"A Terrible ending to a sin-stained career," murmured the skipper of the
_Aurora_ with white set lips, when the first shock of surprise and
consternation had passed away sufficiently to allow him to speak. "Up
with your helm, my man," he continued to the seaman at the wheel; "up
with your helm, and keep her away upon a west and by south course; we'll
get away from this accursed spot as soon as possible. Man the braces,
fore and aft, if you please, Mr Ritson, square the yards, secure the
long-gun, and then let all hands make sail."
Then, going to the companion, he passed the word below for Mr Bowen to
close the magazine and come on deck.
Five minutes later the chief mate emerged from the companion, and,
walking up to George, observed--
"Well, sir, you've managed to make a pretty effectual end of the
buccaneer, I see."
"Yes," answered George gravely. "The schooner struck; but we are much
too short-handed to take and retain possession of such a craft as that,
so, as I did not feel justified in leaving them at liberty to resume
their nefarious business, I continued to fire into the schooner,
intending to sink her; and I am of opinion that her captain, recognising
the fact that escape was hopeless, blew her up with his own hand, hoping
to involve us in the destruction also. It was a terrible thing, Mr
Bowen, to cause the loss of so many lives, but I am convinced that I
only did my duty. And now, as there seems to be no immediate prospect
of our falling in with the fleet again, I propose to take full advantage
of this fine fair wind, and proceed upon my voyage; so please pack on
the ship everything that will draw; then let the men clear up the decks,
and knock off work; they have had two very fatiguing days, and have
fought well; let them get all the rest they possibly can between this
and to-morrow morning."
When the sun set that evening, the _Aurora_ was flying to the southward
and westward (as if instinct with life and thrilling with horror at her
terrible achievement) before the freshening gale at the rate of fully
twelve knots per hour, with studding-sails set on both sides, alow and
aloft; while her crew, assembled on the forecastle, discussed in low
tones the incidents of the fight, and her skipper, with hands clasped
behind him, bent head, and furrowed brow, held solemn self-communion
upon the same subject.
George Leicester now found himself at liberty to attend to his guest,
and he spent almost the whole of his leisure time by the side of
Walford's cot. For the first week after the arrival of the latter on
board the _Aurora_ very little change or improvement could be detected
in him; his mental faculties seemed to be almost paralysed; and he would
lie in his cot for hours at a time, with wide-opened eyes, staring into
vacancy, the blank, expressionless look upon his face betraying the
utter inactivity of his mind. Then there would occur a short period,
during which it seemed that memory was struggling to re-assert itself;
he would glance vacantly round the cosy sleeping-cabin in which he found
himself, a look of mild surprise would overspread his features, and he
would pass his hand over his brow with the action of one who is trying
to remember something; then would recur another vacant period.
During all this time he never expressed a wish or uttered a single
coherent word; only occasionally, when the memory was struggling to
regain its seat, he would mutter a few incoherent words, that of
"murder" being sometimes repeated, in low tones of suppressed horror,
half-a-dozen times together. His appetite appeared to be good, since he
ate and drank freely whatever was offered him; but if the food was
withheld, as it sometimes was, by way of experiment, at Captain
Leicester's order, he never asked for it, or evinced any surprise or
uneasiness at its non-appearance.
About the tenth day, however, after the one on which he had been picked
up, George thought he detected signs of improvement. The periods of
thinking were more frequent and more prolonged, and once during that
day, when the skipper entered the cabin, Walford noticed the opening of
the door, and, turning his eyes in that direction, regarded George for
some moments with a steadfast inquiring look; but the recognition, if
such there was, was momentary only, the hand was pressed meditatively to
the forehead the next instant, and then the blank look returned.
The next day witnessed a recurrence of the same symptoms, added to which
there seemed to be a vague sort of semi-recognition of George's voice;
for, whenever the latter spoke, Walford would look up with an anxious
questioning glance, as though he had an idea that he had heard the voice
before.
Finally, on that same evening, when George and Mr Bowen were in the
saloon together, chatting over the tea-table, the after-cabin door being
open, so as to insure a current of air through the apartment, Walford,
who had been asleep, suddenly started up in his cot with the
exclamation--
"Surely that is Leicester's voice?"
George heard the ejaculation, and, springing to his feet, stepped
eagerly into the sleeping-cabin, saying--
"Of course it is, my dear fellow. How do you feel now? Better?"
"Better?" repeated Walford. "I haven't been ill, have I? Where am I?
How did I come here? And where did _you_ come from?"
"What a string of questions!" said George with a laugh. "But don't
worry yourself by trying to guess the answers to any of them just now,
you have been ill; but, thank God, you are getting better again. When
you are well enough to listen, I will tell you all I know; until then
you must be satisfied with the assurance that you are as safe as a man
can be in a tight little ship, with fine weather and plenty of
sea-room."
"Safe!" ejaculated Walford. "Ah! but _am_ I safe? I have a horrible
feeling of dread upon me--a sensation of some frightful danger hovering
over me--a feeling that unless I can do something, I know not what, a
hideous disaster will happen."
He shuddered violently as these words left his lips; then, turning
suddenly to George, he grasped him convulsively by the arm, and
exclaimed in agitated tones--
"Oh, Leicester! tell me what is it that threatens? What have I to guard
against? If you know what it is--"
"There," said George soothingly, "do not worry about it any more. I did
not intend to say a word about it for some time to come; but, since I
find that you remember something about it, I will tell you this much.
You _have_ been in very great danger indeed, but all that is long past;
you are now on board my ship, more than a thousand miles away from the
danger which threatened you, and as safe as a man can be in mid-ocean."
"Thanks, thanks! I believe you," muttered Walford with a sigh of
ineffable relief, as he sank back upon his pillow. "So I am in your
ship, eh? That's strange; I can't imagine--but, there, I shall not
worry myself any more about the matter; you'll look after me, I know;
you're a thorough good fellow, Leicester, and I'm almost sorry now that
I--that I--um! what _was_ it, now? Well, I dare say I shall remember it
further on. I say, old fellow, what time is it? Nearly dinner-time, I
should think, for I feel most confoundedly hungry."
"It _is_ nearly dinner-time," answered George, delighted to find so
great an improvement in the man he had vowed to protect and restore.
"If you can hold out for another half-hour, I think I may promise you a
decent meal by that time. Will that do?"
"Yes, oh, yes, I dare say I can manage to survive until then," murmured
Walford.
Whereupon the skipper hurried away and took counsel with the steward;
the result of which was that in little more than the stipulated
half-hour Walford was served with the best meal which the _Aurora's_
resources could furnish.
From that time he grew steadily better, and in another day or two he was
able to leave his cot and to indulge in a bath, a clean shave, and an
hour or so on deck, half-sitting, half-reclining in a hammock which the
skipper had ordered to be slung for him from the spanker-boom. He
suffered from extreme bodily weakness, doubtless the result of his
frenzied exertions on board the ill-fated _Princess Royal_; but that
was, of course, an evil which rest and nourishing food would speedily
remedy. But he did not recover the use of his reasoning faculties for
some time after the period now referred to, and then the recovery was
only partial.
As for Captain Leicester, he was in high spirits; the breeze lasted
fresh for four full days after his encounter with the pirate schooner,
so fresh indeed that once or twice he was obliged to furl his royals, in
order to save the sticks; and the barque, no longer compelled to
moderate her pace to that of the slowest sailer in a large fleet,
maintained a steady speed of twelve knots during the whole of that time,
thus fully making up, in the skipper's opinion, for the time and ground
lost during the gale, and encouraging him to look forward hopefully to
the accomplishment of a quick passage.
But such a state of things was too good to last. On the fifth day the
wind fell light, and on the sixth it failed them altogether, leaving the
_Aurora_ helpless in the "doldrums," she being at that time about a
thousand miles from Cape Haytien, and six hundred from the island of
Saint Thomas. This was particularly vexatious, because Captain
Leicester considered that, had the breeze continued fresh and favourable
for only twenty-four hours longer, it would in all probability have run
him fairly into the North-East trades, and he would then have been able
to calculate the duration of the remainder of the voyage with almost
mathematical exactness, and, what was still more to the purpose, would
have been sure of a breeze, and that a fair one, for the remainder of
the way.
However, there was no help for it, they had to take the wind and weather
as it came, and the crew had a busy time of it "box-hauling" the yards,
now this way, now that; trimming the sails to every passing breath of
the capricious air, and, after all their trouble, accomplishing only
some half-a-dozen miles during the whole day.
On the next day it was the same, excepting that the proceedings were
varied by a tremendously heavy thunder-storm, followed by, instead of
the wind which Captain Leicester so earnestly hoped for, a perfect
deluge of rain, which lasted for rather more than an hour. It was a
regular tropical downpour; the water descended, not in separate detached
drops, but in _sheets_, which splashed down on the decks as if from a
cataract. Advantage was taken of this copious downfall of pure fresh
water to refill all the water-casks; after which the scuppers were
plugged, wash-deck tubs filled, and all hands, stripping to the skin,
indulged in the unwonted luxury of a thorough ablution in the warm soft
water, finishing up by rousing out all their "wash clothes," and
treating them to the same beneficial process.
The storm cleared away as rapidly as it had worked up, leaving the sky
absolutely cloudless, and the water thrashed down by the rain until it
was smooth as a polished mirror. The heat was intense, and the men,
notwithstanding their refreshing bath, went about their work languidly,
perspiring at every pore. It was a positive relief to them to see the
sun at last go down behind the gleaming horizon, and a greater relief
still when, an hour later, a faint breeze from the eastward came
creeping over the water, and, barely filling the _Aurora's_ light upper
sails, gave her just sufficient way through the water to allow of her
head being kept in the right direction.
At eight o'clock that evening Mr Bowen retired to his cabin, it being
then his watch below, and at nine the skipper followed his example. The
ship was then stealing along through the water at a speed of about two
knots, the royals, topgallantsails, and more lofty staysails just
"asleep," the topsails alternately filling out and flapping again to the
masts with the barely perceptible swing of the ship over the low, long,
sleepy heave of the swell, and the courses drooping heavily and
uselessly from the yards. The sky was "as clear as a bell," to use a
favourite metaphor of Ritson's, not a trace of cloud being visible in
any part of the vast sapphire vault which stretched overhead, spangled
here and there with a few stars of the first magnitude, and with the
moon, nearly at the full, hanging in the midst like a disc of burnished
silver, her pure soft light flooding the sea with its dazzling radiance,
and causing the sails to stand out like sheets of ivory against the deep
dark blue of the sky. There seemed to be no immediate prospect of any
change in the weather, but George was thankful that the ship was really
at last moving once more--though ever so slowly--in the right direction;
and, fervently hoping that the breeze would last long enough to run him
into the "trades," he went below with an easy mind, after giving Ritson
the usual stereotyped order to call him should any untoward event occur.
After the overpowering heat of the day the comparative coolness of the
night was unspeakably refreshing, and with all the doors, the skylight,
and the stern-windows open, and a thorough circulation of fresh air
through the cabins, their several occupants were soon wrapped in a sound
and dreamless slumber.
It was even more pleasant on deck than it was below, for the hull of the
ship had, during the long scorching day, absorbed a considerable amount
of heat, which it gave off again during the night, causing the cabins
and forecastle to be unpleasantly warm even after all possible means had
been adopted for their thorough ventilation, whilst on deck the full
benefit of the breeze, what there was of it, was to be obtained.
Such, at all events, was Mr Ritson's opinion, as he sauntered
listlessly fore and aft, between the taffrail and the main-mast,
glancing now aloft at the all but idle canvas, then into the binnacle,
then over the side at the tiny bubbles creeping lazily past the ship's
side, and finally forward, to where the man on the lookout could be seen
seated upon the rail, facing ahead, with his arms folded and his back
leaning against the great wooden stock of one of the anchors, his form
showing black as that of an ebony statue against the brilliant silvery
sheen of the moonlight on the water. The remainder of the crew were
dimly visible seated on the deck in the black shadow of the bulwarks, a
tiny red spark or two indicating that some of them were solacing the
idle hours with a whiff or two of the fragrant weed. Officers who were
strict disciplinarians would have forbidden smoking in the watch on
deck, and would have insisted on the whole watch keeping constantly on
the move, as a safeguard against dozing; but Ritson was not a strict
disciplinarian; he liked to spare the men all unnecessary labour of
every kind, and, as there was no sail-trimming to be done, he just
allowed them to rest their weary bodies as much as they could.
He would have liked greatly to rest his own weary body, too, for indeed
he felt it to be almost a torture to be pacing ceaselessly to and fro
there on the deck, hour after hour.
He pulled out his watch, the hands indicated that it was ten minutes to
ten; it would be full two hours more before he would be relieved. There
was a most inviting-looking chair standing on deck near the skylight,
which Captain Leicester had been using during the day, and poor Ritson
thought how pleasant it would be to rest his tired limbs in it for a few
minutes. Then he took a stroll round the decks, just to wile away the
time, and to make sure that the watch--and especially the lookout--was
not "caulking." The shadowy figures scrambled somewhat hurriedly to
their feet on his approach, giving rise to just the faintest suspicion
that perhaps after all they _might_ have been "shutting their eyes to
keep them warm;" but the lookout man seemed unconscious of his presence,
and was humming, scarcely above his breath, the air of a homely song as
Ritson passed him, his gaze resting on a brig ahead, which had been in
sight all day, and which, from the fact that she was steering in the
same direction as the _Aurora_, was thought to belong, like themselves,
to the dispersed fleet. When Ritson again reached the quarterdeck, it
was ten o'clock, so he struck "four bells" sharply; the wheel and
lookout were relieved, and then everybody settled down once more, to
pass away the remaining two hours of the watch.
As has been already hinted, Ritson was not so strict a disciplinarian as
to forbid smoking by the watch on deck, so long, of course, as the
smoking was not allowed to interfere with the duty of the ship. Nay,
more; he sometimes allowed himself the luxury of a pipe under similar
circumstances, and he thought he might safely do so on the present
occasion. So, seating himself in the skipper's chair, he drew out his
pipe, tobacco, and knife, and prepared to enjoy his whiff.
Oh! how comfortable a chair that was! How great a relief to sit in it,
even for the minute or two during which he was cutting up his tobacco
and filling his pipe! This work, though performed with great
deliberation, was at length accomplished; his steel and tinder-box
furnished him with a light; and he began to smoke.
Somehow he forgot to get up out of the chair again when his pipe was
lighted, but, leaning back restfully in it instead, watched the little
rings and wreaths of smoke which issued from it and went floating lazily
away until they vanished in the soft cool air of the night. Then, by
association of ideas, Ritson's thoughts strayed away to the little
flaxen, curly-haired urchin at home, his one-year-old son, who used to
be so delighted to watch the wreathing smoke issue from his father's
pipe, that he would crow and jump and kick upon his mother's knee, until
the good woman had hard work to hold him. He fancied he could see the
young rascal still, his fat, dimpled cheeks wreathed with smiles of
delight, his blue eyes sparkling, and his fat chubby arms and legs
flourishing in the air as he made frantic grasps at the little blue
smoke-rings floating toward him. Yes; and he could hear Anna's, his
wife's voice, half-jestingly, half in earnest, scolding the happy father
for keeping the child awake. And, letting his thoughts have free play
on _so_ pleasant a theme, he could recall the same voice crooning a
soothing lullaby to the little fellow as, later on, he nestled into his
mother's breast, tired out with his romp, and softly sank to sleep.
Very soothing was that lullaby--very soothing indeed--yes--it was--
very--a--very--soothing--little--song--and--and--
And Ritson's head sank upon his breast, as he, too, yielded to the
seductive influence of sleep.
A _few_ feet away stood or rather lolled the helmsman, his body drooping
over the wheel, on the upper rim of which he had crossed his arms for
the sake of the welcome support. On taking charge of the wheel he had
been given the course, and, glancing into the binnacle, he found that
the barque was heading in the required direction; upon which, like a
good helmsman, he at once selected a star to steer by, a star which was
just a finger's breadth clear of the main-royal yard-arm. By the time
that he had been at the wheel a quarter of an hour he discovered that
the ship was steering herself, and he accordingly relaxed his vigilance,
allowing his thoughts to travel away whithersoever they would.
Gradually his weary eyelids closed, and a short period--perhaps a minute
or so--of forgetfulness followed, from which he would suddenly start
guiltily and glance first aloft at the star, and then at the motionless
figure of Ritson. This glance of inquiry showing that the star still
occupied its proper position, and that the second mate had not observed
his dereliction of duty, the eyelids again closed, and a longer period
of forgetfulness would ensue, which of course ended, as it was sure to
do, in the man falling soundly asleep as he stood.
As for the man on the lookout, he was notorious for his somnolent
powers. He made no pretence of an effort to keep awake. There was no
reason, he argued, why he should. It was a fine night, as light as day;
there was nothing in sight but the brig ahead, and, although the
_Aurora_ was clearly gaining on her, there was no likelihood of her
running over her in _his_ watch; therefore to keep a lookout just then
was quite a useless formality. Besides, there was the officer of the
watch, who would keep all the lookout required on such a brilliantly
fine night. And, arguing thus, he settled himself comfortably into the
position vacated by his predecessor, and, folding his arms across his
breast, tranquilly composed himself to sleep.
The remainder of the watch had settled down to sleep, as a matter of
course; _they_ had not the lookout; and they were within call of the
officer of the watch, should their services be required; that, they
considered, was all that was just then expected of them; and they closed
their eyes, and yielded to their feelings of drowsiness without a shadow
of compunction.
Thus, by half-past ten o'clock that night, the entire ship's company of
the _Aurora_, fore and aft, were fast asleep.
Whilst all hands were thus wrapped in peaceful oblivion a small object
gradually merged into view immediately ahead of the _Aurora_. Had the
lookout man been broad awake--instead of fast asleep, as he was--he
would certainly not have noticed this object until it was within a mile
of the ship--unless his gaze had happened to have been attracted by an
occasional momentary flashing gleam of silvery light--because its colour
so artfully matched the delicate steely blue grey of the gently-rippled
sea that it was absolutely invisible beyond that distance. Even at the
distance of _half_ a mile a cursory careless glance ahead might have
easily missed it. But when a quarter of a mile only intervened between
it and the barque the look out man, had he been wide-awake and with all
his wits about him, would suddenly have become conscious that a large
boat, painted grey, and full of men, was pulling swiftly and noiselessly
toward the ship. On she swept, silently as a dream; not a word was
uttered on board her; there was no warning roll and rattle of the oars
in the rowlocks to apprise the sleeping crew of the approach of danger;
there was not even the plashing sound of the oar-blades dipping into the
water, they rose and fell silently as the misty oars of a phantom boat;
and when at length she swept up alongside the _Aurora_, a _sign_ was all
that was needed to convey the orders of the officer in charge to his
crew: his right hand was gently raised, the oars were noiselessly lifted
from the rowlocks and laid in without a sound upon the padded thwarts,
the boat sheered alongside, without absolutely touching, the painter was
made fast to the _Aurora's_ fore-chains, and sixteen armed figures
climbed noiselessly as ghosts over the bulwarks, leaving two in charge
of the boat.