SUNSET.
"Light is amid the gloomy canvas spreading,
The moon is whitening the dusky sails,
From the thick bank of clouds she masters, shedding
The softest influence that o'er night prevails.
Pale is she, like a young queen pale with splendor,
Haunted with passionate thoughts too fond, too deep;
The very glory that she wears is tender,
The very eyes that watch her beauty fain would weep."
Not a breath from the lungs of Aeolus. The sun went down like a globe of
fire; but just as it touched the horizon it flattened out into an oval
disk, and, sinking behind a dead, slate-colored cloud, shot up half a
dozen broad rose and purple bands, expanding as they mounted heavenward,
and then fading away in pearly-tinted hues in the softening twilight
until it mingled in the light of the half moon nearly at the zenith.
There lay the island, too, now all clear again, with the blue tops of
the mountains marked in pure distinct outline, and falling away from
peak to peak on either hand, till the sea flashed up in sluggish creamy
foam at the base. The man-of-war birds came floating in from seaward,
high up, like black musquitoes, with their pointed wings wide spread and
heading toward the land, but now with never a quiver to their silent
pinions. A school of porpoises, too, broke water from the opposite
direction, and, crossing and recrossing each other's track, came leaping
and puffing over the gentle swells until they struck the brig's wake,
when they wheeled around her bows, dashed off on a swift visit to the
corvette, and then, closing up in watery phalanx, went gamboling,
leaping, and breaking water again to windward. Presently, along the
eastern horizon, the banks of clouds, which had been lying dead and
motionless all the sultry day, seemed to be imbued with life, and,
separating in their fleecy masses, mounted up above the sea, and soon
spread out, like a lady's fan, in all directions.
"Ho! ho!" shouted Captain Blunt, clapping his hands, "what said I,
Madame Rosalie, when we saw the sun setting up his lee backstays a while
ago? A breeze, eh? Come, Mr. Binks, be wide awake! We shall be bowling
off the knots before the watch is out."
The mate caught the enthusiasm of the skipper, and, jumping up on the
break of the deck cabin, he sang out,
"D'ye hear there, lads? give us a good pull of the top-sail halliards,
and round in them starboard braces a bit! That's your sort! Well, the
head-yards! That'll do with the main! Up with the flying jib, and trim
aft them starboard jib and staysail sheets! There! Belay all."
Meanwhile the corvette, with her lofty dimity kissing the sky, caught
the first light airs before the slightest ripple darkened the surface of
the water; and with her helm a-starboard, and her after-yards braced
sharp up, she silently swung round on her heel, while the spanker came
flat aft, like a sheet of white paper, and with the head-sails trimmed,
she slowly moved athwart the stern of the brig. The sharp whistles of
the boatswain and his mates, piping like goldfinches, were the only
sounds that were heard; and as the cruiser moved on in her course, the
declining moon cast a mellow light over the folds of her canvas, and,
like a girl in bridal attire, she threw a graceful shadow over the
smooth and swelling waters away off to windward.
The sails of the brig, which had begun to swell out in easy drooping
lines, fell back again flat to the masts as the ship crossed her wake.
But as the corvette passed, the officer of the watch on the poop raised
his cap to the lovely woman who was standing out in graceful relief on
the upper cabin deck, with her little boy held up beside her in the
sturdy arms of the black, and placing the trumpet to his lips, said, in
a distinct voice, as if addressing the skipper,
"We shall go about at midnight. Remember the directions I gave you this
morning. _Bon voyage, madame!_" He shook his trumpet playfully at the
boy, who put out his chubby arms with delight to the speaker, and then
hammered away with great glee on the crown of his bearer's head.
"Thank you, sir," said Captain Blunt, who was leaning over the rail; and
then turning to his mate, he added,
"Them Yankees, Mr. Binks, always treats a merchantman like gentlemen on
the high seas, and I never knew one on 'em to turn their backs on
friends or foes. What a pity they ever cut adrift from the Old Country!
Howsoever, matey, it can't be helped, and you had better up with the
port studding-sails, hang out all the rags, and make the old drogher
walk."
Now came the rippling breeze all at once over the sea, fluttering
furtively for a minute or two, so as to make the top-sails of the brig
swell out and then fall back in a tremulous shiver; but again bulging
forward in a full-breasted curve, the vessel felt the tug, and began to
dash the spray from her bluff bows till it fell away beyond the lee
cathead in flying masses of foam. The studding-sail booms rolled out,
the sailors busied themselves aloft in making the additional sail, and
by-and-by the old brig floundered along, the bubbles gurgling out ahead
in the ruffled water, tipping over astern as the crests broke on her
quarter; at times plunging her bows into the rolling swell, but coming
up sturdily again, and so on as before.
Meanwhile the corvette had edged away in a parallel course with the
brig, running past her at first as if she were at anchor, when she let
her topgallant-sails slide down to the caps, and, with the weather clew
of her main-sail triced up, she held way with the brig a mile or more to
windward.
The moon was sinking well down in the west, and the clear, well-defined
crescent was occasionally obscured by the light fleecy clouds moving
under the influence of the trade wind, when, toward eight bells, the
moon gave one pure white glimmer, threw a rippling flood of light over
the waves, and sunk below the horizon. Still the stars twinkled and the
planets flamed out like young moons--masked at intervals by the
darkening clouds as they swept overhead in heavy masses--and tinging the
sea with shade, which would again break out in phosphorescent flashes as
the waves caught the reflection.
"Now, Madame Rosalie," said the kind old skipper, "it is nearly
midnight; take your last snooze in the old barky, and wake up bright and
happy for Port Royal and--you know who, in the morning."
The charming woman had been watching, with soul-rapt gaze, the lofty
hills of Jamaica from the last blaze of the setting sun, and until the
moon too had vanished and left only a dim blue haze over the island. She
started as the captain spoke, gave a deep sigh, kissed her hand to the
good old skipper, said "_Bon soir, mon ami_," and with a smile she
entered her cabin.
The black was seated within the partition of the apartment, near a small
swinging cot, urging it gently to and fro, and watching over his little
charge.
"Good-night, Banou," she said, in patois French; "you may go to bed, and
I will take care of my little boy."
The black grinned so as to show his double range of white teeth beneath
the rays of the cabin lamp, and without a word he moved silently away.
The lady stood for a few moments gazing lovingly at the sleeping child,
and then drawing the miniature from her bosom, she detached it with the
chain from her neck, and after pressing it to her lips, she leaned
softly over the cot and fastened it around the little sleeper. As light
and zephyr-like as was the effort, it caused the little fellow to stir,
and reaching out his tiny arms, while a baby smile played around the
dimples of his cheeks, he clasped his mother's neck.
Ah! fond and devoted mother! That was the last sweet infantile caress
your child was ever destined to give you! Treasure it up in joy and
sorrow, in sunshine and gloom, for long, long years will pass before you
press him to your heart again!