CHAPTER XXXVII.

THE FATA MORGANA.

The former horror of my companions for Antonio was now revived and increased by the mystery of his almost supernatural escape, and their eyes wandered upward to the brow of the steep cliff whereon he lurked. It was visible about two miles from where we were assembled on the beach, and presented a rugged and savage outline.

Some of them, among whom were Hislop and Probart the carpenter, urged that at all hazards we should still attempt to storm his nest, and punish him by lynch law.

"With his revolver, rusty as it is," said I, "he is as strong as he was when on board the _Eugenie_, and when he held the cabin against us all; he could shoot each of us down at leisure, and with his knife finish what the bullet might leave undone."

"We can fire the jungle," said Tattooed Tom, "and burn him out like a rat."

Others proposed that we should act as we had hitherto done--keeping a strict watch upon our boat and property, and permitting Antonio to remain unmolested until the arrival of a ship, to whose captain we should commit the whole affair.

We came to no decision, but talked a great deal while supping on the roasted kid in the moonlight at the door of the hut; but ere long there occurred an incident so strange, and apparently so unaccountable, that it soon decided the intentions of our crew.

The moon had risen, as it only rises in these latitudes, with the brilliance of day, and with a white light that is dazzlingly pure. From where we were squatted among the sea-grass that bordered the shore, the whole sweep of the bight or bay which we had first entered, and on the margin of which we had built our hut beside the rocks, could be seen vividly in all its details.

It was an opening of about two miles from headland to headland. Each of these were bold and rugged bluffs of great height--one being that stupendous rock which was tufted with trees, and which (with the mountain now shrouded in light clouds) we had first descried from the sea.

The beach between was a complete bow of white sand, beyond which were thick groves of trees, and some wild palmettoes that tufted the dark rocks which formed the horns of the bay.

In a straight line from each of these horns ran a slender ridge of snow-white surf, that was forever boiling up, rolling and breaking over a hidden coral reef, or sandbank. Within it the bay, and without it the sea, were, on this night, smooth, waveless, and calm as the cloudless sky, whose deep immensity of blue was mirrored in them.

There was scarcely a breath of wind to stir the pendent forest leaves.

I have been somewhat minute in describing all this, in consequence of the phenomenon which occurred on this night, and thus fixed the features of the scene in my memory.

It might have been about the hour of ten, and we were still loitering on the moonlit beach, when the cry of "A sail in sight!" made every heart leap wildly and with hope.

'Twas Tom Lambourne who spoke, but every eye caught the ship at once, and even those who had been dozing on the warm sand or within the hut were awake and on the beach in a moment, stretching their hands toward her with joy and exultation, but the aspect of the ship gradually changed all this into suspense and utter bewilderment.

She was a large square-rigged vessel--a ship running close-hauled on the port-tack (to use a man-o'-war phrase) and with nearly all her canvas set.

She was about four miles off the reef at the entrance of the bay, and was bearing directly toward it. Her canvas glimmered like snow in the moonshine, and we could see the red lights of her cabin windows flash at times upon the sea astern, and the whiteness of her long flush deck, as she careened before the breeze.

Yet how was it, we all asked, that there was not a breath of wind with us?

"Perhaps she brings it with her," suggested Hislop.

"And how came it to pass that she appeared right in the offing and outside the bay _all at once_?" asked Tom Lambourne.

"She must have rounded the high bluff while we were all palavering," said Probart.

Nothing more was said for a time, but whether it was the effect of imagination or of an overstrained eyesight, I know not, she seemed to melt as it were in the brightness of the moonshine--to become so indistinct that we could see the line of the horizon through her topsails; and next it seemed as if her hull, her spars, and rigging, were edged with bright prismatic hues.

But on she came, right for the bay, braced sharp to the wind; and now we saw her sail-trimmers set the flying jib and haul the spanker further aft to steady her steerage.

At that moment the sea assumed a singularly luminous aspect; and now she was but a mile off the surf-beaten reef.

On came the large ship, with every thing set aloft and alow--a cloud of white canvas from her deck to her trucks; but that which puzzled us most and silenced us all, was the circumstance that although there was not a breath of wind to stir the leaves on shore, as she approached she careened well over, like a vessel under the influence of a fine spanking breeze--rising and falling regularly and gracefully, as if she rode over the heaving of a succession of long waves--her courses, top-sails, topgallant-sails, royals, headsails, and spanker, all bellying out--the leaches forming complete arcs over her deck, her loose rigging all blown out in bends, and yet there was not an inch of foam under her forefoot, and she left no wake astern upon the sea.

What mystery was this?

She was like the mere reflection of a ship cast by a magic lantern on a wall, save that she seemed instinct with life, for we had seen fresh canvas set upon her, while her royals and topgallant-sails shivered at times, as if the breeze we could not feel failed with her somewhat aloft, or the hand at her wheel was unsteady, and unable to keep her full and by. Then, just as she approached the entrance of the little bay, all her cabin fights went out!

"She will be ashore on the reef if she draws deep!" cried every voice. But no! she glided over it or through it, without shivering, shock, or hindrance, and ran into the bay.

"Her false keel must have gone through it like a knife," said Lambourne, with amazement.

"Perhaps her draught of water is small," suggested the carpenter, while the excitement of our men increased every moment.

"Why don't the lubbers take some canvas off her?" exclaimed one.

"Or heave her in the wind?" added another.

"There's the jib-sheet let fly: down royals and in topgallant-sails! Why don't you heave her in the wind? Ready your anchors!" cried Hislop loudly in his astonishment, as he shouted to those on board, and rushed mid-leg into the water. "Heavens!" he added, "she still bears on, cracking under every thing! She will be ashore in a minute, and then all her sticks will snap by the board like tobacco-pipes!"

A cry escaped us all as her flying jib-boom appeared right over a grove of little trees; then her bow touched the white sandy beach; but there was neither shock nor pause as she seemed to sail right on and inland, still careening over and still rising, falling, and heaving, as if upon the sea.

As I gazed upon her a strange and paralyzing sensation came over me, and all my faculties became frozen. The profound silence of the scene, the calm landscape of the moonlit isle, and the noiselessness of the ocean, made us stare at her and at each other as men in a trance. My breath became suspended, my heart seemed to stand still in all its pulses, while this mysterious--this most spectral ship--passed before us like a living thing, and then melted away in the moonshine, apparently right under the cliff of Antonio, leaving us to gaze at each other, in doubt as to whether we were mad or not.

Hislop was the first to recover himself, and striking his hands together, with the air of one to whose astonishment had succeeded the bitterness of a deep disappointment, he exclaimed,--

"It is only the phenomenon called Fata Morgana!"