Part 27 (1/2)
Riddell was only half satisfied. His creed evidently was that a sailor's first duty is to his own s.h.i.+p; but neither he nor any one else ever argued with Guy. ”As you like, sir,” he grumbled, somewhat discontentedly. ”Keep her full, Saunders; we shall fetch them so.”
If a st.i.tch of sail had been taken off our vessel she could never have reached the _barca_, though her crew strove hard to meet us. She forged down slowly enough as it was, but we were just in time to take them on board.
”Reef every thing now!” Riddell shouted, leaping himself first into the rigging like a wild-cat. ”Cheerily, men--with a will!” All his ill-humor was gone when the peril became imminent.
We were strong-handed, and the four Capriotes did us seaman's service; but it was ”touch and go.” The last man had scarcely reached the deck when the line of foam was within half-cable's length. Then there came a sound unlike any I had ever heard before in the elements, beginning with a whistling sort of scream and deepening into a roar as of many angry voices, b.e.s.t.i.a.l and human, striving for the mastery; and then the _Petrel_ staggered and reeled over almost on her beam-ends, in the midst of a white boiling caldron of mad water. She recovered herself, however, quickly, quivering and trembling as a live creature might do after severe punishment; and we drove on, the strong arms at the wheel keeping her well before the blast. In a very few minutes, I suppose (though it seemed very long), I heard old Riddell say, ”Sharp while it lasted, Mr.
Livingstone; but they're right to call it a squall. They've nothing down here-away like a good right down hard gale.”
I looked up, clearing my eyes, blinded with the hissing spray, just as Guy answered, coolly as ever. He had run his arm through a becket, and did not seem to have moved otherwise, whereas I disgraced myself by falling at full length as the squall struck us.
”Ah! you've got difficult to please; it's always so when one sees so much of life. Never mind, Riddell, the Mediterranean does its best, and perhaps we'll go and try your tornadoes some day. Where's the _barca_ now?”
Where? The eyes that could have told you that must have looked a hundred fathoms deep. There was not the faintest vestige of such a thing to be seen--not even a s.h.i.+vered plank. The poor Capriotes' ”bread-winner” had gone the way of Antonio's argosies--another whet to the all-devouring appet.i.te, for which nothing that swims is too large or too small.
It was almost calm again when we landed the rescued men at Salerno; we were glad to get rid of them, for their grat.i.tude was overpowering, especially as all the salt water that had soaked them could not disguise the savor of their favorite herb.
You may break, you may ruin the clay if you will, but the scent of the garlic will cling to it still.
Guy gave them enough to buy two such boats as they had lost--about as much as one wins or loses in an evening's whist, with fair luck and half-crown points.
This incident showed the change that was coming over my companion. His principle had always been that a man who could not help himself was not worth helping. He never asked for aid himself, and never gave it to his own s.e.x, as a rule. I believe his rescuing me at B---- was a solitary case, and I took it as a great compliment. You will say this one was only an act of common humanity. If you had known the man, you would have thought, as I did, that the words of her, who was an angel then, were bearing fruit already.
Nothing happened of the slightest interest as we ran down through the Straits of Messina, and up the eastern coast of Calabria. We did not stay to see Sicily then, for we had settled to be in Venice by a certain day, to meet the Forresters.
If I were to be seduced into ”word-painting,” the Queen of the Adriatic would tempt me. I know no other scene so provocative of enthusiasm as the square acre round St. Mark's. All things considered, the author of the ”Stones of Venice” seems very sufficiently rational and cold-blooded.
We can not all be romantic about landscapes. Nature has wors.h.i.+pers enough not to grudge a few to Art. For myself, admiring both when in perfection, I prefer hewn stones to rough rocks--the Ca.n.a.lazzo to _any_ cascade. The glory of old days that clings round the Palace of the Doges stands comparison, in my mind's eye, with the Iris of Terni.
But why trench on a field already amply cultivated? I will never describe any place till I find a virgin spot untouched by Murray, and then I will send it to him, with my initials. Does such exist in Europe?
”Faith, very hardly, sir.” _Nil intentatum reliquit._ What obligations do we not owe to the accomplished compilers? Rarely rising into poetry (I except ”Spain”--the field, and bar one), never jocose, they move on, severe in simplicity, straight to their solemn end of enlightening the British tourist. Upright as Rhadamanthus, they hold the scales that weigh the merits of cathedrals, hotels, ruins, guides, pictures, and mountain pa.s.ses, telling us what to eat, drink, and avoid. Let us repose on them in blind but contented reliance.
I heard of one man, clever but eccentric, who became so exasperated at seeing the volumes in every body's hand, and hearing them in every body's mouth, that he conceived a sort of personal enmity to them, impiously dissenting from their conclusions and questioning their premises. The well-known red cover at last had the same effect on him as the scarlet cloak on the bull in the _corrida_, making him stamp and roar hideously. The angry G.o.ds had demented him. _Vae misero!_ How could such sacrilege end but badly? Braving and deriding the solemn warning of the prophet, he attempted a certain pa.s.s in the Tyrol alone, and, losing his way, caught a pleurisy which proved fatal. He died game, but, I am sorry to say, impenitent, speaking blasphemy against the book with his last breath. _Discite just.i.tiam, moniti, et non temnere--_
Such heresy, be it far from me! If I had my will, I protest I would found a ”Murray's Traveling Fellows.h.i.+p” in one or both of the Universities. If I had the poetic vein, I would indite a pendant to Byron's iambics to that enlightened bibliopole. He published ”Childe Harold,” and the Hand-book to Every Where. Could one man in one century do more for the Ideal and the Real?
CHAPTER x.x.xII.
”Sweetest lips that ever were kissed, Brightest eyes that ever have shone, May sigh and whisper, and _he_ not list, Or look away, and never be missed Long or ever a month be gone.”
It was a very curious _menage_ that of the Forresters'. They were wonderfully happy, yet you could not call theirs _domestic_ felicity.
They went out perpetually every where, and were scarcely ever alone together at home. Tho cold-water cure of matrimony had not been able to cool either down into the dignity and steadiness befitting that honorable state. As far as I could see, Charley flirted as much as ever; the only difference was, that he stole upon his victims now with a sort of protecting and paternal air, merging gradually, as the interest deepened, into the old confidential style. The whole effect was, if any thing, more seductive than before.
The fair Venetians admired him intensely. His bright, clear complexion and rich chestnut hair had the charm of novelty for them. Though without the faintest respect for grammar or idiom, he spoke their language with perfect composure, confidence, and self-satisfaction, and his tones were so well adapted to the slow, soft, languid tongue, that his blunders sounded better than other men's correctness of speech. _Mallem mehercule c.u.m Platone errare_. When he said ”_Si, Siora_,” it seemed as if he were calling the lady by a pet name.
Isabel did a good deal of mischief too in her una.s.suming way, but I think she confined her depredations chiefly to her compatriots.
The best of it was, that neither objected in the least to the other's proceedings, appearing, indeed, to consider them rather creditable than otherwise. Perhaps it would be as well if this principle of reciprocal free agency were somewhat extended, though not quite to the lat.i.tude to which they carried it.
We can not send our wives about surrounded by a detachment of semiviri to keep the peace; our climate is too uncertain, and influenza too prevalent, for us to watch their windows ourselves, as they do at Cadiz.