Part 11 (1/2)
”Very well,” said I; ”I will be up in a brace of shakes. Just turn up the lamp, if you please, youngster, and let us have a little more light on the subject. Ah! that's better, thanks. Kindly hand me those unmentionables. I say, Mr Dundas, there doesn't seem to be very much wind. What's the weather like?”
”Stark calm, sir; smooth water, and as dark as the inside of a cow,”
answered the lad.
”Does the weather look threatening, then; or what does--? But never mind; those shoes, if you please. Thanks. That will do. Now I am ready. Away you go, youngster.”
Preceded by the lad, I pa.s.sed into the fore-cabin and thence up on deck, where, as Dundas had picturesquely intimated, the darkness was profound and the air breathless, save for the small draughts created by the flapping of the great mainsail to the gentle movements of the schooner upon the low undulations of the swell.
As I stepped out on deck I heard Henderson's voice close at my elbow, although the man himself was invisible.
”Sorry to have been obliged to disturb you, Mr Delamere,” he said, ”but something's happened that I thought you ought to know about.”
”Yes?” I remarked interrogatively. ”Well, what was it, Henderson?”
”Well, it's like this here, sir,” he replied. ”We've been becalmed this last hour or more, durin' which the schooner have been boxin' the compa.s.s, while it's been that close and muggy that one don't seem to have been able to get air enough to breathe. And the closeness made me feel so drowsy that, to prevent myself from droppin' off to sleep, I've been obliged to keep on my feet, pacing fore and aft atween the main cabin skylight and the main riggin'. The watch have coiled theirselves away somewheres, and I don't doubt but what they're s.n.a.t.c.hin' a cat-nap--and I haven't troubled to disturb 'em, sir, for the lookout on the fo'c's'le is keepin' his eyes skinned.
”Well, a few minutes ago--it may be five, or it may be ten--I'd just swung round to walk aft from the main riggin' when, as my eyes travelled away out here over the port quarter, I got the notion into my head that there was somethin' goin' on down there, for it seemed to me that I'd got a glimpse--out of the corner of my eye, as it might be--of a small sparkin', like--like--well, hang me if I know what it was like, unless it might be twenty or thirty pistols or muskets all being fired close after one another.”
”Ah!” I e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed. ”And did you hear any sound, Henderson--anything like that of distant firing, for instance?”
”No, Mr Delamere; not a sound, sir,” answered the gunner. ”But then,”
he continued, ”that ain't very surprisin' when you comes to think of it, for just listen to what's goin' on aboard here--the old hooker ain't so very noisy, I'll allow; still, what with the rustlin' of the canvas overhead, the patter of the reef-points, the creakin' of the jaws o' the mainboom, the clank o' the wheel-chains, and the wash and gurgle of the water alongside with the roll of her, there's not much chance of pickin'
up sounds comin' from a distance, is there, sir?”
”No, that is true, there is not,” I admitted. ”Did you see, or hear, anything else, Henderson?” I asked.
”No, sir; never another thing,” answered the gunner. ”And I'd like ye to understand, Mr Delamere, that I wouldn't care actually to stand up in court and swear that I really saw what I told ye; for, as I explained, I only caught the thing out o' the tail-end of my eye, as it might be, and then 'twas gone again, and I saw nothin' more. But the impression that I really had seen something was so strong that I felt it was my duty to report it.”
”Of course; you did perfectly right,” I agreed; ”particularly in view of the task that has been given us to do. Did the lookout see anything of this appearance of flashes?”
”No, sir,” answered Henderson; ”he didn't. Nat'rally he wouldn't, for he was keepin' a lookout ahead and on either bow, while this here flas.h.i.+n' showed--if it really did show at all, and wasn't my imagination--out there over the port quarter.”
”Quite so,” I concurred. ”Under those circ.u.mstances he would not be in the least likely to see the appearance. Did it occur to you to take the bearing of the spot where you thought you saw those flashes?”
”Yes, sir, it did,” answered Henderson. ”I stood, just for a second or two, to see if there was any more comin': and then, not seein' anything, I went straight to the binnacle and took the bearin', which I found to be nor'-west and by west, half west.”
With one consent we both walked aft to the binnacle and peered into it.
The schooner had swung several points while the gunner had been spinning his somewhat long-winded yarn, for the bearing which he gave now lay about a point over the starboard quarter. I stared into the blackness in that direction, but could see nothing. Then I got the night gla.s.s and, setting it to my focus, raised it to my eye, pointing it out over the starboard quarter and sweeping it slowly and carefully to right and left. For a minute or two I saw nothing; then, as I swept the tube along what I judged to be the line of the horizon, a tiny smudge of radiance--so dim as to be scarcely more than a suggestion--seemed to float athwart the lenses and was gone again. There is probably nothing in ordinary life much more difficult than to pick up and retain in the lenses of a telescope, levelled by hand, a spark of light so minute and faint as to be invisible to the unaided eye in the midst of the surrounding darkness, and the difficulty is enhanced when the attempt is made from the deck of a small vessel oscillating though ever so gently on the ridges of a long, low-running swell, and for the life of me I could not again find the feeble glimmer that had seemed to swim athwart the instrument, try as I would.
”It is no good, Henderson,” I said at last, abandoning the attempt in despair, and handing the telescope over to him. ”I am almost certain that for a single instant I caught a faint blur of light away out there; but I cannot find it now. Take the gla.s.s, and see if you can meet with any better success. But verify your bearing before you do so.”
The schooner had swung a point or two further round by this time, and the bearing now lay broad over the starboard beam, in which direction Henderson pointed his gla.s.s. Meanwhile Dundas, the mids.h.i.+pman who had called me, had slipped down below and brought his own telescope on deck, and was working away with it, but neither he nor the gunner met with any luck; and I was about to try my hand again when a slight lessening of the intensity of the darkness away down in the eastern quarter indicated the approach of dawn. In those low lat.i.tudes the transition from night to day, and _vice versa_, is extraordinarily rapid, occupying but a few minutes; and, even as we stood watching, the pallor strengthened and spread to right and left and upward, suggesting the stealthy but rapid withdrawal of an infinite number of dark gauze curtains from the face of the firmament, until presently the eastern quadrant of the horizon became visible, the pallid sea showing like a surface of molten lead, sluggishly undulating like the coils of a sleeping snake, while overhead stretched an unbroken pall of dark grey cloud that seemed to promise a drenching downpour of rain before long.
The light from the east stole upward among the clouds and westward along the surface of the sea with amazing rapidity, yet to our impatience its progress seemed exasperatingly slow, for away down in the west the darkness was still profound. And yet, even as we gazed, that darkness seemed to become diluted, as it were, with the advancing light that we could almost see sliding along the surface of the water, until suddenly, as though emerging from an invisible mist, a ghostly object appeared, grey and elusive, against the background of darkness, and with one voice we all three shouted:
”There she is?”
Yes, there she was--a large s.h.i.+p, about seven miles away, lying becalmed, like ourselves, with all plain sail set, to her royals and flying-jib. For perhaps half a minute after our first sight of her the light was too weak and uncertain to enable us to discern details; but as we kept our telescopes persistently bearing upon her, first one distinctive feature and then another became revealed.
”She's a full-rigged s.h.i.+p, lying broadside-on to us, Mr Delamere,”
announced young Dundas.