Blown to bits; bits so inconceivably, so ineffably, so "microscopically"
small that--but let us not anticipate.
About the darkest hour of a very dark night, in the year 1883, a large
brig lay becalmed on the Indian Ocean, not far from that region of the
Eastern world which is associated in some minds with spices, volcanoes,
coffee, and piratical junks, namely, the Malay Archipelago.
Two men slowly paced the brig's quarterdeck for some time in silence, as
if the elemental quietude which prevailed above and below had infected
them. Both men were broad, and apparently strong. One of them was
tall; the other short. More than this the feeble light of the
binnacle-lamp failed to reveal.
"Father," said the tall man to the short one, "I do like to hear the
gentle pattering of the reef-points on the sails; it is so suggestive of
peace and rest. Doesn't it strike you so?"
"Can't say it does, lad," replied the short man, in a voice which,
naturally mellow and hearty, had been rendered nautically harsh and
gruff by years of persistent roaring in the teeth of wind and weather.
"More suggestive to me of lost time and lee-way."
The son laughed lightly, a pleasant, kindly, soft laugh, in keeping with
the scene and hour.
"Why, father," he resumed after a brief pause, "you are so sternly
practical that you drive all the sentiment out of a fellow. I had
almost risen to the regions of poetry just now, under the pleasant
influences of nature."
"Glad I got hold of 'ee, lad, before you rose," growled the captain of
the brig--for such the short man was. "When a young fellow like you
gets up into the clouds o' poetry, he's like a man in a balloon--scarce
knows how he got there; doesn't know very well how he's to get down, an'
has no more idea where he's goin' to, or what he's drivin' at, than the
man in the moon. Take my advice, lad, an' get out o' poetical regions
as fast as ye can. It don't suit a young fellow who has got to do duty
as first mate of his father's brig and push his way in the world as a
seaman. When I sent you to school an' made you a far better scholar
than myself, I had no notion they was goin' to teach you poetry."
The captain delivered the last word with an emphasis which was meant to
convey the idea of profound but not ill-natured scorn.
"Why, father," returned the young man, in a tone which plainly told of a
gleeful laugh within him, which was as yet restrained, "it was not
school that put poetry into me--if indeed there be any in me at all."
"What was it, then?"
"It was mother," returned the youth, promptly, "and surely you don't
object to poetry in _her_."
"Object!" cried the captain, as though speaking in the teeth of a
Nor'wester. "Of course not. But then, Nigel, poetry in your mother
_is_ poetry, an' she can _do_ it, lad--screeds of it--equal to anything
that Dibdin, or, or,--that other fellow, you know, I forget his name--
ever put pen to--why, your mother is herself a poem! neatly made up,
rounded off at the corners, French-polished and all shipshape. Ha! you
needn't go an' shelter yourself under _her_ wings, wi' your inflated, up
in the clouds, reef-point patterin', balloon-like nonsense."
"Well, well, father, don't get so hot about it; I won't offend again.
Besides, I'm quite content to take a very low place so long as you give
mother her right position. We won't disagree about that, but I suspect
that we differ considerably about the other matter you mentioned."
"What other matter?" demanded the sire.
"My doing duty as first mate," answered the son. "It must be quite
evident to you by this time, I should think, that I am not cut out for a
sailor. After all your trouble, and my own efforts during this long
voyage round the Cape, I'm no better than an amateur. I told you that a
youth taken fresh from college, without any previous experience of the
sea except in boats, could not be licked into shape in so short a time.
It is absurd to call me first mate of the _Sunshine_. That is in
reality Mr Moor's position--"
"No, it isn't, Nigel, my son," interrupted the captain, firmly. "Mr
Moor is _second_ mate. _I_ say so, an' if I, the skipper and owner o'
this brig, don't know it, I'd like to know who does! Now, look here,
lad. You've always had a bad habit of underratin' yourself an'
contradictin' your father. I'm an old salt, you know, an' I tell 'ee
that for the time you've bin at sea, an' the opportunities you've had,
you're a sort o' walkin' miracle. You're no more an ammytoor than I am,
and another voyage or two will make you quite fit to work your way all
over the ocean, an' finally to take command o' this here brig, an' let
your old father stay at home wi'--wi'--"
"With the Poetess," suggested Nigel.
"Just so--wi' the equal o' Dibdin, not to mention the other fellow. Now
it seems to me--. How's 'er head?"
The captain suddenly changed the subject here.
Nigel, who chanced to be standing next the binnacle, stooped to examine
the compass, and the flood of light from its lamp revealed a smooth but
manly and handsome face which seemed quite to harmonise with the cheery
voice that belonged to it.
"Nor'-east-and-by-east," he said.
"Are 'ee sure, lad?"
"Your doubting me, father, does not correspond with your lately
expressed opinion of my seamanship; does it?"
"Let me see," returned the captain, taking no notice of the remark, and
stooping to look at the compass with a critical eye.
The flood of light, in this case, revealed a visage in which good-nature
had evidently struggled for years against the virulent opposition of
wind and weather, and had come off victorious, though not without
evidences of the conflict. At the same time it revealed features
similar to those of the son, though somewhat rugged and red, besides
being smothered in hair.
"Vulcan must be concoctin' a new brew," he muttered, as he gazed
inquiringly over the bow, "or he's stirring up an old one."
"What d'you mean, father?"
"I mean that there's somethin' goin' on there-away--in the neighbourhood
o' Sunda Straits," answered the Captain, directing attention to that
point of the compass towards which the ship's head was turned.
"Darkness like this don't happen without a cause. I've had some
experience o' them seas before now, an' depend upon it that Vulcan is
stirring up some o' the fires that are always blazin' away, more or
less, around the Straits Settlements."
"By which you mean, I suppose, that one of the numerous volcanoes in the
Malay Archipelago has become active," said Nigel; "but are we not some
five or six hundred miles to the sou'-west of Sunda? Surely the
influence of volcanic action could scarcely reach so far."
"So far!" repeated the captain, with a sort of humph which was meant to
indicate mild contempt; "that shows how little you know, with all your
book-learnin', about volcanoes."
"I don't profess to know much, father," retorted Nigel in a tone of
cheery defiance.
"Why, boy," continued the other, resuming his perambulation of the deck,
"explosions have sometimes been heard for hundreds, ay _hundreds_, of
miles. I thought I heard one just now, but no doubt the unusual
darkness works up my imagination and makes me suspicious, for it's
wonderful what fools the imag--. Hallo! D'ee feel _that_?"
He went smartly towards the binnacle-light, as he spoke, and, holding an
arm close to it, found that his sleeve was sprinkled with a thin coating
of fine dust.
"Didn't I say so?" he exclaimed in some excitement, as he ran to the
cabin skylight and glanced earnestly at the barometer. That glance
caused him to shout a sudden order to take in all sail. At the same
moment a sigh of wind swept over the sleeping sea as if the storm-fiend
were expressing regret at having been so promptly discovered and met.
Seamen are well used to sudden danger--especially in equatorial seas--
and to prompt, unquestioning action. Not many minutes elapsed before
the _Sunshine_ was under the smallest amount of sail she could carry.
Even before this had been well accomplished a stiff breeze was tearing
up the surface of the sea into wild foam, which a furious gale soon
raised into raging billows.
The storm came from the Sunda Straits about which the captain and his
son had just been talking, and was so violent that they could do nothing
but scud before it under almost bare poles. All that night it raged.
Towards morning it increased to such a pitch that one of the backstays
of the foremast gave way. The result was that the additional strain
thus thrown on the other stays was too much for them. They also parted,
and the foretop-mast, snapping short off with a report like a
cannon-shot, went over the side, carrying the main-topgallant-mast and
all its gear along with it.