William Clark Russell

“ I'm an English sailor, and I'm loyal to my native country. God save the King!'
Saying which, he turned and bowed with every mark of profound veneration to Miss Vanderholt.
'Let me pass, man!' cried Captain Parry, pulling out his revolver and hustling the powerful fellow.
'Hide it!' screamed Violet; 'he is mad! He has been kind to me! Oh, my God! George, am I dreaming? Is it you in the flesh, or am I mad, too?'
She put her hands to her eyes, and reeled to a stanchion, against which she leaned. The madman continued to barricade the door, both huge arms extended. ”

“ Yet one black dread ever haunted Captain Parry's fancies. He was going to seek the boat. Had Miss Vanderholt accompanied [Pg 207] the men? Would they carry with them a living witness to their piracy and murders? Had not she been murdered before the schooner was abandoned?
It was ten o'clock when the mate returned from the Mowbray. All this while the sea remained satin-smooth. The sun, soaring high, burnt fiercely; the paint bubbled in blisters, the pitch ran in soft-soap, and the whole light of the schooner's canvas poured under her in quivering sheets of quicksilver. ”

“ The excitement aboard the Alfred was very great indeed. The mastheading of the men, the pictures of their little bodies high in the heavens, sweeping the deep with binocular and telescope, had immensely stimulated the passions of curiosity and wonder.
What did the captain expect the sailors to see upon that vast girdle of brine, that rolled flawless to the glorious stroke of the sun? It was known that the young lady who had been on board the schooner was betrothed to Captain Parry. Could romance be carried beyond this? The ladies fluttered in talk, the gentlemen growled. ”

“ Mr. Blundell was a stout, hearty young sailor, about two-and-twenty years of age. He had that sort of face which is often met at sea under both flags—perfectly hairless, fleshy, permanently tinctured by the roasting fires and the drying-in gales and frosts of ocean-travel. He was looking at the compass of the schooner when Captain Parry approached. Perhaps he sought for a hint or two in gear that did not lead like a ship's, and canvas that was not shaped for square-yards. ”

“ On board the schooner they could perceive no wreckage floating near. What sufferings, obscure and horrible, was that little wreck memorializing? The phantoms of the imagination peopled her. White-faced men, dying in squatting postures, were upon the sea-broken deck-load of timber. There was no captain, no command, the fingers of famine had effaced distinctions. Then one would die with a groan, falling sideways with his white eyes glazing to the sun ”

“ On the morning of November 21, 1837, the schooner Mowbray lay at anchor abreast of Greenwich. In the fresh westerly wind you found the sun-white sparkle of winter. Buildings, ships, wharves, the further bends of the Reach, stood out with the sharpness and delicacy of ivory work. The movements of the drapery of bunting, the swelling and breathing of passing canvas, were beautiful to see under the hard, blue sky, with its frost-work of gleaming cloud high over Plaistow Level. ”

“ Why, ye see, a man ain't dead till he dies, and when he's dead death ain't got no existence for him. D'ye see it?' said he with an inimitable leer.
Captain Parry saw that he was mad, but in the moment of detecting this he observed something more. Behind the madman, looking over his shoulders, stood Miss Vanderholt. She was robed in white, and wore a small straw hat. She was pale, as though exhausted, perhaps from the want of food or drink; otherwise, but for her impassioned transforming gaze, she looked as though she had but now come with Captain Parry to view the wreck. ”

“ The boatswain went to the tarpaulin, pulled it aside, and examined the two dead faces.
'Dead they are,' said he, with a shiver of sick disgust.
He walked forward, and presently a few of the men came to the tarpaulin, carrying hammocks, twine, sinkers for the clews. They made despatch. Captain Glew, blind with death, threatened them as malevolently as in life, with his upper lip lifted and stiffened, exposing a snarling grin of fangs. The other poor wretch lay composed; the grog-blossoms had faded. ”

“ Just as the Mowbray passed down Bugsby's Reach, opening the long tract of the Woolwich waters beyond, two collier brigs reaching up the river swept into each other with crackling jibbooms. The schooner's road was blocked; her helm was shifted swift as the swallow curves in flight, and then followed a pause which enabled Miss Vanderholt to gain some little insight into the ways of the deep, and the behaviour and speech of those who go down to it for two or three pounds a month. ”

“ The old gentleman was not very accurate in his description of the state of the ocean, nevertheless. A large and liberal sea was running steadfast, in charging hills of green, which crumbled into foam. The torn scud flew fast. Every hollow was the wide and seething valley of Atlantic waters; and as the hull of the schooner sank into the trough, you might catch in the noise of expiring spray, in the explosion of coloured bubbles, winking like stars in beds of froth, a sound of martial music.
The Mowbray was making splendid weather [Pg 74] of it. ”

“ But the madman had begun to state his queer paradox with fearful earnestness to the seaman, who had fixed him with a stare, and was, with singular judgment in a common fool of a drunken sailor, drawing him out of sight of the couple.
Miss Vanderholt lay in her lover's arms, weeping and laughing; but a few kisses and murmurs of devotion produced a very good effect. She controlled herself, and then they were able to talk in swift questions and eager answers. Outside the madman continued to argue with the sailor on the subject of death. ”

“ Captain Parry was as pale as the dawn with excitement and expectation.
[Pg 241]
'I vow to God,' said he, bringing his fist down on the rail, 'I would certainly lose my left arm with cheerfulness to know at this instant that Miss Vanderholt is alive and well in the wreck!'
'If she is with them they'll all come aboard together,' said the mate, with scarce conscious dryness. 'Hunger and thirst will work their way with beasts, let alone men.'
Little more was said whilst the schooner, driven by a five-knot breeze, swept in long floating launches down upon the boat that came and went. ”

“ A man I once sailed with claimed to have sighted it. He was in the foretop-mast crosstrees, and saw the patch off the bow, and hailed the deck, but he squinted damnably. You can't keep a true course for anything when you squint. The captain missed the patch. No other man saw it; and the sailor, who was a Dane, was, or is, the only man in the world who has ever seen that miraculous bit of Equatorial water.'
He looked at his daughter, clearly enjoying his own imagination; and Captain Glew uttered a hollow laugh, and stood up. ”

“ How insinuating the swell of her bow, running into a beautiful roundness and plumpness of sides instead of the up-and-down walls which the British yachtsman, who loves to admire his yacht from the shore, conceives to be the one element which gives a vessel stability! The more they narrow, the more they blunder. You must have stability if you want seaworthiness. And in all the years that I was at sea I never knew a crank ship a fast ship.'
It was easily seen by the expression of Miss Vanderholt's face that she was thinking of George. ”

“ The Alfred was growing small and square in the blue distance. She was feeling the breeze now, and her pale and shapely shadow leaned as she headed, with an occasional dim flash from her wet, black side, into the far northern recess.
Captain Parry went below, and returned on deck with the binocular which he had observed in Mr. Vanderholt's cabin. The main rigging of the Mowbray was rattled down to the height of the lower masthead. The captain got into the shrouds, and made his way to the crosstrees. Higher, being no sailor, he durst not crawl. ”

“ Vanderholt: 'that a man who is a genius and famous should provide by his will for a quiet funeral; for, by doing so, he guards against the risk of neglect.'
This was a touch above Glew. Mr. Vanderholt rose, and went to the rail to knock out the ashes of his pipe into the sea. Miss Violet began to read, and the captain fell to walking the deck.
The ship ahead grew rapidly. It was first like the half of the crescent moon leaning and shining, then it swelled into cotton-white canvas and a green hull. But the sun ate up the wind at noon. ”

“ Paul's Island—a horrible hornet's nest of black fangs, entirely out of the boat's reach. I am not sure that I ever heard of a boat effecting a landing. Anyone cast ashore there must perish. There is nothing to eat or drink. It is the desolation of hell!' added the commander, with a note of religious fervour in his speech; 'and a dreadful surf like a nightmare of storm raves day and night round those rocks.'
'What is to be done?' said Captain Parry, lifting himself erect from the chart. 'If they are in a boat they cannot be far distant. ”

“ I've had charge of seamen, and I know their natures, and I'm sorry that you should think I'm a taut hand, sir.'
'Understand me,' said Vanderholt soothingly: 'you are, perhaps, a taut hand, but I do not say unnecessarily taut. Frankly, I do not think the men love you.'
'What's a sailor's love like?' said Captain Glew.
Here Miss Vanderholt came on deck. Captain Glew placed a chair for her beside her father.
'What a heavenly sweet and silent night!' exclaimed the young lady. 'Is that a ship on fire down there?'
'It's the moon rising, miss,' exclaimed Captain Glew. ”

“ Miss Vanderholt did not like the expression that entered Captain Glew's eyes when he made that answer.
'A happy, well-disciplined crew are the jolliest company of men in the world,' said Mr. Vanderholt. 'They have plenty to eat, no rent to pay, dollars for the girls at the [Pg 88] end of the voyage, and they behold the wonders of the world at the cost of the ship-owner—poor fellow! For diversions, think—they dance in the dog-watch, they sing songs and tell stories, they play at cards, they fight——'
'A little, sir,' said Captain Glew. ”

“ Lyons was a liberal one.'
'Do they grumble at one thing more than another?' said Miss Vanderholt.
'Oh, first it's the pork, then it's the beef; they'll work their way right through till they come to the pickles,' said Glew, with a short, nervous laugh.
'This is the first time I've heard that the men are dissatisfied,' exclaimed Mr. Vanderholt.
'What is the good of worrying you with fo'c's'le troubles, sir? You're on a cruise for your health, and the worries of the ship should be mine, not yours.'
'It is well meant, Glew,' said Vanderholt, a little uneasily. 'They are a rough body of men, mind. ”

“ She was an Englishwoman; he was an English seaman. By God! he would brain any man who talked of leaving the poor young lady alone to wash about in the schooner.
She told Captain Parry that this Jones overawed the men, and they seemed to treat him as though his madness made him superior to themselves. They all left in the long-boat. The boatswain next morning went quite mad, and took Miss Vanderholt to be the Princess Victoria. He bowed humbly to her in the boat; he would sometimes kneel to her. He whipped a straw hat off a man's head to shade her with. ”

“ The sky thickened, and some small wings of scud flew south-east, bronzed by the western splendour dimming fast. The sea ran in a cloudy green, but without weight, in the light tropic surge.
At sundown Mr. Blundell hailed the royal yard, and the answer, hoarse in tone as a seagull's scream, was:
'Nothing in sight, sir.'
The mate ordered the man to come down on deck, and half an hour later, when darkness was on the face of the deep, and the last red scar had died out of the starless sky, the Mowbray was slopping softly through the [Pg 225] creaming waters, under her mainsail and standing jib. ”

“ Make them understand that they must creep in their search to the very verge, [Pg 199] for how far off is a boat visible? But they might sight the gleam of her lugsail.'
Mr. Mulready took the glasses, and went swiftly out.
Captain Parry stood at the open window, listening to what was passing, straining his sight also with consuming passions of dread, blind desire, helpless wrath, at the star-blue line of the sea that swept the brilliance of the heavens within little more than a league. The captain of the ship went to a locker, and took out a chart of the Atlantic. ”

“ Moreover, Captain Parry was not a sailor. He could not imagine how difficult it is to gain the deck of a ship whose people do not want you. These eight men would, in a deck cargo of timber, find plenty of materials fit for knocking out the bottom of a boat, and the brains of those who should venture their noses above the rail. ”

“ It was plain, from the stillness that followed, that the man with the powerful hoarse voice had walked to his compass-stand to consider the required bearings. A midnight hush came down upon the deep then, spite of the plash and gurgle of waters in motion, and of a dull song of wind up aloft in the rigging of the schooner. ”

“ Will Miss Vanderholt be able to survive the exposure of even a day and a night?' And Captain Parry swayed in his chair with the grief of the thought.
'Well,' said the mate, with the note of a stout heart in his voice, 'only a sailor is able to tell a man what ladies really can go through. Low-class females, emigrants and the like, cave in quickly; they are the shriekers. They cannot bear terror, and it kills them on rafts and in boats. ”

“ It was so recent, the very fragrance of her might be found in the atmosphere. How often had her feet trodden those steps? He saw her, in imagination, reading; she pored upon some volume, under that golden globe, with her hair illuminated; he thought of her agony of heart when she rushed on deck at the sound of firearms, and saw her father, [Pg 220] the captain, and mate lying dead, and knew that she was alone with a crew of murderers.
'This is how Captain Barrington hopes we'll work it, sir,' said Blundell, coming out of Captain Glew's berth, and putting a chart upon the table. ”