The Red Rover Part 29

"Ah! a merchant is, like the rest of us, made of nothing better than clay; and, what is worse, it is seldom that, in putting him together, he is dampened with salt water. Many is the trader that has douzed his spectacles, and shut his account-books, to step aside to over-reach his neighbour, and then come back to find that he has over-reached himself. Mr Bale, no doubt, thought he was doing the clever thing for the owners, when he shipped this Mr Wilder; but then, perhaps, he did not know that the vessel was sold to ------ It becomes a plain-going seaman to have a respect for all he sails under; so I will not, unnecessarily, name the person who, I believe, has got, whether he came by it in a fair purchase or not, no small right in this vessel."

"I have never seen a ship got out of irons more handsomely than he handled the 'Caroline' this very morning."

Nighthead now indulged in a low, but what to his listeners appeared to be an exceedingly meaning, laugh.

"When a ship has a certain sort of Captain, one is not to be surprised at any thing," he answered the instant his significant merriment had ceased.

"For my own part, I shipped to go from Bristol to the Carolinas and Jamaica, touching at Newport out and home; and I will say, boldly, I have no wish to go any where else. As to backing the 'Caroline' from her awkward birth alongside the slaver, why it was well done; most too well for so young a manner. Had I done the thing myself, it could not have been much better. But what think you, brothers of the old man in the skiff?

There was a chase, and an escape, such as few old sea-dogs have the fortune to behold! I have heard of a smuggler that was chased a hundred times by his Majesty's cutters, in the chops of the Channel, and which always had a fog handy to run into, but out of which no man could truly say he ever saw her come again! This skiff may have plied between the land and that Guernseyman, for any thing I know to the contrary; but it is not a boat I wish to pull a scull in."

"That _was_ a remarkable flight!" exclaimed the elder seaman, whose faith in the character of our adventurer began to give way gradually, before such an acc.u.mulation of testimony.

"I call it so; though other men may possibly know better than I, who have only followed the water five-and-thirty years. Then, here is the sea getting up, in an unaccountable manner! and look at these rags of clouds, which darken the heavens! and yet there is light enough, coming from the ocean, for a good scholar to read by!"

"I've often seen the weather as it is now."

"Ay, who has not? It is seldom that any man, let him come from what part he will, makes his first voyage as Captain. Let who will be out to-night upon the water, I'll engage he has been there before. I have seen worse looking skies, and even worse looking water, than this; but I never knew any good come of either. The night I was wreck'd in the bay of"----

"In the waist there!" cried the calm, authoritative tones of Wilder.

Had a warning voice arisen from the turbulent and rushing ocean itself, it would not have sounded more alarming, in the startled ears of the conscious seamen, than this sudden hail. Their young Commander found it necessary to repeat it, before even Nighthead, the proper and official spokesman, could muster resolution to answer.

"Get the fore-top-gallant-sail on the ship, sir," continued Wilder, when the customary reply let him know that he had been heard.

The mate and his companions regarded each other, for a moment, in dull admiration; and many a melancholy shake of the head was exchanged, before one of the party threw himself into the weather-rigging, and proceeded aloft, with a doubting mind, in order to loosen the sail in question.

There was certainly enough, in the desperate manner with which Wilder pressed the canvas on the vessel, to excite distrust, either of his intentions or judgment, in the opinions of men less influenced by superst.i.tion than those it was now his lot to command. It had long been apparent to Earing, and his more ignorant, and consequently more obstinate, brother officer, that their young superior had the same desire to escape from the spectral-looking ship, which so strangely followed their movements, as they had themselves. They only differed in the mode; but this difference was so very material, that the two mates consulted together apart, and then Earing, something stimulated by the hardy opinions of his coadjutor, approached his Commander, with the determination of delivering the results of their united judgments, with that sort of directness which he thought the occasion now demanded. But there was that in the steady eye and imposing mien of Wilder, that caused him to touch on the dangerous subject with a discretion and circ.u.mlocution that were a little remarkable for the individual. He stood watching the effect of the sail recently spread for several minutes, before he even presumed to open his mouth. But a terrible encounter, between the vessel and a wave that lifted its angry crest apparently some dozen feet above the approaching bows, gave him courage to proceed, by admonishing him afresh of the danger of continuing silent.

"I do not see that we drop the stranger, though the ship is wallowing through the water so heavily," he commenced, determined to be as circ.u.mspect as possible in his advances.

Wilder bent another of his frequent glances on the misty object in the horizon, and then turned his frowning eye towards the point whence the wind proceeded, as if he would defy its heaviest blasts; he, however, made no answer.

"We have ever found the crew discontented at the pumps, sir," resumed the other, after a pause sufficient for the reply he in vain expected; "I need not tell an officer, who knows his duty so well, that seamen rarely love their pumps."

"Whatever I may find necessary to order, Mr Earing, this ship's company will find it necessary to execute."

There was a deep settled air of authority, in the manner with which this tardy answer was given, that did not fail of its impression. Earing recoiled a step, with a submissive manner, and affected to be lost in consulting the driving ma.s.ses of the clouds; then, summoning his resolution, he attempted to renew the attack in a different quarter.

"Is it your deliberate opinion, Captain Wilder," he said, using the t.i.tle to which the claim of our adventurer might well be questioned, with a view to propitiate him; "is it then your deliberate opinion that the 'Royal Caroline' can, by any human means, be made to drop yonder vessel?"

"I fear not," returned the young man, drawing a breath so long, that all his secret concern seemed struggling in his breast for utterance.

"And, sir, with proper submission to your better education and authority in this ship, I _know_ not. I have often seen these matches tried in my time; and well do I know that nothing is gained by straining a vessel, with the hope of getting to windward of one of these flyers!"

"Take you the gla.s.s, Earing, and tell me under what canvas the stranger holds his way, and what may be his distance," said Wilder, thoughtfully, and without appearing to advert at all to what the other had just observed.

The honest and well-meaning mate deposed his hat on the quarter-deck, and, with an air of great respect, did as he was desired. Nor did he deem it necessary to give a precipitate answer to either of the interrogatories.

When, however, his look had been long, grave, and deeply absorbed, he closed the gla.s.s with the palm of his broad hand, and replied, with the manner of one whose opinion was sufficiently matured.

"If yonder sail had been built and fitted like other mortal craft," he said, "I should not be backward in p.r.o.nouncing her a full-rigged ship, under three single-reefed topsails, courses, spanker, and jib."

"Has she no more?"

"To that I would qualify, provided an opportunity were given me to make sure that she is, in all respects, as other vessels are."

"And yet, Earing, with all this press of canvas, by the compa.s.s we have not left her a foot."

"Lord, sir," returned the mate, shaking his head, like one who was well convinced of the folly of such efforts, "if you should split every cloth in the main-course, by carrying on the ship you will never alter the bearings of that craft an inch, till the sun rises! Then, indeed, such as have eyes, that are good enough, might perhaps see her sailing about among the clouds; though it has never been my fortune be it bad or be it good, to fall in with one of these cruisers after the day has fairly dawned."

"And the distance?" said Wilder; "you have not yet spoken of her distance."

"That is much as people choose to measure. She may be here, nigh enough to toss a biscuit into our tops; or she may be there, where she seems to be, hull down in the horizon."

"But, if where she seems to be?"

"Why, she _seems_ to be a vessel of about six hundred tons; and, judging from appearances only, a man might be tempted to say she was a couple of leagues, more or less, under our lee."

"I put her at the same! Six miles to windward is not a little advantage, in a hard chase. By heavens, Earing, I'll drive the 'Caroline' out of water but I'll leave him!"

"That might be done, if the ship had wings like a curlew, or a sea-gull; but, as it is, I think we are more likely to drive her under."

"She bears her canvas well, so far. You know not what the boat can do, when urged."

"I have seen her sailed in all weathers, Captain Wilder, but"----

His mouth was suddenly closed. A vast black wave reared itself between the ship and the eastern horizon, and came rolling onward, seeming to threaten to ingulf all before it. Even Wilder watched the shock with breathless anxiety, conscious, for the moment that he had exceeded the bounds of sound discretion in urging his ship so powerfully against such a ma.s.s of water. The sea broke a few fathoms from the bows of the "Caroline," and sent its surge in a flood of foam upon her decks. For half a minute the forward part of the vessel disappeared, as though, unable to mount the swell, it were striving to go through it, and then she heavily emerged, gemmed with a million of the scintillating insects of the ocean. The ship had stopped, trembling in every joint, throughout her ma.s.sive and powerful frame, like some affrighted courser; and, when she resumed her course, it was with a moderation that appeared to warn those who governed her movements of their indiscretion.

Earing faced his Commander in silence, perfectly conscious that nothing he could utter contained an argument like this. The seamen no longer hesitated to mutter their disapprobation aloud, and many a prophetic opinion was ventured concerning the consequences of such reckless risks.

To all this Wilder turned a deaf or an insensible ear. Firm in his own secret purpose, he would have braved a greater hazard to accomplish his object. But a distinct though smothered shriek, from the stern of the vessel, reminded him of the fears of others. Turning quickly on his heel, he approached the still trembling Gertrude and her governess, who had both been, throughout the whole of those long and tedious hours, in.o.btrusive but deeply interested, observers of his smallest movements.

"The vessel bore that shock so well, I have great reliance on her powers,"

he said in a soothing voice, but with words that were intended to lull her into a blind security. "With a firm ship, a thorough seaman is never at a loss!"

"Mr Wilder," returned the governess, "I have seen much of this terrible element on which you live. It is therefore vain to think of deceiving me I know that you are urging the ship beyond what is usual. Have you sufficient motive for this hardihood?"

"Madam,--I have!"

"And is it, like so many of your motives, to continue locked for ever in your own breast? or may we, who are equal partic.i.p.ators in its consequences, claim to share equally in the reason?"

"Since you know so much of the profession," returned the young man, slightly laughing, but in tones that were rendered perhaps more alarming by the sounds produced in the unnatural effort, "you need not be told, that, in order to get a ship to windward, it is necessary to spread her canvas."

"You can, at least, answer one of my questions more directly: Is this wind sufficiently favourable to pa.s.s the dangerous shoals of the Hatteras?"

"I doubt it."

"Then, why not go to the place whence we came?"

"Will you consent to return?" demanded the youth, with the swiftness of thought.