Homeward Bound; Or, the Chase Part 14

To this the baronet gave a willing a.s.sent, protesting that his feelings had got so much enlisted on the side of the vessel he was in, that he would cheerfully forfeit a thousand pounds rather than be overtaken. The master a.s.sured him that was just what he liked, and swore that he was the sort of pa.s.senger he most delighted in.

"When a man puts his foot on the deck of a ship, Sir George, he should look upon her as his home, his church, his wife and children, his uncles and aunts, and all the other lumber ash.o.r.e. This is the sentiment to make seamen. Now, I entertain a greater regard for the shortest ropeyarn aboard this ship, than for the topsail-sheets or best bower of any other vessel.

It is like a man's loving his own finger, or toe, before another person's.

I have heard it said that one should love his neighbour as well as himself; but for my part I love my ship better than my neighbour's, or my neighbour himself; and I fancy, if the truth were known, my neighbour pays me back in the same coin! For my part, I like a thing because it is mine."

A little before dark the head of the Montauk was inclined towards Lisbon, as if her intention was to run in, but the moment the dark spot that pointed out the position of the Foam was lost in the haze of the horizon, Captain Truck gave the order to "_ware_" and sail was made to the west-south-west.

Most of the pa.s.sengers felt an intense curiosity to know the state of things on the following morning, and all the men among them were dressed and on deck just as the day began to break. The wind had been fresh and steady all night, and as the ship had been kept with, her yards a little checked, and topmast studding-sails set, the officers reported her to be at least a hundred miles to the westward of the spot where she veered. The reader will imagine the disappointment the latter experienced, then, when they beheld the Foam a little on their weather-quarter, edging away for them as a.s.siduously as she had been hauling up for them, the night they sailed from Portsmouth, distant little more than a league!

"This is indeed extraordinary perseverance," said Paul Blunt to Eve, at whose side he was standing at the moment the fact was ascertained, "and I think our captain might do well to heave-to and ascertain its cause."

"I hope not," cried his companion with vivacity. I confess to an _esprit de corps_, and a gallant determination to 'see it out,' as Mr. Leach styles his own resolution. One does not like to be followed about the ocean in this manner, unless it be for the interest it gives the voyage.

After all, how much better is this than dull solitude, and what a zest it gives to the monotony of the ocean!"

"Do you then find the ocean a scene of monotony?"

"Such it has oftener appeared to me than anything else, and I give it a fair trial, having never _le mal de mer_. But I acquit it of this sin now; for the interest of a chase, in reasonably good weather, is quite equal to that of a horse-race, which is a thing I delight in. Even Mr. John Effingham can look radiant under its excitement."

"And when this is the case, he is singularly handsome; a n.o.bler outline of face is seldom seen than that of Mr. John Effingham."

"He has a n.o.ble outline of soul, if he did but know it himself," returned Eve, warmly: "I love no one as much as he, with the exception of my father, and as Mademoiselle Viefville would say, _pour cause_."

The young man could have listened all day, but Eve smiled, bowed graciously, though with a glistening eye, and hastily left the deck, conscious of having betrayed some of her most cherished feelings to one who had no claim to share them.

Captain Truck, while vexed to his heart's core, or, as he expressed it himself, "struck aback, like an old lady shot off a hand-sled in sliding down hill," was prompt in applying the old remedy to the evil. The Montauk was again put before the wind, sail was made, and the fortunes of the chase were once more cast on the "play of the ship."

The commander of the Foam certainly deprecated this change, for it was hardly made before he set his ensign, and fired a gun. But of these signals no other notice was taken than to show a flag in return, when the captain and his mates proceeded to get the bearings of the sloop-of-war.

Ten minutes showed they were gaining; twenty did better and in an hour she was well on the quarter.

Another day of strife succeeded, or rather of pure sailing, for not a rope was started on board the Montauk, the wind still standing fresh and steady. The sloop made many signals, all indicating a desire to speak the Montauk, but Captain Truck declared himself too experienced a navigator to be caught by bunting, and in too great a hurry to stop and chat by the way.

"Vattel had laid down no law for such a piece of complaisance, in a time of profound peace. I am not to be caught by that category."

The result may be antic.i.p.ated from what has been already related. The two ships kept before the wind until the Foam was again far astern, and the observations of Captain Truck told him, he was as far south as the Azores.

In one of these islands he was determined to take refuge, provided he was not favoured by accident, for going farther south was out of the question, unless absolutely driven to it. Calculating his distance, on the evening of the sixth day out, he found that he might reach an anchorage at Pico, before the sloop-of-war could close with him, even allowing the necessity of hauling up again by the wind.

But Providence had ordered differently. Towards midnight, the breeze almost failed and became baffling, and when the day dawned the officer of the watch reported that it was ahead. The pursuing ship, though still in sight, was luckily so far astern and to leeward as to prevent any danger from a visit by boats, and there was leisure to make the preparations that might become necessary on the springing up of a new breeze. Of the speedy occurrence of such a change there was now every symptom, the heavens lighting up at the north-west, a quarter from which the genius of the storms mostly delights in making a display of his power.

Chapter X

I come with mightier things; Who calls mo silent? I have many tones-- The dark sky thrills with low mysterious moans, Borne on my sweeping winds.

MRS. HEMANS.

The awaking of the winds on the ocean is frequently attended with signs and portents as sublime as any the fancy can conceive. On the present occasion, the breeze that had prevailed so steadily for a week was succeeded by light baffling puffs, as if, conscious of the mighty powers of the air that were a.s.sembling in their strength, these inferior blasts were hurrying to and fro for a refuge. The clouds, too, were whirling about in uncertain eddies, many of the heaviest and darkest descending so low along the horizon, that they had an appearance of settling on the waters in quest of repose. But the waters themselves were unnaturally agitated. The billows, no longer following each other in long regular waves, were careering upwards, like fiery coursers suddenly checked in their mad career. The usual order of the eternally unquiet ocean was lost in a species of chaotic tossings of the element, the seas heaving themselves upward, without order, and frequently without visible cause.

This was the reaction of the currents, and of the influence of breezes still older than the last. Not the least fearful symptom of the hour was the terrific calmness of the air amid such a scene of menacing wildness.

Even the ship came into the picture to aid the impression of intense expectation; for with her canvas reduced, she, too, seemed to have lost that instinct which had so lately guided her along the trackless waste, and was "wallowing," nearly helpless, among the confused waters. Still she was a beautiful and a grand object, perhaps more so at that moment than at any other; for her vast and naked spars, her well-supported masts, and all the ingenious and complicated hamper of the machine, gave her a resemblance to some sinewy and gigantic gladiator, pacing the arena, in waiting for the conflict that was at hand.

"This is an extraordinary scene," said Eve, who clung to her father's arm, as she gazed around her equally in admiration and in awe; "a dreadful exhibition of the sublimity of nature!"

"Although accustomed to the sea," returned Mr. Blunt, "I have witnessed these ominous changes but twice before, and I think this the grandest of them all."

"Were the others followed by tempests?" inquired the anxious parent.

"One brought a tremendous gale, while the other pa.s.sed away like a misfortune of which we get a near view, but are permitted to escape the effects."

"I do not know that I wish such to be entirely our present fortune,"

rejoined Eve, "for there is so much sublimity in this view of the ocean unaroused, that I feel desirous of seeing it when aroused."

"We are not in the hurricane lat.i.tudes, or hurricane months," resumed the young man, "and it is not probable that there is anything more in reserve for us than a hearty gale of wind, which may, at least, help us to get rid of yonder troublesome follower."

"Even that I do not wish, provided he will let us continue the race on our proper route. A chase across the Atlantic would be something to enjoy at the moment, gentlemen, and something to talk of in after life."

"I wonder if such a thing be possible!" exclaimed Mr. Sharp; "it would indeed be an incident to recount to another generation!"

"There is little probability of our witnessing such an exploit," Mr. Blunt remarked, "for gales of wind on the ocean have the same separating influence on consorts of the sea, that domestic gales have on consorts of the land. Nothing is more difficult than to keep ships and fleets in sight of each other in very heavy weather, unless, indeed, those of the best qualities are disposed to humour those of the worst."

"I know not which may be called the best, or which the worst, in this instance, for our tormentor appears to be as much better than ourselves in some particulars, as we are better than he in others. If the humouring is to come from our honest captain, it will be some such humouring as the spoiled child gets from a capricious parent in moments o anger."

Mr. Truck pa.s.sed the group at that instant, and heard his name coupled with the word honest, in the mouth of Eve, though he lost the rest of the sentence.

"Thank you for the compliment, my dear young lady," he said; "and I wish I could persuade Captain Somebody, of his Britannic Majesty's ship Foam, to be of the same way of thinking. It is all because he will not fancy me honest in the article of tobacco, that he has got the Montauk down here, on the Spanish coast, where the man who built her would not know her; so unnatural and unseemly is it to catch a London liner so far out of her track. I shall have to use double care to get the good craft home again."

"And why this particular difficulty, captain?" Eve, who was amused with Mr. Truck's modes of speech, pleasantly inquired. "Is it not equally easy to go from one part of the ocean, as from another?"

"Equally easy! Bless you, my dear young lady, you never made a more capital mistake in your life. Do you imagine it is as easy to go from London to New York, now, as to go from New York to London?"

"I am so ignorant as to have made this ridiculous mistake, if mistake it be; nor do I now see why it should be otherwise."

"Simply because it is up-hill, ma'am. As for our position here to the eastward of the Azores; the difficulty is soon explained. By dint of coaxing I had got the good old ship so as to know every inch of the road on the northern pa.s.sage, and now I shall be obliged to wheedle her along on a new route, like a shy horse getting through a new stable-door. One might as well think of driving a pig from his sty, as to get a ship out of her track."

"We trust to you to do all this and much more at need. But to what will these grand omens lead? Shall we have a gale, or is so much magnificent menacing to be taken as an empty threat of Nature's?"

"That we shall know in the coa.r.s.e of the day, Miss Effingham, though Nature is no bully, and seldom threatens in vain. There is nothing more curious to study, or which needs a nicer eye to detect, than your winds."

"Of the latter I am fully persuaded, captain, for they are called the 'viewless winds,' you will remember, and the greatest authority we possess, speaks of them as being quite beyond the knowledge of man: 'That we may hear the sound of the wind, but cannot tell whence it cometh, or whither it goeth.'"

"I do not remember the writer you mean, my dear young lady," returned Mr.

Truck, quite innocently; "but he was a sensible fellow, for I believe Vattel has never yet dared to grapple with the winds. There are people who fancy the weather is foretold in the almanack; but, according to my opinion, it is safer to trust a rheumatis' of two or three years'

standing. A good, well-established, old-fashioned rheumatis'--I say nothing of your new-fangled diseases, like the cholera, and varioloid, and animal magnitudes--but a good old-fashioned rheumatis', such as people used to have when I was a boy, is as certain a barometer as that which is at this moment hanging up in the coach-house here, within two fathoms of the very spot where we are standing. I once had a rheumatis' that I set much store by, for it would let me know when to look out for easterly weather, quite as infallibly as any instrument I ever sailed with. I never told you the story of the old Connecticut horse-jockey, and the typhoon, I believe; and as we are doing nothing but waiting for the weather to make up its mind--"

"The weather to make up its mind!" exclaimed Eve, looking around her in awe at the sublime and terrific grandeur of the ocean, of the heavens, and of the pent and moody air; "is there an uncertainty in this?"