WE SIGHT A SAIL.
As the day advanced, the breeze weakened, the sea grew smoother, the
surge flattened to the swell, and the wind did little more than crisp
with snowy feathers those long, low, broad-browed folds swinging
steadily and cradlingly out of the heart of the mighty southern ocean.
Every cloth the Braave carried had been sheeted home and hoisted. She
looked as if she had been coated with sulphur, as she slipped rolling
up one slant and down another brimming to her channels; the hue of
her was as if she had been anchored all night near to a flaming hill
and had received for hours the plumy, pumice-coloured discharge of
the volcano. There was nothing to relieve this sulphurous reflection
with flash or sparkle; the sunshine died in the green backs of the
brass swivels, it lay lustreless upon the rusty iron cannons, it found
no mirror in the dry and honeycombed masts, and it touched without
vitalising the rounded canvas, whose breasts had nothing of that
hearkening, seeking look which you find in the flowing swelling of a
ship's sails yearning horizon-wards to the land beyond the sea.
She was heading about north west by north, on the larboard tack, the
yards as hard fore and aft as they would lie; and though she was
making more leeway than headway, 'twas certain her bowsprit--for the
first time during the days I had spent in her--was pointing fair
for the Cape passage. It was this that had softened Vanderdecken's
fierceness. As bit by bit the Death Ship stole up to this heading, so
had his temper improved; insomuch that throughout the afternoon he had
exhibited towards me a manner marked in no small degree by the haughty
courtesy and solemn and stately urbanity which I had observed in his
treatment of me in the first day or two of my being with him. This,
I promise you, singularly rejoiced me, as exhibiting precisely the
influence necessary to neutralise the hideous malignity of the mate.
It also showed that he was still so much a sea-captain in soul as to
be rendered bland and obliging, or savage and dangerous, by the turn
of the weather, or rather by the direction and strength of the wind.
Indeed, had his character contained more strokes of the humanity that
is familiar to us, I should have heartily sympathised with the rage
which contrary gales aroused in him. But the Curse had made a _lusus
naturæ_ of him. Much of what had, in 1653, been sailorly had been eaten
out by time, and he flourished chiefly on those instincts which had
miserably won him his doom. Hence, however greatly you wished to feel
pity, you found you could not compassionate him as you would a living
and real person. And of this, indeed, I was especially sensible that
afternoon, whilst watching him and reflecting that though to be sure
he could speak to me now without striving to blast me with his eyes
and to damn me with his frown, yet let the wind suddenly head us and
blow hard, and 'twas odds but that I should be hiding away from him, in
the full conviction that it might need but a single indiscreet word to
procure my being thrown overboard.
It was half-past five o'clock in the afternoon. I had come up from
supper, leaving Vanderdecken smoking at the head of the table. Imogene
had gone to her cabin for her hat. Van Vogelaar was off duty, and very
likely lying down. Arents had the watch. There was a fine sailing wind
blowing, and but for the choking grip of the trim of the yards on the
creaking, high, old fabric, I believe the ship would have got some
life out of it.
It was the first dog-watch--an idle hour--and all the ghostly crew were
assembled forward, every man smoking, for tobacco was now plentiful;
and their postures, their faces, their different kinds of dress, their
lifelessness, save for the lifting of their hands to their pipes, and
above all their silence, made a most wonderful picture of the decks
their way; the foreground formed of the boats, a number of spare booms,
the close quarters for the live-stock, the cook-house chimney coming
up through the deck and trailing a thin line of blue smoke, whilst
under the arched and transverse foot of the foresail you saw the ship's
beak, the amazing relic of figure-head, the clews of the sprit-sail and
sprit-topsail pulling aslant--between being the men, a dismal, white
and speechless company, with the thick fore-mast rising straight up out
of the jumble of them, whilst the red western light flowed over the
pallid edges of the canvas, that widened out to the crimson gold whose
blaze stole into the darkened hollows this side and enriched the aged
surfaces with a rosy atmosphere.
I stood right aft, carelessly running my eye along the sea-line
that floated darkening out of the fiery haze under the sun on our
weather-beam, till in the east it curved in a deep, blue line so
exquisitely clear and pure that it made you think of the sweep of a
camel's hair-brush dipped in indigo. I gazed without expectation of
observing the least break or flaw in that lovely, darkling continuity,
and 'twas with a start of surprise and doubt that I suddenly caught
sight of an object orange-coloured by the light far down in the east,
that is to say, fair upon our lee-quarter. It was a vessel's canvas
beyond question; the mirroring of the western glory by some gleaming
cloths; and my heart started off in a canter to the sight, it being
impossible now for a ship to heave into view without filling me with
dread of a separation from Imogene, and agitating me with other
considerations, such as how I should be dealt with, on a ship receiving
me, if they discovered I had come from the Flying Dutchman.
I waited a little to make sure, and then called to the second mate, who
stood staring at God knows what, with unspeculative eyes.
"Herr Arents, yonder is a sail--there, as I point."
He quickened out of his death-like repose with the extraordinary
swiftness observable in all these men in this particular sort of
behaviour, came to my side, gazed attentively, and said, "Yes; how will
she be heading?" He went for the glass, and whilst he adjusted the
tubes to his focus Captain Vanderdecken arrived with Imogene.
"What do you see, Arents?" asked the captain.
"A sail, sir, just now sighted by Herr Fenton."
Vanderdecken took the glass and levelled it, and after a brief
inspection handed me the tube. The atmosphere was so bright that the
lenses could do little in the way of clarification. However, I took a
view for courtesy's sake, and seemed to make out the square canvas and
long-headed gaff-topsail of a schooner as the sails slided like the
wings of a sea-bird along the swell.
"How doth she steer, mynheer?" said Vanderdecken, as I passed the
telescope to Arents.
"Why," I answered, "unless the cut of her canvas be a mere imagination
of mine, she is close-hauled on the larboard tack and looking up for us
as only a schooner knows how."
"What do you call her?" he exclaimed, imperiously.
"A schooner, sir."
Whether he had seen vessels of that rig since their invention I could
not know, but it was certain the word schooner conveyed no idea. It was
amazing beyond language that hints of this kind should not have made
his ignorance significant to him.
The sight of the amber shadow on the lee quarter put an expression
of anxiety into Imogene's face. She stood looking at it in silence,
with parted lips and shortened breathing, her fragile, her too fragile
profile like a cameo of surpassing workmanship, against the soft
western splendour, the gilding of which made a trembling flame of one
side of the hair that streamed upon her back. Presently turning and
catching me watching she smiled faintly, and said in our tongue, "The
time was, dear, when I welcomed a strange sail for the relief--the
break--it promised. But you have taught me to dread the sight now."
I answered, speaking lightly and easily, and looking towards the
distant sail as though we talked of her as an object of slender
interest, "If our friend here attempts to transfer me without you, I
shall hail the stranger's people and tell them what ship this is, and
warrant them destruction if they offer to receive me."
The time passed. Imogene and I continued watching, now and again taking
a turn for the warmth of the exercise. As on the occasion of our
pursuit by the Centaur, so now Vanderdecken stood to windward, rigid
and staring, at long intervals addressing Arents who, from time to
time, pointed the glass as mechanically as ever Vanderdecken's piping
shepherd lifted his oaten reed to his mouth.
Shortly after six, arrived Van Vogelaar, who was followed by the
boatswain, Jans; and there they hung, a grisly group, whilst the crew
got upon the booms, or overhung the rail, or stood upon the lower
ratlines, with their backs to the shrouds, suggesting interest and
excitement by their posture alone, for, as to their faces, 'twas mere
expressionless glimmer and too far off for the wild light in their eyes
to show.
Thus in silence swam the Death Ship, heaving solemnly as she went,
with tinkling noises breaking from the silver water that seethed from
her ponderous bow, as though every foam bell were of precious metal
and rang a little music of its own as it glided past. But by this time
the sail upon our lee-quarter had greatly grown, and the vigorous red
radiance, rained by the sinking luminary in such searching storms of
light as crimsoned the very nethermost east to the black water-line,
clearly showed her to be a small but stout schooner, hugging the wind
under a prodigious pile of canvas, and eating her way into the steady
breeze with the ease and speed of a frigate-bird that slopes its black
pinions for the windward flight. Her hull was plain to the naked eye
and resembled rich old mahogany in the sunset. Her sails blending into
one, she might, to the instant's gaze, have passed for a great star
rising out of the yellow deep and somewhat empurpled by the atmosphere.
It was our own desperately sluggish pace that made her approach magical
for swiftness; but there could be no question as to the astonishing
nimbleness of her heels.
After a while, Vanderdecken and his men warmed to the sight, and fell
a-talking to one another with some show of eagerness, and a deal of
pointing on the part of Jans and Arents, whilst Van Vogelaar watched
with a hung head and a sullen scowl. Occasionally, Vanderdecken would
direct a hot, interrogative glance at me; suddenly he came to where we
stood.
"What do you make of that vessel, mynheer?" said he.
"Sir," I replied, "to speak honestly, I do not like her appearance.
Two voyages ago my ship was overhauled by just such another fellow
as that yonder; she proved to be a Spanish picaroon. We had a
hundred-and-fifty troops who, with our sailors, crouched behind the
bulwarks and fired into her decks when she shifted her helm to lay us
aboard, and this reception made her, I suppose, think us a battle-ship,
for she sheared off with a great sound of groaning rising out of her,
and pelted from us under a press as if Satan had got hold of her
tow-rope."
"What country does her peculiar rig represent?" he asked, looking at
the vessel with his hand raised to keep the level rays of the sun off
his eyes.
"I cannot be sure, mynheer; French or Spanish; I do not believe her
English by the complexion of her canvas. She may prove an American, for
you may see that her cloths are mixed with cotton."
The word American seemed to puzzle him as much as the word schooner
had, for in his day an American signified an Indian of that continent.
However, I noticed that if ever I used a term that was incomprehensible
to him, he either dismissed it as coming from one who did not always
talk as if he had his full mind, or as some English expression of which
the meaning--as being English--was of no concern whatever to his Dutch
prejudices.
"Doth she suggest a privateer to your judgment?" he inquired.
I answered "Yes; and more likely a pirate than a privateer, if indeed
the terms are not interchangeable."
On this he went to the others, and they conversed as if he had called
a council of them; but I could not catch his words, nor did I deem it
polite to seem as if I desired to hear what was said.
"Do you really believe her to be what you say, Geoffrey?" said Imogene.
"I do, indeed. The dusk will have fallen before we shall have her
near enough to make out her batteries and judge of her crew; but she
has the true piratical look, a most lovely hull--low-lying, long and
powerful--do you observe it, dearest? A cutwater like a knife, a noble
length of bowsprit, and jibbooms, and a mainsail big enough to hold
sufficient wind to send a Royal George along at ten knots. If she be
not a picaroon, what is her business here? No trader goes rigged like
that in these seas. 'Twould be otherwise were this the Pacific. She may
be a letter of marque."
"Look!" cried Imogene, "she hoists her flag."
I hollowed my hands and used them for telescopes. The bunting streamed
away over the stranger's quarter, but it was a very big flag, and
its size, coupled with the wonderful searching light going to her in
crimson lancing beams out of the hot flushed west, helped me to discern
the tricolour.
"French!" I exclaimed, fetching a quick breath.
Vanderdecken had seen the flag, and was examining it through his
ancient tubes. After a little he gave the glass to Van Vogelaar, who,
after inspecting the colour, handed it to Arents; then Jans looked.
Vanderdecken called to me, "What signal is that she hath flying?"
I responded, "The flag of the French Republic."
He started, gazed at the others, and then glanced steadfastly at me as
if he would assure himself that I did not mock him. He turned again to
the schooner, taking the telescope from Jans.
"The French Republic!" I heard him say, with a tremble of wonderment
in his rich notes. The mate shrugged his shoulders, with a quick,
insolent turning of his back upon me; and the white, fat face of Jans
glimmered past him, staring with a gape from me to the schooner.
But now the lower limb of the sun was upon the sea-line; it was all
cloudless sky just where he was, and the vast, rayless orb, palpitating
in waving folds of fire, sank into his own wake of flames. The heavens
glowed red to the zenith, and the ruby-coloured clouds moving before
the wind looked like smoke issuing from behind the sea where the
world was burning furiously. The grey twilight followed fast, and the
ocean turned ashen under the slip of moon over the fore yard-arm. The
stealing in of the dusk put a new life into the wind, and the harping
in our dingy, faded heights was as if many spirits had gathered
together up there and were saluting the moon with wild hymns faintly
chanted.