CHAPTER XXV.

THE SUSPICIOUS SAIL.

Though, to the impatient landsman, life on board ship becomes soon monotonous, to be once again at sea was soothing to Morley Ashton. He was not without imagination, and something of the poetic in his temperament; thus, when contemplating the ocean, he felt how much there is of the grand and sublime, the terrible and beautiful, the free and fetterless in it; and hence, perhaps, the great popularity of most tales, novels, and romances, which refer to that aqueous element.

Morley seemed to become a new man. With all his disappointments, he was too young not to feel the fresh impulses of youth strong within him; and thus hope seemed to come with the keen breeze that blew over the starlit sea, as he and Morrison trod the deck, keeping together the middle watch, which extends from midnight till four in the morning.

"There is," says one of the liveliest of our English writers, "a great feeling of freedom in being the arbiter of one's actions, to go where you will and when you will. The first burst of life is, indeed, a glorious thing; youth, health, hope, and confidence, have each a force and vigour they lose in after years. Life is then, a splendid river, and we are swimming with the stream.--no adverse waves to weary, no billows to buffet with us, as we hold on our way rejoicing."

Morley had buffeted with many adverse waves, but it was the ardour and confidence of this "first burst of life" and spring of youth that enabled him to surmount them; and, inspired by it, he looked hopefully and manfully forward to the vague and uncertain future.

Being an intelligent, well-educated, and well-read man, with a strong sense of probity and trust in religion, Morrison, though several years his senior, formed an admirable companion and occasional mentor to Morley. He was a man who had undergone many vicissitudes in life; but believing rigidly that all things were ordered for our ultimate good, and nothing evil occurred which might not have been worse, he passed through the world with a tolerable air of philosophy, and he contrived somehow to infuse into Morley's more ardent nature the quiet of content for the present time, with a spirit of perseverance and hope for that to come.

So Morrison talked away about Ethel Basset, as if he had known her all his life. He pointed out a variety of ways and means for reaching the Isle of France. He calculated the distance to a nicety; about 2,400 miles from Rio to the Cape; about 4,800 miles from thence to Tasmania; and about 2,400 more from thence to the Isle of France. In short, making allowance for variation, leeway, head-winds, and so forth, poor Morley found that he must traverse at least 9,600 miles before he saw the land that was Ethel's new home!

At this calculation he could not repress a sigh and an emotion of repining, notwithstanding all the patience and philosophy with which his Scottish friend sought to inspire him.

But the ship flew fast on her watery path. She was spanking along at the rate of nine knots an hour over a smooth sea with a glorious sky overhead--a sky wherein he saw, for the first time, the Hole, or, as sailors term it, "the Coal-sack," a deep and dark blue starless space in the southern quarter of the heavens, an appearance only to be found in those latitudes where, in its far immensity of lightless azure, that portion of the sky becomes black, as if it had been pierced by a hole.

After they had been three days out from Rio, early in the morning, Morley was roused from sleep, first by the rattling and hauling aft of the starboard chain, which the watch on deck were unbending for stowage in the cable-tier, and second by a conversation at the companion hatch, where he heard the voices of Bartelot and Gawthrop, who both summoned Morrison with something of excitement in their tone, so he, too, hurried on deck.

The wind, which had been due west all night, enabling the _Princess_ to run her course with both sheets aft, had veered round to the northward: so she was now trimmed with her starboard tacks on board, and had all her fore-and-aft canvas set.

"What is the matter?" asked Morley.

"Look astern," replied Bartelot.

He did so, and saw a long, low brigantine, with a black hull, and a vast spread of snow-white canvas, heading directly in their wake about ten miles astern.

Every time she rose upon a wave her bright copper flashed in the morning sun, and the foam that flew off from each side from her sharp black prow was white as the cloth of the long tapering jib and fly ing-jib that bellied out from the bowsprit and boom above.

The crew of the _Princess_ were all grouped aft about the quarter, regarding her with some anxiety, conferring in whispers, and the telescope was passed alternately from Bartelot and Morrison to Noah Gawthrop, Ben Plank, the carpenter, and some of the older men of the crew.

"Is there anything suspicious about her?" asked Morley of Gawthrop, who was taking a long and steady look at her through a tarpaulin-covered telescope.

Noah did not reply immediately; but vigorously expectorated his quid to leeward, and again applied his stern grey visual organ to the glass, puckering up the other fearfully as he closed it.

"When I came on deck this morning that craft was hull down at the horizon, bearing northward close-hauled; but she soon altered her course and headed directly after us. As I did not like the cut of her jib, or her hull either, for the matter of that, I kept the ship away six or eight points, upon which she still headed after us, and spread more canvas, which I saw her crew had been wetting. I hoisted our ensign, to which she made no reply by showing any colour, not even a thread of bunting. She is full of men; I don't like her look at all, and don't see why she should be dodging in this way."

This was the explanation of Bartelot, who added:

"And now, Noah, what do you say?"

"I say, sir, as she's a powerfully-built brigantine--coppered to the bends, sharp as a needle, and harmed, too, sir--harmed. She has stings in her, that wasp has! Blowed if I don't see 'em a-tricing up her bow ports now! She's up to some mischief, that confounded miskitty; so as we can't meet her in her own fashion, my advice, captain, is to give her a jolly wide berth."

"Just what I mean to do, Noah. She has gained a knot on us in the last twenty minutes; so, on a wind, we are no match for her; but before the wind we'll give her the go-by hand over hand."

Bartelot now ordered the vessel's course to be altered due south; the tacks to be brought aft, the fore-and-aft canvas to be reduced, the studding-sails to be set, and each, before it was hoisted out, was well drenched by buckets of water, to make the canvas draw better; and from the tops and cross-trees the courses and topsails underwent a similar process. The royals were set, and little triangular skysails above them, too; thus, in a very few minutes, the _Princess_ was flying right before the wind under a mighty spread of canvas.

The morning breeze was fresh and increasing, and as she tore through the glittering water at the rate of ten knots an hour, deeply laden as she was, it literally smoked under her bows, and flew over her dripping catheads, while her new wake was one of white froth, like a mill-race, extending at an acute angle from the old one.

"Hah! look there--how well I knew she was bent on mischief!" exclaimed Bartelot. A white puff, reduced by distance to the size of a whiff of tobacco, escaped from, her lee-bow, and a long time after, for she was nine miles or so astern, the report of a cannon came over the water, but still no colours were displayed. "I knew it would come to this; round goes her foretopsail-yard square before the wind."

With man-o'-war-like rapidity she, too, altered her course, set her fore-royal, her fore-top and top-gallant studding-sails, easing off the long spanker-boom and sheet of her enormous fore-and-aft mainsail, above which, on a mast that tapered away aloft like a fishing-rod, she hoisted a tall, shoulder-of-mutton gaff-topsail.

Fast flew the foam before her now, rising at times so high as to hide nearly her black hull, the fulcrum above which this cloud of canvas swayed as she rolled heavily from side to side; but, sharply though she was built, and swiftly as she had hitherto run upon the wind, she was no match _before_ it for a square-rigged vessel like the _Princess_, with her greater spread of sail.

So now she was left astern as fast as previously she had been overhauling the _Princess_, and as both were now trimmed dead before the wind, each rolled heavily from side to side.

This too-evident pursuit caused considerable excitement, and no small anxiety on board; for, with the exception of a revolver of Tom Bartelot's, and a couple of fowling-pieces, the crew had no arms whatever, save handspikes and their sheath knives, with which to encounter the pirate, if such she proved to be.

That she was not a ship of war was evident, as she did not possess steam power, and carried neither ensign nor pennant at this juncture; so, whatever her object was, Tom Bartelot, in his present defenceless condition, was resolved to avoid her acquaintance, and continued to run due south during the whole day, for though she was left astern, the brigantine still continued to pursue them, with four long sweeps out, which her crew worked amidships; but, about the middle of the first dog-watch, viz., four o'clock P.M., she was more than hull down at the horizon.

Clouds were banking up to windward; the weather was becoming hazy; but while daylight lasted, Bartelot did not alter his southern course, though he took in some of his studdingsails, and sent down his royals and skysails.

When darkness had fairly set, he reduced the last of his studdingsails, set his fore and mainstay sail, brought the starboard tacks on board, and kept the ship upon her former course, after being forced by this little rencontre on the high seas to run about 100 miles out of it, for the ship had gone for more than ten hours at an average of ten knots per hour by the log-line.

He gave Gawthrop the wheel, and ordered him to steer by the stars, when he could see them, as he kept the binnacle dark, lest its lamps, by their light, might reveal the ship's course to some keen-sighted mastheadman of the suspicious brigantine. The cabin lamp was lit below, but a tarpaulin was spread over the skylight.

Silence was ordered to be kept on deck, as water will convey every sound to a vast distance; so, thus, in the dark, without moon, and with very few stars visible through the gathering scud, to guide our steersman, the ship sped upon her eastern course once more. The chase of the day formed a fruitful theme in the cabin that night, where they frequently congratulated themselves on their escape, and many a strange story of the pirates, whom the progress of steam, and its adoption in war vessels, had swept from those southern waters, served to beguile the night.

Morrison, who had the history and memoirs of all the buccaneers of America and the Indian Isles by heart, particularly excelled in the yarns he spun; but the most quaint was one he told of a Scottish skipper--a Hebridean from Stornaway--who possessed a bottle, the stopper of which informed him how to steer for the avoidance of storms as well as the sailor's horn-book could do.

"A bottle!" exclaimed Bartelot. "I have heard of many a man who has lost his life, and his ship also, by application thereto; but never of one who saved them through its means."

"But this bottle and its stopper were unlike any you ever saw.

"So 'twould seem."

"It was one of our old flat-bottomed, blue Scotch dram-bottles, and had a quaint stopper of delf-ware, in the form of a man's head, with a rubicund visage, a jovial-mouth, wicked-looking little eyes, and a comical red hat. By day, or at any time when the skipper was not present, the queer visage which surmounted the cork remained stolid and immovable, and to all appearance mere delf, like any other stopper where a human face was carved or cast. But at night, when the skipper was seated at his grog, the steward, who peeped in from the steerage the man at the helm, who also peeped down through the skylight; the mate or anyone else who came suddenly below for orders, would find the skipper talking away to the stopper in the bottle neck--the little head was seen to nod waggishly, the eyes to wink and leer, the mouth to laugh, and the little red tongue to speak merrily; and it was further said, that the bottle had the admirable and economical property of being always half full----"

"Like the widow's cruse of oil?"

"Yes; but with the best Campbelton--some said Islay whisky--the quantity of which never diminished, yet it was never replenished by the steward, for the skipper seemed to prize his bottle as if it were the lamp of Aladdin, and always locked it carefully fast in the stern locker."

"And where is this jolly old bottle now?"

"At his death, he bequeathed it to a crack-brained skipper of Montrose, who, under its influence, astounded the public by the discoveries he made."

"How?"

"He sent the spirit of the bottle, in the form of a woman--a _clairvoyante_--to pry aboard a war ship in the West Indies; to search for Sir John Franklin; to visit his family in heaven, and bring back locks of their hair; to inquire after numerous enemies, who had all gone to the other place--and all of which revelations he duly recorded as they came to pass, in a Scotch newspaper, to the great astonishment of the queen's lieges."

About twelve o'clock, Bartelot went on deck, and adjusted his night-glass to sweep the horizon; but so dark and hazy was the atmosphere, that a large ship might have been within three miles of the _Princess_ and yet have been invisible from her deck; so, as the middle watch was Morrison's, he and Morley turned in, and soon were sound asleep.

At 4 P.M. the latter was awakened by the bell being struck, and the morning watch called.

"Is that you, Morrison?" asked Bartelot, from his berth, as a step was heard in the cabin.

"Yes, sir; I was just about to call you in haste."

"About that rascally brigantine?"

"No, sir."

"What is in sight, then??

"Land on the weather-bow, and we are raising it fast."

"Land!" exclaimed Bartelot, in astonishment.

"Bearing about twenty miles distant."

"Bah! Cape Flyaway. You have been at your Montrose skipper's wonderful dram-bottle."

"Land as solid as the Bass Rock," continued the Scotchman obstinately; "I have just had a squint at it from the fore-crosstrees, and now mean to have a look at the chart."

"This must be some of your second sight--there is no island hereabout, Morrison. Come Morley, turn out--tumble up, there, and let us have a look at Morrison's enchanted island. How's the wind?"

"Veering ahead."

"And how does she lie?"

"East and by north," replied Morrison, glancing at the tell-tale compass that swung in the skylight, and which is constructed so as to hang with its face downward, for use in the cabin. Bartelot dressed in haste, and was soon on deck, where Morley joined him.

Although our hero knew it not--for who can foresee what to-morrow may bring forth?--this enforced and necessary divergence from the vessel's proper course brought about a very strange episode, or adventure, which cast some light upon the origin, and, it might be, the crimes, of certain persons whom we have been, however unwillingly, compelled by the force of circumstances and the tenor of our story, to introduce to the reader.