WE SIGHT A SAIL
I should but tease you by attempting to narrate the passage of the
hours from this point. All day long it rained; no air stirred, and
the leaden sea flattened into sulky heavings wide apart, on which the
hull rolled quietly. Possessing but the clothes in which I stood, I
fetched an oilskin from the ’tweendecks to save me from a wet skin, and
thus attired made several journeys into the foretop, where I lingered,
straining my gaze all around into the shrouded horizon till my eyeballs
seemed to crack to the stretching of my vision. Sometimes, when in
the deck-house, I would start to my feet on fancying I heard a sound
of oars, but it was never more than some sobbing wash of swell, or
some stir of the rudder swayed on its pintles by the movement of the
fabric. There was plenty of stuff below with which to produce smoke,
but no preparation for such a signal could be made whilst it rained,
nor could any purpose be served by having the materials ready until the
weather cleared, and wind blew, and something hove into sight.
Miss Temple’s miserable dejection grieved me bitterly. The horror
of our situation seemed to increase upon her, and say what I might
I never succeeded in coaxing the least air of spirit into her face.
It was distressing beyond language to see this haughty, beautiful,
high-born woman, accustomed to every refinement and elegance that was
to be purchased or contrived, reduced to such a pass as this: languidly
putting her lips to the rough pannikin in which I would hand her a
draught of wine and water; scarcely able to bite the flinty biscuit
which, with marmalade and cheese, formed our repasts; sitting for weary
long spells at a time motionless in a corner of the rough structure,
her eyelids heavy, her gaze fixed and listless, her lips parted, with
all their old haughty expression of imperious resolution gone from
them, her fingers locked upon her lap, her breast now and again rising
and falling with hysteric swiftness to some wrenching emotion which
yet found her face marble-like, and her eyes without their familiar
impassioned glow.
I recollect wondering once, whilst watching her silently, whether
there would prove anything in this experience to change her character.
Should the Indiaman recover us, there might be a full fourteen or even
sixteen weeks of association before us yet. Once safely aboard the
_Countess Ida_, would she let this experience slip out of her mind
as an influence, and repeat in her manner towards myself the cold
indifference, the haughty neglect, the distant supercilious usage
which I had found so objectionable, that I was coming very near to
as cordially hating her character as I deeply admired the beauties
and perfections of her face and person. Was she not a sort of woman
to accept an obligation and to look, if it suited her to do so, very
coldly afterwards upon the person who had obliged her? Ridiculous as
the emotion was at such a time, when, for all I knew, in a few hours
the pair of us might be floating a brace of corpses, fathoms deep in
that leaden ocean over the side, yet I must confess to a small stir
of exultation to the thought that supposing us to be rescued, let her
behave as she pleased, she never could escape the memory of having
been alone with me in this horrible hull, nor avert the discovery of
this circumstance by her relatives and friends. It was a consideration,
indeed, to bring her mightily closer to me than ever she had dreamt of,
and to my mind it was as complete a turning of the tables as the most
romantic fancy could have invented--that she who could scarce address
me on board the Indiaman for pride, and for dislike too, for all I
could tell, should now be in the intimate and lonely association of
shipwreck with me, clinging to me, entreating me not to leave her side;
dependent upon such spirit and energy as I possessed for the food and
drink that was to support us, and again and again talking to me with
a freedom which she would have exhibited to no living creature in the
Indiaman, her aunt excepted.
When that second night came down black as thunder, raining hard, the
ocean breathless, I entreated her to rest.
‘You must sleep, Miss Temple,’ said I; ‘I will keep watch.’
She shook her head.
‘Nay,’ I continued, ‘you will rest comfortably upon this locker. You
need but a pillow. There is nothing in the cabins to be thought of for
that purpose; but I believe I can contrive a soft bolster for you out
of my coat.’
‘You are very kind, but I shall not be able to sleep.’
I continued to entreat her, and I saw she was affected by my
earnestness.
‘Since it will please you if I lie down, Mr. Dugdale, I will do so,’
said she.
I whipped off my coat and rolled it up, and she removed her hat with
a manner that made me see she abhorred even this trifling disturbance
of her apparel, as though it signified a sort of settling down to the
unspeakable life of the wreck. The fabric swayed so tenderly that the
bottle containing the candle stood without risk of capsizal upon the
table, and the small but steady flame shone clearly upon her. How
delicate were her features by that light; how rich and beautiful the
exceeding abundance of the dark coils of her hair, the richer and the
more beautiful for the neglect in it, for the shadowing of her white
brow by the disordered tresses, for the drooping of it about her ears,
with the sparkle of diamonds there! Presently she was resting.
I removed the candle to the stanchion, and secured the bottle where
the light would be off her eyes, and sat me down near the doorway as
far from her as the narrow breadth of the structure would permit,
where I filled a pipe and smoked, expelling the fumes into the air,
and listening with a heavy heart to the faint sounds breaking from the
interior of the hull to the washing moan at long intervals of some
passing heave of swell, and to the squeaking of the rats in the cabin
below--a most dismal and shocking sound, I do protest, to hearken to
amidst the hush and blackness of that ocean night, scarce vexed by more
than the pattering of the rain.
From time to time Miss Temple would address me; then she fell silent,
and by-and-by looking towards her, and observing her to lie motionless,
I softly crept to abreast of her, keeping the table between, and found
her sleeping.
It was then something after ten by my watch, and she slept for five
hours without a stir, though now and again she spoke in her sleep. I
know not why I should have remained awake unless it was to keep my
weather-eye lifting for the rats. There was nothing to watch for or to
hope for in such weather as that. Once, when the beasts below were
very noisy--for, as you will suppose, in that solemn stillness their
squeakings rose with a singularly sharp edge to the ear--I bethought
me of the pantry, and could not remember whether I had shut the door.
For all I could yet tell, the stores we had to depend upon were in
that little cabin, and if the rats found their way to the food, we
might speedily starve. I lighted a second candle, that, should the girl
suddenly awake, she might not find herself in the dark, and stepped
below, and found the door closed. I opened it, and minutely surveyed
the interior, and observing all to be well, shut the door and came
away; but never can I forget the uncontrollable chills and shudders
which seized me on passing through that cabin! I do not doubt my mind
had been a little weakened. The remains of the mainmast pierced the
deck, and stood like a pillar; it stirred to the movement of the candle
in my hand, and I stopped with a violent start to gaze at it while
the perspiration broke from my forehead. Vague indeterminable shapes
seemed to flit past and about the stand of arms. The dull noises in the
hold took to my alarmed ear the notes of human groans. Several rats
scurried in flying forms of blackness towards the after cabins: they
seemed to start up through the deck at my feet!
When I resumed my seat on the locker, I was trembling from head to
foot, and my heart beat with feverish rapidity. A draught of wine
rallied me, and I tried to find something ridiculous in my fears. But
all the same my dejection was as that of a man under sentence of death,
and again and again I would put up a prayer to God for our speedy
deliverance, whilst I sat hearkening to the noises below, to the steady
pattering of the rain, to the occasional melancholy sob of water, and
to the broken, unintelligible muttering of the sleeping girl.
At some hour between three and four my companion awoke. She sat up with
a cry of wonder, and by the candle-light I observed her staring around,
with looks of astonishment and horror such as might appear in the face
of a person who starts from some pleasant dream into the realities of a
dreadful situation. I waited until she should have recollected herself,
to use the fine expressive word of the old writers.
‘I have been dreaming of home,’ she said, in a low voice, ‘of safety,
of comfort, of everything that I am now wanting. What time is it, Mr.
Dugdale?’
I put my watch close to my face and told her the hour.
‘How black the night continues!’ she said--‘how silent, too!’ she
added, after hearkening awhile. ‘It has ceased to rain, and there is
not a breath of air.’
‘It has not rained for these two hours past,’ said I. ‘I am impatient
for the day to break. The horizon should be tolerably clear, if there
be no rain; yet what can daybreak possibly disclose to us on top of
such a night of stagnation as this has been?’
‘Have you slept?’
‘No.’
‘Then you will take some rest now. It is my turn to watch.’
‘The dawn will be breaking in a couple of hours,’ said I; ‘I will
wait till it comes to take a look. Should nothing be in sight, I will
endeavour to rest. You will not suffer in the daylight from the feeling
of loneliness that would make you wretched now if I slept.’
‘Whilst you are here, although sleeping, Mr. Dugdale, I should not feel
lonely. Your voice assures me that you need sleep. I have been resting
five hours. How patient you are!’
She took up my jacket, reformed it pillow-fashion, placed it on the
locker where her own head had lain, and moved to make room for me,
seating herself where my feet would about come.
‘Pray lie down, Mr. Dugdale. I shall be closer to you here than you
have been to me, and I can awaken you in an instant if there should be
occasion to do so.’
I complied, rather to please her than to humour my own wishes; for
though my eyelids had the heaviness of lead, there was a thrilling and
hurrying of nervous sensation in me which were as good as a threat that
I should not sleep. And so it proved, for after I had held my head
pillowed for some half hour, I was still broad awake; and then growing
impatient of my posture, I sat erect.
‘No use, Miss Temple, I cannot sleep; and since that is so, pray resume
this hard couch and finish out your slumbers.’
But this she would not do, protesting that she was fully rested. I was
too desirous of her company to weary her with entreaties, and until the
day broke we sat at that narrow table with the light close enough to
enable us to see each other clearly. I remember saying to her:
‘Since this is an experience you were fated to pass through--I suppose
we must all believe in the pre-ordination of our lives--my sincere
regret is that you should not have been imprisoned in this hull with
somebody more agreeable to yourself than I.’
‘Why do you say that?’ she exclaimed, giving me a look that carried me
back. ‘In this state of misery a compliment would be shocking.’
‘I seek no compliment,’ said I. ‘I am merely expressing a regret.’
‘You regret that you are here?’ she exclaimed. ‘So do I, for then I
should not be here. But since it is my lot to be here, I am satisfied
with my companion; I would not exchange him for any other person on
board the _Countess Ida_.’
I bowed.
‘Should we be rescued,’ she continued, keeping her dark gaze full upon
me as she spoke (and something of their beauty and brilliancy of light
had returned to her eyes with her rest), ‘I shall be deeply in your
debt. My mother will thank you, Mr. Dugdale.’
‘I have done nothing, Miss Temple. It is you who are now complimentary,
and I fear ironical.’
She slightly shook her head and sighed, then remained silent for a
minute or two, and said: ‘How small and contemptible my spirit shows
itself when I am tested! Do you recollect when this wretched brig was
lying near us, how I took a parasol from my aunt and levelled it at
this vessel and talked of wishing to see a sea fight and of shooting a
man? How brave I was when there was nothing particularly to be afraid
of, and how cowardly I have shown myself here.’
‘I should have scarcely believed,’ said I, ‘that you were sensible of
my presence at the time you speak of.’
‘Why?’ she asked.
‘Indeed,’ I continued, ‘I should have scarcely believed that you were
sensible that I was on board the ship.’
‘Mr. Dugdale, if my manner did not please you, this is no time to
reproach me with it.’ Her eyes sparkled and her lip curled peevishly.
‘Hark!’ I exclaimed; ‘I hear a rippling noise as of approaching
wind.’ I passed round the table, gained the door, and looked out. The
atmosphere was still motionless, but the sounds of rippling drew near,
and presently I felt a pleasant little air blowing over the stern of
the hull, accompanied with the tinkling and lipping noises of water
set in motion trembling to the brig’s side. But it was still pitch
dark, and search the sky where I would, I could observe no break of
faintness, no leanest vision of star, no vaguest outline of cloud in
the impenetrable obscurity.
I returned to the table, this time seating myself opposite to Miss
Temple. It was easily seen in her face that she was sensible I did this
consciously. Indeed, the gaze she rested upon me was a look of inquiry
as though she would discover whether this holding aloof on my part was
due to respect or to dislike. Then, as though she suddenly sickened to
such idle considerations, she exclaimed with an eager awakening of her
in her whole manner, ‘Does this breeze come from the direction where
the ships are, or where you may suppose them to be, Mr. Dugdale?’
‘For the life of me I could not tell you,’ I responded; ‘there are no
quarters of the compass for human senses on such a night as this, in
a hull that may be headed on all sorts of courses by the set of the
swell; but the dawn will be here anon, and if this draught hold, we
shall be able to find out whence it proceeds.’
It was still blowing the same light breeze when day broke, and I then
knew that the wind sat about north-west. Miss Temple and I stepped on
to the deck, where we stood in an agony of impatience awaiting the full
revelation of the sea. One saw why it should have been so pitch dark
throughout the night; the sky was overcast from horizon to horizon by a
sheet of sallowish leaden-hued vapour. Yet the atmosphere had cleared
so as to enable the sight to penetrate to the verge of the normal
sea-line, where the ocean stood in a firm rim of the darkness of indigo
in the east against the grey of the morning that was spreading out
behind it. I took a long and steady view of the circle; my companion’s
eyes were riveted upon me as I did so; she had rather trust my sight
than hers, and her gaze glowed with an inexpressible eagerness to
witness in my face an expression that should inform her I beheld a sail.
‘It is the same inhuman abominable blankness as that of yesterday,’
said I, fetching a deep breath of rage and grief; then shocked by the
air of horror and despair in Miss Temple, I added: ‘Yet this gives us
a view of but little more than seven miles. Here is an air, surely, to
whip something along. The ships of this ocean cannot all have rotted
in yesterday’s pestilential calm. Oh for such another telescope as Mr.
Prance’s!’ and so saying I trudged forwards, and in a few minutes was
sweeping the horizon from the elevation of the foretop.
I ran my eyes slowly and piercingly along the sea-line, starting from
the part into which the vessel’s mutilated bowsprit pointed, and when
my vision was over the starboard quarter, I beheld trembling upon
the utmost verge of the livid waters stretching to the shrouded sky
a minute fragment of white--a tip as of a seagull’s pinion, but of a
certainty a sail! I lingered to make sure. Miss Temple watched me from
abaft the deck-house. My glance went to her for an instant, and I saw
her bring her hands together and lift them, as though she witnessed in
my posture that I descried something. My heart hammered violently in my
ears, and my breathing was short and laboured.
‘What do you see?’ Miss Temple cried at last, her rich voice, tremulous
with excitement and expectation, floating up like the notes of a flute.
‘A sail!’ I exclaimed, calling with an effort. ‘Patience! I must stay
here to make sure of the direction she is taking,’ and I stood for a
minute pointing while she strained her sight; but there was nothing for
her to see down there.
The breeze had weight enough to determine the matter with some
despatch, and I knew that if the sail were heading away from us, it
must speedily vanish, so mere a speck was it that showed. Instead,
though I will not say that it _grew_ whilst I stood staring, it hung
with a fixedness to satisfy me that the vessel was steering a course
that must bring us into the sphere of her horizon; and not having the
least doubt of this, I dropped over the short futtock shrouds of the
wreck and sprang on to the deck.
‘It is a ship, Mr. Dugdale!’ cried Miss Temple with something of an
hysteric accent of inquiry in her voice.
‘Assuredly,’ I answered.
‘Will she see us, do you think?’
‘Ay, if she does not shift her helm. But we will _compel_ her to see
us.’
The girl suddenly grasped my hand in both hers, bowed her head over
it, and I felt a tear. I was so affected that I stood looking, unable
to speak. It was a sort of submission in its way. I cannot convey my
thoughts of it. She was without her hat; I see her now as she bent
over my hand; I feel the ice-cold pressure of her fingers, and recall
the tears glittering through the beauty of her downcast lashes as they
rose. She slowly lifted her large wet eyes to my face.
‘What an experience this has been!’ she whispered; ‘how shall I be able
to persuade people that I underwent it and lived?’
She still unconsciously held my hand. I put my lips to her fingers, and
she released me.
‘It must always be one of the very happiest memories of my life to me,’
said I. ‘I shall never make you believe in the joy your deliverance
will fill me with.’
‘Oh yes, yes!’ she cried passionately; then sending a look over the
quarter, she added: ‘Are we not losing time? Is there not something we
can do to summon her to us? Will it be long before she appears?’
‘No; we are not losing time,’ I answered. ‘I shall have plenty of
leisure to make a smoke, and that is what we must presently do. If she
be the Indiaman or the corvette, all that is visible of her from yonder
foretop is her royals. Her topgallant sails, her topsails, and her
courses will have to climb before her hull shows. Her speed to this air
will not exceed four knots. She is probably twenty miles distant yet,
and we must allow her, unless the breeze freshens, a good three hours
to give us a full sight of herself on that horizon out there. So let us
first get something to eat, Miss Temple, and then I will go to work.’
But our excitement was too strong to suffer us to make more than
a phantom of a meal. A little biscuit soaked in wine formed my
companion’s breakfast, but her spirits had returned to her; the
remembered brilliancy was in her eyes again; a faint, most delicate
flush was on her cheek; with unconscious fingers she caressed her
hair as though, influenced by a womanly instinct of which she was
insensible, she adjusted her tresses in preparation of our reception by
the people of the ship. She was sure it was the _Countess Ida_. There
was real gaiety in the laugh with which she said that she knew Mrs.
Radcliffe’s character, that she could well imagine how her aunt had
tormented Captain Keeling, how ceaselessly the old lady would importune
the captain to make haste and recover her niece.
‘Oh, what a meeting it will be!’ she cried.
‘The sail may prove the corvette, though,’ said I.
‘But she will rescue us, Mr. Dugdale, and hunt after the Indiaman, and
Sir Edward will put us on board of her.’
I left her to enter the ’tweendecks, where I collected a number of
mats, blankets, staves of casks, and other material, which would burn
and produce a thick smoke; and presently, with the assistance of Miss
Temple, had a great heap of these things stacked on deck betwixt the
foremast and the mainhatch. It was a hard job to get the stuff to
kindle, for the mats were damp and the staves not to be set on fire
by a sulphur match. But on overhauling the lockers in the deck-house
I found a tin can half full of oil and a small parcel of rags; and by
means of these I set my bonfire alight. The planks of the deck were
thick and wet, and securely calked, and the burning stuff was well
clear of the hatch; there was no fear then, as I believed, of the fire
penetrating the deck. It made a prodigious smoke. The mass of damp
blankets and rags smouldered into a dark thick column, which mounted
high ere it arched over to the wind. It was a signal to be sighted as
far away as the ship was, and I stood watching it with transported eyes
as it soared in belching folds gyrating into and blackening out upon
the breeze till it showed like a steamer’s smoke or a ship on fire.
I waited a little, and then got into the fore-shrouds to mark the sail
afresh, and beheld the gleam of her canvas when I was still two or
three ratlines below the futtock shrouds: good assurance, indeed, of
her rising, and nimbly too, and heading square for us. I strained my
gaze at her from the height of the top, but she was far too remote to
be distinguishable; nothing more, indeed, than a little ivory shaft
against the sulky sallow of the sky.
It now occurred to me that I might accentuate the signal of the smoke
by letting fall the foresail, for here was a space of canvas that would
not only catch the eye, but suggest the hull as a still inhabited wreck
that was on fire. I called to Miss Temple. She looked up eagerly.
‘Do you see those ropes leading to the deck from the arms of this
yard?’ said I, pointing.
‘Yes.’
‘I want you to haul them taut, Miss Temple--gather in the slack to
prevent the yard from swinging, as I mean to get upon it.’
She understood me perfectly. Her jewelled fingers flashed upon the rope
as she threw the brace off the belaying pin, and I gazed down with a
smile of deep admiration at her noble figure whilst she swayed at the
line tightening and then belaying it again.
‘You should have been a sailor’s daughter,’ I cried; ‘there is the
true skill of the ancient mariner in your trick of holding on with one
hand and making fast with the other. Will you please now tighten the
brace on the right-hand side.’
She did so, and I got upon the yard and, ‘laying out’ upon it, as it
is called, severed with my knife the ropes with which the canvas was
frapped to the spar, and down fell the sail with a large rent right
amidships of it, though that signified nothing in a square of white
that was to serve as a signal only. I descended to the deck.
‘Why have you loosed that sail?’ inquired Miss Temple. I explained.
‘But will not the wreck now blow away from that ship?’
‘No,’ said I; ‘she will fall off and come to. But the yard must be
trimmed to achieve that.’
So saying I let go the weather-brace and swung the yard fore and aft
as far as I could bring it, then overhauled the clew-garnets, that all
there was of the sail might show. The hull slewed to the pressure, then
hung quiet; meanwhile I continued to feed the blaze, heaping on rugs
and blankets and so firing up that at times the smoke hung as thick to
leeward as a thundercloud.