DON CHRISTOVAL'S STORY.
Don Christoval and Don Lazarillo were seated at the table drinking
coffee; the atmosphere was charged with the delicate aroma of the
berry, blended with the perfume of choice Cuba tobacco. The hour was
somewhere about seven. The sunset made the little space of heaven that
showed through the skylight resemble a square of gilt. Spite, however,
of there being some half-hour of twilight left, the two polished and
gleaming silver cabin-lamps were burning.
"Pray sit," said Don Christoval. "I want to talk to you on an affair of
business."
I took a chair. Captain Dopping seated himself opposite me. Don
Lazarillo watched me with a fiery gaze of excitement and expectation.
"I will tell you plainly and at once, Mr. Portlack," said Don
Christoval, fastening his fine, burning, liquid eyes upon my face,
"what the object of our expedition is. In a word, it is this: I am
going to England to recover my wife, who has been feloniously stolen
from me."
He paused to observe the effect of his words. I could only look
blankly, for there was really nothing to be _thought_ so far, and
therefore nothing to be said.
"You will have suspected that our excursion was a singular one," said
he smiling, with a note of sweetness threading his voice.
"I confess, sir," said I, "that I supposed this schooner to be on an
errand which might be something a little out of the way."
"What does he say?" said Don Lazarillo in Spanish. Don Christoval
patiently translated and then resumed, addressing me now with an
air of melancholy and in tones curiously plaintive. "It is fit that
my story should be told to you, because I shall desire your willing
assistance. That story is well known to my friend, Captain Dopping,
who did not engage the crew until he had made them acquainted with
the object of this expedition. Captain Noble was in your Royal Navy,
but he no longer serves. My mother, who I may tell you was an English
woman, was distantly related to Captain Noble on his mother's side.
I met the captain and his daughter Ida in Paris, and," said he, with
a graceful flourish of his hand, "I fell in love with the young lady.
Captain Noble's wife is a woman of distinction. She is Lady Ida Noble,
and her father is an earl. She did not favor my addresses, nay," said
he, with his face darkening--and I observed that the countenance of
Don Lazarillo, who was eying him steadfastly, darkened too in manifest
sympathy with his friend's mood--"she was rude; she was repellent; she
was insulting. She had high desires for her child, higher," he cried,
smiting his breast, and rearing his form, and looking at his friend,
"than Don Christoval del Padron." He gesticulated again. "Enough!--the
lady, passionately adoring me, consented to elope. I had followed them
to Madrid, and from Madrid my charming girl and I fled to London,
where we were secretly married. The father tracked us. We were man
and wife ere he discovered us. But, two days before we had arranged
to leave England for Cuba, where I have an estate, I returned to the
hotel where I had left my wife, and found her gone. I made inquiries,
and gathered from the description given to me by the people of the
hotel that Captain Noble and his son had called, had had an interview
with my wife, and that she had driven away with them in the carriage
in which they had arrived. I easily guessed," he continued, speaking
plaintively, without the least temper, with an expression of melancholy
that wonderfully heightened the beauty of his face, "that she had been
made the victim of some cruel stratagem. I knew she would write to me
when the chance was permitted her, and week after week I lingered at
the hotel, believing she would address me there or return to me there.
"A month passed, and then I received a letter. She informed me that her
father and brother had called and implored her to accompany them to her
mother, who lay in a dying state at a hotel in Bond Street. She loved
her mother, and her tender heart was half broken by this afflicting
intelligence. Naturally, she made haste to accompany her father and
brother; but it was a base lie, Mr. Portlack, an inhuman stratagem!
They conveyed her, not to her mother, but, valgamedios! to Captain
Noble's estate in Cumberland. There she has remained; there she still
is; but her deliverance is at hand, and she awaits me."
"A regular mean and cruel business, don't you think, Mr. Portlack?"
cried Captain Dopping, dragging at his scarlet whiskers.
"Does 'ee understand?" exclaimed Don Lazarillo.
"Perfectly," I answered. "It would be strange if I could not understand
your pure English, sir," addressing Don Christoval.
"What we want to know is----" began Captain Dopping.
"Patience," interrupted Don Christoval, elevating his hand. "It is
probable," he continued, turning to me, "that we may have to employ
force. I hope not, but we are prepared," he added, with a flash in his
eyes. "The lady is my wife: you will allow that I have a right to her?"
"Undoubtedly," said I.
"The marriage was in all senses lawful. I can produce the necessary
documentary evidence. I can produce my dear one's letter in which she
communicates to me the perfidious conduct of her father. You will own
that I have a greater right to my wife than her father has to his
daughter."
"You will own that?" rasped out Captain Dopping. "The law sets the
husband first. He's afore all hands."
"That is so; that need not be reasoned," said I.
"Will you," said Don Christoval, "agree to assist me in obtaining
possession of my wife?"
Don Lazarillo appeared to understand this question. He eyed me sternly
and with inexpressible eagerness.
"Sir," said I, "you have saved my life and you have been very good to
me. I should wish to be of service to you, though for no other reason
than to prove my gratitude. But, sir, it would enable me to answer you,
to learn the steps that are to be taken to recover the lady."
"That is easily done," exclaimed Don Christoval, with a sweep of his
hand that made a single diamond upon his finger stream in an arc of
white fire under the lamps. "Captain Noble's house is called Trafalgar
Lodge. It is a house that stands amid grounds. It is situated on the
coast of Cumberland, to the south of St. Bees Head. A walk to it from
the shore occupies less than half an hour, so close is it to the sea.
The cliffs are high, but there is a little bay that has a margin of
sand which even at high water gives plenty of foothold for landing from
a boat. Into this bay between the cliffs comes sloping a--I forget the
name in English."
"A gap, Don Christoval?" said Captain Dopping.
"That is it--that is it. You walk up this gap into the country and then
the house is not far off. There is a little town about four miles
distant inland--it is what you would call the nearest post-town to
Trafalgar Lodge. It is a silent range of cliff--there are no guards
of the coast. I have inquired, and there are no guards of the coast
along that cliff. Well, when we arrive we keep what Captain Dopping
calls a wide offing until the darkness of the night comes. We shall
be guided by the weather: if it is fine we act, if it is stormy we
keep at sea and wait. But suppose it fine. Good! We launch the boat.
Myself, my friend here, Don Lazarillo de Tonnes, Captain Dopping, and
five seamen enter her and we land. The rest is our affair. There must
not be miscarriage; this voyage is costly." He glanced as he spoke at
Don Lazarillo. "And we must go ashore in such force as to assure myself
of getting possession of my wife, let Captain Noble and his son and
his men servants and any gentlemen guests who may be sleeping in his
house--let them, I say, oppose us as they will. But"--he held up his
forefinger with a smile that made his teeth glance like light under his
heavy black mustache--"what meantime is to become of this schooner? Do
you see? The men we have we must take ashore, saving Mariana and Tom."
"The long and short of it is, Mr. Portlack," here broke in Captain
Dopping, with a note of impatience hardening yet his harsh utterance,
"there wasn't time to ship more hands in Cadiz. Don Christoval had
received news that if he wanted to get possession of his lady he must
bear a hand, for she stands to be carried abroad by her father, and
that 'ud signify a constant shifting of places. We wanted more men, and
Don Christoval would have no sailors but Englishmen. I scraped together
the best I could collect in a hurry, but our company was too few by one
or two for this here job. There's a house to be surrounded, d'ye see;
there's a chance of one or more of us being hurt in the melhee that's
likely as not to happen, and then again a man must be left in charge of
the boat."
Don Christoval listened with patience, watching me; Don Lazarillo, in
a fiery whisper, asked his friend to translate. This was done, and a
short pause ensued.
"What you wish me to do," said I, "is to take charge of the schooner
while you and the crew are ashore?"
"That is it," cried Don Christoval.
"With me you leave Mariana and the negro boy?"
"So."
"A slender ship's company if it should come on to blow on a sudden,"
said I, smiling.
"We shall leave the vessel snug," said Captain Dopping, "and we don't
reckon upon being more than three hours gone. Besides, we shall be
guided by the looks of the weather. It's still summer time, ain't it?"
"You see, Mr. Portlack," said Don Christoval, leaning back in his
chair and infusing a peculiar note of sweetness into his voice, "you
are a navigator and my friend Captain Dopping is a navigator. It would
be rash for both navigators to go ashore. Suppose an accident should
befall Captain Dopping--how should we reach Cuba: nay, how should we
reach a near safe port? There is no navigation among us saving what you
and he have."
"I understand, sir. I also gather that when you have regained the lady
you proceed forthwith to the island of Cuba?"
"To my estate there," he answered.
"You'll be able to see your way through this job?" exclaimed Captain
Dopping. "The law's at the back of us. A man has a right to his own.
There's no lawyer a-going to gainsay that, you know. If you steal my
watch and refuse to hand it over, there's no law to hinder me from
coaxing you into my view of the business with a loaded pistol."
"Explain, in the name of the Virgin," hissed Don Lazarillo, in Spanish,
for these words I could understand, and such was his excitement and
impatience that the rings upon his trembling hands danced in flashes
like rippling water under a light.
Don Christoval interpreted, on which the other bestowed several
approving nods upon Captain Dopping.
"But I have not yet spoken," said Don Christoval, "of any reward for
your services. I here offer you fifty guineas, which shall be paid to
you on our arrival in Cuba."
"Do you assent, Señor, do you assent?" whipped out Don Lazarillo, who
now and again would catch the meaning of what was said.
The offer was a tempting one. It was made to a man rendered bankrupt
by disaster. The money would go far to supply my loss; then again, my
immediate business when I reached a port, no matter where it might be
situated, must be to find a berth, and here was one prepared for me,
easily and comfortably to be filled by me. Moreover, I was but a young
man, and there were such elements of wild and startling romance in
this Spaniard's proposal as could not fail to eloquently appeal to my
love of adventure and to my delight in everything new and stirring.
It was not for me to too curiously inquire into the sincerity of Don
Christoval's story. Captain Dopping believed it; the five seamen
believed it; and what was there for me to ground suspicion upon?
I paused but a minute and then said, "I accept, sir."
"Good!" cried Don Christoval, with enthusiasm.
He went to a locker, and took from it a small, richly-inlaid box or
desk, which he placed upon the table; then on a sheet of gilt-edged
paper, in the corner of which was stamped or embossed in colors a
nosegay of flowers, with a legend in Latin upon a scroll beneath it, he
wrote as follows:
"_La Casandra, at Sea,_
"_August 9, 1838._
"_I, Don Christoval del Padron, hereby undertake to pay to Mr. James
Portlack, acting as first mate of this schooner, the sum of fifty-two
pounds ten shillings sterling on the vessel's arrival at Cuba._"
He affixed his signature, and the document was further signed by Don
Lazarillo and Captain Dopping as witnesses.
"This is the form of my agreement with Captain Dopping and with the
sailors," said Don Christoval, handing me the paper. "I trust it
satisfies you;" and he gave me one of his noble grandee bows.
"Oh, yes, sir, and I am obliged to you for it. I suppose the crew will
be discharged on the vessel's arrival at Cuba?"
"Ay!" exclaimed Captain Dopping.
"I have but one more question to ask. Is your Cuban port fixed upon?"
"Matanzas will not be far off," replied Don Christoval.
Matanzas I knew to be near Havana; and at Havana, whose harbor in those
days was populous with ships, I felt I should have no difficulty in
obtaining a berth and so making my way home.
I rose, bowed, and went on deck.
The sun was gone; the night had fallen; it was hard upon eight o'clock.
The wind had slightly freshened, and the schooner was slipping nimbly
but quietly over the dark surface of the waters. There was a slip of
young moon in the south-west, by which sign I might know that, if we
made good progress, there would be moonlight for the wild midnight
adventure we were embarked on. There was a growling murmur of sailors'
voices forward in the gloom; aft, sliding up and down against the
brilliant dust of stars over the stern, was the lonely shadow of the
helmsman gripping the tiller; the seaman who had been commissioned to
keep a look-out trudged in the gangway. My watch on deck would come
round at eight o'clock, that is to say, in a few minutes. I leaned
against the rail to think, but my reverie was almost immediately broken
in upon by Captain Dopping. He approached me close, and peered to make
sure of me, and said:
"Well, now you are one of us, what think ye of the job?"
"I have not yet had time to think," said I.
"It is good pay," said he, "and no risk to you either. You're on the
right side of the door anyway. There's bound to be a scrimmage. The
house is an old, strong building, there are gates to pass, and we must
look to be fired upon."
"That you must expect," said I. "But you are numerous enough--seven
powerful men, not counting the eighth, whom you leave to tend the boat.
You will go ashore armed, of course?"
"Of course."
"You do not doubt that it is a genuine business?" said I.
"No, no," he answered in his file-like tones; "it's genuine enough.
What d'ye suspect?"
"Why, do you see, an errand of this sort, Captain Dopping," said I,
hushing my voice, "might signify anything else than the recovery of a
Spanish gentleman's wife."
"So it might," he answered; "but in our case it don't happen to. You'll
be satisfied when you see the lady brought aboard."
"Who is Don Lazarillo?" said I.
"A bosom-friend of Don Christoval's. I look to him more than to the
other for my money. Plenty he has; ye may guess that by his hands."
"But my agreement is with Don Christoval."
"He'll pay ye--he'll pay ye."
"How did you meet him?"
"I heard that he was making inquiries for a master to take charge of
this schooner. I was piloting a Spaniard to the Thames when she was run
into, and they sent for me to Cadiz; and I had finished my business,
and was thinking of getting home again, when this job fell in my way."
Pulling out his watch, he stepped so as to bring the dial plate into
the sheen round about the skylight, then calling out that it was eight
bells, and that the course of the vessel was the course to be steered,
he vanished.
The Spaniards arrived on deck to smoke, and they walked up and down,
constantly talking very earnestly in Spanish. But they never offered
to accost me until they went below, at about half-past nine, when they
both wished me good night, after Don Christoval had addressed a few
words to me about the weather and the time we were likely to occupy
in our run to the Cumberland coast. But though they went below, they
did not go to bed. The negro boy placed fruit, wine, and biscuit upon
the table, and the two Dons went to cards, each of them smoking a long
cigar. There was something dream-like to me in the sight of them, along
with the fancies begotten by the strange situation I now found myself
in. It was like taking a peep into a camera obscura to glance through
the skylight at the picture which it framed. Don Christoval looked a
noble, handsome creature indeed, in the irradiation of the soft oil
flames of the sparkling silver lamps. His smiles played like a light
upon his face, so white were his teeth, so luminous the glow of his
dark eyes at every festal sally of his own or his friend. Was his tale
to be doubted? Surely he was a sort of man to inspire a most romantic
passion in a woman; and, given that passion, all that he had related
was perfectly credible and consistent.
Likely as not, Don Lazarillo was finding the money for this adventure.
Captain Dopping had said so, and, indeed, one had only to think of the
schooner's equipment, and to peer down into that gleaming interior,
to guess that the cost of this amazing quest must heavily tax even a
very long purse. Don Christoval had talked of his estate in Cuba; he
might be a poor man, nevertheless; his poverty, indeed, might have
proved one of the objections which Captain Noble and his wife had found
unconquerable, though their daughter had thought otherwise. It was
quite conceivable then that Don Lazarillo, being an intimate friend of
Don Christoval, should be helping him by his purse, his sympathy, and
his association.
But speculations of this sort were not very profitable. I had myself to
consider, and it reconciled me, I must own, to the adventure to reflect
that the part I was expected to play in it was a passive one. The law
of England in those times was not what it now is. Men were hanged for
offenses which are now visited by short periods of imprisonment. If I
was being betrayed into a felonious confederacy, I might hope to be
safe in the plea of ignorance, and in the excuse of having taken no
active share in what might happen. Another consideration: suppose I
had declined Don Christoval's proposal, how should I have been served?
I could not imagine they would speak a passing ship to transfer me to
her. They were in a hurry, and not likely, therefore, to delay the run
to the Cumberland coast by entering a port to set me ashore. So I must
have remained on board in any case, and being on board, assuming the
act they were intent on an illegal one, I should have been as much or
as little incriminated as I now might be by agreeing to serve as mate
in the vessel.
For eight days, dating from the morning of my rescue, nothing of
sufficient interest happened to demand that this story should stand
still while I tell it. We had extraordinarily fine weather; never once
did the breeze head us so as to divert the schooner by as much as half
a point from her course. Twice it blew fresh enough to single reef our
canvas for us, but the breeze was a fair wind; it filled the sky with
flying shapes of white vapor, but it left the sun shining brilliantly
in the clear blue hollows between, and on these occasions it was that
La Casandra showed her sailing qualities; for during thirteen hours
the log regularly returned her speed as at something over twelve and
a half knots in the hour. She heaped the foam to her stemhead, and
flashed it in dazzling clouds from her bows, and the race of it spread
away astern like the boiling yeast from the beat of the wheels of
a paddle-steamer, with a sparkling hill of sea steadfast on either
quarter, and over those fixed curves of brine the froth swept like lace
endlessly unrolling.
I punctually took sights every day with Captain Dopping, and every day,
therefore, knew the exact position of the schooner at noon. The point
of coast we were making for lay a few miles to the south of St. Bees
Head. I reckoned that we should be off it by about the 18th. As the
days passed, indeed I may say as the hours passed, the Spaniards grew
visibly more anxious. Their laughter was infrequent, their conversation
earnest and often agitated, as I might reasonably suppose by the tones
of their voices and by their demeanor; they came and went restlessly,
one or the other of them often appearing on deck in the night watches,
and they never sat long at table.
But their behavior was perfectly consistent, entirely natural, such as
was to have been expected in men who had embarked on a wild romantic
adventure, heavily laden with possibilities of tragedy. They had
very little to say to me, nor were their conversations with Captain
Dopping as frequent as before. They kept much together, walking arm
in arm, Don Christoval grave to austerity, Don Lazarillo energetic in
gesticulation, often pausing to withdraw his arm to smite his hands
with vicious emphasis of what he might be saying, and all their talk,
as I might imagine, was wholly about the probable issue of this attempt
to obtain possession of Señora del Padron.
I had many opportunities of speaking to the seamen. I warily questioned
them, and one or two appeared convinced that the object of this
expedition was as had been represented to them, while the others owned
that though they did not doubt Don Christoval's story, it might not be
exactly as he had put it, either.
"But what does it signify?" a man named Scott said to me in one
middle-watch while I conversed with him as he stood at the helm. "If
when we gets ashore and we find out that the job's different from what
we've been made to believe it, why, sir, here stands one," said he,
thumping his breast, "who'll find it easy enough to say 'No' if he
means 'No.' There's no blazing furriner in all Europe, let alone a
Spaniard, as is good enough for an Englishman to get into a mess for.
This here Don says he wants his wife, and I suppose his money's as
good as any other man's. Well, we're willing for to help him to get
his wife, and as his tarms are handsome we're quite agreeable to a bit
of a shindy when it comes to our marching up to the house and asking
that the gent's lawful wife should be restored to him. But if it ain't
that," said he, squirting a mouthful of tobacco juice over the stern,
"if it's to be something that we haven't agreed for, some job as might
end in a prison hulk and a free passage to Australia, here stands one,"
he repeated, striking himself afresh, "as'll find it easy to say 'No,'
if so be as 'No' is the meaning that's in his mind."
This, as I collected from the short chats I held with others of the
men, fairly represented the sentiments of the schooner's forecastle on
the subject of our expedition.
We had hauled on a course a trifle more westerly than was necessary to
secure ourselves a wide offing, and then, somewhere about one o'clock
on the afternoon of the 18th, we shifted our helm and headed the yacht
east-north-east. All hands were on deck on the look-out for the land,
the pale blue loom of which might now at any moment be visible on the
sea-line. The wind was about south, the day clear, hot and tranquil;
there was a terrace of swollen white vapor down in the west, with a
look of thunder in the knitted texture of the brows of the stuff, but
the mercury in the barometer stood high, and I could find nothing to
disquiet me in the appearance of the English heavens, tessellated here
and there with spaces of high-poised, delicate cloud that gleamed with
divers hues like the pearly inside of a mussel-shell.
Lunch had been served on deck to the two Spaniards. I noticed a
change in Don Christoval; his face had hardened, there was an air of
sneering temper in his rare smile that reduced it to little more than
a mirthless grin, and often a vindictive look in his eyes as he would
stand staring ahead at the sea, swaying his noble figure to the heave
of the deck. His manner, indeed, suggested itself as that of one who
seeks for courage in temper, for resolution in the evocation of hot
thoughts. Don Lazarillo was pale as though oppressed with nausea. He
constantly raised his hat to press a large silk pocket-handkerchief to
his brow. When I glanced at him I'd wonder whether, when the hour came,
he would be among those who entered the boat.
A small brig, a collier, with dingy ill-fitting canvas, her yards
braced sharp up, passed under our stern near enough to hail us, but
we took no notice of the old fellow who stood flourishing his hand
upon the rail; whereupon to mark his disgust he flung his tall,
weather-worn hat down on to the deck, and shook his fist at us with a
shout whose meaning did not catch my ear, though a laugh arose among
the men forward. The cook Mariana showed himself very agitated. He was
constantly in and out of his galley, running into the schooner's head
to stare, then darting back afresh to his pots and pans, one moment
popping his hideous face out from the door to starboard, then thrusting
it through the door to port, making one think of those little toy
monsters which spring out of a box when you free the lid.
At four o'clock the land was in sight. The giant St. Bees Head dimly
shaded the sea-line in the north-east, and thence the shore stretched
in a blue film to the south, dying out in the azure atmosphere. Don
Christoval leaned over the rail viewing the land with a face darkened
by an immovable frown, the scowling air of which gave a malevolent
expression to his eyes. He stood rooted--motionless--his hand with a
paper cigar between his fingers, half raised to his mouth, as though
the whole form of him had been withered by a blast of lightning.
"How close do you mean to sail, Capitan?" cried Don Lazarillo,
sputtering out his words brokenly, with such an accent as could not
possibly be imitated in print. "We shall be seen!" he exclaimed, with
his face working with agitation.
"No fear of our being seen at this distance, Don Lazarillo," answered
Captain Dopping. "A four mile offing is all we want till nightfall, and
that there land is three times that distance off."
Don Lazarillo asked Don Christoval to explain, but the tall Spaniard
continued to stand as though in a trance.
An hour passed, all remained quiet aboard the schooner. The light wind
fanned the clipper keel of the craft forward, and by the expiration
of the hour the land was hard, firm, and defined, but with no feature
of spur, chasm, or ravine visible as yet to the naked eye. Sail was
shortened to the extent of the topsail being furled, a jib hauled down,
and the gaff-topsail taken in.
"Best see, while there's plenty of time and daylight," said Captain
Dopping to me, "that the boat's all ready for launching," and then
addressing Don Christoval, he exclaimed, "Shall we get the arms-chest
up, sir, and the weapons served out? It may come on a dark night," he
added, sending a look at the terrace of cloud in the west, "and it
won't do to mess about with lanterns."
"Do whatever you think proper," whipped out Don Christoval in accents
fierce with excitement, though by his stern, hard, and frowning face it
would have been impossible to guess his agitation.
I superintended the clearing away of the boat, and saw that everything
was in readiness for launching her. This was to be done smack
fashion--that is to say, by running her through the gangway over the
side. Meanwhile a couple of seamen brought up a large square black box.
Captain Dopping opened it, and disclosed a number of cutlasses and
heavy pistols of the old-fashioned type. He called to the seamen and
handed them each a pistol and a cutlass. I watched their faces as they
received them. They all of them handled the weapons as objects strange
to their grasp, with awkward grins running over their countenances as
they poised the firearms in their brawny fists or drew the cutlasses to
examine their blades.
"I hope," said the man Andrew Trapp, "that it ain't going to come to
our using these here tools?"
"The lady's to be got possession of," said Captain Dopping, "without
spilling blood if it can be managed; but to be got, anyhow."
"That's right enough," said the sailor named South, "but all the same,"
said he, leveling the pistol he held, "if so be as I am to fire this
here consarn, I choose that it shouldn't be at a fellow countryman."
"Mind dat pistole," cried Don Lazarillo, recoiling a step.
"I take it," said the seaman named William Scott, gazing earnestly at
the cutlass in his hand, "that these weapons are meant more to what
they calls overawe the people in the house we're to surround than to be
used agin 'em."
"We may have to exert force," said Don Christoval, who stood near
listening; "if our lives are threatened we must be in a position to
protect ourselves. Is not this as you would wish, men?"
There was a general murmur of assent.
"I claim my right--no more!" the tall Spaniard cried, with an
impassioned gesture of his arm; "you will help me to assert my right? I
trust no blood may be shed--if blood is shed it will not be our fault."
"That puts it correctly, I _think_, lads?" exclaimed Captain Dopping,
in his harshest voice and with his most thrusting manner.
The sailors holding their weapons went forward. Were they to be trusted
at a pinch, I wondered? Assuredly they were not to be trusted in any
sense if the business they were about to enter upon should prove in
the smallest degree different from the object of the expedition as
represented by Don Christoval.
We continued to stand in for the land under small canvas, which,
however, there was no further occasion to reduce, for as the sun sank
the wind fined down, and at seven o'clock the breeze had scarce weight
enough to hold our sails steady. The sun was astern of us, and his
light streamed full upon the coast, which glowed red as copper in that
atmosphere upon the dark blue of the water brimming to its base and
against the violet of the eastern sky. When the little collier brig
which had spoken us sank her topmost cloths past the rim of the ocean,
the sea line ran flawless from St. Bees Head right away round to the
point where the land melted out. It was hard to credit that we were in
home waters, so deserted was that wide surface. The schooner might,
indeed, have been softly rippling through the heart of some Pacific
solitude.
With the aid of a powerful telescope, handed to me by Don Christoval,
I could distinctly make out the bay where the boat was to go ashore,
and the dark scar of gap or ravine vanishing in the land beyond. I had
never before been off this coast, and ran the glass along the line of
it, but I could see no houses, no habitation of any sort; it was sheer
rugged cliff, whose character of forbidding desolation was not to be
softened by the rich and beautiful light that at this hour clothed it.
I asked Captain Dopping if he was acquainted with this coast, and he
answered that many years before he had made a trip to Whitehaven, which
lay round the corner to the north of St. Bees Head. That was all he
knew of the Cumberland shore. Occasionally Don Lazarillo would descend
into the cabin, and twice on glancing through the skylight I detected
him in the act of pouring out with a trembling hand a full bumper of
sherry, which he seemed to swallow furtively, but looking round instead
of _up_, possibly forgetting the deck window through which I peeped.
These draughts began to tell upon him; his face grew flushed, his fiery
eyes moist, and his gait changed into a defiant strut when he moved
restlessly about his friend, talking with extraordinary vehemence and
a frequent snap of his fingers. Don Christoval, on the other hand,
exhibited a new phase of mood. There was less of gloom in his face,
more of animation. He smoked his cigar collectedly, with now and again
a smile, and sometimes a laugh at what his flushed-faced, restless,
gesticulating companion said. I took it that the English blood in
his veins kept his nerves steady without obliging him to imitate Don
Lazarillo's quest after courage in the contents of a decanter of wine.
I remember the sunset that night as one of sullen and thunderous
magnificence. The luminary, like a huge red rayless target, sank into
the coast of cloud over the stern, setting fire to the round and tufted
shoulders of the long, compacted mass, but darkening the base of it
into an ugly livid hue. Long beams of light, like the spokes of some
titanic wheel of flame, projected in burning lines till their red and
storm-colored extremities were over our mastheads; and as they slowly
fainted, the coast ahead of us darkened, the blue of the sky beyond
it deepened into liquid dusk with a single rose-colored star faintly
trembling in the heavens almost directly above the bay that was our
destination, as though it were some freshly kindled beacon to advise us
how to head through the approaching gloom.
We continued slowly to stand in. The stem of the schooner scarcely
broke the quiet water, and I reckoned that unless more wind came we
should not have arrived at a point where we were to come to a stand
much before midnight. The moon rose somewhere about half-past eight.
She soared in a swollen mass of crimson out of the inky dye of the
land, but swiftly changed into clear silver. Astern of us there
was a constant play of red lightning, with an occasional moan of
thunder slipping over the dark soft folds of the small swell. The two
Spaniards, Captain Dopping, and myself stood near the helm.
"The moon," said Don Christoval, "shines full upon our white canvas,
and reveals us."
"But first of all," said Captain Dopping, "who's keeping a look-out
yonder? And next, supposing there to be eyes on the watch, who's to
guess our business? Wouldn't any man who may already have twigged us
through a glass reckon us a gentleman's pleasure-yacht from the Isle of
Man, say, sauntering inward in view of this quiet night with a chance
of a calm atop of it? But if you like, Don Christoval--though it's not
what I should recommend--we'll stand in a mile or two farther, then
douse every stitch, and ride to a short scope. The soundings'll be
about twenty fathom."
"That will look suspicious," said Don Christoval. "I do not like the
idea. I do not advocate anchoring. See the time that will be lost in
heaving up the anchor."
"What ees it dat Capitan Dopping say?" inquired Don Lazarillo.
His friend explained; on which Don Lazarillo cried out shrilly, "No,
no, no," and addressed Don Christoval in Spanish with incredible
vehemence of delivery and gesticulation, his friend meanwhile uttering
the single word "Si!" in a soothing note over and over again.
"But if this breeze takes off, Captain Dopping," said I, when I could
get an opportunity to speak, "you'll either have to bring up or take
your chance of the schooner drifting far enough to make the pull from
the shore to her a long one."
Captain Dopping stared round the sea, whistling.
"How far off is the land?" said Don Christoval.
"Call it six mile," answered the captain.
"It would be too far to row," said Don Christoval. "We must creep
farther in."
"At what hour, sir," I asked, "do you wish to land?"
"It must be past midnight," answered the Spaniard, "when the house is
hushed, and when, should firearms be used, there will be no one awake
in the country around to hear the reports."
"And how long is the job going to take us, I wonder?" said Captain
Dopping, cutting off a piece of black tobacco with a big clasp knife,
whose blade glittered in the moonlight, and burying the morsel in his
cheek.
"An hour--easily in an hour," answered Don Christoval, speaking rapidly
and breathing swiftly. "Mark now how I piece out the time: three
quarters of an hour to row ashore, half an hour to march to the house,
that makes an hour and a quarter; an hour in executing our errand, that
makes two hours and a quarter; and then another hour and a quarter to
regain the schooner, that makes three hours and a half in all. Call the
time four o'clock when we sail away, by five we shall be out of sight
of land."