The Honour of the Flag Part 3

_A Midnight Visitor_.

"There are more terrors at sea than shipwreck and fire, more frights and horrors, mateys, than famine, blindness, and cholera," said the old seaman with a slow motion of his eyes round upon the little company of sailors. "I remember a line of poetry--'a thing of beauty is a joy for ever.' Can any man here tell me who wrote that? Well, I suppose it is a joy so long as it remains a beauty, but d'ye see it's got to remain, and that's the job.

"Yet, mates, if there is a thing of beauty that should be a joy to every heart, it is a full-rigged ship, clothed in white, asleep in the light of the moon, on a pale and silent breast of ocean that waves in splendour under the planet over the flying jib-boom end. Have I got such a ship as that in my mind? Ay. And was it a sheet calm but ne'er a moon? Ay, again. There was ne'er a moon that night. The ship rose faint and hushed to the stars. It was one bell in the morning watch.

Scarce air enough moved to give life to the topmost canvas; as the ship bowed upon the light swell the sails swung in and swung out with a rushing sound of many wings up in the gloom. Yet the vessel had steerage way in that hour. Shall I tell you why? Because I know!

"And ere that full-rigged ship alone in the middle of the Indian Ocean came to a dead halt, life sinking in her with the failing of the wind in a sort of dying shudder from royal to course, this was how her decks showed: a man was at the wheel, the chief mate leaned against the rail in the thickness made by the mizzen rigging, and with folded arms seemed to doze in the shadow; a 'young gentleman,' as they used to call the 'bra.s.s-bounders,' loafed sleepily near the main shrouds where the break of the p.o.o.p came. That youngster watched the stars trembling between the squares of the starboard rigging. He was new to the sea, and emotion and sentiment were still sweet--they were not salt in him. He was the son of a gentleman--he had a clever eye for what was picturesque and romantic, for what was tender and affecting in all he beheld, whether by day or night, whether he looked aloft or whether upon the mighty breast of brine--he should have done well: he oughter ha' done well."

The grey-haired respectable seaman closed his eyes in a silence filled with significance, and after a short smoke thus proceeded:

"Some of the watch on deck sprawled about in the shadow out of sight, curled up, asleep; only one figure was upright forward. 'Twas the shape of the man on the look-out. For all the world he postured like the mate aft, as though he copied the officer for a life or death bet: head sunk, arms folded--the forecastle break brought that raised deck well aft, and the look-out had the shadow of the starboard fore-rigging upon him.

"This man thus standing, by no means asleep, yet with his head sunk and no doubt his eyes closed, was suddenly struck on the side of the face by something hairy, damp, and cold. He sprang into the air as though he had been shot through the heart. O heavens! What was it? A naked figure, s.h.a.ggy as Peter Sarrano, wild with hair, furious with a grin, terrible with the red gleams the starlight flung upon his little eyes. The sailor shrieked like a midnight cat and fell in a heap down upon the deck in a fit.

"The ship was in commotion in an instant. Such a yell as that was worse than the smell of fire.

"'What's the matter?' bawled the mate from the break of the p.o.o.p.

"A number of shadowy shapes swarmed up the forecastle ladder.

Meanwhile the watch below, aroused by the yell of the look-out man, suspecting imminent deadly danger in the peculiar noise, were leaping in twos and threes up through the forescuttle, growling and swearing and grumbling, and asking of one another in those deep hurricane-chested whispers which will make a stagnant midnight atmosphere tingle, what the blooming blazes that noise was, and what was up.

"'What's the matter?' roared the mate.

"'Here's Kennedy in a fit, sir,' sung out a voice.

"'Is that all?' said the mate, and he went forward to look at the man.

"'It's a fit certainly,' said he. 'Give him air, lads. Get a drink of cold water into his mouth. It's epilepsy.'

"'Or weevils,' said a deep voice.

"The joker was not to be discerned; the mate therefore took no notice.

Some one brought a pannikin of cold water, and after a little the man came to, by which time the watch below had returned to their hammocks, and the forecastle was comparatively clear.

"When the mate was told the man had his senses and was sitting up, he went forward again and questioned him. He was sitting on the foot of a cathead, and was too weak to rise when the mate stood before him.

"'What is this you're rambling about?' said the officer. 'Aren't you quite well yet?'

"'S' 'elp me then, it slapped me fair over the chops, like flicking yer with the wet sleeve of a jacket. He rose four foot when I swounded. He might ha' been more an' he might ha' been less. Darkness put him out, only that I recollect,' said the man, turning up his pale face to the stars, 'taking notice of a couple of eyes like red lights floating in water and a grin of teeth wide as the keys of a pianey.'

"'He's mad,' thought the mate, who stepped nevertheless into the bows and looked over. Nothing was to be seen. He surveyed the ocean by the light of the stars, and glanced along the deck and up aloft, then told the look-out man to go below and turn in, and went aft, reckoning the thing an epileptic's nightmare.

"'It soaks into their livers ash.o.r.e,' thought he, as he leisurely mounted the p.o.o.p ladder, 'and when they get upon the ocean and into hot weather it works out in slaps over the head and hairy sea-beasts four feet high. Ha! ha! ha!' and he laughed drowsily as he walked to the wheel.

"Just then a catspaw blew. It was so faint that it scarcely chilled the moistened forefinger of the officer. It had to be reckoned with nevertheless; it was an air of wind anyhow, and some one sung out that the ship was aback forward, on which the mate went to the break of the p.o.o.p, and yelled to the seamen to trim sail. Something went wrong in swinging the yards on the fore.

"'Jump aloft, a hand, and clear it.'

"A seaman went up the rigging, his shadowy shape vanished in the gloom that blackened like a thunder-cloud upon the foretop; he showed again when he got into the topmast rigging, with his figure small, and clear-cut against the stars.

"Suddenly, when midway the rigging he yelled at the top of his voice.

His cry was more dismal and heartshaking than even that with which the man Kennedy had terrified the ship; he caught hold of a backstay, and sank to the bulwark rail, as though handsomely lowered away in a bowline.

"'By Cott!' he roared, flinging down his cap, whilst those who peered close saw that he trembled violently, 'der toyfel is on boardt dis ship. I have seen her mit mine eyes. If I hov not seen her den I was a nightmare und she was mad. Look up dar.'

"He obtained no answer. The seamen attending the indication of the Dutchman were to a man gazing aloft with hanging chins; for on high up in the cross-trees, a visible bulk of shadow, there sat, squatted, hung--what? A man? No angel from heaven surely? A demon then with folded wings like those of a bat resting in his flight from the halls of fire to some star of Satan? Mateys, if you think this language too poetical, I'll translate my thought into fok'sle speech. But I'd rather leave the job to others," said the grey-haired respectable seaman; "I've forgotten the profanities of the sea-parlour. I have not used a bad word for thirty year."

Some interruption by laughter attended this flight. The grey-haired sailor looked round him with his slow critical motion of eye, and continued:

"'What's wrong aloft forrad there?' bawled the mate, and now he sung out with energy and decision, for the figure of the captain was alongside of him.

"'There's something aloft that looks like a man,' howled a seaman, one of the upstaring crowd about the Dutchman. 'Come forrad, sir. You'll see him.'

"The mate and the captain went forward and looked up.

"'It's a man,' exclaimed the captain. 'Aloft there! What are you doing skylarking up in those cross-trees? Come down!' he cried, angrily.

"'You sick-hearts, what d'ye see to stare at, or seeing, why don't you go for it?' thundered the mate, after a pause, during which the figure on high had made no answer or motion, and as he spoke the words the officer bounded on to the bulwarks, and ran up the fore-shrouds.

"He travelled with heroic speed till he got as high as the foretop.

There he stood at gaze; presently, after you might have counted fifty, putting his foot into the topmast rigging he began to crawl, with frequent breathless stops; his pa.s.sage up those shrouds had the dying uncertainty of the tread of a blue-bottle when it climbs a sheet of gla.s.s in October.

"On a sudden he came down into the top very fast. There he stood staring aloft as though fascinated or electrified, then putting his foot over the top he got into the fore-shrouds, and trotted down on deck, all very quick. The captain stood near the main hatch, looking up. The mate approached him, and, in a whisper of awe and terror, exclaimed, whilst his eyes sought the shadow up in the foretopmast cross-trees, 'I believe the Dutchman's right, sir, and that we've been boarded by the devil himself.'

"'What are you talking about?'

"'I never saw the like of such a thing,' said the mate, in shaking tones.

"'Is it a man?' said the captain, staring up with amazement, while the seamen came hustling close in a sneaking way to listen, and the Dutchman drew close to the mate.

"'It has the looks of a man,' said the mate; 'yet it sha'n't be murder if you kill him.'

"'She vos no man, sir. I vos close. I vent closer don you. I oxpect, sir,' said the Dutchman, 'she's an imp. Strange dot I did not see him till I was upon her.'

"The captain went swiftly to his cabin for a binocular gla.s.s. The lenses helped him to determine the motionless shadow in the cross-trees, and he clearly distinguished an apparently large human shape, but in what fashion, or whether or not habited, it was impossible to see. How had he come into the ship? The captain went on to the p.o.o.p and searched the silent sea with the gla.s.s with some fancy of finding a boat within reach of his vision. Nothing was to be seen but the gla.s.s-smooth face of the deep, with here and there the light of a large trembling star draining into it. The catspaw had died out, and it mattered nothing whether they braced the fore-yards round or not.

"It got wind in the forecastle that something wild, unearthly, h.e.l.lish, was aloft, and the watch below turned out, too restless to sleep, and all through those hours of darkness the sailors walked the decks in groups, again and again staring up at the foretopmast cross-trees, where the mysterious bulk of blackness sate, squatted, or hung motionless, like some brooding fiend, or incarnation of ill-luck, sinking by force of meditation its curses not loud, but deep, into the bottom of the very hold itself.

"'Why don't the captain let me shoot him?' said the second mate at four o'clock. 'I cannot miss that mark; my rifle will bring him to your feet at the cost of a single shot.'

"'No,' said the chief mate, 'I've talked of trying what shooting will do. The captain means to wait for sunlight. But how did it get on board?' said he, sinking his voice in awe. 'There's no land for hundreds of leagues. Is it some sort of human sea-monster, some merman whose looks blind you with their ugliness, which this ship's been doomed to discover, and perhaps carry home?'

"It was not long before day whitened the east. In those climates the morning is a quick revelation, and hardly had the dawn broke when sea and sky were lighted up. And then, and even then, what was it? There it sat up in the cross-trees, a hairy, sulky bulk of man or beast, black, and the creature looked hard down whilst all hands were staring hard up.

"Seized if it isn't a gorilla!" said the mate.