CHAPTER XVI

WE SIGHT A WRECK

The wonder and excitement raised in us by the extraordinary forecastle conspiracy to plunder the ship’s mail-room passed away in two or three days. Monotony at sea is heavy and flattening. It passes over the soul as an iron roller over a lawn, and smoothes down every asperity of memory into the merest flatness of moods and humours. Hemmeridge showed himself no more. I never again saw him whilst I was in the _Countess Ida_. He lay hid in his cabin, where he was fed, by the captain’s orders, from the cuddy table; but he refused to leave his berth, swore he would not prescribe so much as a pill though a pestilence should fall upon the whole ship’s company, and virtually left us all without the means of obtaining professional advice. His part in Crabb’s and the sailmaker’s scheme was vehemently discussed, as you will suppose. The colonel of course was without a shadow of a doubt of his guilt; but the rest of us, saving Mr. Johnson, who declined to give an opinion, considered him as wholly innocent.

Little Saunders gave himself a small air of importance as a person referred to by the captain on his knowledge of herbs, and strutted on the merits of his suspicion that the liquor was what he called morion. He took me into his cabin, and climbing into his bunk, produced a folio volume half the size of himself, with which he dropped upon the deck, hugging the book to his heart as though it were his wife.

‘Here,’ said he, opening the volume and pointing at it and looking up into my face, ‘is an account of the growth out of which morion is extracted. That,’ continued he, still pointing with a little forefinger and a long white nail, ‘is a picture of the plant in flower. This is an illustration of the young fruit. Here is the ovary, and here is the stamen. It is, in short, the well known mandragora of Hippocrates. It consists of three or four species of stemless herbs, perennial,’ said he, carrying his eyes to the book, ‘and very hardy. Their roots are large and thick; and, as I told the captain,’ cried he with a little movement of triumph, and pointing to the sentence eagerly, ‘it is an inhabitant of the Mediterranean parallels.’

And then the little chap read out a long description of the flowers of the mandrake, of the corolla and lobes, of the berries and leaves, and I know not what else besides, in all of which my ignorant ear could find nothing of the smallest interest.

He afterwards went with his big book to the skipper, who, Mr. Prance told me, was impressed, though he was not to be persuaded.

‘He will not believe,’ said the chief officer, ‘that there can be any aspect in a living body to deceive a medical man into a belief that the person is dead. I said to him: “How about the folks that are buried alive, sir?” He answered: “They are unhappy wretches, whom ignorant and gross persons, calling themselves medical men, lightly glance at and pronounce dead, and hurry away from. Hemmeridge would know better, sir. He _does_ know better. I cannot satisfy myself that he could not distinguish life in that man Crabb. And what’s the inference then? No matter, sir. I will have this thing gone closely into when we arrive at Bombay.” Captain Keeling is an obstinate old sailor, Mr. Dugdale,’ continued the mate. ‘In truth, Hemmeridge is as innocent as you or I.’

Three days passed away. All this while the Indiaman was scarcely doing more than rippling through it. It was hard to realise that we were out in the mid-heart almost of one of old earth’s mightiest oceans, so peaceful was the water, so still the heavens, so placid the dim sultry distances, where sky and sea were blended in a blue faintness, out of the north-west corner of which the light wind blew without power enough to swing the foot of the courses or to put a twinkle into the tall moon-coloured cloths of the topmast studdingsails.

It was a Monday morning, as very well indeed do I remember. I went on deck at about seven o’clock for a bath; and on looking over the forecastle rail, down away upon the starboard bow I caught sight of something sparkling that might very well have passed for the reflection in the water of a brilliant luminary. The old Scotch carpenter was leaning against the forecastle capstan smoking a pipe, his weather-hardened face of leather drooping over his folded arms.

‘Pray, what is that object shining down there?’ said I.

‘Well, it puzzled me, sir,’ he answered, slowly raising his head, and then leisurely staring in the direction of the appearance: ‘It’s naething mair nor less than a ship’s hull, sir.’

By this time I was able to distinguish a bit clearer, and could trace, amid the delicate haze of silver glory that was hanging all over the sea that way, as it came in gushing and floating folds of magnificence from the sun that was already many degrees above the horizon, the outline of the hull of a small vessel, the proportions so faint as to be almost illusive. She was too far distant to exhibit much more than the mere flash she made, yet she was an object to constrain the attention in that wide blank shining calm of sea, and I lingered a little while looking at her, meanwhile yarning with the old carpenter about Crabb and the sailmaker and the incident of the fire, and such matters.

At breakfast there was some talk about this hull, and Mr. Emmett told the captain that he hoped a shot would be sent at her, as who was to know but that another cargo of monkeys might be exorcised out of the fabric.

‘I should rather like to visit a wreck,’ I heard Miss Temple say across the table to Mr. Colledge: ‘I mean, of course, an abandoned vessel floating in the middle of the ocean.’

‘I protest I would rather die than think of such a thing,’ exclaimed her aunt.

‘Well, I don’t know,’ said Colledge; ‘it would be something to do and something to talk about. Did you ever board a wreck, Captain Keeling?’

‘No, sir.’

‘I would choose a wreck,’ continued Miss Temple, in her clear, rich, somewhat trembling voice, but with an air that let you know she confined her speech to Mrs. Radcliffe and the young sprig opposite, and old marline-spike, as I love to call him, ‘that had been abandoned for months, indeed for years, if such a thing could be: a hull covered with shells and weed and grass, into which the spirit of the enormous loneliness of the wide ocean had entered, so that you could get to think of her as a creation of the sea itself, as an uninhabited island is, or a noble seabird. Think,’ she continued, fixing her large dark eyes upon Colledge with a light, almost sarcastic smile flickering about her lips, as though she was perfectly sensible that her thoughts and language were a trifle taller than that honourable young gentleman’s intellectual stature rose to--‘think of being utterly alone during a long, breathless, moonlit night on board such a wreck as I am imagining. The stillness! the imaginations which would come shaping out of the shadows! By putting one’s ear to the hatchway, as you sailors call it, Captain Keeling, what should one be able to hear?’

‘The noise of water washing about below, ma’am--I don’t see what else,’ answered the old skipper, stiffening up his figure, whilst he adjusted his cravat, and gazing at her with a highly literal countenance over the points of his shirt collars.

She did not seem to hear him; her head had drooped, as though to a sudden engrossing thought, and her gaze rested upon something which her delicate fingers toyed with upon the table.

‘What very odd fancies you have, Louise,’ exclaimed Mrs. Radcliffe with a peck of her face at the girl’s handsome profile.

‘Rather a good subject for a descriptive article, Johnson,’ exclaimed Emmett aside with a drawl.

‘Or for a picture,’ answered Johnson; ‘better on canvas than on paper, I think; don’t you, Mr. Saunders? Calm sea--a moon up in the air--a wreck showing black against the white reflection under the planet--a haughty young lady’--here he softened his voice--‘inclining her head to the fore-hatch with her hand to her ear.--A first-class idea, Emmett. Seize it, or it may occur to another man.’

Miss Temple was speaking again, but the rude imbecile jabber of the journalist prevented me from hearing her; and bestowing a sea-blessing on his head under my breath, I left the table and went on deck.

There was every promise of a dead calm anon. The sea looked like ice in places with the bluish glint of the brine that softened the lines and curves betwixt the crawlings of the air into a tender contrast for the lustrous azure of the water where it was touched by the wind. It was a high, hot, cloudless morning, the topmost canvas, white as milk, looking dizzy up in the blue, as though it trembled in some sultry belt of atmosphere there. I went to the rail to view the wreck, and instantly made out on the other side of her the shining square of a sail--some ship on the rim of the horizon that had crawled into sight since six bells of the morning watch, and was now creeping down the smooth plain of sea with her yards braced somewhat forward, making a wind for herself out of what was scarce more than a catspaw to us, who had the thin fanning nearly over the stern.

Prance came up from the breakfast table with a telescope in his hand and stood by my side.

‘That ship down yonder grows,’ he exclaimed, pointing the glass and speaking with his eye at it; ‘there’ll be more air stirring down there than here; but little enough anywhere presently, though I tell you what, Mr Dugdale, there’s drop enough in the mercury to inspire one with hope.’

He brought the telescope to bear upon the hull, and was silent for a few moments, whilst I waited impatiently for him to make an end, wanting to look too.

‘I don’t think I can be mistaken,’ said he presently in a musing voice: ‘look you, Mr. Dugdale.’

‘At what?’ said I, as I took the glass from him.

‘At the hull yonder.’

I put the telescope upon the rail and knelt to it. Points which were invisible to the naked sight were clear enough now. The wreck was that of a vessel of some two hundred and fifty tons. She sat very light or high upon the water, and it was a part of the copper that rose to her bends which had emitted the flash that caught my eye on the forecastle. Her foremast was standing, and her foreyard lay crossed upon it. Her bowsprit also forked out, but the jib-booms were gone. Lengths of her bulwark were smashed level to the deck; but gaunt as her mastless condition made her look, miserable as she showed in the mutilation of her sides, the beautiful shape of the hull stole out upon the sight through the deformities of her wrecked condition, as the fine shape of a woman expresses itself in defiance of the beggar’s rags which may clothe her.

‘By George, then, Mr. Prance--why, yes, to be sure! I see what you mean,’ I cried all on a sudden--‘that must be our buccaneering friend of the other day!’

‘Neither more nor less,’ said he; ‘an odd rencontre certainly, considering what a big place the sea is. And yet I don’t know: such a clipper will have sailed two feet to our one, though she exposed no more than her foresail. She’ll have run as we did, and the light airs and baffling weather which followed will easily account for this meeting.’

‘She is not yet the handful of charred staves you thought her, Mr. Prance,’ said I; ‘they managed to get the fire under anyway, though they had to abandon the brig in the end. What is that fellow beyond her? She has the look of a man-of-war: a ship, I believe: yes, I think I can catch sight of the yards on the mizzen peeping past the sails on the main.’

All her canvas had risen, but nothing of her hull, saving the black film of her bulwark hovering upon the horizon with an icy gleam betwixt it and the sea-line, as though there was no more of her than that. When the others came on deck there was no little excitement amongst them on learning that the hull was neither more nor less than the veritable wreck of the brig whose presence had filled us with alarm and misery a few days before. Glasses of all sorts were brought to bear upon her, and by this time it was to be ascertained without doubt that she was absolutely deserted; ‘unless,’ I heard Mr. Emmett say to Mr. Prance, ‘her people should be lying concealed within, hoping to coax us to visit her by an appearance of being deserted, when, of course, they would cut us off, and plunder our remains--I mean, those who would be fools enough to board her out of curiosity.’

‘Likely as not,’ Mr. Prance answered with a sour smile. ‘I would advise you not to attempt to inspect her.’

‘Not I,’ answered the painter; and the chief officer turned abruptly from him to smother a laugh.

It was not long, however, before the delicate miracle of distant canvas shining past the hull upon the calm blue like some spire of alabaster was recognised as a man-of-war, not alone by the cut of her canvas and by other peculiarities aloft readily determinable by the seafaring eye, but by the chequered band upon her hull, that had mounted fair to the firm crystal-like rim of the ocean, and by the line of white hammock-cloths that crowned her tall defences. She was some small corvette or ship-sloop, with her nationality to be sworn to even all that way off.

‘An Englishman, do you think, Captain Keeling?’ asked Colonel Bannister.

‘Oh, God bless my heart, yes, sir,’ answered the skipper.

‘Now, _how_ do you know, capting?’ cried Mrs. Hudson.

‘By my instincts as a Briton, ma’am,’ he answered; ‘patriotism so enlarges the nostril that a man can taste with his nose whenever anything of his country’s about in the air.’

‘To think of it now!’ exclaimed Mrs. Hudson. ‘I’m sorry the robbers have left that wreck. I should like the pirates to have been caught by the man-of-war and hung up.’

The hour of noon had been ‘made,’ as it is called at sea, and it was then a dead calm, with the clear chimes of eight bells ringing through a wonderful stillness on high, so faint was the undulation in the water, so soft the stir in the canvas to the gentle swaying of the tall spars. The wreck of the brig lay about two miles distant off the starboard beam, and by this hour the corvette, as she now proved to be, with the crimson cross fluttering at her peak, had floated to within a mile and a half or thereabouts on the other side of the hull; and thus the three of us lay. The corvette, slewing her length out to us to the twist of some subtle current upon the still surface, showed a very handsome stately figure of a ship, at that distance at least. Her sails had the fairy-like delicacy of silver tint you observe in the moon when she hangs in an afternoon sky; they fitted the yardarms to perfection, and I stood admiring for a long quarter of an hour at a time the graceful lines of the bolt-ropes faintly curving to the yardarm sheave-holes, each clew looking a little way past the corner of the sail beneath it. A gilt figure-head of some royal device flashed at her bows and shed a ruddy gleam upon the water under it. There was the glistering of gilt about her quarter-galleries, and the sparkle of glass there. But Mr. Prance said that he would swear she was an old ship, her timbers as soft as cheese, and her chain-pumps nearly worn out with plying, for all that she looked in the perspective of that azure atmosphere as airy a beauty as ever gave the milk-white bosoms of her canvas to the wind.

I went down on the quarter-deck to smoke a pipe, and whilst I lay over the bulwark rail watching the man-of-war, my eye was taken by a somewhat curious appearance in the line of the ocean away down in the south-west quarter. It was a sensible depression in the edge of the sea, as though you viewed it through defective window-glass. It was an atmospheric effect, and an odd one. The circle went round with the clearness of the side of a lens, save to that part, and there it looked as though some gigantic knife had pared a piece clean out--with this addition: that there was a curious sort of faintness as of mist where the sky joined the sea in the hollow of this queer dip. I ran my eye over the poop to see if others up there were noting this appearance, but I did not observe that it had won attention. For my part, I should have made nothing of it, accepting it as some trick of refraction, but for it somehow entering into my head to remember how the second mate of the ship I had made my first voyage in once told me of a sudden shift of weather that had taken his craft aback and wrecked her to her tops, and that it had been heralded, though there was no man to interpret the sign, by just such another horizontal depression as that upon which my eyes were now resting.

However, on dismounting from the bulwarks for a brief yarn with little Saunders, the matter went out of my mind and I thought no more of it.

Whilst we were at lunch, Mr. Cocker came down the companion steps cap in hand, and said something to the captain.

‘All right, sir,’ I heard old Keeling answer: ‘it will be a visit of curiosity rather than of courtesy. How far is the boat?’

‘She’s only just left the wreck, sir.’

‘Very well, Mr. Cocker.’

The second mate remounted the steps.

‘The corvette,’ exclaimed old Keeling, addressing us generally, ‘has sent a boat to the wreck, presumably to overhaul and report upon her. The boat is now approaching us. I have little doubt that the corvette is homeward bound, in which case, ladies and gentlemen, you might be glad to send letters by her. There will be plenty of time. The calm, I fear, threatens to last.’

There was instantly a hurry amongst the passengers, most of whom rushed away from the table to write their letters.

I emptied my wine-glass and went on deck, and saw a man-of-war’s boat approaching us; the bright ash oars rose and fell with exquisite precision, and the white water spat from the stem of the little craft as she was swept through it by the rowers, with a young fellow in the uniform of a naval lieutenant of that day steering her. She came flashing alongside; up rose the oars, the lively hearty in the bows hooked on, and the officer, lightly springing on to the rope ladder which had been dropped over the side for his convenience, gained the deck with a twist of his thumb that was meant as a salutation to the ship.

Old Keeling was now on the poop, and Mr. Cocker conducted the lieutenant to him. I happened to be standing near, talking with Colledge and Mrs. Radcliffe, Miss Temple not yet having returned with the letter which she had gone to her cabin to write. The skipper received the naval officer with a gracious bow.

‘Our captain,’ exclaimed the young fellow, in a gentlemanly easy way, ‘instructed me to overhaul yonder wreck, and then come on to you to see if we can be of any service;’ and I saw his eye rest with an expression of delight upon Miss Hudson, who rose through the companion at that instant and drew close to hear what passed.

‘Sir,’ cried old Keeling, with another bow, ‘I am obliged to your captain, sir. It is, sir, very considerate of him to send. My passengers are preparing letters, and we shall be very sensible of your goodness in receiving and transmitting them.’

‘Pray, what ship is this, sir?’ exclaimed the lieutenant, glancing about him with the curiosity of a stranger, and then taking another thirsty peep at the golden young lady.

‘The _Countess Ida_, sir, of and from London for Bombay, so many days out. And pray, what ship is that?’

‘His Majesty’s ship _Magicienne_.’

Colledge started. ‘Beg pardon,’ he exclaimed. ‘Isn’t Sir Edward Panton her commander?’

‘He is,’ answered the lieutenant.

‘By George, my cousin!’ cried Colledge; ‘haven’t seen him these seven years. How doocid odd, now, to fall in with him _here_!’

‘Oh, indeed,’ said the lieutenant, with a hint of respect in his manner that might have been wanting in it before. ‘May I venture to ask your name?’

‘Colledge.’

‘Ah! of course; a son of my Lord Sandown. This will be news for Sir Edward.’ He sent a look at the corvette, as though measuring the distance between the vessels.

‘Sir,’ here said old Keeling, ‘I believe that luncheon is still upon the table. Let me conduct you below, sir. It will have been a mighty hot ride for you out upon those unsheltered waters.’

The lieutenant bowed, and followed the skipper to the companion. Colledge put his arm through mine and led me to the rail.

‘I say, Dugdale,’ he exclaimed. ‘I should like to see my cousin. It would be rather a lark to visit his ship, wouldn’t it? Not too far off, is she, d’ye think?’ he added, cocking his eye at the vessel.

‘Why, no; not on such a day as this.’

‘Will you come if I go?’

‘With the greatest pleasure.’

‘Oh, that’s downright jolly of you, by George. We’ll go in my cousin’s boat, and he’ll send us back. I like the look of those men-of-war’s men. It makes one feel safe even to see them rowing. Ah, there goes something to drink for the poor fellows. Upon my word, old Keeling buttons up a kind heart under that queer coat of his.’

‘I presume,’ said I, ‘that the lieutenant will make no difficulty in consenting to carry us in his boat. I am ignorant of the rules which govern his service. Suppose you step below, and arrange with him? If he may not take us, Keeling will lend us a boat, I am sure.’

Down he went full of eagerness, his handsome face flushed with excitement. Mrs. Radcliffe had joined two or three ladies, and stood with them asking questions of Mr. Cocker about the corvette and the wreck. On glancing through the skylight presently, I saw the lieutenant picking a piece of cold fowl at the table, with a bottle of champagne at his elbow. Old Keeling sat at his side, and opposite were Colledge and Miss Temple. The four of them were chatting briskly. I took a peep at the boat under the gangway. It was a treat to see the jolly English faces of the fellows, and to hear the tongue of the old home spoken over the side. A number of our seamen had perched themselves on the bulwarks and were calling questions to the men-of-war’s-men whilst they watched them draining the glasses which the steward had sent down to them in a basket. From the answers the fellows made I gathered that the _Magicienne_ was from Simon’s Bay, having been relieved on the coast, where she had been stationed for I will not pretend to remember how long. Small wonder that the bronzed, round-faced, bullet-headed, but exceedingly gentlemanly lieutenant should have fixed a transported eye on the sweet face and golden hair and the violet stars of Miss Hudson after his unendurably long frizzling months of West African beauties.

In about twenty minutes he made his appearance upon deck, followed by Keeling and Miss Temple and Colledge, who came sliding up to me to say that it was all right: the lieutenant would convey us with pleasure and bring us back: and what did I think? Miss Temple was to be of our party.

‘Humph!’ said I; ‘any other ladies?’

He made a grimace. ‘No,’ he responded in a whisper; ‘the lieutenant suggested others; but I could twig in Miss Temple’s face that if others went she would remain. You know there’s not a woman on board that she cares about. I rather want,’ said he, returning to his former voice, ‘to introduce her to my cousin. He will be seeing my father when he returns, and is pretty sure to talk,’ said he, giving me a wink.

‘Does Miss Temple know that you’ve invited me?’

‘She does, Trojan.’

‘And how did she receive the news?’

‘With rapture,’ he cried.

‘A fig for such raptures! but I’ll go, spite of her delight.’

By this time Miss Temple had made known her intentions to her aunt. I became aware of this circumstance by the old lady uttering a loud shriek.

‘It is entirely out of the question; I forbid you to go,’ she cried, with a face of agony on her.

‘Nonsense!’ answered Miss Temple: she and her aunt and old Keeling and the lieutenant were slowly coming towards the break of the poop, where Colledge and I waited whilst this altercation proceeded; so everything said was plainly to be heard by us. ‘It is as calm as a river,’ exclaimed the girl, sending one of her flashing looks at the sea.

‘You may be drowned; you may never return. I will not permit it. What would your mother think?’ cried poor Mrs. Radcliffe vehemently, pecking away with her face, and clapping her hands to emphasise her words.

‘Aunt, do not be ridiculous, I beg. I shall go. It will amuse me, and I am already very weary of the voyage. Only consider: at this rate of sailing we may be five or six months longer at sea. This is a little harmless, safe distraction. Now, _don’t_ be foolish, auntie.’

The old lady appealed to Captain Keeling. He was looking somewhat dubiously round the horizon when the lieutenant broke in; then Colledge indulged in a flourish, and though I can’t trace the steps of it, nor recollect the talk, somehow or other a little later on the three of us were in the boat, a bag of letters on a thwart, the lieutenant picking up the yoke-lines as he seated himself, the bow-oar thrusting off, with a vision through the open rail of the poop of old Captain Keeling stiffly sawing the air with his arms, in some effort, as I took it, to console Mrs. Radcliffe, who flourished a handkerchief to her face as though she wept.