CHAPTER X

THE HUMOURS OF AN INDIAMAN

The mystery being at an end, most of the passengers, after a brief spell of loitering and talking, went below, little Saunders leading the way with the meteorolite, and the captain closing the procession, to finish the glass of grog; he had been disturbed at by finding the ship off her course. I was exchanging a few words with Mr. Cocker on this second queer incident of the day, when the fellow who was at the wheel exclaimed: ‘Beg pardon, sir;’ and I saw him shift very uneasily from one leg to the other with a drag of the length of his arm over his brow, as though he freely perspired.

‘What is it?’ inquired Mr. Cocker.

‘Am I expected to stand here alone, sir?’ asked the fellow.

‘Certainly. What! On a fine night like this? What do you want? That I should call hands to the relieving tackles?’ cried the second-mate.

The man sent a look up at the stars before answering, with a sort of cowering air in the posture of his head.

‘One of them blooming boomerangs,’ said he, ‘might come along again, sir. What’s a man to do if time ain’t allowed him to get out of the road?’

‘Your having a companion won’t help you,’ said the second-mate.

‘I dunno,’ answered the fellow. ‘Whatever it be that chucks the like of them things, might hold off at the sight of _two_ of us.’

The second-mate stood looking at him a little, and then burst into a laugh.

‘Well, well!’ said he; ‘if there’s ever a lead-line to sound the depths of forecastle ignorance, I allow there must be fathoms enough of it to belay an end to the moon’s horns.’

Nevertheless he called to one of the watch to come aft and hold the wheel with the other man, making some allowance, I daresay, for the superstitious feelings which possessed the sailor, and which were certainly not to be softened down by the sight of the great bloodstain close to his feet.

I went below for a glass of brandy, and found the passengers listening to Mr. Saunders, who, with the meteorolite before him, was delivering a discourse on that kind of stone, pointing to it with his finger, speaking very slowly and emphatically, and looking in his wistful way up into the faces of his audience. Even Miss Temple seemed interested, and stood listening with her back against the mizzen-mast, the embellished trunk of which formed a very noble fanciful background for her fine figure. However, I was more in the temper for a pipe of tobacco than for a lecture, and was presently on deck again, for after half-past nine o’clock in the evening we were privileged to smoke upon the poop. Colledge presently joined me; but in twenty minutes he gave a prodigious yawn and then went to bed; and I paced the deck alone, with deep enjoyment of the hush coming to the ship out of the dark scintillant distance--a silence of ocean-night that seemed to be deepened to the senses by the marble stillness of the wide white pinions stealing and floating up in a sort of glimmer of spaces to the faint mist-like square of the main royal. There was a faint noise of trembling and rippling waters over the side, and the line of the taffrail with the two fellows at the wheel rose and fell very softly to the black secret heave of the long deep-sea undulation. The cuddy lamps were dimmed, the interior deserted; there was a small group of smokers on the quarter-deck in the shadow of the bulwark conversing quietly; abaft the mizzen rigging flitted the dusky form of old Keeling, who had come up to take a turn or two and a final squint at the weather before turning in.

Some one emerged through the companion hatch, and, after looking about him a little, crossed to the lee rail, where I was standing.

‘Is that you, Dugdale?’

‘Yes,’ said I. ‘What’s the matter, Greenhew? Time to be in bed, isn’t it?’

‘Oh, I say, Dugdale,’ exclaimed the young fellow in a breathless kind of way, as though the effort to check some fit of merriment nearly choked him, ‘there’s such a lark down-stairs--in my cabin--Riley, you know’---- And here he laughed out.

‘What’s the lark?’ I asked.

‘I want you to come and see,’ he answered. ‘I found it out by the merest accident. Heavens, what capers! And if I don’t contrive some excuse to introduce Miss Hudson into the cabin, that she may see him---- Well! well! But come along, though.’

‘But, my good fellow, let me first of all know what I am to see,’ said I. ‘I am enjoying the silence and coolness of this deck and my pipe and’----

He interrupted me as he cautiously stared around him.

‘You know, of course, that Riley’s got the bunk under me?’ he exclaimed in a fluttering voice, as though he should at any moment break out into a loud laugh; ‘well, you can make him do whatever you like when he’s asleep.’

‘Go on,’ said I; ‘I may understand you presently.’

‘When I went to my cabin to turn in,’ he continued, ‘I found him in bed; and imagining him to be awake, I exclaimed, just as a matter of chaff, you know: “Look out, my friend! There’ll be a meteorolite crashing clean through my bunk into your head in a minute--so, mind your eye, Riley!” The moment I said this he hopped out from between his sheets on to the deck, and stood cowering with his hands over his head, as if to shelter it. His eyes were shut, and I supposed he was playing the fool. “Get back into bed, man,” said I; “you can’t humbug me.” He immediately lay down again in a manner that surprised me, I assure you, Dugdale; for it was as full of obedience as the behaviour of any beaten dog. I watched him a little, to see if he opened his eyes; but he kept them shut, and his breathing proved him fast asleep. I thought I would try him again. “Hi, Riley!” I exclaimed. “Here’s Peter Hemskirk come to haul you out of your bunk. Protect yourself, or he’ll be dragging you into the cuddy, dressed as you are, and Miss Hudson is there to see you.” Instantly, Dugdale’--here he clapped his hands to his lips, to smother a fit of laughter--‘he doubled up his fists and let fly at the air, kicking off the clothes, that he might strike out with his legs; and thus he lay working all over like a galvanised frog. You never saw such a sight. Come down and look at him.’

‘Have you observed anything of the sort in him before?’ said I, knocking the ashes out of my pipe.

‘Never before,’ he answered; ‘but I have him on the hip now. He’s tried to make a fool of me to Miss Hudson, and this blessed evening shows me my way to a very pretty rejoinder. Come along, come along! Should he wake, there can be no performance.’

He went gliding with the step of a skater to the companion, and I followed, scarcely knowing as yet whether the young fellow was not designing in all this some practical joke of which I was to be the victim. We passed through the deserted cuddy, faintly lighted by one dimly burning lantern, and descended to the lower deck, where the corridor between the berths was illuminated by a bull’s-eye lamp fixed under a clock against the bulkhead. The cabin shared by the young men stood three doors down past mine on the same side of the ship. Greenhew halted a moment to listen, then turned the handle, took a peep, and beckoned me to enter. Affixed to a stanchion was a small bracket lamp, the glow of which was upon Riley’s face as he lay on his back in an under bunk, unmistakably in a deep sleep. His eyes were sealed, his lips parted, his respirations low and deep, as of one who slumbers heavily. The wild disorder of the bedclothes was corroboration enough of Greenhew’s tale, at least in one article of it.

‘Try him yourself,’ said my companion in a low voice.

‘No, no,’ I answered. ‘I have a sailor’s reverence for sleep. You have invited me here to witness a performance. It is for you to make the play, Greenhew.’

He at once cried out: ‘Riley! Riley! the ship is sinking! For God’s sake strike out, or you’re a drowned man!’

I was amazed to observe the young fellow instantly rise to his knees and motion with his arms in the exact manner of a swimmer, yet with a stoop of the head to clear it of the boards of the upper bunk, which I considered as remarkable as any other part of the extraordinary exhibition for the perception that it indicated of surrounding conditions; whilst his gestures on the other hand proved him completely under the control of the delusion created by his cabin-fellow’s cry. I also observed an expression of extreme suffering and anxiety in his face, that was made dumb otherwise by the closed lids. In fact it was the countenance of a swimmer battling in agony. Greenhew looked on half choking with laughter.

‘Oh,’ he whipped out in disjointed syllables, ‘if Miss Hudson could only see him now! Dugdale, you’ll have to find me some excuse to introduce her here. Her mother must attend too--the more the merrier!’ and here he went off again into a fit, as though he should suffocate.

For my part, I could see nothing to laugh at. Indeed, the thing shocked and astonished me as a painful, degrading, mysterious expression of the human mind acting under conditions of which I could not be expected of course to make head or tail. Riley continued to move his arms with the motions of a swimmer for some minutes, meanwhile breathing hard, as though the water’s edge rose to his lip, whilst his face continued drawn out into an indescribable expression of distress. His gesticulations then grew feeble, his respiration lost its fierceness and swiftness and became once more long drawn and regular, and presently he lay back, still in a deep sleep, in the posture in which I had observed him when I entered.

‘What d’ye think of _that_?’ exclaimed Greenhew with a face of triumphant enjoyment.

‘A pitiful trick for a sleeper to fall into,’ said I. ‘I like your show so little, Greenhew, that I wish to see no more of it.’

‘Oh, nonsense!’ he exclaimed; ‘let’s keep him caper-cutting a while longer. I’ll have a regular performance here every night. It shall be the talk of the ship, by George!’

As he spoke these words, Riley uttered a low cry, opened his eyes full upon us, stared a moment with the bewilderment of a man who has not all his senses, then sat upright, running his gaze over his bedclothes.

‘What is the matter?’ he exclaimed, looking around at us. ‘Who has been’----

The light and expression of a full mind entered his eyes. He threw his feet over on to the deck and stood up.

‘Have I been making a fool of myself in my sleep, Dugdale?’ said he.--I was at a loss for an answer.--He proceeded: ‘I know my weakness. I have heard of it often enough--at school--from my mother--again and again since, Dugdale. Greenhew has brought you here to watch me. And that means,’ cried he, turning fiercely upon Greenhew, ‘that you have been exercising your humour upon me in my sleep, and instead of compassionating a painful and humiliating infirmity, you have’----

His temper choked him. He clenched his fist and let fly at friend Greenhew right between the eyes. Down went the Civil Service man like a statue knocked off its pedestal; but he was up again in a minute; and neither of them wanting in spunk, at it they went! It was enough to make any man die of laughter to see Riley’s very imperfectly clad figure dancing and manœuvring round Greenhew with the gestures of a cannibal at a feast-dance, yet all the while handsomely plumping his fists into his antagonist, who hammered wildly in return with a ruddy nose and one eye already slowly closing. I threw myself between them, but could do little for laughing. They fought in silence, so far at least as their voices were concerned; but the hard thumps they dealt the bulkhead as they went pommelling each other from side to side, not to mention their frequent capsizals over boxes, the flight of any objects, such as boots, which their toes happened to strike against, might well have caused the occupants of the adjacent cabins to believe that if this scramble did not signify a rush of people escaping from a sinking ship, then it must certainly mean a desperate mutiny amongst the crew accompanied by all the disorder of a struggle for life.

‘For heaven’s sake, stop this!’ I shouted; ‘consider how terrified the ladies will be. Greenhew, cease it, man. Riley, get you into your bunk again’----

Here there was a violent thumping upon the door of the cabin.

‘Anybody fallen mad here?’ was bawled in the familiar notes of Colonel Bannister, ‘or is it murder that’s being done?’

He opened the door and looked in.

‘Vot, in Got’s name, iss happening?’ rumbled the deep voice of Peter Hemskirk over the military man’s shoulder.

The ship slightly leaned at that moment, and caused the Dutchman to put his weight against the colonel, with the consequence that the little soldier was shot into the cabin with Mynheer at his heels.

‘What’s this?’ cried the colonel.

‘I’ll teach you!’ gasped Riley.

‘Haven’t you had enough?’ shouted Greenhew.

‘Seberate ’em! seberate ’em!’ exclaimed Hemskirk. ‘Look, shentlemen, how Mr. Greenhew bleeds.’

‘What on earth is the matter?’ exclaimed some one at the door.

It was Mr. Emmett. He trembled, and was very pale. He had thrown his tragedian cloak over his shoulders, and looked a truly ludicrous object with a short space of his bare shanks showing and his feet in a pair of large carpet slippers. In fact, by this time the whole of the passengers were alarmed, the ladies looking out of their doors and calling, the men hustling into the passage to see, with the sound of Mr. Prance’s voice at the head of the steps of the hatch shouting down to know what the noise was about. It was more than I could stand. The figures of the colonel and the Dutchman and Emmett, not to mention Riley, coming on top of the absurdity of the fight, proved too much for me. I took one look at Greenhew, shot through the door, gained my cabin, and flung myself into my bunk, exhausted with laughter, and utterly incapable of answering the numberless questions which Colledge fired off at me.

The noise ceased after a while, but not before I heard the captain’s storming accents outside my berth. I could also hear the colonel complaining in strong language of so great an outrage as that of two young men fighting in the dead of night within the hearing of ladies. The old skipper insisted on one of the young fellows quitting the cabin and sharing the berth tenanted by Mr. Fairthorne. Both vehemently refused to budge. The captain then asked who struck the first blow. Riley answered that he had, and was beginning to explain, when old Keeling silenced him by saying that he would give him five minutes to retire to Mr. Fairthorne’s berth, and that if he had not cleared out by that time he would send for the boatswain and a sailor or two to show him the road. This ended the difficulty, as I was told next morning, and the rest of the night passed quietly enough.

Next day, Mr. Riley put in an appearance at breakfast. On seeing me he came round to my seat, and in a few words begged me not to explain the cause of the quarrel, as he had no wish that his peculiarity as a sleeper should be known to the rest of us. I gave him my word, but regretted that he should have exacted it, as I wished to talk with Saunders and Hemmeridge on the very extraordinary manifestations I had witnessed. It was fortunate, however, that my share in the disturbance was not guessed at. The colonel, Hemskirk, and the rest imagined that I had been drawn to the young men’s berth by the noise, as they had, and no questions were therefore asked me. Mr. Greenhew kept his bed for three days. It was mainly sulking and shame with him, the others thought; but the truth was his eye had not only closed, but was so swollen and blackened as to render him unfit to appear in public. He sent one of the stewards to ask me to see him; but I had had quite enough of Mr. Greenhew, and contrived to keep clear of the youth until his coming on deck made escape from him impossible.

Nothing happened worth noting in the week that followed this business. The trade-wind blew as languid a breeze as ever vexed the heart and inflamed the passions of a ship-master. It was to be a long passage, we all said--six months, Mr. Johnson predicted--and old Keeling admitted that he had nothing to offer us in the way of hope until we had crossed the equator, where the south-east trades might compensate us for this northern sluggishness by blowing a brisk gale of wind.

However, if the dull crawling of the ship held the spirits of us who lived aft somewhat low, forward the Jacks made sport enough for themselves, and of a second dog-watch were as jolly a lot as ever fetched an echo out of a hollow topsail with salt-hardened lungs. There were a couple of excellent fiddlers amongst them, and these chaps would perch themselves upon the booms, and with bowed heads and quivering arms saw endless dance-tunes out of the catgut. Many a half-hour have I pleasantly killed in watching and hearkening to the forecastle frolics. The squeaking of the fiddles was the right sort of music for the show; the Jacks in couples lovingly embracing each other, slided, twirled, frisked, polked with loose delighted limbs between the forecastle rails, their hairy faces grinning over each other’s shoulders; or one of them would take the deck--the rest drawing off to smoke a pipe and look on --and break into a noble maritime shuffle--the true deep-sea hornpipe--always dancing it to perfection, as I would think. One such