I ASSENT
I sat as the sailors had left me at that table, lost in thought, bending
all the energies of my mind to full realisation of my situation, that my
judgment might soundly advise me. I daresay I remained thus for above
twenty minutes as motionless as ever was the dead figure that we had met
with in the deck-house of the wreck. Then slowly rising, I went to one
of the cabin windows and stood mechanically staring at the piebald sky
that would come with a sweep, as the vessel rolled to windward, to the
throbbing line of the frothing horizon; and thus I continued, still
thinking, weighing one consideration and then another, forming
resolutions which the next effort of thought rendered helplessly idle,
until I had arrived at a determination; when, starting from my deep and
painful reverie, I descended into the steerage and knocked on Miss
Temple’s cabin door. She immediately opened it.
‘At last!’ she cried. ‘Oh, Mr. Dugdale, what have you to tell me now?’
‘Let us go to the cabin,’ I answered; ‘we shall be alone there. The
gloom of these quarters is horribly depressing.’
My manner caused her to regard me for a moment or two with a feverish
eagerness of scrutiny; she then mounted the steps, and I followed her.
‘I wish I had news to give that might comfort you,’ said I, seating
myself at her side. ‘The men left me half an hour ago. I have been
thinking my hardest since, and will tell you now how matters stand, and
how I believe I must act.’
She breathed quickly, but said nothing. Her eyes devoured me, so
passionate was her curiosity and fear.
‘The captain’s conversation with me,’ I began, ‘was, as you know,
overheard by the rogue Wilkins, who waits upon us. He must have
hearkened thirstily; not a syllable did he lose, and every sentence he
carried forward to the crew. They are fully convinced of the truth of
the crazy story; they are firmly persuaded that there are some two
hundred thousand pounds’ worth of golden coin buried in that South Sea
island; they were also made aware by that scoundrel listener that I had
insisted upon having an agreement signed and witnessed; which of course
confirmed them in their opinion that I myself believe in the captain’s
story up to the hilt. Their demand, then, is, that I should navigate the
ship to the island, that they may dig up the money hidden in it.’
She listened with silent horror.
‘They laugh at my assurance that the captain was mad,’ I went on, ‘and
they see nothing in his suicide to cause them to doubt that his story is
absolutely true.’
‘And what did you tell them?’
‘That I must have time to think, and will give them an answer by noon.’
‘What _do_ you think?’ she demanded, searching my gaze with her proud
eyes.
‘I see nothing for it but to undertake to sail the ship to the South
Pacific.’
‘Are you mad?’ she almost shrieked. ‘To the South Pacific! Did you not
say to them that you will insist upon their stopping the first ship that
passes, and putting you and me on board of her?’
‘They are not to be reasoned with,’ I answered gently; ‘the dream of
this gold has raised an appetite in them that might easily convert them
into wild beasts, if I refuse to help them to satisfy their hunger. They
will not suffer communication with any passing vessel; they will not
permit me to make for any port. Their proposal is that I shall be
captain, and have, with you, the exclusive use of this end of the ship,
and they promise me handsome usage. But underlying the terms they desire
me to agree to is a menace that I should be blind not to see. I must do
what they want, or what that villain Lush has contrived that they shall
want, or God alone knows what the issue may be for you as well as for
myself.’
She sat viewing me like one paralysed.
‘My intention,’ I went on, ‘is to inform the carpenter at noon that I
assent to the wishes of the crew.’
She was about to speak; I held up my hand.
‘I entreat you to let me have my way. Do not reason. You can offer no
remedy for this situation saving that of haughty demand, which, unless
you can back it, as a theory of escape, by a gang of men capable of
pistolling the fellows forward, will be of no more use to you or to me
than a feather to a drowning man. My resolution is, to consent to
navigate this vessel to that South Sea island. The island may be an
imaginary one; the crew’s disappointment may force us into a hunt; they
will then certainly believe that the captain’s story was the fancy of a
madman, and will ask me to carry them to some near port. This will be
the issue of the adventure, supposing it is all smooth sailing till
then. But what may happen meanwhile? A storm to cripple us, and force us
to seek assistance? The sea abounds in the unexpected. We must wait upon
fortune. Nothing shall tempt me to endeavour to force her hand by any
sort of demeanour that is not one of tact, good temper, and secret,
iron-hard resolution to snatch at the first chance that may come along.
Why, is not such a policy as this your due, Miss Temple? Compared to
what _might_ happen if I did not deal with these men as a combustible
not on any account whatever to be approached with matter that could give
fire to them, this existence, this unendurable existence which we are
now passing through might be looked back upon as a veritable paradise. I
am one to twelve, and you have no protector but me. Think of it! Bear
with my judgment then; help me by striving to witness wisdom in my
determination; and above all keep up your heart, which is an
Englishwoman’s, whose pulse should grow stronger as the road grows
darker.’
She had put her hands to her face, and so sat listening to me, slightly
rocking herself. Presently she looked up.
‘I wish I had the spirit you ask me to show,’ she said in a low voice.
‘You may have resolved rightly—but this long alienation from home—the
misery of this existence—the peril we are in, which every day, which
every hour, seems to increase—oh, it is hard to bear! I will endeavour
to school myself—I will strive to see with your eyes’—she broke off with
a sob.
‘All will come right,’ I exclaimed; ‘it is entirely a question of
waiting. Have you patience? Yes—and your patience will keep you hopeful.
Trust to me and to my judgment.’
I took her hand in both mine and pressed it. She did not offer to
withdraw it. Indeed, it seemed as though she found comfort in the clasp;
her hard expression of consternation softened, and her fine eyes took
the same air of appeal I had noticed in them when she went below to her
cabin.
‘There is yet the chance,’ I said, ‘of my being able to persuade the
crew to transfer you to a passing ship. I might indeed,’ I went on,
warming up to the fancy, ‘insist upon this as a part of my agreement
with them.’
She slightly shook her head and her glance fell.
‘How long will it take us to reach this island?’ she asked, keeping her
gaze bent down.
‘Ten or twelve weeks, perhaps.’
She bit her lip to enable her to speak steadily, and said: ‘Supposing
there is no gold, what will be done?’
‘I cannot tell,’ I answered; ‘we may be quite certain that there is no
gold. It yet remains to be seen whether even the poor wretch’s island is
real.’
‘If there should be no island, Mr. Dugdale?’
‘Well, as I just now said, the men will at first suppose me wrong in my
navigation, and oblige me to keep on hunting about for a bit. But such a
quest will not take long to tire them, and they will probably ask me to
carry them on to the coast.’
‘To what part?’
‘Valparaiso, probably. That will be a near port in those seas.’
‘At that rate,’ she exclaimed with an expression of impatience and
dismay, ‘we shall be sailing about for five or six months without the
least opportunity of my getting on shore, of my returning home, of my
being able to obtain a change of dress.’
‘Providing nothing happens. And even assuming that you are forced to see
this adventure out to the bitter end, the worst that befalls you is a
disagreeably long divorce from your home, together with such discomforts
as you should laugh at when you think of them side by side with the
tragedy that this ramble is easily to be worked into.’
However, spite of her little effort to look the difficulty in the face,
she seemed stunned. She would start sometimes whilst I talked to her,
and send a wild sweeping look round the cabin, as though she could not
realise her situation and sought to persuade herself that she was in a
dream. I was grieved for her beyond words, yet I would not exhibit too
much sympathy either, lest I should unduly accentuate the significance
of our condition, and make her suppose that I believed it darker and
more perilous than it really was. She had been buoyed up with a hope of
escaping into another ship, or of shortly landing at Rio, and sailing
home from there; and the disappointment coming on top of the perception
that our adventure, harsh and soul-subduing as it had already been in
some particulars, was only in reality just beginning, seemed to break
her down. I did my utmost to make light of the business: said that but
for my anxiety for her, I should enter upon the affair with positive
relish, accepting it as a wild romance of the sea, which could seldom
happen to a man in his life, and which he ought to live through and see
out, if only for the sake of the memory of a stirring picturesque
passage that at the longest would yet be brief.
‘As to wearing-apparel,’ I said, ‘there are needles and thread forward,
and I don’t doubt that when you are put to it you will be able to
manage. And then, suppose this story of the captain’s should prove true!
suppose we should actually find buried in the spot he indicated a mass
of gold which, when equally divided amongst us, would yield every man
several thousands of pounds!’
She searched my face with her glowing eyes. ‘You do not believe this?’
she cried.
‘Certainly I do not,’ I answered. ‘I am only supposing.’
‘I wish I could read your heart; I wish I could be sure that your
determination to assent to the men’s wishes is not owing to sympathy
with their own ideas.’
I burst into a loud laugh. ‘Of how many sins do you think me capable?’ I
exclaimed. ‘How many enormous follies am I equal to? I believe you
already secretly regard me as a pirate. Oh, Miss Temple, no man could
ever feel ill-tempered in conversing with you, say what you will. But
you are a little trying, though, now and again. Why do you wish to read
my heart? You might discover sentiments which would render me detestable
to you.’
‘I do not understand you,’ she exclaimed, looking somewhat frightened.
‘Admiration for you, in a person whom you dislike, would make you abhor
him.’
‘Mr. Dugdale, is this a time for such feeble small-talk as would
scarcely be endurable amidst safety and comfort? I should not be so
utterly unhappy as I am if I felt that my mother knew where I was, that
she was conscious of all that has happened to me, and that we should
meet again.’
‘It will all come right,’ said I, looking at my watch. ‘I must make
ready now for taking sights, and letting the carpenter know the
determination I have arrived at. Back me, Miss Temple, in my efforts by
the utmost exertion of your tact. And now, come on deck with me, will
you? There is life in the fresh and frothing scene outside, and you will
find courage in the mere sight of the wide horizon, with thoughts of
what lies behind it, and how time will work all things to your wishes.’
I entered the captain’s cabin to fetch a sextant, and then, with Miss
Temple, went on deck. Lush was marching up and down the weather side of
the poop. The sailors were sprawling about forward in whatever
shadowings of the canvas they could find, most of them smoking, their
faces red as powder-flags with the heat. Hot it was, with the sun
shining nearly over our mastheads, with a sting like to some fierce bite
in every flashing launch of his radiance betwixt the wool-white clouds
blowing transversely athwart his path, spite of the strong sweep of the
wind as it came splitting in long whistlings upon our rigging from a
little forward of the beam, the rush of it feeling almost damp to the
flesh to the view of the foaming waters melting into yeast out of the
long blue lines of the Atlantic surge. The barque, making a fair breeze
of it, was storming through the seas in noble style, shouldering off
vast masses of throbbing white from her weather bow with a wake twisting
away astern of her of twice her beam in width, a broad path of
glittering, leaping, blowing crystals and foam-flakes and creaming
eddies rising and falling for a mile astern into the windy blue there,
full of fire and snow as it looked with the spume of breaking waves and
the splendour of the darting sunlight.
The carpenter came to a stand when I arrived. I went up to him at once,
Miss Temple at my side.
‘I have thought the matter over,’ I said, ‘and accept the men’s terms.’
‘Glad to hear it,’ he answered, with a slow smile breaking sulkily
through his surly countenance. ‘If you care about a written
hundertaking’——
‘No,’ I interrupted contemptuously; ‘my agreement is based on yours. If
you do not hold piously to every article of it, I drop my part.’
He viewed me with his head slightly on one side, but without any
appearance of resentment at my peremptory tone. Coarse and unlettered as
the fellow was, he had discernment enough to witness what he would
regard as sincerity of purpose in my very outspokenness.
‘All you’ve got to do,’ said he, ‘is to carry us to that there island.
You do your bit, and you’ll have no occasion to grumble at us for not
doing ourn. But—you’ll _do_ it. You onderstand me, Mr. Dugdale? So long
as you’re honest, you’ll find _us_ honest.’
The ugly significance he imparted to these words by the look that
accompanied them, I could not hope to express. Miss Temple, whose hand
was on my arm, shrank at my side. It pleased me that she should have
witnessed that look and heard the words, for they would go further to
persuade her that the only road to choose in this matter was the one I
had taken, than any amount of reasoning on my part.
‘Your threats are perfectly indifferent to me,’ I exclaimed, eyeing him
coolly and fixedly. ‘I believe I know your character, and don’t question
your capacity to act up again to the part your captain told me you had
already played.’
‘What was that?’ he growled, but with no other change of face than such
as temper might produce. I seemed to find even in this little thing that
the captain had told me a lie when he charged the fellow with murder,
and my mind felt easier on a sudden as to a conviction of the truth of a
matter less dark than I had dared believe.
‘That is my business,’ I responded, preserving my cool almost
contemptuous manner. ‘You need be at no pains to threaten me. You’ll
achieve nothing by your forecastle menaces. I have been a sailor in my
time and quite know what you and such as you are. If you or any of your
mates disappoint me in a single particular of the understanding between
us, I will throw this sextant,’ said I, flourishing it under his nose,
‘overboard, and you may grope your way round the Horn as best you can.
That agreement is this:’ I elevated my forefinger. ‘First we are to have
the exclusive use of this end of the ship; you alone coming aft to stand
your watch.’ He nodded. I erected another finger. ‘Next: the captain’s
cabin and the one adjoining are to be occupied by this lady and myself.’
He nodded again. I raised a third finger, thrusting it close to his
face. ‘Next: Wilkins continues to wait upon us as heretofore; we are to
be fed with care and punctuality; it is distinctly to be understood—and
this _you_ will see to—that no liquor aboard is broached outside a tot
or two per man per day; for,’ said I, speaking with the most emphatic
deliberateness I could contrive, ‘if there should be a single exhibition
of drunkenness amongst the crew, I shall pitch this sextant overboard.’
‘I’ve got nothen to say agin that,’ he exclaimed, speaking with
something of sullen respect, as though impressed by my energy and
language.
‘Next,’ I proceeded, ‘I am to be captain, and what I say must be law,
and what I do must be done.’
‘Saving this,’ said he, elevating two square fingers in imitation of my
gesture: ‘Fust, you ain’t going to order us to speak a ship, and next
you ain’t going to get us to obey ye if you should take it into your
head to steer for a port.’
‘No,’ I replied, ‘that is a part of my agreement. Yet there is this to
be said: it is mere idle cruelty to carry this young lady away round
Cape Horn into the Pacific. She is without any other wearing apparel
than what you see; she is destitute of almost every convenience; her
mother is in bad health, and she wishes to return as speedily as
possible, that no news about us may reach England that is not perfectly
true. The crew, therefore, will not object to speak a ship that we may
transfer this lady to her.’
‘No!’ he roared.
‘Her going will render me easy in my mind as to her safety,’ I
continued, ‘and I shall be able to serve you the better by knowing that
she is on her way home.’
‘No!’ he roared again; ‘she’s quite safe aboard us. There must be no
speaking with ships. ‘Sides,’ he added, falling back a step with a round
flourish of his arm, ‘the lady knows all about the gold and where it is
and how it’s to be come at.’
‘I can keep a secret, Mr. Lush,’ she exclaimed.
‘No,’ he repeated with a stamp of his foot; ‘sorry for it, lady, but
here ye are, and here ye must stop. I know what the crew ‘ud say. I’m
but expressing of their minds. Here ye stop, lady. Mr. Dugdale, that was
a part of the bargain, as we onderstood it this marning. Besides, lady,’
he added with an indescribable leer, ‘ye wouldn’t care to be separated
from him _now_, would ‘ee?’
She moved so as to bring him between me and her.
‘That will do, Mr. Lush,’ said I. ‘I am acquainted with your wishes, and
you know now my resolution;’ and so saying, I walked to a part of the
deck where I could command the sun, and went to work with my sextant,
talking to Miss Temple in a low voice as I ogled the luminary.
‘You see now how it is? If I refused my assent to the crew’s wishes,
they might have sent me adrift in a boat—alone.’ I added significantly.
‘He is a most dreadful creature. You spoke to him bravely. But is that
manner what you call tact?’
‘Yes. The man must not imagine that I am afraid of him. I would that I
could choke him with his own threats.’
‘I believe he would not shrink from murdering both of us.’
‘They have made up their minds to sail to the island, and they mean that
I shall carry them there. That resolve was strong in them when they
entered the cabin. If I had refused—— But no matter! It may yet come to
my being able to induce them to speak a ship.’
She made no response. There was a short silence between us.
‘Make eight bells!’ I shouted, and the chimes floated sharp upon the
rushing wind as I walked aft to the companion, Miss Temple always at my
side.
I went straight to the captain’s cabin, and there worked out my
observation, and fixed the correct position of the barque on the chart.
The course she was steering happened to be the true direction she needed
to take, and there was nothing to mend in that way. Miss Temple came to
the table and watched me as I made my calculations. When I had come to
an end, I asked her to remain where she was, and returned with the chart
on deck. I beckoned to the carpenter, who was standing at the break of
the poop, as though waiting for me to arrive that he might go forward to
his dinner.
‘Here’s our situation to-day,’ I exclaimed pointing to the chart—it was
a tract-chart of the world—‘and here’s Cape Horn. Our course then is as
we’re steering.’
He stared at the chart with the blind and stupid look of a man who
cannot read, and after a bit said: ‘Let’s see: here’s south, and here’s
west, ain’t it? And here’s Cape Horn, as you say. Ay, our course is
about right for it, I allow.’
Whilst I rolled the chart up, I exclaimed: ‘It is inconvenient to be
without a stand-by for a third relief. You and I both want to dine at
once, and there is nobody to keep a lookout in the place of one of us.
The man who had charge this morning whilst we were below appeared to be
a very respectable steady sailor. Suppose now, calling me captain, and
you chief officer, we appoint him, with the sanction of the crew of
course, second mate.’
‘I dunno as I should do that,’ he answered; ‘best not have too many
masters aboard. _I’m_ no chief officer, and there’ll be no convartin’ of
Joe Wetherly into a second mate. We’re all jest _men_. But I tell ‘ee
what; if the crew’s willing, Joe might be selected to relieve you or me
whensoever it comes about as the pair of us wants to be below at the
same time, as now.’
‘Very well,’ I exclaimed, in the sort of peremptory yet half-careless
way which I had made up my mind to employ when speaking to this man;
‘work it out in your own fashion. You can send him aft to relieve me
when he’s done dinner. I shall feel obliged by your seeing that Wilkins
turns to and prepares the table for us at once.’
I was about to leave him, when he exclaimed: ‘One question, Mr. Dugdale.
Nothen was said between us men and you as to the share ye expect.’
‘Never mind about that now,’ I answered.
‘The agreement betwixt you and the captain was for a third, I think,’
said he; ‘you won’t expect that, now there’s a dozen of us in the
consarn?’
‘Oh no, oh no! Send Joe Wetherly aft as soon as he’s done.’
‘It’s onderstood,’ said he, ‘that the lady won’t take no share?’
‘Yes, you may understand that,’ I exclaimed. ‘As for my portion,’ I
continued, anxious to get rid of him, ‘give me what you think I shall
have fairly earned, and you’ll satisfy me.’
‘Right!’ he exclaimed with alacrity, seeking clumsily to conceal an
emotion of sulky exultation. ‘Just another word, Mr. Dugdale. What sort
of character might that ha’ been which the captain gave me?’
‘Oh, damn it! go and send Joe Wetherly aft,’ I cried, feigning a fit of
temper; and I marched away to the binnacle, leaving him to trudge
forward.
A few minutes later, on looking through the skylight, I perceived
Wilkins preparing the table. Presently, Wetherly arrived on the poop. I
went forward to meet him, that I might be out of ear-shot of the fellow
at the wheel, and at once said: ‘Wetherly, how is it with you in this
truly infernal business?’
‘Truly infarnal it is, sir,’ he instantly replied; ‘but you’ve got the
most raw-headed lot of men to deal with that ever slung hammocks in a
ship’s forecastle. After they went forward last night, they fell
a-debating, all hands of them, and settled for this ship to fetch away
that there gold, you commanding. I was agin it till I see how hot they
talked, and then I thinks says I to myself, what do it sinnify? Whether
I’m bound away to the Isle o’ France or to a loonatic’s island in the
South Pacific, is all the same. If there’s money there, so much the
better. If there ain’t, it can’t be helped. One agin ten’s not going to
do much aboard a ship; so, when I was asked for an opinion, I just says,
I’m neutral, lads. Do as ye like. I’ll be with ye; but never none of ye
go and ask if I’m _of_ ye.’
‘You don’t surely believe in Captain Braine’s crazy fancy?’
‘Well, I own, Mr. Dugdale, that that there agreement ’twixt you and him
a bit nonplushed me this mornin’ after I had read it out. It did look
oncommonly like as though you yourself genu-inely believed in the yarn.’
He viewed me critically, though respectfully, as he spoke, with his mere
pins’-heads of eyes.
‘Oh, man, I agreed—I pretended to fully credit—wholly with the idea of
coaxing the madman to Rio, where the lady and myself would have left the
barque. Can’t you see _that_, Wetherly?’
‘Why, yes,’ he answered quickly, though speaking, nevertheless, as
though his mind was not quite made up. ‘It’s a bad job for you and the
lady, sir. The men are terribly in airnest. They’ll allow no speaking
with ships, for fear of your blowing the gaff, as the saying goes. I may
tell you you’ve acted wisely in falling in with their wishes. I may be
more open by and by. I’m with you and the lady, sir; but I’ve got to be
very careful.’
‘I thank you sincerely.’
I saw him restlessly glance aft at the helmsman, and took the hint. His
goodwill was of the utmost importance to me, and it would not do to
imperil my relations with him by any sort of behaviour that might excite
the suspicions of the crew as to our intimacy.