Very curious incidents are sometimes invented, but the most extravagant
can be matched by others that have really occurred.
One of the last things that had been talked about that evening had been
the vessel of which Rodd had caught a glimpse in the short tropic
twilight just as it was being swallowed up by the darkness and mist of
night. Joe Cross had incidentally said that he believed it was a brig,
and that night as Rodd lay half asleep, half wakeful, in his cot, kept
from finding the customary repose of a tired lad by the heat of the
narrow cabin below, the word brig brought to mind the vessel that had so
nearly run upon them in Havre-de-Grace, and in a drowsy stupid way he
had pictured her tall tapering spars, the flapping of her stay-sail, and
the rush of the storm.
Then all was blank, till all at once it seemed as if time had elapsed
and he was picturing the French brig once more, knowing that it was the
_Jeanne d'Arc_, though all was darkness and he only caught sight of the
vessel now and then, by the flashing of the fort guns, while the roar of
their reports echoed loudly above the rush of the wind as the brave
vessel tacked from side to side of the harbour, striving to reach the
mouth and escape out to sea.
It was all very vivid as in a dream.
Flash went the fort gun, there was the roar of the report, and all was
darkness, again and again, while somehow--he could not tell how it was--
the heat was intense, and Rodd threw up one hand, which came in contact
with the top of his cot with a sharp rap.
"Bah! It hurts," muttered the boy; and then dream and reality merged in
one, for there was another flash and the roar as if of half-a-dozen
guns.
But the boy was awake now to the fact that he was not dreaming of the
escape of the French brig, but far south of the Equator, lying half
stifled in his cot, listening to the roar of a tropic storm, while every
now and then the cabin which he shared with his uncle was lit up by the
vivid flashes, which were succeeded by fresh roars.
"What a storm," thought Rodd, "and how hot!"
He slipped out of his cot to go and thrust open the cabin window.
"Hear the thunder, uncle?" he said.
But it had ceased for the moment, the last peal dying softly away, and
for answer to his question he had only the deep regular breathing of a
sound sleeper.
"He must have been tired," thought the boy, and creeping closer to the
cabin window he thrust out his hand to let in more air, but found the
window wide open as it could be.
"He must have found out how hot it was and done that himself," thought
Rodd, as he knelt softly upon the bulkhead to try and breathe the fresh
air; but it was hot and half suffocating, while the blackness was
intense. One moment there was a faint quivering somewhere above, and
just enough to show him the murkiness of the sea which spread out from
beneath him far away like so much blackened oil touched for a few brief
instants with streaks of gold.
"Why, there isn't a breath of air," thought Rodd, and then he started
back, dazzled by the brilliant glare of the lightning, which made him
involuntarily close his eyes and keep them shut till the terrific crash
of thunder, which seemed to burst exactly over his head, had gone
rolling away as if its echoes were composed of gigantic cannon balls
passing slowly down metallic tunnels right away into space.
"That was a startler," said the boy to himself. "How awful, but how
grand! It's rather hard to think that the danger's in the lightning,
and that there is nothing in the thunder to hurt."
Then once more all was black silence above and below, and all beyond the
cabin window seemed to be solid.
"I never saw a storm like this at home," thought the boy. "Uncle can
sleep!"
There was another brilliant flash, but this time Rodd felt prepared and
did not shrink. He only knelt, gazing out of the stern window,
impressed by the grandeur of that which he had seen.
Behind him he felt that everything in the cabin had been as light as
day, but away from him all around he had looked upon a vivid picture, a
gloriously wondrous cloudscape stretching far above and reflected far
beneath in the smooth, oily, gently heaving sea--a grand vision of
mountains of blue and gold and purple, which quivered before his eyes
for a few moments in such vivid intensity that his eyeballs ached; then
all was black again for a few moments, and then came the deep-toned roar
as of hundreds of distant mighty cannons; not a sudden, sharp, metallic
crash as in the last instance, but a deep murmurous intonation which
made the woodwork of the schooner tremble.
Rodd felt no fear--nothing but a sense of awe at the grandeur of the
storm, and it was with a feeling of eagerness that he waited for the
next flash. But a minute passed before there was a faint quivering
which slightly lit up the sea, to give place to blackness, silence and
darkness. Then there was another faint quivering light that seemed to
come from somewhere behind where he stood, and again he waited for one
of those vivid flashes that should show up the configuration of the
clouds shaped in mountain and valley and distant cave.
And many minutes must have passed, during which time Rodd listened in
the appalling silence for the distant soft and increasing rushing sound
of the coming rain, even as he had listened before in far-off Devon to
the coming of some summer storm.
"There will be wind too," he thought. "I wonder whether all is made
fast aloft; for a storm like this," he continued, in his ignorance,
"can't come without a tremendous wind and a rush of rain."
His next thought was that he would go on deck and see what the watch
were about; but he hesitated to stir, for the thought of the gorgeous
cloudscape he had seen fascinated him and held him to his place.
"I needn't worry about that," he thought. "Captain Chubb's sure to be
on deck. He wouldn't sleep like we do. If I go and open the cabin door
it will wake uncle up. Hah! It's quivering again. The storm can't be
over like this. Now there's another big flash coming."
He had hardly formed the thought when from quite up in the zenith down
into the depths of the sea the arch of heaven seemed to open out in a
sharp jagged line of vivid blue light, shutting again instantaneously,
and the boy knelt gazing before him in wonder, for there, about a mile
away, with every spar and yard and rope standing out black against the
blue light, was the picture--the model, it seemed to him to be--of a
tall-masted brig sitting motionless upon the water; and then it was
gone.
"Why, that must have been the one we saw," thought Rodd, and he strained
his eyes again as he listened for the roar of the thunder that should
have succeeded the vivid zigzag flash of electricity; but it did not
come, and he waited and waited in the darkness in vain, trying to grasp
how it could be that a storm should come to an end in so strange and
unsatisfactory a way according to his lights, and why there should be
neither rain nor wind.
He waited, trying hard now to pierce the black darkness, but trying in
vain.
There was nothing to see, nothing to hear, and in spite of the wonder
and awe that had pervaded him, Rodd Harding now behaved like a very
ordinary human being, for he yawned, felt sleepy and that he was not so
hot as he was before, and thinking that it was no use to stop there any
longer, and that he might as well dress, he crept softly back to his cot
and stood thinking again.
"Can't be anything like morning," he said to himself, "and I shall be
able to see that brig then. Why, I remember now; I was dreaming about
the storm at Havre, and that vessel--what was it? The _Jeanne d'Arc_--
escaping, and the forts firing at her; and I saw the flashes from the
guns. Of course; how absurd! That was the thunder and lightning,
and--"
Rodd slipped slowly on to his pillow, yawned again, muttered something
about how sleepy he felt, and the next moment he was off as soundly as
his uncle; but only, it seemed to him, to begin dreaming directly after
about the escaping of the brig, and the storm, mingled with the noise
and the shouting of people ashore, and a heavy bump from somewhere close
at hand; and then the boy was wide awake again, springing up so suddenly
in his cot that it was not his hand but his head that struck with a rap
against the woodwork, as a voice that he hardly recognised in the
confusion shouted--
"Rodd, boy! Quick--on deck! The schooner's going down!"