CHAPTER I.

THE NIGHT AT SEA

“Beautiful! I linger yet with nature, for the night Hath been to me a more familiar face Than that of man.” — Byron.

“The silver light, with quivering glance, Play’d on the water’s still expanse.” — Scott.

It was out on the broad Atlantic. The sun had just set, red and colossal, behind a bank of clouds, leaving the whole firmament around him in a blaze of glory. Far along the western horizon, where the hollow dome of the sky cut the level plain of waters, a streak of vivid gold was seen, which grew less and less luminous, however, as it curved around to north and south, until finally it faded off, at either extremity, into the misty shadows of approaching night. Above this were piled, in gorgeous confusion, purple and crimson clouds, the warmer colors becoming fainter as they ascended, until a gold apple green prevailed. This itself subsided, towards the zenith, into a pure, transparent blue, in whose fathomless depths appeared a solitary silver star, that shone there like the altar light, which twinkles alone in the profound obscurity of some vast and silent cathedral.

Two persons, on the quarter-deck of an armed merchant man, were gazing at this scene. One was an elderly lady, precise in dress and look, the very type of a conventional and somewhat pompous old dowager. Her companion was a young girl just budding into womanhood, and of a beauty as peculiar as it was dazzling. The attitude in which she stood, though assumed without a thought, was just that which an artist would have chosen for her. The tiny left foot, with its high instep and slender ankle, peeped from beneath her petticoat as she leaned on her right arm to watch the sunset; the round shoulder, white as milk, yet with a warm tint like rich Carrara marble, was slightly elevated; while the shapely set of the swan-like neck, the trim waist, and the undulating outline of her whole person were more than ordinarily conspicuous. As she stood, her head was partially turned, so that one could see that her complexion was brilliantly clear; that she had a small, red and pouting mouth; that her eyes were so darkly blue as to seem almost purple; and that her hair, which swept in rippling masses from her forehead, as in a Greek statue, was of that rare color, which, though brown in shadow, flashes into fleeting gold whenever a sunbeam strikes it.

“How beautiful!” she said, after a long silence, drawing a deep breath that seemed almost a sigh.

The words, though rather a soliloquy than a remark intended for her companion, nevertheless drew a reply from the latter.

“Yes! niece,” answered the dame, briskly, “I wish our cousin, Lord Danville, could see this sunset. He won’t believe that we have skies, in America, equal to those of Italy.”

“We must be near the coast,” said the niece, after another long pause. “We don’t find such sunsets up on the Banks.”

“In about two days we shall be at New York, the captain says.”

There was a third silence. The clouds in the west had now lost most of their gorgeous tints. They were generally of a deep purple, almost approaching to black, with only their edges tinged here and there with gold or crimson. Instead of lying, in fleecy piles, or hanging like thick curtains drawn partially aside, as they had awhile before, they were broken up into all sorts of fantastic shapes: castles and battlements, mountains and deep valleys, towers and spires, vast elephantine forms and figures, gigantic and weird as the Brocken: airy dissolving views that were every moment changing.

One mass of these clouds the two persons we have introduced continued to watch for some time. At first it had attracted their attention by its striking similarity to Gibraltar, as it stretched darkly along the horizon, like a colossal sleeping lion. Gradually the vapors spread horizontally, and became almost shapeless. Then, suddenly, they assumed form again, and there, plain to even the most unimaginative, was an old woman in a short-gown, with one foot angrily uplifted, a pipe in her mouth, and the most grotesque of all caps upon her head.

A light, silvery laugh broke from the young girl, and clapping her hands, gleefully, she cried,

“Aunt, aunt, see!”

Even the stately dame smiled, but only for a moment, when she looked more prim than ever, as if fearing she had lowered her dignity.

“The moon will rise directly,” she said, crossing to the opposite side of the ship, whither her niece soon followed her.

In the eastern sky, the clouds were now of the richest amber, while under them the ocean was suffused with a delicate rosy hue. These tints slowly faded from both the firmament and sea, and darkness began to accumulate upon the prospect. In the course of a quarter of an hour, night had settled down. And now there appeared above a bank of cloud, that lay like a range of dark hills on the seaboard, the upper edge of the moon’s disc. Instantaneously a bit of moonlight glimmered on the waters close under the side of the ship. As the planet gradually rose from behind the cloud, like some huge burnished ball of copper, the line of light extended itself to the eastern horizon, a tremulous bridge of silver.

It was but a little while, however, that the bright orb shone unclouded. The whole firmament, indeed, was fast becoming flecked by vapory masses: and one of these soon floated between the moon and the spectators. In a few moments the planet was entirely concealed. But far away, almost on the utmost verge of the horizon, her light, still shining from behind the cloud, lay on the waters beneath, like a silver lake on a blue and solitary plain. Gradually this began to contract, lessening and lessening until it seemed a mere thread of light along the sea-board; and then a low, white sand-bank: after which it vanished altogether. Simultaneously the upper edge of the obscuring cloud showed a faint pearly lining, which the instant after brightened into silver. Soon the tip of the moon’s disc appeared; and once more the waves beneath the spectators began to glitter with the planet’s wake, which directly bridged the undulating deep again; the crests of the dark waves, and even their higher sides, sparkling and shining as if discharging electricity.

“It is like a scene in the Arabian Nights,” enthusiastically exclaimed the younger female. “But see,” she added, shortly after, “see again!” The animated speaker caught her aunt’s arm, as she spoke, while she pointed to a new variation in the brilliant scene before them.

Another cloud was now approaching the moon, and in such a way, that its shadow fell like a bridge of ebony, right across her wake. In a few minutes, the planet had vanished a second time; a second time the lake of silver shone on the far-off plain of blue; the white coast-line followed; the momentary darkness recurred again; and the moon again emerging, walked up the firmament, in cloudless majesty, like some majestic, white-robed virgin.

For nearly an hour the two females remained watching the changes of this lovely night. Not the least beautiful spectacle were the moonbeams shining on the snowy sails, which rose above the beholders, cloud on cloud, until the upper ones almost seemed lost in the sky. The single star still twinkled over head, swinging backwards and forwards past the mainmast, as the ship careened and rose in the freshening breeze.

Few words were spoken. The younger of the two passengers, absorbed completely in the loveliness of the night, had lost herself in a succession of those bewitching dreams which haunt the imagination in youth. The dim obscurity of the scene, when the moon was hidden for any considerable period, affected her with a sense as of the presence of eternity; and when her relative, complaining that the air grew cool, proposed an adjournment to the cabin, she was astonished to see her niece’s eyes full of tears.

“I think it will rain,” said the aunt, scarcely knowing what to say, yet wishing to dissipate what she supposed must be sad thoughts of the past.

“The wind sighs mournfully,” answered her companion, vacantly, as if pursuing some secret train of thought, “mournfully as a lost child, alone on a moor, calling for its mother.”

Again the dame looked at her. But there were often thoughts and feelings in the imaginative niece, which the good prosaic lady could not comprehend; and so she wisely made no reply, but called the captain, who stood not far off.

“Will we continue to have clear weather, captain?” she said. “It would be a pity, after so fine a voyage, to meet a storm at the end.”

“A night like this is no sign of the morrow, ma’am,” was the reply. “I shouldn’t be a bit surprised if it was to blow great guns before morning. The wind has a treacherous feel about it.”

“Dear me, you frighten us,” exclaimed the good lady, with a slight scream, and visibly turning paler.

“Your niece does not look scared, at any rate, Mrs. Warren,” said the captain, laughingly, as the young girl raised herself, proud and self-collected, at her aunt’s remark. “I confess that I almost regret we have had no storm,” he added, “for I would like to see Miss Aylesford’s courage put to the test. She looks as if nothing would make her afraid.”

“Oh! she’ll be the death of me yet,” replied the aunt, “she’s so reckless. You’d tremble to see her ride, captain, leaping fences and galloping like a wild huntsman. She’ll get thrown and killed yet: she has, all the time, such fractious horses; I never had a minute’s peace in England, and I’m sure I shan’t have any here either.”

“Never fear, aunty,” said the niece, affectionately, putting her arm around the other’s waist, and yet with something of the manner with which one would soothe a timorous child. “I’ll not be so lucky as to be thrown romantically from my horse, like heroines in novels, and rescued by some handsome cavalier—”

“Nonsense, child.”

“Whom I shall marry, of course—”

“How foolish you talk.”

“Even if I run away with him—”

“Pshaw!” said the aunt, quite vexed, not noticing the laughing glance which her niece directed towards the captain.

“Well, come then, I was wrong,” said the gay girl, kissing her, “I won’t keep you out in this chill night air. See, I’ll wrap your shawl close about you. Captain Powell will take good care of us even if it does storm.”

With these words, they bade the captain good night and descended to their cabin. The skipper continued walking the deck, for some time, listening to the rising wind, and occasionally looking up to the clouds that now began to scud swiftly across the sky.

“I was foolish to say even a word to alarm the good old soul,” he remarked at last, as if conversing to himself. “I’ve seen worse nights than this turn into a clear morning. Besides, we have a stout ship and a good offing.”

So speaking, he dismissed all idea of possible danger.