn't have
endured from anyone else, young man! But, my dear boy,' added he,
suddenly, 'from what I can gather, indeed, saw myself last night, I am
convinced we owe you a very great deal--even, I suspect, the safety of
the entire vessel!' Miss Hyde had left off using the glass, and, as I
stood up, she gave me a quick glance of amazement. 'Mere chance, sir,' I
stammered. 'Why,' said Sir Charles, 'I saw you at the steerage in the
middle of the hurricane, when I believe the actual officers of the ship
had left it in dismay. I tell you what, Mr Westwood, you're a bold
fellow; and your uncle and I must see in India if we can't reward you in
some way, my dear boy!' All this fondling style of thing, and for little
more than a piece of luck, would have disgusted me if I hadn't been more
taken up with watching the side of Violet Hyde's face, as she listened
for sounds in the woods ashore. 'Strange, wasn't it, Violet, my dear,'
continued he to his daughter, 'that my friend the Councillor's nephew
should have gone out in the same Indiaman, so fortunately--though, of
course, after all, it _was_ the first this season.' 'Ah!' said she,
starting, 'I beg pardon, papa--what did you--weren't you talking of the
river?' 'Don't you hear, child,' said the judge, 'I said it was a
curious coincidence, Mr Westwood's going in this vessel.' 'Oh yes,
indeed!' answered she, and couldn't help looking down a little
confounded. But the lady's-maid was putting on her tiny slipper, which
had come off, while her father mentioned that of course I'd had
practical reasons for not owning my profession hitherto; meaning, I
suppose, that I didn't speak for fear of having to work, like the
monkeys--though the sharp old lawyer must have had a better guess by
this time, and queer enough it must have been to see her face, listening
to him as he explained it all. I stood biting my lips, meanwhile--two or
three times on the point of telling him it was all nonsense about my
being a nephew of any hanged old nabob whatever; when Sir Charles said
carelessly he should leave the _Seringapatam_, if possible, at the Cape
of Good Hope, as he couldn't trust safely to the present officers.
"Just then up got the merry chant of the men running round with the
capstan-bars, to get up anchor; the chief officer wishing, as it was
found, to carry her farther into the river with the breeze--for the sake
of filling our water-casks the easier, according to him, but more likely
out of sheer spite at what had been done without him. What with
eagerness in the cuddy to get on shore and see the woods, the breakfast
below was a rare scene, no one minding what he did, even to rushing slap
into a couple of ladies' berths for his boots, or laying a couple of
loaded Joe Mantons into somebody's bed, swallowing biscuit and butter on
the way.
"Suddenly, we heard the splash of paddles in the water, with a hail in
some foreign tongue or other, and hurried on deck in a body; where we
found the ship tiding it slowly up, under jibs and fore-topsail, and
beginning to open a longer reach where the river seemed to narrow in. A
black-eyed, black-bearded fellow, with a tallow, yellow, sweaty sort of
complexion, in a dirty jacket, drawers, and short boots, and an immense
grass hat, shouting Portuguese louder and louder into the first mate's
ear, till he actually put both hands together, and roared through them,
pointing to himself now and then, as if surprised he wasn't known.
"All at once, evidently quite disgusted, he turned and looked over the
side, saying something to one of the ugliest and most ill-looking
mulattoes I ever saw, who sat in the stern of a long rough canoe,
hollowed out of some tree, with two naked black rowers, less of the real
nigger than himself, as they leant grinning up at the bulwarks with
their sharp teeth, that appeared as if they'd been filed to a point.
The mulatto gloomed, but he gave no answer, and as one of the cadets and
I knew a little Portuguese, we managed together to get something out of
the fellow on deck, though, at noticing him for the first time that
morning, I saw Finch turn red with surprise.
"We understood the man to ask if we wanted nothing particular in the
river, the meaning of which I saw better on bethinking me of the fire
along the bush inside the headland, that had let me see the marks of
it--no doubt a signal to some craft they had taken us for. However, so
soon as he heard we needed no more than water and spars, after musing a
minute, and speaking again to Rodriguez, as he called the mulatto, he
said he would pilot us to a convenient berth himself, for two or three
dollars; notwithstanding his title was, as he said, Don José Jeronimo
Santa somebody, commandant of the Portuguese fort something else. The
river, we found, was the Nouries or the Cuanené, where they had a
settlement called Caconda, a good way up; a remarkably bad country he
gave us to know, and not worth staying in, from the number of flies, and
the elephants having got into a cursed way of burying their
tusks--except, he hinted, for the plenty of blacks, all anxious to be
sold and to see foreign countries; but the trade was nothing
yet--absolutely nothing, said he, blowing his nose without a
pocket-handkerchief, and suiting the act to the word, as he mentioned
his notion of throwing it up and going farther north-west.
"By this time we had stood over to the lowest shore, till you could see
the thick coffee-coloured mud in among the roots and suckers of the
dark-green mangroves, with their red pods bursting under their
rank-looking leaves--and over them, through the tall coarse
guinea-grass, to the knots of feathery cocoas behind, swarming with
insects; when he gave the sign to go about, one of his blacks heaving a
lead, and grunting out the depth of water, as the ship made a long
stretch across towards the woody side again, and Don José all the time
taking it as easy as if the quarter-deck were his own, while he asked
for a cigar and lighted it. Joke though he did, yet I couldn't like the
fellow at all; however, as soon as she got pretty near the shore, about
a quarter of a mile from what seemed a wide creek, glittering up between
a high fringe of cane and bamboo clumps, he had the sails clued up, a
single anchor let go in four or five fathoms, and our Portuguese friend
got his money and bundled over the side, pulling quietly ashore.