CHAPTER XVII.

SECOND HEARING.

The Scotch mate, Morrison, spun many a strange yarn to Morley, when together they kept their watches at night under the glorious radiance of a tropical moon, when the vast sea shone like a silver flood, over which the _Princess_ glided before the trade wind, with all her canvas, topsails, and topgallant sails set.

"When falling over those rocks, on which we found you, Ashton," said he, on one of those occasions, "did you utter any person's name?"

"Not that I remember of--why?" asked Morley, with surprise.

"Because--I have known of such things--_that_ person might have heard your cry, however far distant."

"I do not understand."

"I mean on the principle, or rather the theory, of polarity. In the terror and despair of such a moment, your thoughts would flash, or rush to some one whom you loved--say Miss Basset--who became the recipient of the force, the hearer of your cry, by that faculty which is called in some countries _second hearing_."

Morley, though he coloured at Ethel's name, smiled, for he knew that this was another of Morrison's strange theories.

"I never heard of an instance of this," said he; "have you?"

"I shall tell you," replied Morrison; "but, perhaps, you won't believe me?"

"Why?"

"Because you English are so sceptical about the mystic, generally."

"I shall try, however."

"When I was third mate of the _Queen of Scots_, a clipper ship of Aberdeen, on a voyage home from Memel, we encountered in the North Sea a dreadful gale from the westward. We stripped the ship of everything, until at length we hove her to under a close-reefed main-topsail.

"The night was dark--black as pitch, as the saying is; the sea white as snow with foam, and the wind blew as if the clerk of the weather was determined to blow his last.

"The captain was on deck, holding on by the weather mizzen rattlings by one hand, while the other held his speaking trumpet.

"'Away! forward! Morrison,' he shouted to me, 'and see the flying-jib stowed,' for somehow it had got loose.

"It was a perilous duty to perform at such a time, and in such a wild night. So, being loth to order a man for it, I undertook the task myself.

"I _felt_ my way, like a man in the dark, along the wet and slippery bowsprit, which one moment seemed tilted up in the air, and the next went surging, cap under, in the seething trough of the sea, when the bows of the _Queen_ plunged down. Then I felt as if my heart was in my mouth, for I was but a young sailor, and thought of what would come of poor old mother and dad at home, if I should perish, and there would be no share of my wages to get monthly from our owners.

"At that moment I planted my feet on the leeward foot-rope, and nearly fell into the world of waters that yawned and whirled below.

"In my fall I caught a rope, and swung at the end of it, like a salmon grilse at the end of a line.

"None spoke to me, lest even to suggest anything might cost me my life, and none could aid me, for I was beyond the ship altogether. My shipmates seemed paralysed by the same peril that filled my own heart with despair and dread of death. I was but a youth; so the exclamation, 'God help me, mother!' escaped me, and was swept away by the howling wind.

"At length, favoured by a lurch of the ship, I somehow regained my footing on the bowsprit, stowed the jib in its netting, crept along the dripping spar, and regained the deck, where the men crowded round me with congratulations on my escape; for, had I remained even one moment longer among the foot-ropes, I should never have been seen again, as thrice in succession, with awful rapidity, the ship went forward, plunging bows and bowsprit under the sea with such force, that the starboard cathead and all our headrails were swept away.

"Well, sir, at that very hour--aye, at that very moment--my poor old mother, who was a-bed and asleep in her cottage by the Don, was awakened by a voice, which, with true maternal instinct and terror, she knew to be mine, crying as if in agony, and from a vast distance--'God help me, mother!'

"In the still and silent night, it rang dreadfully in her startled ears, and in her anxious heart. She roused her neighbours, and declared--poor auld body--with loud lamentations, that her dear Willie, her sailor laddie, her only bairn, was drowned; but it was only my thoughts that had rushed homeward, and she had received them in her sleep.

"It was, indeed, my voice she had heard, swept--He who holds the great deep in the hollow of his hand alone knows how--over the wide, roaring waste of the North Sea, and she never ceased to mourn for me, till our ship was signalled off the Girdleness, and all reported safe on board."

As Morley was neither so superstitious nor so deeply read as his Scotch friend, and consequently was ignorant of Dr. Ennemoser's queer theory of polarity, he could only listen in silence, as this was only one of many anecdotes such as Morrison was wont to beguile the watches of the night with.

At the time he fell over the cliff, and clutched the turf at Hawkshaw's feet, the name of "Ethel" escaped him, as we have related; but Morley had no recollection of the circumstance, and though at that dread moment his very soul seemed to fly to her, no warning voice came to poor Ethel's ear, so, in this instance, the first mate's theory was at fault.

"How steadily the trade wind holds," said he. "Watch, ahoy there, forward! set the royals and top-gallant studding-sails, and up with the flying jib--quick, lads, rouse it out of the netting, and hoist away."

These orders were promptly obeyed, and faster flew the _Princess_ through the phosphorescent water, which seemed to smoke under her counter, and gleamed in millions of sparks in the long wake, that could be traced astern for miles upon the moonlit sea.

"I have sometimes wondered, Mr. Ashton, what would be the emotions of a murderer, at such a moment as that I endured, when clinging among the hamper of the wet bowsprit, on that night in the North Sea, or when in any similar peril," observed the mate, recurring to his anecdote, as they trod to and fro.

"His emotions would be anything but enviable. That man, Hawkshaw, must feel himself a deliberate and cold-blooded assassin, and I frequently wonder how he comforts himself."

"I should not like to go to sea with that fellow," said the mate; "no ship that has a murderer on board can reach its destination in safety, or at least without accident."

"Another of your theories, I hope; but pray don't say so," said Morley, thinking of the Bassets; "yet he was only an assassin in intent--not fact. Moreover, he may not be on board the _Hermione_ at all."

"Will you be surprised if I tell you that I was once accused of murder?" asked Morrison, turning his grave, grim Scotch face with a smile to Morley; "aye, and marooned, too, as one, though innocent as the babe that is unborn. It is a queer yarn, so I don't mind telling it to you.

"Before I shipped aboard the _Queen of Scots_, I was a foremast man of a Peterhead whaler that was bound for a fishing trip to the north.

"Off the Noss-head, a rocky bluff on the south of Sinclair's Bay, and which has a dry cavern in it always full of seals, we encountered a tremendous storm, which carried away our flying jib-boom snapping it like a clay pipe right off at the cap; at the same time we lost our long-boat with all our live stock; so, amid whirlwinds of foam, we ran round Stromo, hauled up for Thurso Bay, and came to anchor under the lee of the land in Scrabster Roads to refit.

"Our skipper ordered another long-boat from old Magnus Sigurdson, a boat-builder at Scrabster, who had a fine one nearly complete, and ready on the stocks in his yard, and which, for certain reasons of his own, he was remarkably anxious to get rid of at almost any price. Thus, ere she was brought aboard and lashed to the boat-chocks amidships, strange stories concerning her preached the ears of our crew, when drinking in the public-houses of Thurso.

"It would seem that when old Magnus, his wife and family were a-bed at night, they were roused by the sound of a hammer knocking at the sides of the boat in the building-yard; then came the clinking, as of nails being driven into her planks, with other noises, so exactly like those made by Magnus when at his daily work, that his gudewife, Alie Sigurdson, had some difficulty in believing that he was in bed beside her.

"'Perhaps it is some idle callants amusing themselves among the chips,' said Magnus, on the third night, and tried to sleep; but louder grew the hammering; so at last he leaped from his bed, dressed himself, and went forth to the yard. But no one was there; the strange sounds had ceased; the night was starry and still, and he only heard the hollow booming of those great billows that roll for ever, in snow-white mountains, over the Kirkebb, against the rocks of the Bishop's Castle, the cliffs of Pennyland, and the piers of Thurso: for there three vast currents meet from the German, the Atlantic, and the Northern oceans.

"All the family of old Sigurdson heard the hammering, night after night, while the boat remained on the stocks, and the sound thereof made his poor bairns cower and nestle in the recesses of their box beds with affright; yet not a mark could be seen upon its ribs, thwarts, or sheathing, even after she was painted.

"At last the boat was upon rollers, and ready to be run to the beach.

"On that night the din of hammers in the yard of Magnus Sigurdson exceeded any that had ever rung there before. Quicker, thicker, faster than ten smiths' hammers ringing upon as many anvils, rang the strokes, and the old man listened with fear and trembling.

"Bible in hand, he crept forth at last.

"Still there was nothing to be seen, save the unlucky boat standing on its props in the broad moonlight; but in the lulls or intervals of the breakers that rolled upon the distant beach, he heard moans of distress, sighs of fatigue, and faint mutterings, which seemed to proceed from the boat itself.

"Such was the history of our new longboat, a story still current in the north of Scotland; and such was the craft in which I found myself at midnight, alone amid the North Sea, marooned and abandoned by my shipmates on a charge of murder.

"You may imagine what I felt in such a situation.

"Despising the stories that were current concerning the boat, our skipper had it shipped, paid Magnus Sigurdson his money, and we sailed from Scrabster Roads for the whale fishery. Four days after we were becalmed in the North Sea, some fifty miles or so beyond the Skaw of Unst.

"Day succeeded day, night succeeded night, and there came no wind. Around us--strange it was in such a latitude--the sea seemed like oil, so still, so glassy and waveless. Loose in its brails, the canvas flapped against the masts and yards; and now, when too late, the men whispered anew, and murmured about the bewitched boat of Magnus Sigurdson.

"At the far horizon we more than once saw craft passing under easy sail, but the breeze that bore them on never reached us.

"From murmuring, the crew became clamorous; so, yielding to their entreaties, and being perhaps a little impressed or scared himself, our skipper ordered the mysterious boat to be shoved overboard and cast adrift; and heavily, with a thundering plunge, she fell bow-foremost into the glassy sea; but by that power of attraction which larger bodies possess over smaller in the water, she lay close to the ship, and jarred there with every roll she gave on the long oily ridges that swelled up from time to time.

"Three days followed, and still no wind.

"In vain the captain whistled and consulted the dog-vane; in vain the first mate blew up a feather, and cast bits of burnt wood over the side, to watch which way the stream went.

"Some urged that we should sink the boat by scuttling her; but at last Harold Trasnaldson, an old Orkney whaler, red-faced and yellow-bearded, from the Isle of Stronsay, said, openly:

"'This will never do, mates; there's one aboard of us with human blood upon his hands, and the mark of Cain upon his brow, though we can see neither. So here this ship will float, mayhap, till doomsday, for who ever heard of such a calm in these seas?'

"So, in five minutes after this, we were all casting lots at the capstan-head.

"Three times we drew, and three times the fatal lot fell upon me.

"Denial, threats, and entreaty were alike vain. I was roughly hustled overboard into the enchanted boat. Two biscuits, a bottle of water, and an oar were given me, and I was peremptorily ordered to shove off and scull to a distance from the ship, which I was supposed to pollute by my vicinity, and was mockingly desired to keep company with Mother Gary and her chickens, Mr. David Jones, and the Flying Dutchman.

"With a heart bursting with mortification, rage, and many real and imaginary fears, I sculled the heavy boat away from the ship, and, strange to say, in ten minutes after I felt a coolness in the air and saw a catspaw on the water. Gradually it freshened. A breeze came--a breeze at last!

"The sails of the whaler filled; topsails and courses were sheeted home; up went jib and spanker; the ocean began to ripple under her bluff, iron-plated bows, and the crew gave me a cheer of derision, while my poor heart died within me, as she stood away upon her course to the whaling-ground, and ere the sun set, had disappeared, leaving me alone upon the gloomy North Sea.

"I shall never forget, Mr. Ashton, the horror of feeling myself marooned in such a craft, and under such an accusation; and such is the power of imagination, that, as the boat rolled and lurched on the waves of the dark and midnight sea, I almost fancied that I could see, between me and the stars, while crouching in the bow-thwarts, a huge shadowy figure, like the Spirit of Destruction, which haunted the boat of Ronald of the Perfect Hand.

"But when day dawned I saw the rocks of Balta, the most eastern of the Shetland Isles, shining redly at the horizon, and soon after I was picked up by the _Thorson_, a Danish galliot, bound for Leith, where I was safely landed a few days after."

"And the whaler?"

"She and her crew were never heard of again. So whether she had really a breaker of the commandments on board, or whether the boat of old Magnus Sigurdson, of Scrabster, wrought the mischief, I cannot say. I only spin the yarn as it occurred to me. Strike the bell there, Gawthrop."

"Aye, aye, sir," growled old Noah, who had been dozing astride the spanker-boom.

"Call the next watch; it is Captain Bartelot's, and now, Mr. Ashton, 'tis time for you and I to leave the deck, and turn in."