"This air prime, now ain't it?" said the skipper to Fritz, as the ship,
with her nose pointing almost south, was driving away before the north-
west wind and making some ten knots an hour.
"Yes, she's going along all right," replied he; adding frankly, however,
"I should like it all the better, though, if the vessel didn't roll
about so much."
"Roll?" exclaimed Captain Brown indignantly; "call this rolling? Why,
Jee-rusalem, she only gives a kinder bit of a lurch now an' ag'in! I
thought you would hev got your sea-legs on by this time."
Fritz could only bow to this statement, of course; but, all due
deference to the skipper, nevertheless, the _Pilot's Bride_ did roll,
and roll most unmercifully, too.
She was just like a huge porpoise wallowing in the water!
It may be remembered that she had sailed from port light, with a pretty
considerable freeboard; and now, with the wind almost right aft, so that
she had no lateral pressure to steady her--as would have been the case
if the breeze had been abeam or on her quarter--she listed first to port
and then to starboard, with the "send" of the sea, as regularly as the
swing of a clock's pendulum. Really, the oscillation made it almost as
impossible for Fritz to move about as if the ship had been contending
with all the powers of the elements in a heavy storm, whereas the
skipper said she was only "going easy," with a fair wind!
Why, the "breeze" had not lasted a day, before nearly every particle of
glass and crockery-ware in the steward's cabin was smashed to atoms;
while preventer stays had to be rove to save the masts from parting
company.
Roll, eh? She did roll--roll with a vengeance!
Fortunately, this did not last long; the wind shifting round to the
north-east, after a three days' spell from the west, which brought the
ship on a bow line, steering, as she was, south-east and by south. Had
not this change come when it did, "the old tub would hev rolled her
bottom out," as Mr Slater, the whilom deck hand, "guessed" one morning
to Fritz, while the crew were engaged in washing decks.
Of course, the brothers themselves had many a chat together while the
voyage lasted, talking over their plans as well as chatting about the
different scenes and circumstances surrounding the endless panorama of
sea and sky, sky and sea, now daily unfolded before them.
Naturally--to Fritz, at least--all was new; and it was deeply
interesting to him to notice the alteration in the aspect of the heavens
which each night produced as the ship ran to the southward. The north
star had disappeared with its pointers, as well as other familiar
stellar bodies belonging to higher latitudes; but, a new and more
brilliant constellation had risen up in the sky within his new range of
view, which each evening became more and more distinct.
This was the Southern Cross, as it is called, consisting of four stars,
three of the first magnitude and the fourth somewhat smaller, arranged
in the form of an oblique crucifix, pointing across the firmament
"athwartship-like," as the skipper explained one night-watch when the
brothers were looking out together. Only once in the year, Captain
Brown said, is this cross perfectly perpendicular towards the zenith;
for, as it circles round our planet, it reverses its position, finally
turning upside-down.
When the _Pilot's Bride_ ceased to roll and began to make steady way
towards Tristan, with the wind from the northward and eastwards on her
beam, she ran along steadily on one tack, with hardly a lurch, covering
some two hundred miles a day as regularly as the log was hove and the
sun taken at noon.
All this time, no sight could now have been more glorious than the
heavens presented each night after sunset. The myriads upon myriads of
stars that then shone out with startling brilliancy was something
amazing; and the puzzle to Fritz was, how astronomers could name and
place all these "lesser lights"--following their movements from day to
day and year's end to year's end, without an error of calculation, so
that they could tell the precise spot in the firmament where to find
them at any hour they might wish!
"And yet," said Fritz, musingly, "these wise men are puzzled sometimes."
"Nary a doubt o' thet," responded the skipper, who, in spite of his
rough manner and somewhat uncultivated language, thought more deeply
than many would have given him credit for; "I guess, mister, all the
book-larnin' in the world won't give us an insight inter the workin's o'
providence!"
"No," said Fritz. "The study of the infinite makes all our puny efforts
at probing into the mysteries of nature and analysing the motives of
nature's God appear mean and contemptible, even to ourselves."
"Thet's a fact," assented the skipper. "Look thaar, now! Don't thet
sky-e, now, take the gildin' off yer bunkum phi-loserphy an' tall
talkin' 'bout this system an' thet--ain't thet sight above worth more'n
a bushel o' words, I reckon, hey?"
Fritz gazed upwards in the direction the other pointed, right over the
port quarter of the ship and where the starry expanse of the stellar
world stretched out in all its beauty.
Eastwards, near the constellation Scorpio, was the Southern Cross, which
had first attracted their attention, the figurative crucifix of the
heavens; while the "scorpion," itself, upreared its head aloft,
surmounted by a brilliant diadem of stars that twinkled and scintillated
in flashes of light, like a row of gems of the first water--the body of
the fabled animal being marked out in fine curves, in which fancy could
trace its general proportions, half-way down the heavens. In a more
southerly direction, still, the parallel stars of the twin heroes Castor
and Pollux could be seen, shining out with full lustre in a sky that was
beautifully, intensely blue, conveying a sense of depths beyond depths
of azure beyond; and, as the wondering lookers gazed and the night
deepened, fresh myriads of stars appeared to come forth and swell the
heavenly phalanx, although the greater lights still maintained their
glittering superiority, Jupiter emitting an effulgence of radiant beams
from his throne at the zenith, while the Milky Way powdered the great
celestial dome with a smoke wreath of starlets that circled across the
firmament in crescent fashion, like a sort of triumphal arch of flashing
diamonds which the angels could tread in their missions from heaven to
earth, or the feet of those translated to the realms of the blest!
"Grand, ain't it?" repeated the skipper.
But Fritz said nothing; his thoughts went deeper than words.
A day or two after this, the north-east wind suddenly failed and a dead
calm set in, lasting for twenty-four hours. This circumstance did not
please Captain Brown much, for he hardly knew what to make of it;
however, after a day and night of stagnation, the breeze returned again,
although, in the interim of lull, it took it into its head to shift
round more to the southwards, causing the _Pilot's Bride_ to run close-
hauled.
On the evening before this change of wind, and while the calm yet
continued, the sea presented what seemed to Fritz--and Eric too, for he
had never seen such a sight before, although he had much better
acquaintance with the wonders of the deep than his brother--a most
extraordinary scene of phosphorescent display, the strange effect of it
being almost magical.
The sun had set early and the moon did not rise till late; but, as soon
as the orb of day had disappeared below water, the horizon all round
became nearly as black as ink, without any after-glow, as had invariably
been noticed at previous sunsets. The whole sky was dark and pitchy
like; only a few stars showing themselves momentarily for a while high
up towards the zenith, although they were soon hidden by the mantle of
sombre cloud that enveloped the heavens everywhere.
Meanwhile, the entire surface of the sea, in every direction as far as
their eyes could reach, seemed as if covered with a coating of frosted
silver; and, all around the ship, at the water-line, there appeared a
brilliant illumination, as if from a row of gas jets or like the
footlights in front of the stage of a theatre. Where the sea, too, was
broken into foam by the slight motion of the ship, it also gave out the
same appearance; and the faint wake astern was as bright as the track
usually lit up by the moon or rising sun across the ocean, resembling a
pathway of light yellow gold.
When Fritz first saw the reflection, on looking over the side of the
ship, he thought that something had happened down below, and that the
appearance he noticed was caused by different lights, streaming through
the portholes and scuttles.
"What are they doing with all those lanterns in the hold?" he asked Eric
in surprise.
The sailor lad laughed.
"No ship lanterns," said he, "are at work here. They say that this
queer look of the sea is occasioned by thousands of little insects that
float on the surface and which are like the fireflies of the tropics.
Don't you recollect reading about them?"
"But then, this light is so continuous," replied Fritz. "It is bright
as far away as we can see."
"Yes, I suppose the shoal of insects stretches onward for miles; still,
it is only when it is dark like this, with the sky overcast, that you
can see them. At least, that is what I've been told, for I never saw
such a display before."
"You're 'bout right, my lad," observed Captain Brown, who had come over
to leeward, where the brothers were. "I forgit what they call the
durned things; but, they're as thick as muskitters on the Florida coast.
You'll see 'em all clear away as soon as the moon shows a streak,
though. They can't stand her candlelight, you bet!"
It was as the skipper said. Although the illumination of the sea was so
vivid that it lit up the ship's sails with flashes as the water was
stirred, it died away when the moon shone out. Then, too, the sky
lightened all round and the clouds cleared away before the approaching
wind which had thus apparently heralded its coming.
Nothing occurred after this to break the monotony of the voyage, beyond
a school of whales being noticed blowing in the distance away to the
windward one day, about a week after the change of wind.
"There she spouts!" called out a man who was up in the fore cross-trees,
overhauling some of the running gear; but the hail only occasioned a
little temporary excitement, for the animals were much too far off for
pursuit and, besides, Captain Brown wished to land the brothers and
clear his ship of all cargo before going whaling on his own account.
This consummation, however, was not long distant; for some sixteen days
or so after they had turned their backs on the South American coast, the
skipper told Fritz he hoped to be at Tristan on the morrow. This was
when he and the captain were having their usual quarter-deck walk in the
first watch, the evening of the same day on which they passed the school
of whales.
"Yes, sirree," he said, "we've run down to 36 degrees South latitude, I
guess, an' wer 'bout 13 degrees West when I took the sun at noon; so I
kalkerlate, if the wind don't fail an' the shep keeps on goin' as she
is, which is bootiful, I reckon, why we'll fetch Tristan nigh on
breakfus-time to-morrow,--yes, sir!"
"Indeed!" exclaimed Fritz. He did not think they were anywhere near the
place yet; for, although it was more than two months since they had left
Narraganset Bay, the ship appeared to sail so sluggishly and the voyage
to be so tedious, that he would not have been surprised to hear some day
from the captain that they would not reach their destination until
somewhere about Christmas time!
"Ya-as, really, I guess so, mister. No doubt you're a bit flustered at
gettin' thaar so soon; but the _Pilot's Bride's_ sich a powerful clipper
thet we've kinder raced here, an' arrove afore we wer due, I reckon!"
The skipper innocently took Fritz's expression of surprise to be a
compliment to the ship's sailing powers; and so Fritz would not
undeceive him by telling him his real opinion about the vessel. It
would have been cruel to try and weaken his belief in the lubberly old
whaler, every piece of timber in whose hull he loved with a fatherly
affection almost equal to that with which he regarded his daughter
Celia.
Fritz therefore limited himself to an expression of delight at the
speedy termination of their voyage, without hazarding any comment on the
_Pilot's Bride's_ progress; by which means he avoided either hurting the
old skipper's feelings or telling an untruth, which he would otherwise
have had to do.
He was undoubtedly glad to have advanced so far in their undertaking;
for, once arrived at Tristan d'Acunha, a few more days would see them
landed on Inaccessible Island, when, he and Eric would really begin
their crusoe life of seal-catching and "making the best" of it, in
solitary state.
Wasn't he up on deck early next morning, turning out of his bunk as soon
as he heard the first mate calling the captain at four bells--although,
when he got there, he found Eric had preceded him, he having charge of
the morning watch and having been up two hours before himself!
However, neither of the brothers had much the advantage of the other;
for, up to breakfast time, Tristan had not been sighted.