Volume III Part 15 (1/2)

We went to the skylight to spread it.

'Now,' said I, 'where is this Mossel Bay that you were speaking about?'

I pored upon the chart in a posture of eager interest. He immediately pointed to the place with a forefinger as delicately shaped as a woman's.

'Ha!' said I. 'Yes; that is to the eastward of Agulhas. See,' I continued, pointing to one of those marginal ill.u.s.trations I have referred to, 'here is a picture of the bay. It is a long walk to Cape Town!' I continued, looking round at Nakier.

'Oh no; plenty coach, plenty horse, plenty ox,' he responded, showing his teeth and speaking without the least hesitation--a quality of a.s.surance that made me hopeful, for it was everything indeed that he should believe us credulous enough to suppose that Mossel Bay was the destination he had in his mind.

'Here is the picture, Helga!' said I. 'D'ye see it, Abraham? A fine open roadstead, not to be easily missed by you and Miss Nielsen. There are a couple of excellent s.e.xtants and a good chronometer below, and all necessary instruments for a safe navigation.'

'Oy, a first-cla.s.s bay, and no mistake!' exclaimed Abraham.

Bending his squint upon the chart in a musing way, he scored along the line of coast with his square-cut thumb, as though calculating courses and distances. Miserable as I felt, I could have burst into a laugh at the face he put on.

'Oi've long had a notion,' said he, still squinting at the chart, 'of wisiting these 'ere foreign parts. Oi've heered tell of Cape Town as a proper city, plenty o' grapes a-knocking about and sherry vines and the likes of them drinks to be had for the asting, everything A1 and up to the knocker. But see here, Nakier,' said he, in a wonderfully familiar and friendly, s.h.i.+pmate-like sort of way. 'Oi'm a pore man, and so is my mate Jacob. Tell ye what Oi'm a-thinking of: ain't there no chance of our taking up a few pound for this here run?'

His apparent earnestness must have deceived a subtler eye than ever Nakier could have brought to bear on him. I uttered a word or two, as though I would remonstrate.

'You and me, Misser Vise, will speak on dat by-um-bye. We allee want money, and we get it,' responded Nakier, nodding significantly.

I partly turned away, as though there was nothing in this conversation to interest me.

'Ye don't know what hovelling is, Nakier, Oi suppose,' said Abraham.

'This here wessel is what we should call a blooming good job down our way----'

I interrupted him, fearful lest he should overdo his part: 'You might go forward and get some breakfast now, Abraham. You can relieve me here when you have finished the meal. Is there anything more you wish to know that this chart can tell us about, Nakier?'

'No, sah. Now you sabbee where Mossel Bay is, it is allee right.'

Abraham was descending the p.o.o.p ladder. Under pretence of giving him the chart to replace in the mate's berth, I whispered, 'Mind you tell Jacob everything,' and then walked aft with Helga, leaving Nakier to go forward.

Throughout that morning the weather continued wonderfully brilliant and quiet. The heavens were a sweep of blue from line to line, and the sun as hot as we might have thought to find it ten degrees farther south.

But shortly after ten o'clock the weak wind, that had been barely giving the _Light of the World_ steerage way, entirely failed; the atmosphere grew stagnant with the dry, parched hollowness that one sometimes notices before a storm, as though Nature sucked in her cheeks before expelling her breath through her feverish lips. I put my head into the skylight to look at the barometer, not knowing but that there might be dirty weather at the heels of this pa.s.sing spell of sultry silence; but the mercury stood high, and the lens-like sharpness of the line of the horizon along with the high fine-weather blue was as ample a confirmation of its promise as one could hope to find. By eleven o'clock the calm was broken by a delicate rippling of wind out of the north-east--the first fanning of the north-east trade-wind I took it to be. The yards were trimmed to the change by Abraham, who followed on with some orders about the foretopmast-studdingsail. I was on deck at the time, and hearing this, rose hastily and thrust past him, saying betwixt my teeth, so vexed was I by his want of foresight:

'Keep all fast with your studdingsail gear, you fool! Are we three Englishmen a line-of-battle s.h.i.+p's company? Think before you bawl out!'

He saw his blunder, and, after a leisurely well-acted view of the sea, as though the weather had raised a debate in his mind, he called out to the three or four fellows who were clambering aloft to rig the boom out on the foreyard:

'Never mind about that there stun'-sail! Ye can lay down, moy lads!' and he bawled to me (who had returned aft), by way, no doubt, of excusing himself to Nakier, who was on the forecastle, and who appeared to be keeping a keen look-out upon the s.h.i.+p on his own account, 'There's no use, Oi think, Mr. Tregarthen, aworriting about stun'-sails ontil this here breeze hardens. It'll only be keeping the men agoing for no good.'

'Unless we are speedy,' I whispered to Helga, as we stood within earshot of the helmsman, 'that man Abraham will ruin us. Think of the fellow piling canvas at such a time! What a curse is consequentiality when out of season! Here is a poor, miserable Deal boatman with the privilege of ordering a few black men about, and he doesn't know how to make enough of his rights.'

From time to time I would gaze mechanically round the sea in search of a s.h.i.+p, but with no notion of finding encouragement in the gleam of a sail or in the shadowing of a steamer's smoke. My hope lay in a very different direction. But custom is strangely strong on s.h.i.+pboard, and I continued to look, though I was without the wish to see.

Shortly before noon I fetched the two s.e.xtants, one of which I gave to Abraham and the other to Helga. The boatman seemed hardly to know what to do with the instrument; it was a new, very handsome s.e.xtant, sparkling with bra.s.s and details of telescope, coloured gla.s.s, and the like, and bore as little resemblance to the aged, time-eaten quadrant that had gone down with the _Early Morn_ as to the cross-staff of the ancient mariner. I marked him putting it to his eye, and then fumbling with it, and, noticing several fellows forward, Nakier among them, attentively watching us, I called to him softly:

'Keep it at your eye, man! Let them believe that you thoroughly understand it!'

'Roight ye are,' he answered, putting the instrument to his face; 'but who the blazes is agoing to bring the sun into the middle o' such a muddle o' hornamentation as this here?'