CALM.
"It ceased: yet still the sails made on
A pleasant noise till noon--
A noise like that of a hidden brook
In the leafy month of June.
Till noon we quietly sailed on,
Yet never a breeze did breathe;
Slowly and smoothly went the ship,
Moved onward from beneath."
The great lumbering brig, with yards square, main-sail hauled up, and
the jib and trysail in the brails, lay listlessly rolling on the easy
swell of the water, giving a gentle send forward every minute or so,
when the sluggish sails would come with a thundering slap against the
masts, and the loose cordage would rattle like a drum-major's ratan on a
spree. The sea was one glassy mirror of undulations, shimmering out into
full blaze as the rising sun just threw its rays along the crest of the
ocean swell; and then, dipping down into the rolling mass, the hue would
change to a dark green, and, coming up again under the brig's black
counter, would swish out into a little shower of bubbles, and sparkle
again joyously.
Away off in the distance lay the island of Jamaica--the early haze about
the mountain tops rising like a white lace veil from the deep valleys
below, with here and there a white dot of a cluster of buildings
gleaming out from the sombre land like the flicker of a heliotrope, and
at intervals the base of the coast bursting forth in a long, heavy
fringe of foam, as the lazy breakers chafed idly about the rocks of some
projecting headland. Nearer, too, were the dark succession of waving
blue lines in parallel bars and patches of the young land wind, tipping
the backs of the rollers in a fluttering ripple of cats'-paws, and then
wandering sportively away out to sea.
On board the brig, forward, were three or four barefooted sailors, in
loose frocks and trowsers, moving lazily about the decks, drawing
buckets of water over the side and dashing it against the bulwarks,
while others were scrubbing and clearing up the vessel for the day. The
caboose, too, began to show signs of life, and a thin column of smoke
rose gracefully up in the calm morning air until it came within the
eddying influence of the sails and top-hamper, when a bit of roll would
puff it away in blue curls beyond.
Abaft stood a low, squat-built sailor at the wheel, his striped Guernsey
cap hanging on one of the spokes, and his body leaning, half asleep,
over the barrel, which gave him a sharp twitch every now and then when
the sea caught the rudder on the wrong side. Near at hand, with an arm
around an after top-mast backstay, and head resting over the rail, was
the mate, Mr. Binks, with a spy-glass to his eye, through which he was
peering at the distant hills of Jamaica. Presently, as he was about to
withdraw the brass tube, and as the old brig yawed with her head
inshore, something appeared to arrest his attention; for, changing his
position, and climbing up to the break of the deck cabin, he steadied
himself by the shrouds, and rubbing his eye with the sleeve of his
shirt, he gave a long look through the glass, muttering to himself the
while. At last, having apparently made up his mind, he sang out to the
man at the wheel in this strain:
"Ben, my lad, look alive; catch a turn with them halliards over the lee
wheel; and just take this 'ere glass and trip up to the fore-yard, and
see what ye make of that fellow, here away under the eastermost
headland."
Ben, without more ado, secured the spokes of the wheel, clapped his cap
on his head, hitched up his trowsers, and, taking the glass from the
mate, rolled away up the fore-rigging. Meanwhile Mr. Binks walked
forward, stopping a moment at the caboose to take a tin pot of coffee
from the cook, and then, going on to the topsail-sheet bitts, he
carefully seated himself, and leisurely began to stir up the sugar in
his beverage with an iron spoon, making a little cymbal music with it on
the outside while he gulped it down. He had not been many minutes
occupied in this way when Ben hailed the deck from the fore-yard.
"On deck there!"
"Hallo!" ejaculated Mr. Binks.
"I see that craft," cried Ben; "she's a fore and after, sails down, and
sweeping along the land. She hasn't got a breath of wind, sir."
"Very well," said Mr. Binks, speaking into the tin pot with a sound like
a sheet-iron organ; "come down."
As Ben wriggled himself off the fore-yard and caught hold of the futtock
shrouds to swing into the standing rigging, he suddenly paused, and
putting the glass again to his eye, he sang out:
"I say, sir! here is a big chap away off on the other quarter, under
top-sails. There! Perhaps ye can see him from the deck, about a
handspike clear of the sun"--pointing with the spy-glass as he spoke in
the proper direction.
"All right!" said the mate, as he began again the cymbal pot and spoon
music; "becalmed, ain't he?"
"Yes, sir; not enough air to raise a hair on my old grandmother's wig!"
muttered Ben, as he slowly trotted down the rigging.
The sun came up glowing like a ball of fire. The land wind died away
long before it fluttered far off from the island, and, saving the uneasy
clatter at times of the loose sails and running gear, all remained as
before. It was getting on toward eight o'clock, and while the cook was
dishing the breakfast mess for the crew beneath an awning forward of the
quarter-deck, the captain came up from his cabin below. The stalwart old
seaman stepped to the bulwarks, and, shading his eyes with his hand from
the glare, he took a broad glance over the water to seaward, nodded to
the mate, and said, in a cheerful voice,
"Dull times, matey! No signs of a breeze yet, eh?"
"No, captain," said Mr. Binks; "dead as ditch water; not been enough air
to lift a feather since you went below at four o'clock. But we have
sagged inshore by the current a few leagues during the night, and here's
old Jamaica plain in sight broad off the bow."
"Well, it's not so bad after all, a forty-four days' passage--so I'll
tell my Lady Bird passenger."
Going to the latticed door of the deck cabin, the jolly skipper threw it
wide open, clapped his hands together thrice, and then, placing them to
his mouth like a speaking-trumpet, he bellowed out, in a deep, low
roar,
"Heave out there, all hands! Heave out, Lady Bird and baby! Land ho!"
There came a joyous note from a soft womanly voice within a screen drawn
across the after cabin, mingled with a little cooing grunt from a child,
and presently an inner door swung back, and the sweetest little tot of a
boy came tumbling out into the open space, and sprang at once into the
captain's arms. The little fellow buried his brown curly head into the
old skipper's whiskers, and then, kicking up his fat naked legs, he
laughed and chattered like a magpie.
"Aha! you young scamp, this small nose smells the oranges and cinnamon,
eh? And dear lazy mamma shuts her pretty eyes, and won't look for papa,
and so near home, too!"
Here Madame Rosalie's low sweet voice trilled out merrily in a slightly
foreign accent, while the contralto tones vibrated on the ear like the
note of a harp.
"Ah! _bon capitaine_, how could you deceive me? Still, I forgive you for
telling me last night that we were so far from Kingston. When you know,
too," she went on in her Creole accent, "how I love and want to see my
dear husband these last four years, since you carried him away in your
good big ship. But never mind, my good friend, I shall pay you off one
of these days; and now send, please, for Banou to dress his little
boy."
Scarcely had the worthy skipper reached a bell-rope near at hand, and
given it one jerk, than the cabin door opened, and in stepped a brawny
black, whose bare woolly head and white teeth and eyes glittered with
delight. There was that about his face which indicated intelligence,
courage, devotion, and humanity--those indescribable marks of expression
which Nature sometimes stamps in unmistakable lines on the skin, whether
it be white or black. He was below the middle height, but the large head
was set with a great swelling throat on the shoulders of a Titan. His
loose white and red striped shirt was thrown well back over his black
and broad chest; and putting out a pair of muscular arms that seemed as
massive and heavy as lignum vitae, the boy jumped from the captain to
meet them; and then sticking his little soft legs down the slack of
Banou's shirt, he ran his rosy fingers in his wool, and shouted with
glee.
"Oho!" said the black, as he passed his huge arms around the little
fellow, and smoothed down his scanty night-dress as if it were the
plumage of a bird, "oho! little Master Henri loves his Banou, eh? Good,
he take bath."
Bearing his charge out upon the quarter-deck beneath the awning, he
pulled a large tub from under a boat turned upside down over the deck
cabin; and then, while the young monkey had scrambled round to his back,
and was beating a tattoo with his tiny fists on his shoulders, Banou
caught up a bucket and proceeded to draw water from over the side, which
he dashed into the tub. When he had nearly filled the tub he felt around
with his black paws as delicately as if he was about to seize a
musquito, and, clutching the kicking legs with one hand, he spun the
little fellow a somersault over his head, and skinning off at the same
time his diminutive frock, plunged him into the sparkling brine, singing
the while in a laughing chant:
"Dis is the way strong Banou catch him,
First he strip and den he 'plash him;
Henri he jump and 'cream for his moder,
But Banou lub him more dan his broder!"
Here the brawny nurse would souse him head over heels in the sparkling
water, lift him up at every dip, rub his black nose all over him, making
mock bites at the little legs and stomach; and, finally, holding him
aloft, dripping, laughing, and struggling, go on with his refrain:
"What will papa say when he sees him,
Picaninny boy dat is sure to please him?
Big Banou he rub and dress him,
But little Henri he kick and pinch him!"
All this time the men seated forward on the deck, pegging away deep into
their mess-kids, would pause occasionally, shake their great tarry
fingers at the imp, and chuckle pleasantly with their mouths full of
lobscouse, as if the urchin belonged to them as individual property.
"What a tidy little chap he'll make some of these days," said Ben,
"a-furlin' the light sails in a squall! My eye! wouldn't I like to live
and see him!"
"No, no, messmates," replied that worthy, as he crunched a biscuit and
took a sip of coffee out of the pot, "that 'ere child will, some of
these times, when he's growed a bit, be a-wearing gold swabs on his
shoulders, and a-givin' his orders like a hadmiral of a fleet!"
"Quite right, my hearty! It'll never do for sich a knowin' little chub
to spend his days along shore a-bilin' sugar-cane on a plantation, and
a-footin' up accounts; for, ye mind, he was like the chip as was
"'Born at sea, and his cradle a frigate,
The boatswain he nursed him true blue;
He'll soon learn to fight, drink, and jig it,
And quiz every soul of the crew!'"
While these old salts were thus carving out a destiny for the youngster,
the black gave him a final souse in the tub, and then holding him up to
drain, as it were, for the last time, exclaimed, while his face lighted
up with pleasure,
"Oho, my little massa! what will papa say to-morrow when he sees his
brave Henri?"
"Ah! how happy he will be, Banou!" said the lovely mother, who had just
come on deck, as she kissed the mouth of the young scamp, while the
black wrapped and dried his little naked body in a large towel.
"Ah! yes, my mistress, we all will be happy once more to get home to
master on the plantation."
"Tell me! tell me, good _capitaine_," said she, turning in a pretty
coquettish way to the skipper, "when shall we get in port?"
It was a sight to see her, in the loose white morning-gown folded in
plaits about the swelling bosom, her slender waist clasped by a flowing
blue sash, the dark brown satin bands of her hair confined by a large
gold filigree pin, and half concealed by a jaunty little French cap,
with the ribbons floating about her pear-shaped ears; and while her
soft, dark hazel eyes were bent eagerly toward the solid old skipper,
her round, rosy, dimpled fingers clasped a miniature locket fastened by
a massive linked gold chain around her neck. Ah! she was a sight to see
and love!
"Tell me, _mon cher Capitaine_ Blunt, how many hours or minutes will it
be before I shall behold my husband?"
The good-natured skipper laughed pleasantly at the eagerness of his
beautiful passenger, and opening his hands wide, he gave vent to a long,
low whistle, and replied,
"When the wind comes from good San Antonio, my Lady Bird--when the
sea-breeze makes--then the old brig will reel off the knots! But see!
just now not a breath to keep a tropic bird's wings out. There, look at
that fellow!"
High up in the heavens, two or three men-of-war birds, with wide-spread
pointed wings, and their swallow tails cut as sharp as knife-blades,
were heading seaward, and every little while falling in a rapid sidelong
plunge, as if in a vacuum, and then again giving an almost imperceptible
dash with their pinions as they recovered the lost space and continued
on in their silent flight.
"That's a sure sign, Madame Rosalie," continued the skipper, "that the
trade wind has blown itself out, and the chances are that this hot sun
will drink up the flying clouds, and leave us in a dead calm till the
moon quarters to-night. What say you, Mr. Binks? am I right?"
"Never know'd you to be wrong, sir," said the mate, with an honest
intonation of voice, as he tried to stare the sun out of countenance in
following the captain's glance.
"_Helas!_" said the young mother, with a little sigh of sadness, as she
stood peering over the lee rail to the green hills and slopes of the
island, standing boldly out now with the lofty blue mountains cutting
the sky ten thousand feet in mid-heaven; "so near, too; and he is
thinking and waiting for us!"
"Come," exclaimed the skipper, heartily, "the youngster wants his
breakfast!"
[Illustration: "WHEN THE WIND COMES FROM GOOD SAN ANTONIO, MY LADY
BIRD--"]