The Cruise of the Shining Light Part 48

Shortly now, by an arrangement long made and persistently continued, we had the _Shining Light_ ready for sea--provisioned, her water-casks full. I ran through the house upon a last survey; and I found my uncle at the pantry door, his bag on his back, peering into the dark interior of the little room, in a way most melancholy and desirous, upon the long row of bottles of rum. He sighed, closed the door with scowling impatience, and stumped off to board the ship: I was not heroic, but subtracted one from that long row, and stowed it away in a bag I carried. We dropped the anchor of the _Shining Light_, and beat out, through the tickle, to the wide, menacing sea, with the night coming down and a gale of wind blowing l.u.s.tily up from the gray northeast. 'Twas thus not in flight the _Shining Light_ continued her cruise, 'twas in pursuit of the maid I loved: a thing infinitely more anxious and momentous--a thing that meant more than life or death to me, with the maid gone as cook on a Labrador craft. 'Twas sunset time; but there was no sunset--no fire in the western sky: no glow or effulgent glory or lurid threat. The whole world was gone a dreary gray, with the blackness of night descending: a darkening zenith, a gray horizon lined with cold, black cloud, a coast without tender mercy for the ships of men, a black sea roughening in a rage to the northeast blasts. 'Twas all hopeless and pitiless: an unfeeling sea, but troubled, it seemed to me, by depths of woe and purpose and difficulty we cannot understand. We were bound for Topmast Harbor, on a wind favorable enough for courageous hearts; and my uncle had the wheel, and the fool of Twist Tickle and I kept the deck to serve him.

He did not call upon us to shorten sail, in answer to the old schooner's complaint; and I was glad that he did not, as was the fool also....

'Twas night when we put into Topmast Harbor; but my uncle and the fool and I awoke the place without regard for its way-harbor importance or number of houses. There was no maid there, said they; there had been a maid, come at dawn, but she was fortunately shipped, as she wished to be. What maid was that? They did not know. Was she a slender, tawny-haired, blue-eyed, most beauteous maid? They did but sleepily stare. I found a man, awakened from sound slumber, who remembered: ay, there was a maid of that description, who had shipped for cook on the _Likely La.s.s_. And whence the _Likely La.s.s_? Bonavist' Bay, says he, put in for rest: a seventy-tonner, put out on the favoring wind. And was there another woman aboard? Ecod! he did not know: 'twas a craft likely enough for any maid, other woman aboard or not. And so we set out again, in the night, dodging the rocks of that tickle, by my uncle's recollection, and presently found ourselves bound north, in search of the _Likely La.s.s_, towards a sea that was bitter with cold and dark and wind, aboard a schooner that was far past the labor of dealing with gusts and great waves.

And in the night it came on to blow very hard from the east, with a freezing sleet, which yet grew colder, until snow mixed with it, and at last came in stifling clouds. It blew harder: we drove on, submerged in racing froth to the hatches, sheathed in ice, riding on a beam, but my uncle, at the wheel, standing a-drip, in cloth of ice, as long ago he had stood, in the first of the cruise of the _Shining Light_, would have no sail off the craft, but humored her northward in chase of the _Likely La.s.s_. 'Twas a reeling, plunging, smothered progress through the breaking sea, in a ghostly mist of snow swirling in the timid yellow of our lights, shrouding us as if for death in the rush and seethe of that place. There was a rain of freezing spray upon us--a whipping rain of spray: it broke from the bows and swept past, stinging as it went. 'Twas as though the very night--the pa.s.sion of it--congealed upon us. There was no reducing sail--not now, in this cold rage of weather. We were frozen stiff and white: 'twas on the course, with a clever, indulgent hand to lift us through, or 'twas founder in the crested waves that reached for us.

"Dannie!" my uncle shouted.

I sprang aft: but in the roar of wind and swish and thud of sea could not hear him.

"Put your ear close," he roared.

I heard that; and I put my anxious ear close.

"I'm gettin' kind o' cold," says he. "Is ye got a fire in the cabin?"

I had not.

"Get one," says he.

I got a fire alight in the cabin. 'Twas a red, roaring fire. I called my uncle from the cabin door. The old man gave the wheel to the fool and came below in a humor the most genial: he was grinning, indeed, under the crust of ice upon his beard; and he was rubbing his stiff hands in delight. He was fair happy to be abroad in the wind and sea with the _Shining Light_ underfoot.

"Ye got it warm in here," says he.

"I got more than that, sir," says I. "I got a thing to please you."

Whereupon I fetched the bottle of rum from my bag.

"Rum!" cries he. "Well, well!"

I opened the bottle of rum.

"Afore ye pours," he began, "I 'low I'd best--G.o.d's sake! What's that?"

'Twas a great sea breaking over us.

"Moses!" my uncle hailed.

The schooner was on her course: the fool had clung to the wheel.

"Ice in that sea, Dannie," says my uncle. "An' ye got a bottle o' rum!

Well, well! Wonderful sight o' ice t' the nor'ard. Ye'll find, I bet ye, that the fishin' fleet is cotched fast somewheres long about the straits. An' a bottle o' rum for a cold night! Well, well! I bet ye, Dannie," says he, "that the _Likely La.s.s_ is gripped by this time. An'

ye got a bottle o' rum!" cries he, in a beaming fidget. "Rum's a wonderful thing on a cold night, lad. Nothin' like it. I've tried it.

Was a time," he confided, "when I was sort o' give t' usin' of it."

I made to pour him a dram.

"Leave me hold that there bottle," says he. "I wants t' smell of it."

'Twas an eager sniff.

"_'Tis_ rum," says he, simply.

I raised the bottle above the gla.s.s.

"Come t' think of it, Dannie," says he, with a wistful little smile, "that there bottle o' rum will do more good where you had it than where I'd put it."

I corked the bottle and returned it to my bag.

"That's good," he sighed; "that's very good!"

I made him a cup o' tea....

When I got the wheel, with Moses Shoos forward and my uncle gone asleep below, 'twas near dawn. We were under reasonable sail, running blindly through the night: there were no heroics of carrying-on--my uncle was not the man to bear them. But we were frozen stiff--every block and rope of us. And 'twas then blowing up with angrier intention; and 'twas dark and very cold, I recall--and the air was thick with the dust of snow, so that 'twas hard to breathe. Congealing drops of spray came like bullets: I recall that they hurt me. I recall, too, that I was presently frozen to the deck, and that my mitts were stuck to the wheel--that I became fixed and heavy. The old craft had lost her buoyant will: she labored through the shadowy, ghostly crested seas, in a fashion the most weary and hopeless. I fancied I knew why: I fancied, indeed, that she had come close to her last harbor. And of this I soon made sure: I felt of her, just before the break of day, discovering, but with no selfish perturbation, that she was exhausted. I felt of her tired plunges, of the stagger of her, of her failing strength and will; and I perceived--by way of the wheel in my understanding hands--that she would be glad to abandon this unequal struggle of the eternal youth of the sea against her age and mortality. And the day broke; and with the gray light came the fool of Twist Tickle over the deck. 'Twas a sinister dawn: no land in sight--but a waste of raging sea to view--and the ship laden forward with a shameful burden of ice.

Moses spoke: I did not hear him in the wind, because, I fancy, of the ice in my ear.

"Don't hear ye!" I shouted.

"She've begun t' leak!" he screamed.

I knew that she had.

"No use callin' the skipper," says he. "All froze up. Leave un sleep."

I nodded.

"Goin' down," says he. "Knowed she would."

My uncle came on deck: he was smiling--most placid, indeed.

"Well, well!" he shouted. "Day, eh?"

"Leakin'," says Moses.

"Well, well!"

"Goin' down," Moses screamed.

"Knowed she would," my uncle roared. "Can't last long in this. What's that?"

'Twas floe ice.

"Still water," says he. "Leave me have that there wheel, Dannie. Go t'