Part 28 (1/2)
Everybody thanked the doctor for his story, and now, as it was wearing late, as they had pa.s.sed--
”The wee short hour ayout the twal.”
Good-nights were said, and hands were shaken, and in half an hour all but those on watch were sound asleep or dreaming of their far-off homes.
The southern stars were very bright; there was not a sound to be heard save the lapping of the waves at the s.h.i.+p's side, the far-off beating of the eternal tom-toms, or the occasional shrill shriek of an Arab sentinel walking his rounds within the palace walls.
Book 2--CHAPTER SEVEN.
CAUGHT ABACK IN A WHITE SQUALL--ON A REEF IN MID OCEAN--THE LOST DHOW.
The _Bunting_ had orders to take dispatches for the East India station before bearing up for England by way of the Cape, for the Suez Ca.n.a.l was not yet open.
To be sure they would much have preferred to turn southwards at once.
But after all a month or so more could make but little difference after so long a commission--they had been away from England now nearly five long years.
On the very next day, however, after the dinner-party, steam was got up, and the _Bunting_ departed from Zanzibar.
How merrily the men worked now! How cheerfully they sang! Everybody seemed in better temper than his neighbour. For were they not, virtually speaking, homeward bound.
”If we do happen to come across another prize you know,” said Captain Wayland to Mr Dewar, ”we won't say no to her, will we?”
”That we won't, sir,” was the laughing reply; ”the more the merrier, and it won't be my fault if a good outlook isn't kept both by night and day.”
Sailors love the sea, and quite delight, as the old song tells us, in--
”A wet sheet and a flowing sail.”
But there are times when even a sailor may feel weary on the ocean. My experience leads me to believe that so long as a s.h.i.+p is positively doing something, and going somewhere in particular, Jack-a-tar is perfectly contented and happy. In such a case--a sailing s.h.i.+p on a long voyage, for example--if the wind blows dead ahead, dead in the good chip's eye, Jack may feel thrown back a bit in his reckoning, but he eats and sleeps and doesn't say much, he has got to work to windward, and this brings out all the craft's good sailing capacity. If it blows a gale in a wrong direction--well, she is laid to, and however rough the weather be, Jack comforts himself and his mates with the a.s.surance that it can't go on blowing in the same direction for ever. Neither it does; and no sooner is the vessel lying her course again, with her stem cleaving through the blue water, than Jack begins to sing, like a blackbird just let loose from a pie.
If the s.h.i.+p gets caught in a tornado, then there is so much to do that there is really no time for grumbling.
But what Jack can _not_ stand, with anything like equanimity, is inaction. Being in the doldrums, for instance, on or about the line.
”As idle as a painted s.h.i.+p Upon a painted ocean.”
In such a case Jack does growl, and, in my humble opinion, no one has a better right to do so.
The day after that joyful evening described in last chapter, when, by this time, the men had not only read their letters o'er and o'er, but had almost got them by heart, as the long row of white palatial-looking buildings that forms the frontage of that strange city, Zanzibar, was left behind, and the greenery of trees was presently lost to view, the men's spirits grew buoyant indeed. For fires were now ordered to be banked, as a breeze sprang up--quickly, too, as breezes are wont to in these lat.i.tudes.
Sail was set, pretty close hauled she had to be, but away went the _Bunting_ nevertheless, cutting through the bright sparkling water like a knife. It was a wind to make the heart of a true sailor jump for joy.
It cut the pyramidal heads of the waves off, and the spray so formed glittered in the suns.h.i.+ne like showers of molten silver; it sang rather than roared through the rigging, it kept the vane extended like a railway signal arm, it kept the pennant in a constant state of flutter, it kept the sails all full and free from wrinkle, and every sheet as taut as a fiddle-string. It was a ”ripping” breeze, a happy bracing breeze, a breeze that gave one strength of nerve and muscle, and light and joy of mind.
The officers were all on deck, from the captain to the clerk, walking rapidly up and down as if doing a record or winning a bet.
The breeze continued for days till, indeed, the s.h.i.+p was degrees north of the line.
But one lovely night, with a clear sky and the moon s.h.i.+mmering on the wave crests, and dyeing the water with streaks like molten gold, it fell calm. The wind went away as suddenly almost as it had sprung up.
There were men in the chains. Every now and then their voices rang up from near the bows in that mournful kind of chant that none can forget who have ever heard it ”And a half fi--ive.”