MY CAPTAINCY
I am arrived now at a passage of this singular adventure that will admit
only of brief indications of certain features of it. To write down all
the incidents of the time which followed could but run me into several
volumes of very insipid matter. I own that when I look back upon this
experience, it offers itself as something so amazing, something so
beside the most astonishing romantic incidents of sea-life which my
memory carries, that, though I was the chief actor in it, I often at
this hour find myself pausing as in doubt of the actuality of the events
I have related and have yet to narrate.
Sometimes I wonder whether I might not have brought this kidnapping
business—for thus it may fairly be called so far as Miss Temple and I
were concerned—to a speedy end by peremptory refusal to navigate the
ship to Captain Braine’s island. But I have only to close my eyes and
recall the faces and recollect the behaviour of the men who formed that
barque’s crew, to know better; I have only to repeople that now timeworn
canvas with the countenances of those seamen, to witness afresh the
looks and bearing of the carpenter, to recollect my defencelessness, the
helplessness of my companion, whose life and whose more than life were
absolutely dependent upon my judgment; to think of the wild greed raised
in the men by their dream of thousands, their resolution to get the
money, the sense of lawlessness that would increase upon them with the
growing perception of their irresponsibility as a crew deprived of their
officers by no crime of their own: I have only to recall all this along
with my own thoughts and fears and bitter nerve-sapping anxieties, to
understand that the course I adopted was the only practicable one open
to me, and that what I did no other man situated as I then was but must
have also done. But enough of this.
That afternoon, when the carpenter relieved me at four o’clock, I went
below and superintended the preparation of the two cabins at the
extremity of the cuddy for our reception. The berth adjoining the
captain’s was a fresh, bright, airy little apartment, and every
convenience that Braine’s cabin yielded was put into it for Miss
Temple’s use. This change of apartment seemed to tranquillise her a bit.
Such was her dislike and fear of our steerage quarters, that I believe
she would have thought the deck-house of the wreck endurable compared to
them. Instead of a little ‘tweendeck shrouded in gloom and lumbered with
cargo, we had the whole breezy, sun-lit cuddy before us when we opened
our doors. The berths were also well lighted, with something of taste in
their equipment of panel, bulkhead mouldings, and the like. I was very
careful to bring up Mr. Chicken’s pistol and ammunition, and when I was
alone with Miss Temple, I said: ‘You are not afraid to handle a firearm,
I think?’
‘Oh dear, no.’
‘You shot very well, I remember, with Mr. Colledge at a bottle. Who hit
the bottle?’
‘I did.’
‘So I might have thought by your manner of aiming at it. Your figure
showed nobly, Miss Temple, in your posture as markswoman. I remember the
sparkle of your eyes as you glanced along the barrel. I should not have
cared to be hated by you and in front of you at that moment.’
‘I wish I had the courage you feign I have,’ said she.
‘Well,’ I exclaimed, pulling the captain’s pistol out of my breast,
‘here is a friend that will do more than bark for you, if you should
find yourself in want of such help as it can give. I have a
double-barrelled concern of a like build in the next room, so that
between us we are able to muster three muzzles; artillery enough to fit
us to stand a siege, I can assure you, with the ammunition we possess.’
She took the clumsy weapon in her small delicate white hand and toyed
with it, levelling and examining it, and so forth. I bade her mind, as
it was loaded. She smiled, and going to her bunk, hid the pistol between
the mattress and the bulkhead.
‘I shall certainly feel easier for having it,’ said she. ‘You will not
always now be next door, Mr. Dugdale. You will be for four hours at a
time on deck, when you keep your watch.’
‘Ay,’ said I; ‘but there is a skylight; and I’ll take care that the
cabin lamp be kept burning; and I have a keen ear, too, that when I am
away from you will not be blunted by my thoughts always being here.’
My own cabin I found comfortable enough. I was not so choice as to be
above using what I found in it. The unhappy captain had left behind him
sufficient clothes to provide me with several changes; and a couple of
his coats fitted me very well—being made, I suppose, to allow for a
sailor’s underclothing in cold weather—though I was much broader in the
shoulders than he had been. I overhauled his papers, but found nothing
of interest. What I met with I carefully put away in a drawer along with
some money, and one or two objects of some small value, for I remembered
that the unfortunate creature had left a widow behind him, who might be
thankful for his poor effects, should the little ship ever live to carry
his goods and his tragic story to a civilised place.
Wilkins waited upon us with punctuality and civility. He would ask me
what I wished for breakfast and dinner and supper, bringing little
suggestions from the cook as to sea-pies and ship-board hashes and
currant dumplings and other heavy dishes, for the due digestion of which
a man needs to have bowels of brass and the triple rows of the shark’s
fangs. Indeed, the _Lady Blanche’s_ larder was a poor one, and the
genius of the first cook in the world must have come to a halt in the
face of such a Mother Hubbard of a cupboard. Aft, there was little more
to eat than the forecastle stores: salt beef and salt pork, peas,
currants for duff days, biscuit, coffee and tea, and a few other items.
However, the dead captain had laid in a good stock of bottled beer.
There were also a few gallons of brandy and gin, both of them a very
good spirit; and the forecastle stores, supplemented by cheese and hams
and some tins of preserved stuff bearing the name of soup and
bouilli—pronounced by sailors soup and bully, or soap and
bullion—supplied us with dishes enough to enable us to support life and
even health, helped out as they were by occasional little relishes from
the cook, feeble attempts indeed, and briny to a degree, yet in their
way welcome to people who were as good as beggars in food, and without
choice.
Lush faithfully kept to his end of the ship. He never offered to enter
the cabin except to my invitation, when perhaps I would have something
in navigation to tell him about. He seemed anxious to keep us at a
distance, and picked up the ship’s routine, when his watch came round,
as I let it fall, with an air of morose reserve. I made several efforts
with an assumption of cheerfulness and heartiness of manner to break
through his sullenness, with the dream of finding something like a human
being of sensibilities behind it, whom I should be able to influence
into getting the crew to consent to speak a passing ship, that Miss
Temple might be transferred to her; but he was like a hedgehog; his
quills regularly rose to my least approach. He would watch me with a
sulky, cursing expression in his eye, or view me with a sour, askant
regard, and to my civillest speech respond in some ragged, scurvy
sentence.
But I did not play an obliging part with him very long. Having come to
the conclusion that he was a ruffian of immovable qualities, I recurred
to my earlier behaviour, addressed him only to give him instructions in
a peremptory manner, or to point out the ship’s place on the chart; so,
as you will suppose, very little passed between us; yet my putting on
the airs of a captain and treating him as the mere forecastle hand which
he claimed to be, influenced his bearing, and rendered him even
respectful.
Nevertheless, I knew that he and his mates never had their eyes off me,
so to speak; that, having learnt the course to Cape Horn was so-and-so,
the compass was watched with restless assiduity, every man as he was
relieved at the wheel reporting the direction of the ship’s head to his
companions forward, and how she had been steering during his trick; that
my behaviour on deck was critically followed by eyes in the fore-part of
the ship; that I could never give an order to trim sail during my watch
but that it was duly reported to Lush, and weighed and considered by the
crew in the frequent councils they held in the caboose. All this I was
secretly informed of by Wetherly.
Yet I had nothing to complain of in the behaviour of the men. They
sprang to my bidding, and their ‘Ay, ay, sirs,’ and responses to my
orders had as lively and hearty a ring as anyone could hope to hear in
the mouth of a crew. They sang out briskly when they pulled and hauled,
with enjoyment of the sound of their own voices, and a marked
willingness in their demeanour to contribute their utmost to the
navigation of the vessel. This, indeed, was to be expected. It was
rather a Jack’s jaunt now with them, than a voyage; they were sailing,
as they believed, to an island full of gold; their fortunes were
assured; they gazed into a future radiant with visions of dancing,
drinking, marine jinks of all sorts; they knew that the fulfilment of
their fine lookout must depend upon their willingness to work the ship
now, so that everything they did they did without a growl; without the
least hint of the mutinous disposition that would have shown strong and
deadly in them, had their wishes been delayed or obstructed.
But outside the actual, essential routine of the ship, nothing was done.
The decks were washed down at very long intervals only; there was no
sail-making or repairing; the spunyarn winch was mute; the chafing gear
was left to rot off as it would; the carpenter indeed saw to the
rigging, took care that everything should be sound, for neither he nor
his mates had a mind to lose a mast. But there was very little of
sweeping or polishing, of swabbing or cleaning.
The rum was kept down in the steerage; every day Wilkins drew as much as
sufficed to furnish the men with two glasses apiece. After drawing the
stuff, he regularly presented himself with it to Lush or me, according
as the one or the other of us was on deck, that it might be seen he had
drawn the allowance only. The men seemed fully satisfied. There was
never any demand for more grog than what was given to them, and I do not
recall a single instance of intoxication: which I attributed to my
determined and oft-repeated declaration that should there be any
exhibition of drunkenness on board the barque, I would abandon my
undertaking, and leave the carpenter to navigate her. Dread of the
consequences of drink amongst a mob of such ungoverned men as those
fellows, rendered me extraordinarily impressive and emphatic in this
threat; and I knew that the carpenter was convinced in his own mind that
I would prove as good as my word. Indeed, I had only to look at Miss
Temple to shrink from the mere thought of drunkenness amongst the
sailors. All other risks that might attend a drinking bout forward were
as naught compared to the peril _she_ would stand in. The least insult
offered her I should resent with the muzzle of my pistol: and if it ever
came to _that_, then God alone could foresee the character of the
tragedy that must follow.
But, as I have said, they showed themselves satisfied with their two
glasses a day. The sense of festivity never carried them further than an
occasional dance on the forecastle head of a fine dog watch, when they
would diversify their caper-cutting with songs and yarns—all as harmless
as child’s play, so unsuggestive of the errand that we were upon, so
dumb as indications of the smouldering fires which were to be blown into
a blaze by want of judgment on my part, that any one viewing us from the
deck of a ship close at hand would have supposed the _Lady Blanche_ the
very peacefullest of traders, worked by the happiest and most liberally
paid of crews, and bound on a voyage that was scarcely more than one of
pleasure from port to port.
I was as eager as any man aboard to make an end of the voyage—to arrive,
at all events, in the South Sea, where, let the problem of the island
prove what it might, we should have come to the end of our expectations,
and be able to see our way to the near future, that might signify a
return home for me and Miss Temple; and, consequently, I never spared
the barque’s canvas, but, on the contrary, would hold on every rag to
the very last, leaving the white clipper hull to sweep through it at the
pace of a comet. The carpenter used the little ship in the same way, and
between us both, our runs in the twenty-four hours would again and again
rise to figures that might have been deemed almost miraculous in those
days of round bows and kettle bottoms, of apple sides, and a beam but a
third less than the length. To be sure, when I was at sea
professionally, I was never in a position to give an order, nor were the
midshipmen, of whom I was one, regarded as much better than inconvenient
ornaments, though we were well grounded in navigation; yet this command
that had been forced upon me caused me no uneasiness; I would find
myself walking the weather side of the poop as though I had been master
of a ship for years; I knew, or thought I knew, exactly what to do, and
the men sprang to my orders, and the little ship could not have been
managed better had she been handsomely officered by men grown grey in
the profession, instead of commanded by a young fellow who had only
passed two years at sea a long while earlier, whose chief mate was a
surly and sinister old rascal, so illiterate as to be unable to read his
own name when written by another, and as incapable of handling a sextant
as of expressing himself in correct English.
It came into my head once that we might run short of fresh water before
we should arrive at that spot on the chart where the captain’s gold was
supposed to be buried, and I earnestly hoped that this might happen,
since a threat of thirst must infallibly drive us for help to the first
port we could manage to reach. I asked the carpenter if he knew what
stock of water there was aboard. He said no, but promised to find out,
and later in the day came to tell me that there were so many casks,
making in all so many gallons—I cannot recollect the figures. To satisfy
myself, I went into the hold with him, and discovered that he was right,
and then entered into a calculation, which, to my secret mortification
and disappointment, expressed a sufficient quantity of water aboard to
last all hands of us at a liberal supply per diem for at least six
months.
Now that I had assured myself as to the posture of the crew, and was
profoundly satisfied in my own mind that their consuming eagerness to
arrive at the island would guarantee a uniformly proper behaviour in
them, unless they addressed themselves to the rum casks, or unless I
gave them cause to turn upon me, I had no misgiving in suffering Miss
Temple to be seen by them. She was therefore constantly with me on deck
when my lookout came round, and all the hours I could spare from sleep I
dedicated to her society; so that it would be impossible to imagine any
young unmarried couple passing the time in an association more intimate
and incessant. At the beginning of this run to the South Pacific she
showed a spirit that afterwards temporarily failed her. It was two days
after I had consented to navigate the vessel that I observed a certain
air of determination in her, as though she had been earnestly
contemplating our situation, and had formed her resolution to encounter
what might come with courage and patience. Then, after awhile, her pluck
seemed to fail her again; I would find her sitting motionless in the
cabin with her eyes fixed on the deck, and an expression of misery in
her face, as though her heart were broken. I could not induce her to
eat; though, God knows, there was little or nothing to tempt her with.
She could not sleep, she told me; and the glow faded out of her deep and
beautiful eyes. Pale she always was, but now her face took a character
of haggardness, which her whiteness, that was a loveliness in her when
in health, accentuated to a degree that was presently shocking to me.
When on deck, she would take my arm and walk listlessly, almost
lifelessly, by my side, briefly replying to me in low tones, which
trembled with excess of grief.
Secretly loving her as I did, though not as yet had a syllable, nay, as
I believe, had a look of my passion escaped me, I began to dread the
influence of her misery upon my behaviour to the men. She was a constant
appeal to me, so to speak, to call the fellows aft, and tell them that
the girl was pining her heart away, that she must be put ashore or
conveyed aboard another ship this side Cape Horn, though it came to our
backing our maintopsail to wait for one, or that I would throw up my
command of the vessel and refuse to sail her another mile. I say I lived
in mortal fear of my being forced into this by sentiment and sympathy;
for I was advised by every secret instinct, by every glance I levelled
at the crew, by every look I directed at the carpenter, that the certain
issue of such a resolution as that must involve my life!
I do not exaggerate in this; the nimbleness and sleekness of the crew
were the qualities of the tiger; the ferocity of the wild beast was in
them too, and for the girl’s sake I recoiled in terror from the mere
fancy of arousing their passions. How they might serve me if I showed
myself stubborn in proposals which they declined to accept, I could not
foresee; they might send me adrift in a boat; they might more mercifully
knock me over the head in the dark, and toss what their weapons left of
me overboard. I was unalterably convinced, at all events, that if I
ceased to be of use to them, then, as the possessor of the secret of the
island, I should be made away with. But Miss Temple they would keep with
them! Of that I had no shadow of a doubt either; and hence I say I was
in terror lest the spectacle of her misery should impel me to some act
that, even whilst it was doing, my reason would pronounce madness.
I said everything I could imagine that I thought might reassure her, and
one afternoon spent two hours in earnest talk with her. I told her that
her grief was influencing me, and that it might come to my not being
able to control myself in my relations with the crew; and I went on to
point out what must follow if I suffered my sorrow for her to betray me
into any other attitude towards the men than that I now wore. I had
never been very candid in this way with her before, not choosing to
excite her alarm and distress, and now I succeeded in thoroughly
frightening her. It was enough that I should indicate the probability of
her being left alone among the crew to fill her with horror. I need not
give you the substance of my talk with her. So much remains to be told
that I can only refer to it. But it achieved the end I had hoped to
witness.
When next day came, I found some spirit in her voice and manner. Whilst
we sat at breakfast alone, as we invariably were whether in the cuddy or
on deck, she exclaimed, viewing me with an earnestness which there was
nothing in the faint smile that accompanied it to diminish:
‘I have taken your lecture to heart, Mr. Dugdale, and I mean to reform.
I have shown myself a sad coward; but you shall have no further reason
to complain of me for that. I am ashamed of myself. I wonder that I have
confidence enough to look at you when I compare my behaviour with yours.
You have thought only of me, and I have thought only of myself; and that
is the difference between us.’
‘It puts a new pulse into my heart to hear you talk so,’ said I. ‘I want
to conduct you home to your mother’s side out of this wild adventure,
with the same beauty and health that you brought away from England with
you. It grieved me to the soul to see you refusing food, to watch your
face growing hollow, to hear of your sleepless nights, and to witness in
your eyes the misery that was consuming you. Pray keep this steadfastly
in mind—that every day shortens our run to the South Pacific, and that
every day this horrible experience is lessened by twenty-four hours.
Whether there be gold in the island or not, whether the island have
existence or not, the crew must still be dependent upon me to carry them
to a port, and the port that is good for them will be good for us; for
it will be strange if from it we are unable to proceed straight home.
All along I have said it is but a question of patience and waiting, and
God alone can tell how grateful I shall be to you if you will enable me
to play the part that I know _must_ be played if our safety is to be
worth a rushlight.’
From this time she showed herself a thoroughly resolved woman. She
ceased to tease me with regrets, to distress me with inquiries which I
could not answer, to imply by her silence or her sighs or looks of
reproach that I had it in my power by some other sort of policy than
what I was pursuing, to get her safely away out of the barque. With this
new mind in her came a subtle but appreciable change in her manner
towards me. Heretofore her behaviour had been uniformly haunted by some
small flavour more or less defined of her treatment of me, and indeed of
all others, saving Mr. Colledge, aboard the Indiaman. She had suggested,
though perhaps without intending it, a sort of condescension in our
quiet hours, with a deal of haughtiness and almost contemptuous command
in moments when she was wrought up by alarm and despair. I now found a
kind of yielding in her, a compliance, a complaisance that was almost
tender, a subdued form of expression, no matter what the mood might be
which our conversation happened to excite in her. At times I would
observe her watching me with an expression of sweetness in her fine
eyes, though these sudden discoveries never betrayed her into the least
air of confusion or embarrassment upon which I might found a hope that I
was slowly making my way to her heart.
However, I consoled myself by thinking that our situation hung in too
black a shadow over her mind to enable her to guess at what might be
going on in it. Besides, never a word had I let fall that she could
construe into a revelation of my passion for her. Had I loved her a
thousandfold more than I did, my honour must have held my emotions dumb.
It was not only that my pride determined me to keep silent until I might
have good reason to believe that my love would not be declined by this
high and mighty young lady of the _Countess Ida_, with hidden wonder at
my impertinence in offering it; I also was sensible that I should be
acting the meanest part in the world to let her guess my feelings—by my
language, at least; my face I might not be always able to control—whilst
she continued in this miserable condition, utterly dependent upon me for
protection, and too helpless to avow any resentment, which she would be
desperately quick to express and let me feel under other circumstances.
We should be entering the bitter climate of the Horn presently, and she
was without warm apparel. Her dress, as you know, was the light tropical
costume in which she had attired herself to visit the corvette. What was
to be done?
‘You cannot face the weather of the Horn in that garb,’ said I on one
occasion, lightly glancing at her dress, to which her noble and
faultless figure communicated a grace that the wear and tear and soiling
of the many days she had worn it could not rob it of. ‘Needs must, you
know, when Old Nick drives. There is but one expedient; I hope you will
not make a grimace at it.’
‘Tell it to me?’
‘There is a good, warm, long pilot coat in my cabin. I will borrow
needles and thread, and you must go to work to make it fit you.’
She laughed with a slight blush. ‘I fear I shall not be able to manage
it.’
‘Try. If you fail, fifty to one but that there is some man forward who
will contrive it for you. Most sailors can sew and cut out after a
fashion. But I would rather you should try your hand at it alone. If I
employ a fellow forward he will have to come aft and measure you, and so
on; all of which I don’t want.’
‘Nor I,’ she cried eagerly. ‘I will try the coat on now, Mr. Dugdale. I
daresay I shall be able to fashion it into some sort of jacket,’ she
added with another laugh that trembled with a sigh.
I procured the coat, and helped her to put it on. It had been built for
an overcoat, and designed to wrap up more than the narrow shoulders for
which it had been fashioned, and it buttoned easily over the girl’s
swelling figure.
‘Come, we shan’t want a tailor after all,’ said I, backing a step to
admire her in this new, queer apparel.
‘It will keep me warm,’ said she, turning about to take a view of
herself.
‘And now,’ said I, ‘for a hat. That elegant straw of yours will not do
for Cape Horn.’
I overhauled the captain’s wardrobe, and unearthed three hats of
different kinds—one of them a wideawake; another, a cap of some kind of
skin, very good to keep a night-watch in in dirty weather; and the
third, an old-fashioned tarpaulin glazed hat—the sire of the sou’-wester
of our own times, though, to be sure, sou’-wester caps, as they were
called, were in use at the beginning of the century. This example of
head-gear I returned to the locker in which I had found it, but the
other two Miss Temple thought she could make serviceable. She tried them
on, stealing glances almost coquettish at me as she peered at herself in
the looking-glass which I brought from her cabin.
There had been a time when nothing, I am persuaded, could have induced
her to touch those hats. She would have shrunk from them with the
aversion and disgust she had exhibited at Captain Braine’s suggestions
about the furnishing of her cabin in the steerage. Assuredly, old ocean
was working a mighty change in her character. Life real, stern,
uncompromising, was busy with her; and just as Byron says of his
shipwrecked people, that the mothers of them would not have known their
own sons, so was I assured of my shipmate Louise that if it pleased God
we should escape from the perils of this adventure, she would emerge a
changed woman in every characteristic that had been displeasing in her
before.