The Wing-and-Wing Part 16

"Be-e-e-ther-r-r-dee-e-e-p nine--"

"Meet her!--up with your helm. Haul down your sheets forward--brail the spanker--let go all the bowlines aft. So--well, there, well. She flew round like a top; but, by Jove, we've caught her, gentlemen. Drag your bowlines again. What's the news from the chains?"

"No bottom, sir, with fifteen fathoms out--and as good a cast, too, sir, as we've had to-day."

"So--you're rap full--don't fall off--very well dyce" (_Anglice_, thus)--"keep her as you are. Well, by the Lord, Griffin, that _was_ a shave; half-four was getting to be squally in a quarter of the world where a rock makes nothing of pouting its lips fifteen or twenty feet at a time at a mariner. We are past it all, however, and here is the land, trending away to the southward like a man in a consumption, fairly under our lee. A dozen Raoul Yvards wouldn't lead me into such a d--d sc.r.a.pe again!"

"The danger that is over is no longer a danger at all, sir," answered Griffin, laughing. "Don't you think, Captain Cuffe, we might ease her about half a point? that would be just her play; and the lugger keeps off a little, I rather suspect, to ease her mainmast. I'm certain I saw chips fly from it when we dosed her with those two-and-twenty pills."

"Perhaps you're right, Griffin. Ease her with the helm a little, Mr.

Yelverton. If Master Yvard stands on his present course an hour longer, Biguglia would be too far to windward for him; and as for Bastia, that has been out of the question from the first. There is a river called Golo, into which he might run; and that, I rather think, is his aim.

Four hours, however, will let us into his secret."

And four intensely interesting hours were those which succeeded. The wind was a cap-full; a good, fresh, westerly breeze, which seemed to have started out of the oven-like heat of a week of intensely hot weather that had preceded it, and to have collected the force of two or three zephyrs into one. It was not a gale at all, nor did it induce either party to think of reefing; no trifle would have done that, under the circ.u.mstances; but it caused the Proserpine to furl her fore and mizzentopgallant-sails, and put Raoul in better humor with the loss of his jigger. When fairly round the headland, and at a moment when he fancied the frigate would be compelled to tack, the latter had seized an opportunity to get in his foresail, to unbend it, and to bend and set a new one; an operation that took just four minutes by the watch. He would have tried the same experiment with the other lug, but the mast was scarce worth the risk, and he thought the holes might act as reefs, and thus diminish the strain. In these four hours, owing to the disadvantage under which le Feu-Follet labored, there was not a difference of half a knot in the distance run by the two vessels, though each pa.s.sed over more than thirty miles of water. During this time they had been drawing rapidly nearer to the coast of Corsica, the mountains of which, ragged and crowned with nearly eternal snows, had been glittering in the afternoon's sun before them, though they lay many a long league inland.

But the formation of the coast itself had now become plain, and Raoul, an hour before the sun disappeared, noted his landmarks, by which to make for the river he intended to enter. The eastern coast of Corsica is as deficient in bays and harbors as its western is affluent with them; and this Golo, for which the lugger was shaping her course, would never have been thought of as a place of shelter under ordinary circ.u.mstances.

But Raoul had once anch.o.r.ed in its mouth, and he deemed it the very spot in which to elude his enemy. It had shoals off its embouchure; and these, he rightly enough fancied, would induce Captain Cuffe to be wary.

As the evening approached the wind began to decrease in force, and then the people of the lugger lost all their apprehensions. The spars had all stood, and Raoul no longer hesitated about trusting his wounded mainmast with a new yard and sail. Both were got up, and the repairs were immediately commenced. The superiority of the lugger in sailing was now so great as to put it out of all question that she was not to be overtaken in the chase; and Raoul at one time actually thought of turning up along the land and going into Bastia, where he might even provide himself with a new mainmast at need. But this idea, on reflection, he abandoned as too hazardous; and he continued on in the direction of the mouth of the Golo.

Throughout the day the Proserpine had shown no colors, except for the short period when her boats were engaged, and while she herself was firing at the lugger. The same was the fact with le Feu-Follet, though Raoul had run up the tri-color as he opened on the felucca, and he kept it flying as long as there was any appearance of hostilities. As the two vessels drew in near to the land several coasters were seen beating up against the westerly wind, or running down before it, all of which, however, seemed so much to distrust the appearance of the lugger as to avoid her as far as was possible. This was a matter of indifference to our hero, who knew that they were all probably countrymen; or, at least, smugglers, who would scarcely reward him for the trouble, had he time to bring them to and capture them. Corsica was then again in the hands of the French, the temporary and imperfect possession of the English having terminated three or four years earlier; and Raoul felt certain of a welcome anywhere in the island and of protection wherever it could be offered. Such was the state of things when, just as the lugger was preparing to enter among the shoals, the Proserpine unexpectedly tacked and seemed to bestow all her attention on the coasters, of which three or four were so near that two fell into her hands almost without an effort to escape.

It appeared to Raoul and those with him in his little craft that the English seized these insignificant vessels solely with a wish for vengeance, since it was not usual for ships of the force of the Proserpine to turn aside to molest the poor fishermen and coasters. A few execrations followed, quite as a matter of course, but the intricacy of the channel and the necessity of having all his eyes about him soon drove every other thought from the mind of the dashing privateersman but such as were connected with the care and safety of his own vessel.

Just as the sun set le Feu-Follet anch.o.r.ed. She had chosen a berth sufficiently within the shallow water to be safe from the guns of the frigate, though scarcely within the river. The latter the depth of the stream hardly permitted, though there was all the shelter that the season and weather required. The Proserpine manifested no intention to give up her pursuit; for she, too, came off the outlet and brought up with one of her bowers about two miles to seaward of the lugger. She seemed to have changed her mind as to the coasters, having let both proceed after a short detention, though, it falling calm, neither was enabled to get any material distance from her until the land-breeze should rise. In these positions the belligerents prepared to pa.s.s the night, each party taking the customary precautions as to his ground tackle, and each clearing up the decks and going through the common routine of duty as regularly as if he lay in a friendly port.

CHAPTER XI.

"The human mind, that lofty thing, The palace and the throne, Where reason sits, a sceptred king, And breathes his judgment tone; Oh! I who with silent step shall trace The borders of that haunted place, Nor in his weakness own, That mystery and marvel bind That lofty thing--the human mind!"

ANONYMOUS.

It is unnecessary to dwell on the glories of the Mediterranean. They are familiar to every traveler, and books have again and again laid them before the imaginations of readers of all countries and ages. Still, there are lights and shades peculiar to every picture, and this of ours has some of its own that merit a pa.s.sing notice. A sunset, in midsummer, can add to the graces of almost any scene. Such was the hour when Raoul anch.o.r.ed; and Ghita, who had come on deck, now that the chase was over and the danger was thought to be past, fancied she had never seen her own Italy or the blue Mediterranean more lovely.

The shadows of the mountains were cast far upon the sea, long ere the sun had actually gone down, throwing the witchery of eventide over the whole of the eastern coast, some time before it came to grace its western. Corsica and Sardinia resemble vast fragments of the Alps, which have fallen into the sea by some accident of nature, where they stand in sight of their native beds, resembling, as it might be, outposts to those great walls of Europe. Their mountains have the same formations, the same white peaks, for no small portion of the year at least, and their sides the same mysterious and riven aspect. In addition, however, to their other charms, they have one that is wanting in most of Switzerland, though traces of it are to be found in Savoy and on the southern side of the Alps; they have that strange admixture of the soft and the severe, of the sublime and beautiful, that so peculiarly characterize the witchery of Italian nature. Such was now the aspect of all visible from the deck of le Feu-Follet. The sea, with its dark-blue tint, was losing every trace of the western wind, and was becoming gla.s.sy and tranquil; the mountains on the other side were solemn and grand, just showing their ragged outlines along a sky glowing with "the pomp that shuts the day"; while the nearer valleys and narrow plains were mysterious, yet soft, under the deep shadows they cast. Pianosa lay nearly opposite, distant some twenty miles, rising out of the water like a beacon; Elba was visible to the northeast, a gloomy confused pile of mountain at that hour; and Ghita once or twice thought she could trace on the coast of the main the dim outline of her own hill, Monte Argentaro; though the distance, some sixty or seventy miles, rendered this improbable. Outside, too, lay the frigate, riding on the gla.s.sy surface of the sea, her sails furled, her yards squared, everything about her cared for and in its place, until she formed a faultless picture of nautical symmetry and naval propriety. There are all sorts of men in a marine, as well as in civil life; these taking things as they come, content to perform their duties in the most quiet manner, while others again have some such liking for their vessels as the dandy has for his own person, and are never happy unless embellishing them. The truth in this, as in most other matters, lies in a medium; the officer who thinks too much of the appearance of his vessel, seldom having mind enough to be stow due attention on the great objects for which she was constructed and is sailed; while, on the other hand, he who is altogether indifferent to these appearances is usually thinking of things foreign to his duty and his profession; if, indeed, he thinks at all. Cuffe was near the just medium, Inclining a little too much, perhaps, to the naval dandy. The Proserpine, thanks to the builders of Toulon, was thought to be the handsomest model then afloat in the Mediterranean, and, like an established beauty, all who belonged to her were fond of decorating her and of showing her fine proportions to advantage. As she now lay at single anchor just out of gun-shot from his own berth, Raoul could not avoid gazing at her with envy, and a bitter feeling pa.s.sed through his mind when he recalled the chances of fortune and of birth, which deprived him of the hope of ever rising to the command of such a frigate, but which doomed him, seemingly, to the fate of a privateersman for life.

Nature had intended Raoul Yvard for a much higher destiny than that which apparently awaited his career. He had come into active life with none of the advantages that accompany the accidents of birth, and at a moment in the history of his great nation when its morals and its religious sentiments had become unsettled by the violent reaction which was throwing off the abuses of centuries. They who imagine, however, that France, as a whole, was guilty of the gross excesses that disfigured her struggles for liberty know little of the great ma.s.s of moral feeling that endured through all the abominations of the times, and mistake the crimes of a few desperate leaders and the exaggerations of misguided impulses for a radical and universal depravity. The France of the Reign of Terror, even, has little more to answer for than the compliance which makes bodies of men the instruments of the enthusiastic, the designing, and the active--our own country often tolerating error that differs only in the degree, under the same blind submission to combinations and impulses; this very degree, to, depending more on the accidents of history and natural causes than any agencies which are to be imputed to the one party as a fault, or to the other as a merit. It was with Raoul as it had been with his country--each was the creature of circ.u.mstances; and if the man had some of the faults, he had also most of the merits of his nation and his age.

The looseness on the subject of religion, which was his princ.i.p.al defect in the eyes of Ghita, but which could scarcely fail to be a material one with a girl educated and disposed as was the case with our heroine, was the error of the day, and with Raoul it was at least sincere; a circ.u.mstance that rendered him, with one so truly pious as the gentle being he loved, the subject of a holy interest, which, in itself, almost rivalled the natural tenderness of her s.e.x, in behalf of the object of her affections.

While the short engagement with the boats lasted, and during the few minutes he was under the fire of the frigate, Raoul had been himself; the excitement of actual war always nerving him to deeds worthy of his command and the high name he had acquired; but throughout the remainder of the day he had felt little disposed to strife. The chase, once a.s.sured that his spars were likely to stand, gave him little concern; and now that he was at anchor within the shallow water, he felt much as the traveler who has found a comfortable inn after the fatigue of a hard day's ride. When Ithuel suggested the possibility of a night-attack in boats, he laughingly reminded the American that "the burnt child dreads the fire," and gave himself no great concern in the matter. Still no proper precaution was neglected. Raoul was in the habit of exacting much of his men in moments of necessity; but at all other times he was as indulgent as a kind father among obedient and respectful children. This quality and the never-varying constancy and coolness that he displayed in danger was the secret of his great influence with them; every seaman under his orders feeling certain that no severe duty was required at his hands without a corresponding necessity for it.

On the present occasion, when the people of le Feu-Follet had supped, they were indulged in their customary dance, and the romantic songs of Provence were heard on the forecastle. A light-hearted gayety prevailed, that wanted only the presence of woman to make the scene resemble the evening amus.e.m.e.nt of some hamlet on the coast. Nor was the s.e.x absent in the sentiment of the hour or wholly so in person. The songs were full of chivalrous gallantry, and Ghita listened, equally touched and amused.

She sat on the taffrail, with her uncle standing at her side, while Raoul paced the quarter-deck, stopping, in his turn, to utter some thought or wish, to ears that were always attentive. At length the song and the dance ended, and all but the few who were ordered to remain on watch descended to their hammocks. The change was as sudden as it was striking. The solemn, breathing stillness of a star-lit night succeeded to the light laugh, melodious song, and spirited merriment of a set of men whose const.i.tutional gayety seemed to be restrained by a species of native refinement that is unknown to the mariners of other regions, and who, unnurtured as they might be deemed, in some respects, seldom or never offended against the proprieties, as is so common with the mariners of the boasted Anglo-Saxon race. By this time the cool air from the mountains began to descend, and, floating over the heated sea, it formed a light land-breeze that blew in an exactly contrary direction to that which, about the same hour, came off from the adjacent continent.

There was no moon, but the night could not be called dark. Myriads of stars gleamed out from the fathomless firmament, filling the atmosphere with a light that served to render objects sufficiently distinct, while it left them clad in a semi-obscurity that suited the witchery of the scene and the hour. Raoul felt the influence of all these circ.u.mstances in an unusual degree. It disposed him to more sobriety of thought than always attended his leisure moments, and he took a seat on the taffrail near Ghita, while her uncle went below to his knees and his prayers.

Every footfall in the lugger had now ceased. Ithuel was posted on a knight-head, where he sat watching his old enemy, the Proserpine; the proximity of that ship not allowing him to sleep. Two experienced seamen, who alone formed the regular anchor-watch, as it is termed, were stationed apart, in order to prevent conversation; one on the starboard cathead, and the other in the main rigging; both keeping vigilant ward over the tranquil sea and the different objects that floated on its placid bosom. In that retired spot these objects were necessarily few, embracing the frigate, the lugger, and three coasters, the latter of which had all been boarded before the night set in, by the Proserpine, and after short detentions dismissed. One of these coasters lay about half-way between the two hostile vessels, at anchor, having come-to, after making some fruitless efforts to get to the northward, by means of the expiring west wind. Although the light land-breeze would now have sufficed to carry her a knot or two through the water, she preferred maintaining her position and giving her people a good night's rest to getting under way. The situation of this felucca and the circ.u.mstance that she had been boarded by the frigate rendered her an object of some distrust with Raoul through the early part of the evening, and he had ordered a vigilant eye to be kept on her; but nothing had been discovered to confirm these suspicions. The movements of her people--the manner in which she brought-up--the quiet that prevailed on board her, and even the lubberly disposition of her spars and rigging, went to satisfy Raoul that she had no man-of-war's men on board her. Still, as she lay less than a mile outside of the lugger though now dead to leeward all that distance, she was to be watched; and one of the seamen, he in the rigging, rarely had his eyes off her a minute at a time. The second coaster was a little to the southward of the frigate, under her canvas, hauling in for the land; doubtless with a view to get as much as possible of the breeze from the mountains, and standing slowly to the south. She had been set by compa.s.s an hour before, and all that time had altered her bearings but half a point, though not a league off--a proof how light she had the wind. The third coaster, a small felucca, too, was to the northward; but ever since the land-breeze, if breeze it could be called, had come she had been busy turning slowly up to windward, and seemed disposed either to cross the shoals closer in than the spot where the lugger lay or to enter the Golo. Her shadowy outline was visible, though drawn against the land, moving slowly athwart the lugger's hawse, perhaps half a mile in-sh.o.r.e of her. As there was a current setting out of the river, and all the vessels rode with their heads to the island, Ithuel occasionally turned his head to watch her progress, which was so slow, however, as to produce very little change.

After looking around him several minutes in silence Raoul turned his face upward, and gazed at the stars.

"You probably do not know, Ghita," he said, "the use those stars may be, and are, to us mariners. By their aid, we are enabled to tell where we are, in the midst of the broadest oceans--to know the points of the compa.s.s, and to feel at home even when furthest removed from it. The seaman must go far south of the equator, at least, ere he can reach a spot where he does not see the same stars that he beheld from the door of his father's house."

"That is a new thought to me," answered Ghita, quickly, her tender nature at once struck with the feeling and poetry of such an idea; "that is a new thought to me, Raoul, and I wonder you never mentioned it before. It is a great thing to be able to carry home and familiar objects with you when so distant from those you love."

"Did you never hear that lovers have chosen an hour and a star, by gazing at which they might commune together, though separated by oceans and countries."

"That is a question you might put to yourself, Raoul; all I have ever heard of lovers and love having come from your own lips."

"Well, then, I tell it you, and hope that we shall not part again without selecting _our_ star and _our_ hour--if, indeed, we ever part more. Though I have forgotten to tell you this, Ghita, it is because you are never absent from my thoughts--no star is necessary to recall Monte Argentaro and the Towers."

If we should say Ghita was not pleased with this, it would be to raise her above an amiable and a natural weakness. Raoul's protestations never fell dead on her heart, and few things were sweeter to her ear than his words as they declared his devotedness and pa.s.sion. The frankness with which he admitted his delinquencies, and most especially the want of that very religious sentiment which was of so much value in the eyes of his mistress, gave an additional weight to his language when he affirmed his love. Notwithstanding Ghita blushed as she now listened, she did not smile; she rather appeared sad. For near a minute she made no reply; and when she did answer, it was in a low voice, like one who felt and thought intensely.

"Those stars may well have a higher office," she said. "Look at them, Raoul;--count them we cannot, for they seem to start out of the depths of heaven, one after another, as the eye rests upon the s.p.a.ce, until they mock our efforts at calculation. We see they are there in thousands, and may well believe they are in myriads. Now thou hast been taught, else couldst thou never be a navigator, that those stars are worlds like our own, or suns with worlds sailing around them; how is it possible to see and know this without believing in a G.o.d and feeling the insignificance of our being?"

"I do not deny that there is a power to govern all this, Ghita--but I maintain that it is a principle; not a being, in our shape and form; and that it is the reason of things, rather than a deity."

"Who has said that G.o.d is a being in our shape and form, Raoul? None know that--- none _can_ know it; none _say_ it who reverence and worship him as they ought!"

"Do not your priests say that man has been created in his image? and is not this creating him in his form and likeness?"

"Nay, not so, dear Raoul, but in the image of his spirit--that man hath a soul which partakes, though in a small degree, of the imperishable essence of G.o.d; and thus far doth he exist in his image. More than this, none have presumed to say. But what a being, to be the master of all those bright worlds!"

"Ghita, thou know'st my way of thinking on these matters, and thou also know'st that I would not wound thy gentle spirit by a single word that could grieve thee."

"Nay, Raoul, it is _not_ thy way of _thinking_, but thy fashion of _talking_, that makes the difference between us. No one who _thinks_ can ever doubt the existence of a being superior to all of earth and of the universe; and who is Creator and Master of all."

"Of a _principle_, if thou wilt, Ghita; but of a _being_, I ask for the proof. That a mighty principle exists, to set all these planets in motion--to create all these stars, and to plant all these suns in s.p.a.ce, I never doubted; it would be to question a fact which stands day and night before my eyes; but to suppose a _being_ capable of producing all these things is to believe in beings I never saw."

"And why not as well suppose that it is a being that does all this, Raoul, as suppose it what you call a principle?"

"Because I see principles beyond my understanding at work all around me: in yonder heavy frigate, groaning under her load of artillery, which floats on this thin water; in the trees of the land that lies so near us; in the animals, which are born and die; the fishes, the birds, and the human beings. But I see no being--know no being, that is able to do all this."

"That is because thou know'st not G.o.d! He is the creator of the principles of which thou speak'st, and is greater than thy principles themselves."

"It is easy to say this, Ghita--but hard to prove. I take the acorn and put it in the ground; in due time it comes up a plant; in the course of years, it becomes a tree. Now, all this depends on a certain mysterious principle, which is unknown to me, but which I am sure exists, for I can cause it myself to produce its fruits, by merely opening the earth and laying the seed in its bosom. Nay, I can do more--so well do I understand this principle, to a certain extent at least, that, by choosing the season and the soil, I can hasten or r.e.t.a.r.d the growth of the plant, and, in a manner, fashion the tree."

"True, Raoul, _to a certain extent_ thou canst; and it is precisely because thou hast been created after the image of G.o.d. The little resemblance thou enjoyest to that mighty Being enables thee to do this much more than the beasts of the field: wert thou his equal, thou couldst create that principle of which thou speakest, and which, in thy blindness, thou mistakest for his master."

This was said with more feeling than Ghita had ever before manifested, in their frequent discourses on this subject, and with a solemnity of tone that startled her listener. Ghita had no philosophy, in the common acceptation of the term, while Raoul fancied he had much, under the limitations of a deficient education; and yet the strong religious sentiment of the girl so quickened her faculties that he had often been made to wonder why she had seemingly the best of the argument, on a subject in which he flattered himself with being so strong.

"I rather think, Ghita, we scarcely understand each other," answered Raoul. "I pretend not to see any more than is permitted to man; or, rather, more than his powers can comprehend; but this proves nothing, as the elephant understands more than the horse, and the horse more than the fish. There is a principle which pervades everything which we call Nature; and this it is which has produced these whirling worlds and all the mysteries of creation. One of its laws is, that nothing it produces shall comprehend its secrets."

"You have only to fancy your principle a spirit, a being with mind, Raoul, to have the Christian's G.o.d. Why not believe in him as easily as you believe in your unknown principle, as you call it? You know that you exist--that you can build a lugger--can reason on the sun and stars, so as to find your way across the widest ocean, by means of your mind; and why not suppose that some superior being exists who can do even more than this? Your principles can be thwarted even by yourself--the seed can be deprived of its power to grow--the tree destroyed; and, if principles can thus be destroyed, some accident may one day destroy creation by destroying its principle. I fear to speak to you of revelation, Raoul, for I know you mock it!"

"Not when it comes from _thy_ lips, dearest. I may not _believe_, but I never _mock_ at what thou utterest and reverencest."

"I could thank thee for this, Raoul, but I feel it would be taking to myself a homage that ought to be paid elsewhere. But here is my guitar, and I am sorry to say that the hymn to the Virgin has not been sung on board this lugger to-night; thou canst not think how sweet is a hymn sung upon the waters. I heard the crew that is anch.o.r.ed toward the frigate, singing that hymn, while thy men were at their light Provencal songs in praise of woman's beauty, instead of joining in praise of their Creator."