My Danish Sweetheart Volume I Part 9

'Well, you shall lie down upon one of those lockers, and you shall be comfortable too;' and, saying this, she went out again, and shortly afterwards returned with some rugs and a bolster. These she placed upon the lee locker, and a minute or two later I had shaken the poor captain by the hand, and had stretched myself upon the rugs, where I lay listening to the thunder of the gale and following the wild motions of the barque, and thinking of what had happened since the lifeboat summons had rung me into this black, and frothing, and roaring night from my snug fireside.

It was not long, however, before I fell asleep. I had undergone some lifeboat experiences in my time, but never before was nature so exhausted in me. The roaring of the gale, the cannonading of the deck-house by incessant heavy showerings of water, the extravagant motions of the plunging and rolling vessel, might have been a mother's lullaby sung by the side of a gently-rocked cradle, so deep was the slumber these sounds of thunder left unvexed.

I awoke from a dreamless, deathlike sleep, and opened my eyes against the light of the cold stone-gray dawn, and my mind instantly coming to me, I sprang up from the locker, pausing to guess at the weather from the movement and the sound. It was still blowing a whole gale of wind, and I was unable to stand without grasping the table for support. The deck-house door was shut, and the planks within were dry, though I could hear the water gushing and pouring in the alleys betwixt the deck-house and the bulwarks. I thought to take a view of the weather through one of the windows, but the gla.s.s was everywhere blind with wet.

At this moment the door of the captain's berth was opened, and Helga stepped out. She immediately approached me with both hands extended in the most cordial manner imaginable.

'You have slept well,' she cried; 'I bent over you three or four times.

You are the better for the rest, I am sure.'

'I am, indeed!' said I. 'And you?'

'Oh, I shall sleep by-and-by. What shall we do for hot water? It is impossible to light the galley fire; yet how grateful would be a cup of hot tea or coffee!'

'Have you been on deck,' said I, 'while I slept?'

'Oh yes, in and out,' she answered. 'All is well so far--I mean, the _Anine_ goes on making a brave fight. The dawn has not long broken. I have not yet seen the ship by daylight. We must sound the well, Mr.

Tregarthen, before we break our fast--my fear is there,' she added, pointing to the deck, by which she signified the hold.

There was but little of her face to be seen. She was wearing an indiarubber cap shaped like a sou'-wester, the brim of which came low, while the flannel ear-flaps almost smothered her cheeks. I could now see, however, that her eyes were of a dark blue, with a spirit of life and even of vivacity in them that expressed a wonderful triumph of heart over the languor of frame indicated by the droop of the eyelids. A little of her short hair of pale gold showed under the hinder thatch of the sou'-wester; her face was blanched. But I could not look at the pretty mouth, the pearl-like teeth, the soft blue eyes, the delicately figured nostril, without guessing that in the hour of bloom this girl would show as bonnily as the fairest la.s.s of cream and roses that ever hailed from Denmark.

We stepped on to the deck--into the thunder of the gale and the flying clouds of spray. I still wore my oilskins, and was as dry in them as at the hour of leaving home. I felt the comfort, I a.s.sure you, of my high sea-boots as I stood upon that deck, holding on a minute to the house-front, with the water coming in a little rage of froth to my legs and washing to leeward with the _scend_ of the barque with the force of a river overflowing a dam.

Our first glance was aloft. The foretopgallant-mast was broken off at the head of the topmast and hung with its two yards supported by its gear, but giving a strange wrecked look to the whole of the fabric up there as it swung to the headlong movements of the hull, making the spars, down to the solid foot of the foremast, tremble with the spearing blows it dealt. The jibbooms were also gone, and this, no doubt, had happened through the carrying away of the topgallant-mast; otherwise all was right up above, a.s.suming, to be sure, that nothing was sprung. But the wild, soaked, desolate--the almost mutilated--look, indeed, of the barque! How am I to communicate the impression produced by the soaked dark lines of sailcloth rolled upon the yards, the ends of rope blowing out like the pennant of a man-of-war, the arched and gleaming gear, the decks dusky with incessant drenchings and emitting sullen flashes as the dark flood upon them rolled from side to side! The running rigging lay all about, working like serpents in the wash of the water; from time to time a sea would strike the bow and burst on high in steam-like volumes which glanced ghastly against the leaden sky that overhung us in strata of scowling vapour, dark as thunder in places, yet seemingly motionless.

A furious Atlantic sea was running; it came along in hills of frothing green which shaped themselves out of a near horizon thick with storms of spume. But there was the regularity of the unfathomed ocean in the run of the surge, mountainous as it was; and the barque, with her lashed helm, not a rag showing save a tatter or two of the fore-topmast-staysail whose head we had exposed on the previous night, soared and sank, with her port bow to the sea, with the regularity of the tick of a clock.

There was nothing in sight. I looked eagerly round the sea, but it was all thickness and foam and headlong motion. We went aft to the compa.s.s to observe if there had happened any shift in the wind, and what the trend of the barque was, and also to note the condition of the wheel, which could only have been told in the darkness by groping. The helm was perfectly sound, and the lashings held bravely. I could observe now that the wheel was a small one, formed of bra.s.s, also that it worked the rudder by means of a screw, and it was this purchase or leverage, I suppose, that had made me find the barque easy to steer while she was scudding. The gale was blowing fair out of the north-east, and the vessel's trend, therefore, was on a dead south-west course, with the help of a mountainous sea besides, to drive her away from the land, beam on. I cried to Helga that I thought our drift would certainly not be less than four, and perhaps five, miles in the hour. She watched the sea for a little, and then nodded to me; but it was scarcely likely that she could conjecture the rate of progress amid so furious a commotion of waters, with the great seas boiling to the bulwark rail, and rushing away to leeward in huge round backs of freckled green.

She was evidently too weary to talk, rendered too languid by the bitter cares and sleepless hours of the long night to exert her voice so as to be audible in that thunder of wind which came flashing over the side in guns and bursts of hurricane power; and to the few sentences I uttered, or rather shouted, she responded by nods and shakes of the head as it might be. There was a flag locker under the gratings abaft the wheel, and she opened the box, took out a small Danish ensign, bent it on to the peak-signal halliards, and between us we ran it half-mast high, and there it stood, hard and firm as a painted board, a white cross on red ground, and the red of it made it resemble a tongue of fire against the soot of the sky. This done, we returned to the main-deck, and Helga sounded the pump. She went to work with all the expertness of a seasoned salt, carefully dried the rod and chalked it, and then waited until the roll of the barque brought her to a level keel before dropping it. I watched her with astonishment and admiration. It would until now have seemed impossible to me that any mortal woman should have had in her the makings of so nimble and practised a sailor as I found her to be, with nothing, either, of the tenderness of girlhood lost in her, in speech, in countenance, in looks, spite of her boy's clothes. She examined the rod, and eyed me with a grave countenance.

'Does the water gain?' said I.

'There are two more inches of it,' she answered, 'than the depth I found in the hold last night when I first sounded. We ought to free her somewhat.'

'I am willing,' I exclaimed; 'but are you equal to such labour? A couple of hours should not make a very grave difference.'

'No, no!' she interrupted, with a vehemence that put her air of weariness to flight. 'A couple of hours would be too long to wait,'

saying which she grasped the brake and we went to work as before.

No one who has not had to labour in this way can conceive the fatigue of it. There is no sort of shipboard work that more quickly exhausts. It grieved me to the soul that my a.s.sociate in this toil should be a girl, with the natural weakness of her s.e.x accentuated by what she had suffered and was still suffering; but her spirited gaze forbade remonstrance. She seemed scarcely able to stand when utter weariness forced her at last to let go of the brake. Nevertheless, she compelled her feeble hands again to drop the rod down the well. We had reduced the water to the height at which we had left it before, and, with a faint smile of congratulation, she made a movement towards the deck-house; but her gait was so staggering, there was such a character of blindness, too, in her posture as she started to walk, that I grasped her arm and, indeed, half carried her into the house.

She sat and rested herself for a few minutes, but appeared unable to speak. I watched her anxiously, with something of indignation that her father, who professed to love her so dearly, should not come between her and her devotion, and insist upon her resting. Presently she rose and walked to his cabin, telling me with her looks to follow her.

CHAPTER VI.

CAPTAIN NIELSEN.

Captain Nielsen, was veritably corpse-like in aspect viewed by the cold gray iron light sifting through the little windows out of the spray-shrouded air. The unnatural brightness of his eyes painfully defined the attenuation of his face, and the sickly, parchment-like complexion of his skin. He extended his hand, but could hardly find time to deliver a greeting, so violent was his hurry to receive his daughter's report. He shook his head when he heard that his topgallant-mast and jibbooms were wrecked, and pa.s.sionately exclaimed in Danish, on his daughter telling him of the increase of water in the hold.

'She must be taking it in from below,' he then cried in English. 'She has strained herself. Should this continue, what is to be done? She will need to be constantly pumped--and ah, my G.o.d! you are but two.'

'Yes, Captain,' cried I, incensed that he should appear to have no thoughts but for his ship; 'but if you do not insist upon your daughter taking some rest there will be but one, long before this gale has blown itself out.'

'Oh, my dear, it is so!' he exclaimed, looking at her on a sudden with impa.s.sioned concern. 'Mr. Tregarthen is right. You will sink under your efforts. Your dear heart will break. Rest now--rest, my beloved child! I command you to rest! You must go below: you must lie in your own cabin.

This good gentleman is about--he will sit with me and go forth and report. The _Anine_ tends herself, and there is nothing in human skill to help her outside what she can herself do.'

'But we must not starve, father,' she answered: 'let us first breakfast, as best we can, and then I will go below.'

She left the cabin and promptly returned, bringing with her the remains of the cold meat we had supped off, some biscuit, and a bottle of red wine. Her father drank a little of the wine and ate a morsel of biscuit; indeed, food seemed to excite a loathing in him. I saw that Helga eyed him piteously, but she did not press him to eat: it might be that she had experience of his stubbornness. She said, in a soft aside, to me: 'His appet.i.te is leaving him, and how can I tempt him without the means of cooking? Does not he look very ill this morning?'

'It is worry, added to rheumatic pains,' said I: 'we must get him ash.o.r.e as soon as possible, where he can be nursed in comfort.'

But though these words flowed readily, out of my sympathy with the poor, brave, suffering girl, they were a.s.suredly not in correspondence with my secret feelings. It was not only I was certain that Captain Nielsen lay in his cot a dying man; the roaring of the wind, the beating of the sea against the barque, the wild extravagant leapings and divings, the perception that water was draining into the hold, and that there were but two of us--and one of those two a girl--to work the pumps, made a mockery to my heart of my reference to the Captain getting ash.o.r.e and being nursed there.

We sat in that slanting and leaping interior with plates on our knees.

The girl feigned to eat; her head drooped with weariness, yet I noticed that she would force a cheerful note into the replies she made to her father's ceaseless feverish questions. When we had ended our meal, she left us to go below to her cabin; but before leaving she asked me, with eyes full of tender pleading, to keep her father's heart up, to make the best of such reports as I might have to give him after going out to take a look round; and she told me that he would need his physic at such and such a time, and so lingered, dwelling upon him and glancing at him; and then she went out in a hurry with one hand upon her breast, yet not so swiftly but that I could see her eyes were swimming.

'There is a barometer in the cabin,' said Captain Nielsen; 'will you tell me how the mercury stands?'

The gla.s.s was fixed to the bulkhead outside. I returned and gave him the reading.

"Tis a little rise!' he cried, with his unnaturally bright eyes eagerly fastened upon me.

I would not tell him that it was not so--that the mercury, indeed, stood at the level I had observed on the preceding day in my gla.s.s in the lifeboat house.

'Fierce weather of this sort,' said I, 'soon exhausts itself.'

He continued to stare at me, but now with an air of musing that somewhat softened the painful brilliant intentness of his regard.

'I pray G.o.d,' said he, 'that this weather may speedily enable us to obtain help, for I fear that if I am not treated I shall get very low, perhaps die. I am ill--yet what is my malady? This rheumatism is a sudden seizure. I could walk when at Cuxhaven.'

In as cheerful a voice as I could a.s.sume, I begged him to consider that his mind might have much to do with those bodily sensations which made him feel ill.

'It may be so, it may be so,' he exclaimed, with a sad smile of faltering hope. 'I wish to live. I am not an old man. It will be hard if my time is to come soon. It is Helga--it is Helga,' he muttered, pressing his brow with his thin hand. I was about to speak. 'How wearisome,' he broke out, 'is this ceaseless tossing! I ran away to sea; it was my own doing. I had my childish dreams--strange and beautiful fancies of foreign countries--and I ran away;' he went on in a rambling manner like one thinking aloud. 'And yet I love the old ocean, though it is serving me cruelly now. It has fed me--it has held me to its breast--and my nourishment and life have come from it.' He started, and, bringing his eyes away from the upper deck on which they had been fixed while he spoke, he cried, 'Sir, you are a stranger to me, but you are an Englishman of heroic heart, and you will forgive me. Should I die, and should G.o.d be pleased to spare you and my child, will you protect her until she has safely returned to her friends at Kolding? She will be alone in any part of the world until she is there, and if I am a.s.sured that she will have the generous compa.s.sion of your heart with her, a guardian to take my place until she reaches Kolding, it will make me easy in my ending, let the stroke come when it will.'

'I came to this ship to save your lives,' I answered. 'I hope to be an instrument yet of helping to save them. Trust me to do your bidding, if it were only for my admiration of your daughter's heroic qualities. But do not speak of dying, Captain Nielsen----'

He interrupted me. 'There is my dear friend Pastor Blicker of Kolding, and there is Pastor Jansen of Skandrup. They are good and gentle Christian men, who will receive Helga, and stand by her and soothe her and counsel her as to my little property--ah, my little property!' he cried. 'If this vessel founders, what have I?'

'Pray,' said I, with the idea of quietly coaxing his mind into a more cheerful mood, 'what is so seriously wrong with you, Captain, that you should lie there gloomily foreboding your death? Such rheumatism as yours is not very quick to kill.'

'I was long dangerously ill of a fever in the West Indies,' he answered, 'and it left a vital organ weak. The mischief is here, I fear,' said he, touching his right side above his hip. 'I felt very ill at Cuxhaven; but this voyage was to be made; I am too poor a man to suffer my health to forfeit the money that is to be got by it. Hark! what was that?'

He leaned his head over the cot, straining his hearing with a nervous fluttering of his emaciated fingers. It was miserable to see how white the skin of his sunken cheeks showed against the whiteness of the canvas of his cot.