Volume III Part 4 (1/2)

'It is so bad,' she exclaimed, 'that I feel persuaded it cannot last.'

'Let us go on deck. If we linger here he may rejoin us. How tragical it all is one may know by the humour of it.'

We went softly to the companion-steps, and I recollect that I looked over my shoulder to see if he was following us--than which I can recall no better proof of my perfect recognition of our helplessness.

The new moon had followed the sun, and the planet would not be showing by night for two or three days; but in the south, and over our mastheads, the sky was richly spangled with stars, which burnt in one or two dyes of glory, and very sharply, whence, from recollection of a like sight at home, I supposed that hard weather was at hand. There was some little lightning, of a delicate shade of violet, in the north-east, which, indeed, would have been no noticeable thing down in this part of the world but for the mountainous heaping of cloud it revealed, a black sullen ma.s.s stretching along the sea-line in that quarter, and putting a hue as of ink into the dusk which swept in glittering obscurity to the shadow of it. There was a great deal of greenish fire in the sea, and it broadened and shrank in wide s.p.a.ces in the lift of the noiseless running swell as though the rays of a tinted lantern were cast upon the water.

The dew was plentiful, and lay along the rails and upon the skylight, crisp as frost in the stars.h.i.+ne.

It was Abraham's watch, and I spied his figure flitting c.u.mbrously in the neighbourhood of the wheel, at which stood the shape of some coloured man, motionless as though carved in ebony, faintly touched by the sheen of the binnacle lamp. I was in no humour to converse with the boatman. His stupid talk that afternoon in response to my questions had vexed me, and I was still angry with the fool, as I chose to think him, spite of the claims he had upon my kindness and grat.i.tude.

I put Helga's hand under my arm, and we quietly patrolled the deck to leeward. Our conversation wholly concerned our position--it would only tease you to repeat it. There was nothing to suggest, no plan to propose; for think, advise, scheme as we might, it could only come to this: that if the Captain declined to part with us, then, unless the men took our side and insisted on putting us aboard a pa.s.sing s.h.i.+p, we must stop. But if the crew took our side, it would be mutiny with them; and bewilderingly disagreeable as our situation was, preposterously and ridiculously wretched as it was, yet a.s.suredly it was not to be mended by a revolt among those dusky skins forward.

Yet the fancy of stirring up the Malays to befriend us was in my mind as I walked with the girl.

'G.o.d forbid,' said I, 'that I should have a hand in it; yet, for all that, I believe it is to be done. I had a short talk with Nakier to-day, and there was that in his questions and his manner which persuades me that the train is ready, and nothing wanting but the spark.'

'A mutiny is a terrible thing at sea,' said she; 'and what would men like the crew of this s.h.i.+p stop at?'

'Ay, nothing more terrible, Helga. But are we to be carried to the Cape?'

'The Captain has no intention of putting into Santa Cruz,' said she.

'_That_ we may be sure of. But does the fellow intend that you shall pa.s.s week after week with no other apparel than what you stand up in?'

I was interrupted by Abraham sending a hurricane shout into the blackness forward for some hands to clew up the fore and main royals, and for others to lay aft and haul down the gaff-topsail.

'It's agoing to blow to-night, Mr. Tregarthen,' he called across to me.

'Yes; and you may see where it is coming from, too,' I replied, not knowing till then that he had observed us.

In a few moments the silence that had hung upon the vessel, with nothing to disturb it but an occasional sob of water and the beating of canvas hollowing into the mast to the roll of the fabric, was broken by the strange howling noises raised by the coloured seamen as they hauled upon the gear.

'Get them sails furled, my lads!' bawled Abraham; 'and the rest of ye lay aft and take this 'ere mizzen off her.'

'It is wonderful that the fellows should understand the man,' said I.

'There's the Captain!' exclaimed Helga, instantly halting, and then recoiling in a way that dragged me a pace back with her.

He rose through the companion-hatch, his outline vaguely visible in the dim radiance sifting through the cabin skylight. Abraham addressed him.

'Quite right, Wise, very wise of you, Wise!' he exclaimed. 'There is a marked fall in the barometer, and I perceive lightning in the north-east, with a deal of rugged cloud down there.' His shadowy form stepped to the binnacle, into which he peered a moment. 'I think, Wise,'

said he--and, to use a Paddyism, I could _see_ the man's fixed and singular smile in the oiliness of his accents--'that you cannot do better than go forward and rouse up all hands. I can rely best upon my crew when the weather is quiet.'

Abraham trudged forward, and a minute later I heard him thumping heavily on the fore hatch, topping the blows with a boatswain's hoa.r.s.e roar of 'All hands shorten sail!'

'The Captain's politeness,' I said, 'will end in making that Deal boatman sit at his feet.'

'He is afraid of his crew, perhaps,' answered Helga, 'and is behaving so as to make sure that the two men will stand by him should difficulties come.'

'It was a bad blow that sunk the fellows' lugger. We might have sighted that steamer of to-day and be now homeward bound at the rate of fourteen knots an hour.'