i descended into the cabin, walked straight to the door of wilfrid’s berth and knocked.
‘who’s there?’
‘i, charles. i have news for you.’
‘come in, come in!’
i entered and found wilfrid in his bunk propped up on his elbow, his eyes looking twice their natural size with the intensity of his stare, and one long uncouth leg already flung over the edge so that his posture was as if he had been suddenly paralysed whilst in the act of springing on to the deck.
‘what news in the name of heaven? quick, now, like a dear boy!’
‘there’s a schooner-yacht uncommonly like your “shark” away down on the lee bow visible from aloft.’
he whipped his other leg out of bed and sat bold upright. i had expected some extravagance of behaviour in him on his hearing this, but greatly to my surprise he sat silent in his bunk eyeing me, his brow dark and his lips moving for several seconds, which might have been minutes for the time they seemed to run into.
‘what is to-day, charles?’
‘thursday.’
‘ha! it should be monday. that light last night was an[157] omen, as i told you. i knew some great event could not be far off.’ his eyes kindled under their quivering lids and an odd smile twisted his mouth into the expression of a sarcastic grin. it was as ugly a look in him as i had ever seen, and it gained heavily in the effect it produced by his comparatively quiet manner.
‘we are heading directly for her, of course?’
‘finn has her about two points on the lee bow,’ said i.
‘will that do?’ he exclaimed.
‘why, yes; hold a weather-gage of the chase, it is said; though i think we shall be having a northerly blast upon us before the sun touches his meridian.’
‘is she the “shark,” charles?’
‘you know i never saw the vessel, wilf. but finn and the chap on the yard seem to have no doubt of her, and the skipper ought to know anyway.’
on this he leapt to the deck with a cry of laughter, and coming up to me let fall his hand heavily upon my shoulder with such a grip of it that, spite of my having my coat on, it ached after he had let go like an attack of rheumatism. ‘now what say you?’ said he, stooping, for he was a taller man than i, and peering and grinning close into my face. ‘you looked upon this chase as a crazy undertaking, didn’t you? the sea was such a mighty circle, charles! the biggest ship in the world but an insignificant speck upon it, hey?’
he let go of me and brought his hands together, extending and slowly beating the air with them, with his body rocking. i awaited some passionate outfly, but whether his thoughts were too deep for words or that he was satisfied to think what at another time he might have stormed out with, he held his peace. presently and very suddenly he abandoned his singular attitude and fell to collecting articles of his clothing which he pulled on as though he would tear them to pieces.
‘i’ll be with you on deck immediately,’ said i, going to the door. but he did not seem to know that i was present; all the time he strained and dragged at his clothes he talked to himself rapidly, fiercely; pausing once to smite his thigh with his open hand; following this on with a low, deep laugh, like that of a sleeper dreaming.
well, thought i, as i stepped out and went to my berth, whether it prove the ‘shark’ or not we shall have to ‘stand by,’ as finn hinted, for some queer displays to-day. i met miss jennings’ maid in the cabin and asked if she was going to her mistress. she replied yes. ‘then,’ said i, ‘give her my compliments and tell her that we have raised a large schooner-yacht during the night, and that finn seems to think she is the “shark.”’
as i entered my berth i caught myself smiling over my fancy of the look that would come into the sweet girl’s face when her maid gave her the message; the brilliant gleam of mingled alarm, temper, astonishment in her eyes, the sudden flush of her cheek[158] and its paleness afterwards, the consternation in the set of her lips and the agitation of her little hands like the fluttering of falling snow-flakes as she dressed. but in good sooth i too was feeling mightily excited once more; i had cooled down somewhat since going on deck and viewing the distant sail from the masthead; now that i was alone and could muse, my pulse rose with my imaginations till it almost came to my thinking of myself as on the eve of some desperate and bloody business, boarding a pirate, say, with the chance of a live slow match in his magazine, or cutting out something heavily armed and full of men under a castle bristling with artillery. supposing the craft to be the ‘shark,’ what was to be the issue? the ‘bride’ would be recognised; and hope-kennedy was not likely, as i might take it, to let us float alongside of him if he could help it. suppose we maimed her and compelled her to bring to; what then? i had asked finn this question long before, and he had said it would not come to a hand-to-hand struggle. but how could he tell? if we offered to board they might threaten to fire into us, and a single shot, let alone a wounded or a killed man, might raise blood enough to end in as grim an affray as ever british colours floated over. small wonder that my excitement rose with all these fancies and speculations. and then again, supposing the stranger to be the ‘shark,’ there was (to me) the astonishing coincidence of falling in with her—picking her up, indeed, as though we had been steered dead into her wake by some spirit hand instead of blundering on her through a stroke of luck, which had no more reference to finn’s calculations, and suppositions and hopings, than to the indications of the nose of our chaste and gilded figure-head.
when i went on deck i spied wilfrid coming down the forerigging. he held on very tightly and felt about with his sprawling feet with uncommon cautiousness for the ratlines ere relaxing his grip of the shrouds. finn was immediately under him, standing by, perhaps, to shoulder him up if he should turn dizzy. they reached the deck and came aft.
‘she’s not yet in sight from the cross-trees,’ exclaimed wilfrid, puffing and irritable from nervousness and exertion and disappointment, ‘and i can’t climb higher.’
‘if she’s the “shark,”’ said i, ‘you’re not going to raise her upon the horizon as if she were a beacon. but there’s a spread of wings here that she can’t show anyhow, and it will be strange if her white plumes are not nodding above that blue edge by noon.’
‘ay, sir,’ rumbled finn, ‘specially with that coming along,’ pointing to the north, where the weather looked heavy and smoky and thunderous with a purple rounding of shadow upon the sea-line and a hot-looking copperish light flowing off the jagged summits into the dusty blue as though it were sundown that was reflected there, whilst the troubled roll of the swell out of the shadow on the ocean put a finishing touch to the countenance of storm you found spreading astern from north-east to north-west. ‘there’ll be wind enough[159] there, sir,’ said finn, keeping his square-ended stumpy fore-finger levelled, ‘to give us white water to above our bow ports anon, or i’m a codfish.’
wilfrid turned about and fell to pacing the deck; he struck out as though walking for a wager, tossing his legs and swinging his arms and measuring the planks from the wheel to very nearly abreast of the galley. such of the sailors as were to windward slided to the other side, where you saw them exchanging looks though there was no want of respect in their manner, but on the contrary an air of active sympathy as if they were getting to master the full meaning of the existence of that sail below the horizon by observing how the report of it worked in the baronet.
‘we must try and raise her,’ muttered finn in my ear, ‘if only to pacify his honour by the sight of her. he can’t climb, and he’ll go out of himself if he don’t see her soon.’
‘but do you gain on her!’
‘why, yes, she is visible from the cross-trees already. but sir wilfrid can’t get so high.’ well, thought i, this should surely signify slower heels than the ‘shark’ is allowed to have.
i went to the taffrail and overhung it, watching the sky astern with an occasional mechanical glance at the wool-white spin of the wake gushing over the surface of the jumble of the swell like steam from the funnel of a locomotive. it was blowing a fresh wind, though i guessed it would slacken away soon to pipe up in a fresh slant presently. the yacht was a great fabric of cloths, every stitch abroad that would hold air, and she drove through it humming, troubled as she was by the irregular heave of the sea. in fact her movements were so awkward as to render walking inconvenient, and nothing, i believe, but the not knowing what he was about could have furnished wilfrid with his steady shanks that morning. it was like a bit of sleep-walking, indeed, where a man who awake could not look down forty feet without desiring to cast himself out of a window, safely and exquisitely treads a narrow ledge of roof as high as the top of london monument.
i was startled from my reverie by an exclamation, and turning, saw him hastily approaching miss jennings, who had just arrived on deck. he came to her with his arms extended as though he would embrace her.
‘laura, have you heard?’
‘is it the “shark,” wilfrid?’
‘finn says yes. she exactly answers to the “shark’s” description. hereabouts she should be, this is her track,—yes, yes, it is the “shark.” would god it were monday!’ then, seeing me looking, he bawled, ‘eh, charles, what other ship should she prove? fore and aft—fore and aft, of the “shark’s” burthen, as you and finn say, a schooner, a pleasure craft by the colour of her canvas—’ his face suddenly darkened, and he said something to miss jennings, but what i could not gather. she half turned away as if overcome by a sudden sense of sickness or faintness; the[160] effect of some expression of fierce joy, i dare say, on his part, some savage whisper of assurance that his opportunity was not far distant now which acted upon her nervous system that trembled yet to the surprise of the news i had sent her through her maid. there was something so sad and appealing in her beauty just then that but for the feelings it possessed me with i might scarcely have suspected what a lover’s heart i already carried in my breast for her. the troubled sweetness of her glances, her pale cheeks and lips, the swift rise and fall of her bosom, betokened consternation and the conflict of many emotions and, as i could not but think, a subduing sense of loneliness. well, i must say i loved her the better for this weakness of spirit, for this recoil from the confrontment that she had been endeavouring to persuade herself she was looking forward to with a longing for it only a little less venomous than wilfrid’s. nothing, i had thought again and again, but the soul of a fond, tender, chaste woman, gentle in mind and of a nature loveable, with the best weaknesses of her sex, could go clad in such graces as she walked in withal from her topmost curl of gold to the full, firm, elegant little foot on which she seemed to float to the buoyant measures of the yacht’s deck.
wilfrid addressed her again hurriedly and eagerly with the gesticulations of a jew in a passion. she answered softly, continuously sending scared looks over the yacht’s bow. i heard him name his wife, but it was not for me to join them nor to listen, so i overhung the taffrail afresh, observing that even now there was a noticeable weakening in the weight of the wind, whilst the swing of the swell from a little to the westward of north was growing more regular, a longer and fuller heave with an opalescent glance in the vapour immediately over the sea-line as though the weather was clearing past the rim of the ocean.
‘mr. monson.’
i turned. miss laura stood by my side. wilfrid had left the deck. ‘is that vessel, that is said to be ahead of us, the ‘shark,’ do you think?’
‘i wish i knew positively for your sake, that i might relieve your anxiety.’
‘if she should prove to be the vessel that my sister is in’—she drew a long, tremulous breath—‘it will be a marvellous meeting, for i feel now as you have felt all through—now that that yacht is in sight from the mast up there—that this ocean is a vast wilderness.’ she slowly ran her eyes, which were still charged with their scared look, along the sea-line.
‘well, miss jennings, hanging and marriage go by destiny, they say, and so does chasing a wife at sea apparently. i give you my word i am so excited i can scarcely talk.’
‘but it may not be the ‘shark.’’
‘why, no.’
‘i hope it is not,’ she cried, starting to the rise in her voice with a glance at the helmsman, who stood near us.
[161]
‘i can see that in your face,’ said i.
‘oh, i hope it is not, and yet i want it to be the “shark” too. wilfrid must recover henrietta. but it makes my heart stand still to think of our meeting. oh, her shame! her shame! and then to find me here. and what is to happen?’
‘best let that craft turn out to be the “shark” though,’ said i. ‘here we are with a programme of rambles that threatens the world’s end if we don’t fall in with the colonel. keep your heart up,’ said i gently. ‘what have you to fear? it is for the galled jade to wince. why t’other night you would have shot hope-kennedy had he stood up before you.’
she tried to smile, but the movement of her lips swiftly faded out into their expression of grief and consternation.
‘i will play my part,’ she exclaimed, twisting her ring upon her finger. ‘if my sister refuses to leave colonel hope-kennedy i have made up my mind not to leave her. where she goes i’ll go.’
‘i hope not,’ i interrupted, ‘for it might come, miss jennings, to my saying that where you go i’ll go, and the colonel may have rather curious views on the subject of guests.’
‘you said you were too excited to talk,’ she exclaimed with a little colour mounting. ‘it may be that i am stupidly influenced by old memories. i was always afraid of henrietta. she had an imperious manner, and an old lord whom i met at your cousin’s—i forget his name—told wilfrid that her eyes made him think of mrs. siddons in her finest scenes. i fear her influence upon me when i begin to entreat her. i know how she will look.’
‘all this is mere nervousness,’ said i. ‘you thought of these things before, yet you are here. besides, the sense of wrong-doing will mightily weaken the genius of wizardry in her—her power at least of exercising it and subduing by it—subduing even you, the tenderest and gentlest of girls; or depend on’t she’s no true member of your sex, but one of those demon-women whom coleridge describes as wailing for their, or rather in her case for new, lovers.’
she made no reply. shortly afterwards the breakfast bell summoned us below.
at table wilfrid spoke little, but his manner was collected; whether it was that excitement was languishing in him or that he had managed to master himself, what he said was rational, his words and manner unclouded by that hectic which was wont to give the countenance of a high fever to all he said and did when anything happened to stir him up. he was stern and thoughtful, and it was easy to see that he accepted the vessel ahead as the ‘shark,’ and that he was settling his plans. i was heartily grateful for this posture in him. i never knew anyone so fatiguing with his restlessness as my cousin. half an hour of his company when he was much excited left one as tired, dry, and hollow as a four hours’ argument with an illogical man. he was too much preoccupied to notice how pale and subdued and scared miss laura[162] was, struggle as she might in his presence to seem otherwise. i talked very cautiously for fear of provoking a discussion that might heat him. once he asked me in an angry, twitting way, as though to the heave-up within him of a sudden mood of wrath with a parcel of words atop which were bound to find the road out, whether i felt disposed now to challenge his judgment, whether i was still of opinion that the ocean was too wide a field for such a chase as this, and so on, proceeding steadily but with rising warmth through the catalogue of my early objections to the voyage, but instead of answering him i praised the bit of virgin corned beef off which i was breakfasting, wondered why it was that poultry was always insipid at sea, and so forced him back into his dark and collected silence or obliged him to quit his subject.
however, his inability to keep his attention long fixed helped me here, for he never attempted to pick up the end of the thread i had cut, though, little as he spoke, two-thirds of what he delivered himself of might have been worked into hot arguments but for my cautious answers.
i was not surprised on going on deck to find the wind no more than a light draught with the main boom swinging to the long roll of the yacht and the canvas flapping with vicious snaps at sheet and yard-arm. the water seemed to wash thick as oil from the yacht’s sides, a dirty blue that went into an oozy sort of green northwards. there was a deadness in the lift of the swell that made you think of an idiot shouldering his way through a crowd, and the eye sought in vain for a streak of foam for the relief of the crisp vitality of it.
‘is that wind or thunder, think you, mr. crimp?’ said i to the mate, whom i found in charge, whilst i pointed to the heaped-up folds of cloud astern, the brows of which were not far off the central sky that, spite of the sunshine, was blurred to the very luminary himself with the shadow in the north and with tatters and curls and streaks of rusty brassish vapour risen off the line of the main body and sulkily floating southwards.
‘wind or thunder?’ answered crimp with a dull, indifferent look; ‘well, ’tain’t tufted enough for thunder, but there’ll be a breeze, i allow, behind this here swell.’
‘are we rising the chap ahead?’
‘not noticeably. she’ll have to shift her hellum for us for that to happen at this pace,’ sending an askew glance over the side. i was leaving him. ‘heard any more woices?’ he asked.
‘no, have you?’
‘no, and don’t want to. it’s been a puzzling me, though,’ he exclaimed, mumbling over a quid the juice of which had stained the corners of his mouth into so sour a sneer that no artist could have painted it better. ‘tell’ee what it is. i’m a-going to believe in ghosts.’
‘you can’t do better,’ said i; ‘get hold of a ghost and it will explain everything for you.’
[163]
‘well, ’taint a childish notion anyhow. there’s first class folks as believes in sperrits. what’s a ghost like? ne’er a man as i’ve asked forrads knows saving the mute, who describes it as a houtline.’
‘what’s inside his outline?’ i asked.
‘why, that there muffin can’t get further than that. i says to him, how can a houtline speak? look here, says he, answer me this: suppose ye takes a bottle and sucks out all the air from inside of it, what’s left? a wacuum, says i. and what’s a wacuum? says he. why, i says, says i, space, ain’t it? i says. and what’s space? says he. why nothen, i suppose, i says, says i. then, says he, how can nothen exist? and yet, says he, it do exist, because ye can point to the bottle and say there it is. so with a ghost, says he; it’s a houtline with nothen inside it if you like, but it’s as real in its emptiness as the inside of a bottle with nothen in it.’
at any other time i should have hugely enjoyed an argument with this acrid old sailor on such a subject as ghosts. there is no company to my taste to equal that of a sour, prejudiced, ignorant salt of matured years, whose knowledge of life has been gained by looking at the world through a ship’s hawse pipe, and who is full to the throat with the sayings and the superstitions of the forecastle. jacob crimp was such a man. indeed he was the best example of the kind that i can recollect, thanks, perhaps, to the help he got from his queer sea-eyes, glutinous in appearance as a jelly-fish, one peering athwart the other with a look of quarrelling about them that most happily corresponded with the sulky expression of his face and the growl of his voice that was like a sea-blessing. but it was impossible to think of the schooner ahead and talk with this man about ghosts. i left him and got into the fore-shrouds and ascended to the cross-trees, where, receiving the glass from the fellow on the yard above, i took a view of the sea over the bow, and caught plainly the canvas of the vessel we were heading for,—her mainsail visible to the boom of it with a glimpse of her bowsprit end wriggling off into the dusky blue air at every rise of her bow to the lift of the swell. i noticed, however, that she had taken in her main gaff topsail, possibly with an eye to the weather astern; but it was a thing to set me problemising. supposing her to be the ‘shark,’ either she had not yet sighted us or she had no suspicion of us. fidler, her captain, would, when we showed fair, be pretty sure to twig us by our rig; but was it likely that the colonel and lady monson would gravely suppose that wilfrid had started in chase of them? that, indeed, might depend upon whether her ladyship had missed the colonel’s letter to her, which my cousin had asked me to read. well, we should have to wait a little. my heart beat briskly as i descended to the deck. put yourself in my place, and think of the sort of excitement that was threatened before that morning sun shining up there had set!
half an hour later the weak draught had died out; the rolling[164] of the ‘bride’ was putting a voice of thunder into her canvas, and the strain on hemp and spar presently obliged old crimp to take in his studdingsails, which he followed on by ordering the topgallant-sail to be rolled up and the gaff topsail hauled down. wilfrid, who had arrived on deck, stood haggardly eyeing these man?uvres, but he said nothing, contenting himself with an occasional look, as dark as the shadow astern of us, at the weather there, and a fretful stride to the rail and a stormy stare at the sallow oil-smooth water that came swelling to the counter and washing the length of the little ship in a manner that made her stagger at times most abominably.
‘let that vessel prove what she may,’ said i, sitting down on a grating abaft the wheel close to which he was standing, ‘we appear to have the heels of her in light airs, however it may be with her in a breeze of wind.’
‘how do you know?’ he inquired in a churchyard note.
‘why,’ said i, ‘i was just now in the crosstrees and found her showing fair from them, whereas before breakfast she was only visible from the topgallantyard.’
he looked at me with a heavy, leaden eye, and said, ‘a plague on the wind! it has all gone; just when we want it too.’
‘we shall have a capful anon,’ i exclaimed; ‘no need to whistle for it. mark how it brightens down upon the sea-line yonder as that shadow floats upwards. that means wind enough to whiten this tumbling oiliness for us.’
he directed his gaze in a mechanical way towards the quarter in which i was looking, but said nothing. miss jennings came out of the companion. i took her hand and brought her to the grating.
‘a strange, oppressive calm,’ she cried; ‘how sickly the sunshine is! nature looks to be in as dull a mood as we are.’
‘wilf,’ said i, ‘if that schooner is the “shark,” what will you do?’
‘what would you do?’ he answered sternly, as though he imagined i quizzed him, when god knows i was in a more sober and anxious humour than i can express.
‘well,’ said i very quietly and gravely, ‘when i got my yacht within reach of her glasses, if i could manage it, i should signal that i wanted to speak her.’
‘quite right; that’s what i shall do,’ said he.
‘but after!’ i exclaimed.
‘after what?’ he cried.
‘why, confound it, wilf, suppose she makes no response, holds on all, as we say at sea, and bowls along without taking the slightest notice of us.’
he approached me close, laid his great hand upon my shoulder and thrust his long arm forth straight as a handspike pointing to the forecastle gun. ‘there’s my answer to that,’ he cried in my ear in a voice as disagreeable as the sound of a saw with irritability;[165] ‘you wished me to strike it down into the hold, d’ye remember? you were for ridiculing it from the moment of your catching sight of it; yet without that messenger to deliver my mind what answer would there be to the question you have just now put? oh my god,’ he suddenly cried, smiting his forehead, ‘i feel as if i shall go mad.’
he crossed to the other side of the deck and paced it alone. miss jennings was too much dejected by all this, by the excitement of the time, by nervousness, grief, anxiety, to converse; nor, indeed, was my mood a very sociable one. i procured a chair for her, and, presently found myself alone, as wilfrid was, wishing from the very bottom of my heart that colonel hope-kennedy was hanged, her ladyship in a lunatic asylum, and myself in my old west end haunts again, though somehow a misgiving as to the accuracy of this last desire visited me on a sudden with the glance i just then happened to cast at miss laura, who sat with her hands folded upon her lap, her head bowed in a posture of meditation that took an indescribable character of pathos from the expression on her sweet face.
it was now a little after ten o’clock. crimp, who was pacing near me that wilfrid might have the whole range of the weather quarterdeck to himself, suddenly rumbled out, ‘here comes the wind at last!’ the stern of the yacht was still upon the north, where, at the very verge of the waters which sluggishly heaved like molten lead under the dark canopy of vapour that overhung them, the sea was roughening and whitening to the whipping of wind which looked at that distance to be coming along in a straight line, though as it approached us i witnessed a strange effect of long fibrine feelers sweeping out of the hoarse and rushing ridges of foam which were seething towards us—like darting livid tongues of creatures hidden in the yeast behind tipped with froth that made one think of the slender stem of a vessel ripping through the surface. in a few minutes the boiling popple was all about us, hissing to our counter with a shriek of wind which flashed with such spite into the great space of mainsail and the whole spread of square topsail that the yacht for a moment was bowed down to her ways, fair as it took her on her quarter. an instant she lay so, then came surging back to an almost level deck with her rigging alive as with the ringing of bells, took a sudden plunge forward, throwing from either bow a mass of creaming sea the summit of which went spinning like a snowstorm ahead of her, then gathering impulse in a long, floating, launching plunge as it were, she went sliding through it faster and faster yet till she had a wake like a millrace in chase of her.
it was a scene full of the life and spirit and reality of the ocean after the spell of sulky calm with its dingy northern heaving of water and its haze of weak, moist sunlight in the south and east. finn to the first of the blast came on deck and fell a-bawling, the sailors sprang from rope to rope with lively heartiness, the slack running gear blew out in semicircles, which with the curve of the canvas and the lean of the masts as the yacht swept forward with the brine boiling high along her, gave a wild, expectant, headlong[166] look to the whole rushing fabric, something indeed to make one fancy that the spirit of her owner, the expression of whose face had her own strained, eager, rushing air, so to speak, had passed into and vitalised her—mere structure of timber as she was—into passionate human yearnings.
