Volume III Part 6 (1/2)

That few vessels would better know how to plunge and roll than this old _Light of the World_ I might have guessed from her behaviour in quiet weather, when there was nothing but a slight swell to lift her. But I never could have conjectured how truly prodigious was her skill in the art of tumbling. She soared and sank as an empty cask might. She took every hollow with a shock that threatened to rend her bones into fragments, as though she had been hurled through the air from a mighty height; and when she swung up an acclivity, the sensation was that of being violently lifted, as by a balloon or by the grip of an eagle.

Groans and cries rose from her interior as though she had a thousand miserable, peris.h.i.+ng slaves--men, women, and children--locked up in her hold.

'This,' said I to Helga, 'is worse than the _Anine_.'

'Yet it was blowing harder on that Sat.u.r.day night than it is now,' she answered, watching the mad oscillations of the cabin lamp with serene eyes and a mouth steadfast in expression. 'I have a greater dread of Captain Bunting's smile,' she continued, 'than of any hurricane that can blow across the ocean.' She looked at the clock. 'He is certain to arrive shortly. He is sure to find some excuse to torture me with his politeness. He will tease me to exchange my cabin. I think I will go to bed, Hugh.'

There was little temptation to remain up. I put my hand under her arm to steady the pair of us, and we pa.s.sed on to the quarter-deck, where I found the hatch that led to our sleeping quarters shut. We lifted it, and looked into a blackness profounder than that of a coal-mine. On this I roared for Punmeamootty. I shouted four or five times at the top of my lungs, and then some voice bawled from over the rail of the deck above, 'What's wrong down there?' Who it was I could not tell; it was impossible to distinguish voices amid the h.e.l.lish clamour of the wind roaring in the rigging with the sound of a tempest-swept forest. I took no notice, and bawled again for Punmeamootty, and, after a little, the poor coloured wretch came out of the darkness into the sheen of the cabin-light that feebly touched the quarter-deck, crawling on his hands and knees. He was soaked through, and when he stood up could scarcely keep his feet. Indeed, forward, the seas were sweeping the decks in sheets, and each time the vessel lifted her bows the water came roaring in a fury of foam to the cuddy front.

We were forced to put the hatch on again to keep the sea out of the s.h.i.+p till Punmeamootty came staggering out of the cuddy with a lantern. Helga then dropped below with amazing dexterity, and I handed the light down to her, requesting that she would hang it up and leave it burning, as I was in no mood to 'turn in' just then, wis.h.i.+ng to see more of the weather before resting, and to smoke a pipe. I put the hatch on and re-entered the cuddy, followed by Punmeamootty.

'You seem half drowned!' said I.

'A sea knock me down, sah. Is dere danger, sah?'

'I hope not,' I answered. 'Do you feel equal to picking up that mess?'

and I pointed to the broken china and bit of beef, and so on.

He turned a terrified eye upon them, staggering and swaying wildly, and then, as though he had not heard my question, he exclaimed, 'We all say dis storm come tro' Capt'n being wicked man! Tankee de Lor'! we hab no eat pork! Tankee de Lor'! we hab no eat pork!'

He bared his gleaming teeth, as though in the anguish of cold, and shook his small clenched fist at the skylight. I sat down and lighted a pipe, and, having been somewhat chilled by waiting out in the wet of the quarter-deck for Punmeamootty to bring the lantern, I slided and clawed my way round to Captain Bunting's locker for a bottle of rum that lay within. As I did this, the companion door opened, and down came the skipper. The wind and the wet had twisted his whiskers into lines like lengths of rope. I could have burst into a laugh at the sight of his singular face, framed in the streaming thatch and flannel ear-protectors of his sou'-wester. The water poured from his oilskins as he came to a stand at the end of the table, grabbing it, and looking about him.

'What's all that?' cried he, pointing with a fat forefinger to the mess on deck.

This was addressed to Punmeamootty, but I answered, flinging the surliest note I could manage into my voice, which I had to raise into a shout, 'An accident. This is a beast of a s.h.i.+p, sir! No barge could make worse weather of a breeze of wind.'

I let fall the lid of the locker, and sat upon it, poising the bottle of rum, and blowing a great cloud with my pipe.

'Where is Miss Nielsen?' he exclaimed.

'Gone to bed,' I answered. 'Punmeamootty, reach me a gla.s.s out of that rack.'

The man, in taking the tumbler, reeled to a violent heel of the deck, and let it fall.

'D--n it!' roared the Captain, 'you clumsy son of a b.i.t.c.h! What more damage is to be done?' His sudden pa.s.sion made his fixed smile extraordinarily grotesque. 'Get a basket and pick up that stuff, and bear a hand!' he thundered. 'Has Miss Helga a light?'

'Yes,' I answered. 'I have seen to that.'

'But she may fall--she may let the lantern drop!'

'She is a better sailor than you,' I called out; 'she knows how to keep her feet. Punmeamootty! a tumbler, if you please, before you begin picking up that stuff.'

'I must see that Miss Nielsen's lantern is safe,' said the Captain; and he was coming forward as though to pa.s.s through the cuddy door. I sprang to my feet and confronted him on widely stretched legs.

'No man,' said I, 'enters Miss Nielsen's sleeping quarters while she and I remain in this s.h.i.+p.'

He stared at me, with twenty emotions working in his face. His countenance then changed. I perceived him glance at the bottle of rum that I held by the neck, and that I was just in the temper to let him have fair between his eyes had he attempted to shove past me. I believe he thought I had been drinking.

'I can a.s.sure you,' he exclaimed, with a violent reaching out of his mind, so to speak, in the direction of his regular and familiar blandness, 'that Miss Nielsen's privacy is as sacred to me as to you.

Will you go below and see that her light is all right? It is a matter that as much concerns your safety as ours.'