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<p class="center half-title">THE DEATH SHIP</p>

<hr class="chap" />

<h1>
THE DEATH SHIP<br />
A STRANGE STORY;<br />
</h1>

<p class="center space-above">
<small>
AN ACCOUNT OF A CRUISE IN "THE FLYING DUTCHMAN," COLLECTED<br />
FROM THE PAPERS OF THE LATE MR. GEOFFREY FENTON, OF POPLAR,<br />
MASTER MARINER.<br />
</small>
</p>

<p class="center space-above spaced">
<small>BY</small><br />
<big>W. CLARK RUSSELL,</big><br />
<small>
AUTHOR OF<br />
"THE WRECK OF THE GROSVENOR," "THE GOLDEN HOPE," "A SEA QUEEN,"<br />
ETC., ETC.<br />
</small>
<br />
IN THREE VOLUMES<br />
VOL. II<br />
<br />
LONDON<br />
HURST AND BLACKETT, LIMITED<br />
13, GREAT MARLBOROUGH STREET<br />
<br />
1888<br />
<i>All Rights Reserved</i><br />
</p>

<hr class="chap" />

<div class="center">
<small>
PRINTED BY<br />
TILLOTSON AND SON, MAWDSLEY STREET<br />
BOLTON<br />
</small>
</div>

<hr class="chap" />

<h2>CONTENTS<br />
<small>OF</small><br />
THE SECOND VOLUME.</h2>

<div class="center">
<table border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary="">
<tr><td align="right">CHAPTER</td><td align="right" colspan="2">PAGE.</td></tr>
<tr><td align="right">I.&mdash;</td><td align="left">IMOGENE SAYS SHE WILL TRUST ME</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_1">1</a></td></tr>
<tr><td align="right">II.&mdash;</td><td align="left">VANDERDECKEN EXHIBITS SOME TREASURE&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_17">17</a></td></tr>
<tr><td align="right">III.&mdash;</td><td align="left">IMOGENE AND I ARE MUCH TOGETHER</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_37">37</a></td></tr>
<tr><td align="right">IV.&mdash;</td><td align="left">THE GALE BREAKS</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_55">55</a></td></tr>
<tr><td align="right">V.&mdash;</td><td align="left">THE DEATH SHIP'S FORECASTLE</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_80">80</a></td></tr>
<tr><td align="right">VI.&mdash;</td><td align="left">WE SIGHT A SHIP</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_99">99</a></td></tr>
<tr><td align="right">VII.&mdash;</td><td align="left">WE WATCH THE SHIP APPROACH US</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_120">120</a></td></tr>
<tr><td align="right">VIII.&mdash;</td><td align="left">THE CENTAUR FLIES FROM US</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_138">138</a></td></tr>
<tr><td align="right">IX.&mdash;</td><td align="left">VANDERDECKEN WALKS IN HIS SLEEP</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_168">168</a></td></tr>
<tr><td align="right">X.&mdash;</td><td align="left">WE SIGHT A DISMASTED WRECK</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_191">191</a></td></tr>
<tr><td align="right">XI.&mdash;</td><td align="left">THE DEAD HELMSMAN</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_204">204</a></td></tr>
<tr><td align="right">XII.&mdash;</td><td align="left">THE DUTCH SAILORS BOARD THE WRECK</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_213">213</a></td></tr>
<tr><td align="right">XIII.&mdash;</td><td align="left">THE DUTCHMAN OBTAINS REFRESHMENTS</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_227">227</a></td></tr>
<tr><td align="right">XIV.&mdash;</td><td align="left">MY LIFE IS ATTEMPTED</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_239">239</a></td></tr>
<tr><td align="right">XV.&mdash;</td><td align="left">MY SWEETHEART'S JOY</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_257">257</a></td></tr>
</table>
</div>

<hr class="chap" />

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[1]</a></span></p>

<div class="center"><big>THE DEATH SHIP.</big></div>

<h2>CHAPTER I.<br />

IMOGENE SAYS SHE WILL TRUST ME.</h2>


<p>A half-hour passed, and during that time
I had sufficiently recovered from the distressful
croak of the parrot to wonder, as any
sailor would, how the ship was navigated;
for I could not doubt that the clock kept
pretty close to the true time, since the easting
and westing made by the ship was small,
never, perhaps, exceeding ten degrees; and
the circumstance of noon having struck set
me wondering in what fashion the captain
and mates navigated the ship, whether they<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[2]</a></span>
used the cross-staff or relied on dead reckoning,
or were supernaturally conned.</p>

<p>At half-past twelve arrived Prins, to prepare
the table for dinner. I was so dull that
his coming was extremely welcome, and I
watched him go about his work with interest,
not, perhaps, unmixed with fear. Out of the
great drawer, under the table, he withdrew
the cloth, knives, forks, silver goblets and
the like, which had been set out for breakfast;
but his movements were those of a
marionette rather than a man's, he scarcely
looked at what he did, putting a goblet here,
a knife and fork there and so on, with the
lifeless air of an object controlled by
mechanism. Small wonder that the unhappy
wretch should know his business! He had
been at it long enough! Yet it wrung my
heart to watch him and to think that he
would still be arranging the cabin tables for
meals, and attending upon Vanderdecken and
his mates when Heaven alone knows how<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[3]</a></span>
many times the wave of civilisation should
have followed the sun round the globe, and
how often our British Islands should have
lapsed into their ancient savageness and
emerged again.</p>

<p>Whilst he was at this work, Miss Dudley
stepped out of her cabin. She came to a
stand, not instantly recognising me in my own
clothes, but quickly satisfying herself, she advanced
with a smile and sat down near me,
with no further sign of timidity than a slight
blush which greatly heightened her beauty.</p>

<p>"Where is Captain Vanderdecken?" said
she.</p>

<p>"I left him on deck three-quarters of an
hour since," I answered. "We were talking
when he suddenly broke off, and I should
have supposed him in a fit but for his erect
posture and the fiery life in his eyes."</p>

<p>"This happens to them all," said she, "as
you will find out. I do not know what it
means or why it should be."</p>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[4]</a></span></p>

<p>"Possibly," I exclaimed, recalling the conjecture
I have already written down, "the
death in them grows too strong at periods,
for the power that sustains them, be it demoniac
or not, and then follows a failure of the
vitality of the body, which yet leaves the
spirit&mdash;as one sees it flashing in Vanderdecken's
eyes&mdash;strong enough to recover the
corporeal forces from their languor. But
how terrible is all this for you to be living
familiarly with!&mdash;the sweet, fresh, human
life of the world your beauty would adorn
and gladden, hidden from you behind the
melancholy sea-line, and the passage of
months, yes, and of years, finding you still
aimlessly beating about these waters, with no
better companions than beings more frightful
in their shapes and behaviour as men than
were they phantoms which the hand could
not grasp and whose texture the eye can
pierce."</p>

<p>"What can I do, Mr. Fenton? Captain<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[5]</a></span>
Vanderdecken will not part with me. How
can I escape?" she cried, with her eyes
brimming. "If I cast myself overboard,
it would be to drown; if I succeeded in
gaining the shore when we anchored near
to the coast, it would be either to perish
upon the broiling sands, or be destroyed by
wild beasts, or be seized by the natives and
carried into captivity."</p>

<p>"But if a chance offered to make good
your escape without the risks you name,
would you seize it?"</p>

<p>"Oh, yes!"</p>

<p>"Well," said I, speaking with such tenderness
and feeling, such a glow and yearning in
my heart that you would say the tiny seed of
love in my breast, watered by her tears, was
budding with the swiftness of each glance at
her into flower, "whilst I have been sitting
melancholy and alone I have turned over in
my mind how I am to deliver you from this
dreadful situation. No scheme as yet offers,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[6]</a></span>
but will you trust me as an English sailor to
find a means to outwit these Dutchmen, ay,
though the Devil himself kept watch when
they were abed?... One moment, Miss
Dudley&mdash;forgive me, it had not been my
intention to touch upon this matter until time
had enabled you to form some judgment of
me. But when two are of the same mind,
and the pit that has to be jumped is a deep
one, it would be mere foppery in me to stand
on the brink with you, chattering like a
Frenchman about anything else sooner than
speak out and to the point as a plain seaman
should."</p>

<p>"Mr. Fenton," she answered, "I will trust
you. If you can see a way to escape from
this ship I will aid you to the utmost of my
strength and accompany you. You are a
sailor; my father was of that calling, and as
an English seaman you shall have my full
faith."</p>

<p>It was not only the words, but her pretty<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[7]</a></span>
voice, her sparkling eyes, her earnest gaze,
the expression of hope that lighted up her face
with the radiance of a smile rather than of
a smile itself, which rendered what she said
delightful to me. I answered, "Depend upon
it your faith will animate me, and it will be
strange if you are not in England before
many months, nay, let me say weeks, have
passed."</p>

<p>Here leaning her cheek in her hand she
looked down into her lap with a wistful
sadness in her eyes.</p>

<p>Not conceiving what was passing in her
mind, I said, "Whatever scheme I hit upon
will take time. But what are a few months
compared with years on board this ship&mdash;years
which only death can end!"</p>

<p>"Oh!" she answered, looking at me fully,
but with a darkness of tears upon those violet
lights, "I don't doubt your ability to escape
and rescue me, nor was I thinking of the
time you would require or how long it may<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[8]</a></span>
be before we see England. What troubles
me is to feel that when in England&mdash;if it
please God to suffer me to set foot once more
upon that dear soil&mdash;I shall have no friend to
turn to." I was about to speak, but she
proceeded, her eyes brimming afresh: "It is
rare that a girl finds herself in my situation.
Both my father and mother were only
children and orphans when they married, my
mother living with a clergyman and his wife
at Rotherhithe as governess to their children
when my father met her. The clergyman
and his lady are long since dead. But were
they living, they would not be persons I
should apply to for help and counsel, since
my mother often spoke of them as harsh,
mean people. The few relations on my
mother's side died off; on my father's side
there was&mdash;perhaps there yet is&mdash;an uncle
who settled in Virginia and did pretty well
there. But I should have to go to that
country to seek him with the chance of find<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[9]</a></span>ing
him dead. Thus you will see how
friendless I am, Mr. Fenton."</p>

<p>"You are not of those who remain friendless
in this world," said I, softly, for can
you marvel that a young man's heart will
beat quickly when such a beauty as Imogene
Dudley is, tells him to his face that she is
friendless. "I implore you," I added, "not
to suffer any reflection of this sort to sadden
or swerve you in your determination to leave
this ship&mdash;&mdash;"</p>

<p>"No, no!" she interrupted, "it will not do
that. Better to die of famine among the
green meadows at home than&mdash;oh!" she cried,
with hysterical vehemence, "how sweet will
be the sight of flowers to me, of English
trees, and hedges blooming with briar roses
and honeysuckles. This dreadful life!" she
clasped her hands with a sudden passionate
raising of her eyes, "these roaring seas, the
constant screaming of the wind that bates its
tones only to make a desolate moaning, the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[10]</a></span>
company of ghost-like men, the fearful sense
of being in a ship upon which has fallen the
wrath of the majesty of God! Oh, indeed,
indeed it must end!" and burying her face in
her hands she wept most grievously, sobbing
aloud.</p>

<p>"What will end, mynheer? And what is
it that causes thee, Imogene, to weep?" exclaimed
the deep, vibratory voice of Vanderdecken.</p>

<p>I started, and found his great figure erect
behind me, a certain inquisitiveness in the
expression of his face, and much of the light
shining in his eyes that I had remarked
when he fell into that posture of trance I
have spoken of. I answered as readily
as my knowledge of his tongue permitted,
"Miss Dudley weeps, sir, because this
gale, as others have before, retards the
passage of your ship to Amsterdam; and
'tis perfectly natural, consistent, indeed, with
the wishes of all men in the Braave, that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[11]</a></span>
she should wish the baulking storm at an
end."</p>

<p>He came round to his high-backed chair,
and seated himself, and, putting his arm
along the table, gently took Imogene's wrist,
and softly pulled her hand away from her
face, wet with her tears, saying, "My dear,
your fellow-countryman is right; it is the
sorrow of every creature here that this gale
should blow us backwards, and so delay our
return; but what is more capricious than the
wind? This storm will presently pass, and it
will be strange," he added, with a sudden
scowl darkening his brow, and letting go
Miss Dudley's hand as he spoke, "if next
time we do not thrust the Braave into an
ocean where these north-westers make way
for the strong trade wind that blows from
the south-east."</p>

<p>She dried her eyes and forced a smile,
acting a part as I did; that is to say, she did
not wish he should suspect her grief went<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[12]</a></span>
deeper than I had explained; though I
could not help observing that in directing
her wet, sweet, violet eyes, with her mouth
shaped to a smile, upon him, a plaintive
gratitude underlay her manner, an admixture
of pity and affection, the exhibition of which
made me very sure of the quality of her
heart.</p>

<p>To carry Vanderdecken's thoughts away
from the subject he supposed Miss Dudley
and I had been speaking about, I asked her
in Dutch what she had been doing with herself
since breakfast. She answered in the
same language that she had been lying down.</p>

<p>"Have you books?" said I.</p>

<p>"A few that belong to the captain. Some
are in French and I cannot read them. The
others are in Dutch. There is also a collection
of English poetry, some of which
is beautiful, and I know many verses by
heart."</p>

<p>"Are these works pretty new?" said I.</p>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[13]</a></span></p>

<p>She answered, "Of various years; the
newest, I think, is dated 1647."</p>

<p>"Ay," said Vanderdecken, "that will be
my friend Bloys Van Treslong's book upon
the tulip-madness."</p>

<p>Finding him willing to converse, I was
extremely fretted to discover that, owing to
my ignorance of the literature and art of his
time, I could not "bring him out" as the
phrase runs, for looking into the Batavian
story since, I find scores of matters he could
have told me about, such as the building of
ships at Hoorn, the customs of the people,
the tulip-madness he had mentioned, the
great men such as Jan Six, Rembrandt, Jan
Steen, Van Campen who designed the Stadhuis
and others, some of whom&mdash;as happened
in the case of the great Willem Schouten&mdash;he
may have known and haply smoked pipes
of tobacco with.</p>

<p>But be this as it may, we had got back
again to the gale when Prins brought in the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[14]</a></span>
dinner, and in a few minutes arrived the mate,
Van Vogelaar, whereupon we fell to the meal,
Imogene saying very little and often regarding
me with a thoughtful face and earnest
eyes as though, after the maiden's way in such
matters, she was searching me; I taciturn, the
mate sullen in expression and silent, as his
death-like face would advertise the beholder
to suppose him ever to be, and Vanderdecken
breaking at intervals from the deep musing
fit he fell into to invite me to eat or drink
with an air of incomparable dignity, hardened
as it was by his eternal sternness and
fierceness.</p>

<p>At this meal I found the food to be much
the same as that with which we had broken
our fast. But in addition there was a roasted
fowl and a large ham; and into each silver
goblet Prins poured a draught of sherry&mdash;a
very soft and mellow wine&mdash;which I supposed
Vanderdecken had come by through
the same means which enabled him to obtain<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[15]</a></span>
coats for his own and his men's backs, and
ropes for his masts and sails, and brandy and
gin for his stone jars&mdash;that is, by overhauling
wrecks and pillaging derelicts, for certainly
strong waters were not to be got by lying off
the coast and going a-hunting.</p>

<p>Yet though the wine put a pleasant
warmth into my veins, insomuch that I
could have talked freely but for the depressing
influence of the captain and his mate,
them it no more cheered and heartened, it
gave them no more life and spirit than had
they been urns filled with dust into which the
generous liquor had been poured. Several
times, indeed, whilst I was on board that ship,
have I seen Vanderdecken, Vogelaar, and
Arents swallow such draughts of punch out
of bowls, as would have laid me senseless in
five minutes, yet these capacious jorums gave
rise in them to not the least signs of jollity;
as, indeed, how should it have been otherwise,
for their brains were dead to all but<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[16]</a></span>
the supernatural influence that kept them
moving&mdash;dead as the works of a going watch&mdash;and
what is there in the fumes of wine to
disorder embodied ghosts?</p>

<hr class="chap" />

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[17]</a></span></p>




<h2>CHAPTER II.<br />

VANDERDECKEN EXHIBITS SOME TREASURE.</h2>


<p>When Vogelaar left the cabin to relieve
Arents on deck, Vanderdecken exhibited a
disposition to talk. He gently took Imogene's
chin in his hand and chided her very tenderly,
yet without the slightest quality of what we
should call pleasantness in his manner. For
this would have brought him to some show
of good-humour, whereas never during the
time I was thrown with him did I see the
least light of merriment on his face; I say, he
chided her, but very gently, for crying at the
delay caused by the storm, and exclaimed,
motioning to me, "Here is a seaman. He
will tell you that this is a stormy part of the
ocean, and that at this season of the year we<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[18]</a></span>
must look for gales from the north-west; but
he will also know that these tempests are
short-lived and that a breeze from the east,
north or south, must carry us round the Cape
as fairly as our helm controls us."</p>

<p>"Oh! that is so indeed, Miss Dudley,"
said I, quickly, and darting a meaning glance
at her; and wishing to change the subject
I went on: "Mynheer, when I was in your
cabin last night shifting myself, I noticed a
cross-staff. 'Twould be of no use to you
to-day, the sun being blotted out. Failing
an observation, upon what method do you
rely for knowing your position?"</p>

<p>"What else but the log?" he exclaimed.
"I compute entirely by dead-reckoning. The
staff hath often set me wide of the mark.
The log fairly gives me my place on the sea
card, and then there is the lead."</p>

<p>I bowed by way of thanking him, for in
this direction I gathered by his rejoinder as
much as he could have acquainted me with<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[19]</a></span>
in an hour's discourse, besides, the earnest
regard of the pair of sweet light eyes opposite
reminded me that I must be very wary in
showing myself inquisitive.</p>

<p>"You have a sharp sight, sir," said
Vanderdecken, but speaking without any
fierceness, "to see that fore-staff in my cabin
by the faint light there was. What else did
you observe?"</p>

<p>I told him honestly, for I could imagine no
challenge to his wrath in answering, that I
had seen a speaking-trumpet, sand-glass,
pictures, and the like.  But as though
Imogene knew him better and desired to
shield me, she instantly said, "Oh, captain,
will not you show Mr. Fenton the pictures of
your wife and children? They will charm
him, I know."</p>

<p>On this he called Prins to bring the pictures.
If ever I had doubted this ship was
the veritable Flying Dutchman the portraits
would have settled my misgivings once and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[20]</a></span>
for all. The material on which they were
painted was cracked in places, and the darkness
of age lay very gloomy and thick upon
them. They were all of a size, about ten
inches long and six inches broad. He put
his wife before me first and watched me with
his fierce eyes whilst I pored upon the painting.
The picture was that of a portly lady
in a black close-fitting cap, the hair yellow,
the bosoms very large, a square-shouldered
heavy woman of the true Dutch mould, round-faced,
not uncomely, and perhaps of five and
forty years of age. How she was dressed I
could not tell, but the arms were bare from
the elbows, and they and the hands were,
methought, very delicately painted and exquisitely
life-like. The others were those of
girls of different ages. Which of them Captain
Vanderdecken imagined Miss Dudley to
resemble I could not conceive; there was
nothing in these darksome likenesses, albeit
they represented maidenhood and infancy, to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[21]</a></span>
suggest a resemblance to the English beauty
of the fragile, large-eyed, gold-crowned face
of Imogene Dudley.</p>

<p>She that was named Geertruida was of a
style that came close to good looks, eyes
merry, dainty mouth, but cheeks too fat.
Here was little Margaretha, for whom the
piping swain had been purchased, peering at
me with a half-shy, half-wondering look out
of the dusky background.</p>

<p>As I returned them one by one, the captain
took them from me, lingering long upon each
and making such comments as "'Tis Johanna
to the life!" meaning his wife. "What art
is more wonderful than this of portrait painting?
No age is likely to beat our time, and
no nation the Dutch. How alive is the eye
here! Methinks if I spoke angrily to her
she would weep!" or "You will find this girl,"
meaning Geertruida, "a true sister, Imogene,
homely, honest and innocent, so fond of fun
but yet so dutiful, that there is no woman in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[22]</a></span>
all Holland who would make a better wife,"
or "Ah! little one, thy father will be with
thee ere long," stopping to kiss the painting
of his daughter Margaretha.</p>

<p>Prins stood by to receive the pictures, but
Vanderdecken hung over this one for some
minutes, falling motionless, insomuch that I
thought another one of his strange fits or
trances had seized him; and perfectly still for
those moments were Miss Dudley and I,
often glancing at each other as though both
of us alike felt the prodigious significance
imported into this spectacle of a father's love,
by the bellowing of the wind, and the long,
yearning, sickening, broadside rushes of the
ship, ruthlessly hurled back by the surge and
storm into the deeper solitude of those waters
whose confines she was never to pass.</p>

<p>Now Arents left the table, never having
given us, nor our talk, nor the pictures, the
smallest imaginable heed. His going brought
Vanderdecken back to life, so to speak; and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[23]</a></span>
he handed the picture of his child to Prins.
I looked at him, expecting, though God
knows why, to see a tear. But whatever
sensibility Heaven had permitted this man
to retain did not appear in his face. Had it
been cast in brass it could not have been
harder and more impenetrable. His eyes
were full of their former passionate scornful
life and light. They made me think, supposing
him to show now as he would have
appeared at the time of his death, that he
was one who would have met his end full
of impatience, imperious rage, and savage
decrial of the holy ordinances of Nature.</p>

<p>But oh, the sadness, the sadness of the
spectacle I had contemplated! This tender
perusal by a husband and father of the beloved
lineaments of those whom he deemed
living, ay! and still looking as they looked at
him from the canvas, but who had been dead
so many years that time had perhaps erased
the name from the stone that marked the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[24]</a></span>
burial-place of the youngest of them all&mdash;the
little Margaretha! And how much longer
would these portraits last, I asked myself?
'Twas certain by the evidences of decay in
them that they had not the vitality of the
ship and of those who sailed her. What
then? The years would blot them out. Yet
mercy he would surely deserve who loved
his wife and children as this man did. And
I still sometimes fondly hope that memory
may be permitted to serve him in lieu of
his eyes, so that in gazing upon the time-blackened
canvas he may as truly see with
intellectual sight the faces of his dear ones
as though they stood out bright, fresh and
life-like, as at the hour in which they were
painted.</p>

<p>All the time I looked at these pictures
I would notice Miss Dudley watching me,
quickly averting her gaze when mine met
hers. I put down this scrutiny to her wish
to gather my character, though I need not at<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[25]</a></span>
this distance expect to be reproached for my
vanity if I say that I thought that was not
her only reason for following me with her
eyes. I pray you consider the life she had
led since the destruction of her father's ship
and the loss of her parents; how that she
was now grown to be a woman; and how
that I was not only a young, but bright,
fair, merry-eyed sailor, her own countryman,
of the calling she loved for her father's sake,
and the sweeter to her sight for breaking in
upon her mournful life and offering to snatch
her from the frightful companionship of the
Death Ship's crew.</p>

<p>But more of this anon.</p>

<p>Whilst Prins was in the captain's cabin
hanging up the pictures, she exclaimed, "It
is a dull and dreary day. How are we to
kill the time?"</p>

<p>As she spoke the clock struck, and the
parrot, instead of using her customary expression,
laughed out loudly, "Ha! ha! ha!"</p>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[26]</a></span></p>

<p>"That bird," said I, "seems to know what
we are talking about. It is a pretty notion
of hers to laugh at your inquiry when she
sees how vainly old Death in the clock
yonder stabs at time."</p>

<p>This I spoke in English.</p>

<p>"What do you say, mynheer?" demanded
Vanderdecken.</p>

<p>"Oh, captain!" exclaimed Miss Imogene,
as if she was carrying on the sense of my
remarks, "could not we prettily dispatch an
hour by looking at some of the treasure you
have below?" She laid her little white hand
on his, and pleaded with her eyes. "It will
be a treat to Mr. Fenton to see the fine
things you have, and I am still childish
enough to love the sparkle of precious stones."</p>

<p>He turned to me and said, "Sir, I have
no objection, but our countries are at war,
and in case of your being transshipped I have
to ask you, on your honour as a gentleman
and a seaman, not to give information of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[27]</a></span>
the objects the lady desires me to show
you."</p>

<p>I never before witnessed a finer dignity in
any man's air than that which ennobled him
as he spoke. I gave him my assurance,
feeling that I cut but a mean figure in my
manner of answering after his own majestic
and haughty aspect and the rich and thrilling
tones in which he had delivered himself, nor
will I pretend that I was not moved at the
vanity and idleness of the obligation of silence
he imposed upon me, for whatever treasure
he had would be as safe in his ship as on the
sandy bed of the sea, even though on my
escaping I should go and apprise all the
admirals in the world of its existence.</p>

<p>He said no more but, calling to Prins,
ordered him to clear the table, bring pipes
and tobacco, and then take some seamen with
him into&mdash;as I understood&mdash;the half-deck and
bring up two chests of treasure, those which
were lashed on the starboard side, close<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[28]</a></span>
against the bulkhead. The cloth was removed,
we lighted our pipes, and after we
had waited some little while, Prins, with
several sailors, appeared, bearing among
them two stout, apparently very heavy,
chests, which they set down upon the cabin
floor, taking care to secure them by lashings
and seizings to the stanchions, so that they
should not slip with the ship's lurches.</p>

<p>The sailors interested me so much that,
whilst they were with us, I looked only at
them. It was not that there was anything in
their faces, if I except the dreadful pallor, or
in their attire, to fix my attention; it was
that they were a part of the crew of this
accurst ship, participators in the doom that
Vanderdecken had brought upon her, members
of a ghostly band the like of which
it might never be permitted to mortal man to
behold again. One had very deep-sunk eyes,
which shone in their dark hollows with much
of the fire that gave a power of terrifying to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[29]</a></span>
those of the captain. Another had a long,
grizzly beard, over which his nose curved in a
hook, his little eyes lay close against the top
of his nose, and his hair, that was wet with
spray or rain, lay like new-gathered seaweed
down to pretty near his shoulder-blades.
This man's name, I afterwards heard, was
Tjaart Van der Valdt, whilst he that had the
glowing eyes was called Christopher Roostoff.</p>

<p>They all went about in the soulless,
mechanical way I was now used to, and,
when they had set down the chests, Prins
dismissed them with an injunction to stand
by ready to take them below again. The
cases were about three feet high, and ranging
about five feet long; they were heavily girt
with iron bands, and padlocked with massive
staples. Prins opened them and flung back
the lids, and then, to be sure, I looked down
upon treasures the like of which in quality,
I'll not say quantity, in one single ship, the
holds of the Acapulco galleons could alone<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[30]</a></span>
rival, or the caves in which the old buccaneers
hid their booty. Miss Dudley, seeing
me rise, left her seat, and came to my side.
Vanderdecken stepped round, and leaned
against the table, his arms folded, and his
body moving only with the rolling of the
ship.</p>

<p>I should speedily grow tedious were I to
be minute in my description of what I saw,
yet I must venture a short way in this direction.
In one box there were fitted four trays,
each tray divided into several compartments,
and every compartment was filled with
precious stones, set in rings, bracelets,
bangles and the like, and with golden ornaments,
such as birds for the hair, brooches,
necklets, chains for wearing about the waist
or neck, and other such things of prodigious
value and beauty of device. I asked leave
to examine some of these objects, and on
picking them up noticed that some were
of a much more antique character than<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[31]</a></span>
others, insomuch that I said to Miss Imogene
in English, "I suspect that much of
these splendours our friend will have collected
at different periods."</p>

<p>She answered in our tongue, "He can tell
you what he purchased at Batavia, or what
was consigned to him for delivery at Amsterdam,
but his memory after that is a blank,
and the last wreck he can recall, in which he
found several quintals of silver and unminted
gold, is the Fryheid that he met&mdash;I cannot
tell where&mdash;in a sinking condition."</p>

<p>"There is more treasure aboard than this!
cried I.</p>

<p>"Much more!" she replied. Then turning
to Vanderdecken, who had fixed his eyes on
me without moving his head, she said, "I
am telling Mr. Fenton that these chests
represent but a handful of the treasure in
this ship."</p>

<p>"I am dazzled by what I see, mynheer,
said I, speaking whilst Prins raised the trays<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[32]</a></span>
disclosing many hundreds of guineas' worth
of ornaments and stones. "Had I but the
value of one of these trays alone this should
be my last voyage."</p>

<p>"Ay," said he, "there is much that is
beautiful here. Much that will yield good
sums. But a large number of the articles in
that chest belong to a merchant; there are
likewise consignments, and my own share is
but a speculation."</p>

<p>The other chest had but one tray, in which
lay many golden crucifixes of different sizes,
goblets, flagons, candlesticks, all gold, whilst
beneath were numbers of a kind of small
bricks or bars of pewter, which Miss Imogene
told me were gold that had been originally
disguised in this way as a blind to the pirates.
In addition were several great canvas bags,
into which Prins, moving always as an
automaton, thrust his hand, bringing forth
different sorts of coins, such as rix-dollars,
ducatoons, ducats, Batavian rupees, Spanish<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[33]</a></span>
dollars, and even schillings, worth no more
than six stivers apiece.</p>

<p>There is a pleasure in looking at bright
and sparkling objects, at the beauty of gold
worked into strange or fantastic shapes, at
jewels and stones in their multitude, gleaming
out in twenty colours at once. And
had I been a picaroon or a woman, I could
not have surveyed this collection with sharper
delight, though I hope you will not suppose
that I felt the buccaneer's thirst for the
things. But when my glance went to Vanderdecken,
all the shining seemed to die out,
and the richest of the jewels to lose its
glory.</p>

<p>Not that this was actually so; it was the
reflection excited in me that darkened the
radiance of that treasure. There stood the
great, majestic captain, with his arms folded
over his beard, and his eyes fixed on the
chest, frightfully symbolising&mdash;more wildly
and sternly than could the corpse of a miser<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[34]</a></span>
lying in a coffin, into which had been poured
all the ducats he had hoarded in his life&mdash;the
worthlessness of that wealth of which the
desire makes devils of men in secret oppressions
and bitter, hidden cruelties. Had Vanderdecken
been veritably dead&mdash;recumbent&mdash;a
corpse&mdash;the sight of him alongside those
cases of costly things would not haply have
affected me; 'twas the simulation of life in
him, his unhallowed and monstrous vitality,
that rendered his typification of the uselessness
after death of that for which many
among us sell our hearts, nay, diligently toil
to extinguish the last spark of the Heavenly
fire which the Creator sends us into this life
radiant with; as who, looking at a babe's
face, but sees?&mdash;that rendered, I say, his
typification terrible. You could see he took
no joy whatever in the contents of the
cases; he eyed them stonily; you witnessed
no pricking up of his ears to the tinkling and
jingling rattle made by the coins as Prins<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[35]</a></span>
poured them out and back again. Nor, had
the money been shingle and the jewels and
gold ornaments pieces of coal, could Prins
have worked with duller eyes or more
mechanical motions.</p>

<p>I said to Miss Imogene, pointing as I
spoke to the chests that Vanderdecken might
suppose we talked of the treasure in them,
"He does not appear to care the snap of a
finger for what is there. If the sense of
possession is dead in him, why should he take
whatever he can find of jewels, gold or silver,
from the ships in which he is fortunate
enough to find such things?"</p>

<p>"If your brain will not help you to such
matters, how should mine?" she replied, with
a faint smile. "The idea has never before
occurred to me, but be sure 'tis a part of his
punishment. He may feel no pleasure in the
possession of his wealth; yet he knows it is
on board, and it may be intended to render
every gale that beats him back more and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[36]</a></span>
more bitter and hard by delaying him from
carrying his cargo home."</p>

<p>This was shrewdly imagined, I thought,
though it did not satisfy me, because since
'twas sure that he had lost recollection of
preceding gales, succeeding ones could not
gain in bitterness. In truth, we were afloat
in a fearful and astonishing Mystery, from
which my eagerness to deliver the sweet and
fragrant girl by my side grew keener with
every look of hers that met mine, and with
every glance I directed at the captain and
around the ancient interior that time had
sickened to the complexion of the death
which worked this ship in the forms of men.</p>

<p>Having satisfied me with a sight of these
treasures, Vanderdecken ordered Prins to
have the chests removed, and we then returned
to the table to smoke out the tobacco
that remained in our pipes.</p>

<hr class="chap" />

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[37]</a></span></p>




<h2>CHAPTER III.<br />

IMOGENE AND I ARE MUCH TOGETHER.</h2>


<p>So far I have been minute, accounting for
every hour and all things which happened
therein since I was picked up by the mate of
the Death Ship and put aboard her. My
first impressions were keen and strong, and I
have sought to lay them before you in the
order in which they occurred. But to pursue
this particularity of narrative, to relate every
conversation, to regularly notice the striking
of the clock, the movements of the skeleton,
and the hoarse comminatory croak of the
parrot, would be to speedily render this tale
tedious. Therefore let me speak briefly for
a little space.</p>

<p>The storm blew with steady fury for six<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[38]</a></span>
days, driving the tall fabric to leeward to a
distance of many leagues every twenty-four
hours, the course of the drift being as I should
suppose&mdash;for it was impossible to put much
faith in the compasses&mdash;about south-east by
east, the larboard tacks aboard and the ship
"ratching" nothing. It was so continuous
and heavy, this gale, that it began to breed a
feeling of despair in me, for I felt that if such
weather lasted many weeks it would end in
setting us so far south that we should be
greatly out of the road taken by ships rounding
the Cape, and so remote from the land,
that should Vanderdecken desire to careen or
water his vessel it would occupy us months
to fetch the coast, so that the prospect of
escaping with Miss Imogene grew small and
gloomy. Added to which was the melancholy
of the cell-like cabin in which it was
my lot to sleep, the fiery crawlings, the savage
squeakings of great rats, the grinding, groaning
and straining noises of the labouring<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[39]</a></span>
structure, likewise the sickening, sweeping,
soaring, falling motions of the high light
vessel, movements which, as we drove further
south, where the seas were swollen into
mountains by the persistent hardness of the
gale and the vastness of the liquid plain along
which they coursed, furious with the fiendish
lashing of the thongs of the storm, grew at
times so insupportable that, sailor as I was
and used to the sea in all its moods, I would
often feel faint and reel to a sensation of
nausea.</p>

<p>But Imogene was never in the least degree
discomposed. She was so used to the ship
that its movements were to her what the
steadiness of dry land is to other women.
She seldom came on deck however. Indeed,
the gusts and guns were often so fierce&mdash;coming
along like thunderbolts through the
gale itself&mdash;that any one of them catching
her gown might have carried her light
figure overboard. Moreover, twenty-four<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[40]</a></span>
hours after the gale set in, it drew up thick
as mud; the horizon was brought within
reach of a musket-shot; and out of this
thickness blew the rain, in straight lines,
mixed with the showering off the heads of
the seas; the sky hung steady, of the colour
of slate&mdash;no part lighter or darker than
another, but so low that it appeared as if a
man could whip his hand into it from our
masthead whenever those reeling spars came
plumb.</p>

<p>As it gave me no pleasure to linger on
deck in such weather, you may suppose that
Miss Imogene and I were much together
below. Often a whole morning or afternoon
would pass without a soul entering the cabin
where we sate. Whether Vanderdecken was
pleased to think that Imogene had a companion&mdash;a
fellow-countryman, with whom she
could converse, and so kill the time which
he would suspect from her recent fit of weeping
hung heavy on her spirits; or that,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[41]</a></span>
having himself long passed those marks which
time sets up as the boundaries of human passions,
he was as incapable of suspecting that
Imogene and I should fall in love, as he
clearly was of perceiving the passage of
years; 'tis certain he never exhibited the
smallest displeasure when, perchance, he
found us together, albeit once or twice on
entering the cabin when we were there he
would ask Imogene abruptly, but never with
the sternness his manner gathered when he
addressed others, what our talk was about,
as if he suspected I was inquiring about his
ship and cargo; though if, indeed, this was
so, I don't doubt the suspicion was put into
his head by Van Vogelaar, who, I am sure,
hated me as much because I was an Englishman
as because our panic-stricken men had
fired upon him.</p>

<p>It takes a man but a very short time to
fall in love, though the relation of the thing,
if the time be very short, is often questioned<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[42]</a></span>
as a possibility, sometimes heartily laughed
at as an absurdity, when deliberately set
down in writing. Why this should be I do
not know. I could point to a good many
men married to women with whom they fell
in love at a dance, or by seeing them in the
street, or by catching sight of them in church
and the like. I have known a man to become
passionately enamoured of a girl by
beholding her picture. And what says
Marlowe?</p>

<div class="poem">
"Who ever loved that loved not at first sight?"<br />
</div>

<p>Depend upon it, when passion is of slow
growth and cultivated painfully, you may
suspect a deficiency somewhere. Either the
girl is not delightful of face and shape and
her virtues and good qualities are hard to
come at, or she is a tease and a coquette,
and, in a manner of speaking, puts her foot
down upon a man's heart and prevents the
emotion there from shooting. There will be
something wanting, something wrong, I say.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[43]</a></span>
Association may indeed lengthily induct one
into a habit of affection, but the sort of love
I have in my mind springs like a young god
into a man's intelligence from a maiden's
eyes.</p>

<p>But whether this swift passion is more
lasting than the affection that is formed by
slower mental processes, and which of them
is the safer to trust to, is no riddle for such
as I to bother over. And in sober verity, I
am sorry to have been led into these remarks,
which certainly should be omitted if they
were not necessary as an apology.</p>

<p>For the truth must be told, and it is this:
that the very first morning I met Imogene I
fell in love with her beauty, while the long
days of the storm which threw us greatly
together confirmed the first movement of
my heart by acquainting me with the extraordinary
sweetness, innocence, gentleness and
purity of her nature. These qualities, unlike
the enchanting hue and brightness of her<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[44]</a></span>
eyes, the golden falls of her hair, and her
many other fairy graces, were not quickly
discoverable, but they stole out during our
many conversations. Who that has been to
sea knows not how speedily character is discovered
on shipboard? And I say that before
that gale was ended I was so much in love
with this fair and tender girl that I could
have laid down my life to serve her.</p>

<p>This I should not have confessed, nor
indeed made any reference to my love-passage,
if it did not concern the influence exercised
by the Death Ship on the lives and fortunes
of those who have relations with her.</p>

<p>In this time our conversation was about all
sorts of things&mdash;her parents, her home, her
childhood, the loss of her father's ship, the
friendless condition she would be in on her
arrival in England should I manage to deliver
her from Vanderdecken. Though when she
came to that, I begged her to dismiss her
fears at once and for ever, by assuring her<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[45]</a></span>
that my mother would gladly receive her
and cherish her as her own daughter, having
but me to love, who was always absent. At
which a faint blush sweetened her cheeks as
though she suspected what was in my mind;
but I was careful to hurry away from the
subject, since I did not wish her then to
suppose I loved her, for fear that, not having
had time, as I believed, to love me, she might
fall into a posture of mind calculated to baffle
my hopes of carrying her away from the
Braave. I told her all about myself, of the
famous Fenton from whom I was descended,
of my voyages, of the Saracen, whose passage
to India I feared would have an ill issue now
that she had met the Dutchman, and I talked
again of Captain Skevington's amazing, and,
as I supposed, accurate theories touching the
living-dead who navigated this ship.</p>

<p>She had much to tell me of Vanderdecken
and his ship; of unsuspecting vessels they
had fallen in with, which had sold them<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[46]</a></span>
tobacco, butter, cheese, and the like. Of
others that had backed their topsails to speak,
then taken fright and sailed away in hot
haste.</p>

<p>I asked her if it was true that the captain
hailed passing ships for the purpose of sending
letters home. She answered no; it was
not true; that was the general belief as she
had heard from her father; but, as Vanderdecken
did not know that he was curst&mdash;as
he went on year after year, firmly believing
that next time he should be successful in
rounding the Cape&mdash;why should he desire
to send letters home, more particularly as
he regarded the Braave as one of the swiftest
vessels afloat. She added, "I have never
seen him write a letter, and I am certain
he has never endeavoured to send one."</p>

<p>"But if he finds a ship willing to speak, he
will send a boat?"</p>

<p>"Yes, always; but merely for necessaries
of which he is constantly in want. Now it<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[47]</a></span>
is tobacco; another time it will be spirits.
Some few weeks since we met a ship, from
which he purchased several cases of marmalade
and some hams, for which Van Vogelaar
paid in coin that scared them, when they put
the age of the money and the appearance of
this ship together; for they threw the mate
overboard, and instantly made off."</p>

<p>"I suppose Van Vogelaar could not be
drowned?" said I.</p>

<p>"No," said she; "he, like the rest, have
no other business in life than to live. They
had put the hams and marmalade into the
boat, and when they threw him in the sea,
he swam very quietly to his companions."</p>

<p>"What was the ship?" I asked.</p>

<p>"A Spaniard," she replied. "After they
had put the ship before the wind I saw a
number of them on the poop on their knees
crossing themselves."</p>

<p>"I cannot understand," said I, "why this
ship should be termed a Phantom. What<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[48]</a></span>
could be more real than these timbers and
the requirements of the people who navigate
her?"</p>

<p>"Besides," exclaimed Imogene, "if she is
a Phantom, how could Vanderdecken write
those letters in her which he is supposed to
desire to send home? If you have a real
letter, such as a person can put into his pocket
and deliver, you must have real materials
to produce it, ink, pens, paper, wafers, and
something hard to sit upon, or kneel upon, or
write upon."</p>

<p>"Certainly!" said I. "Of a Phantom the
whole must be phantasmal. Suppose a ghost
dressed, its attire must be as unsubstantial as
the essence it covers."</p>

<p>"The truth about this ship is not known,"
she continued, "and it never can be known,
because her influence is dreaded. Vessels on
finding out her character fly from her, and
those who sell to her unsuspectingly pass
away without giving her further thought."</p>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[49]</a></span></p>

<p>"Or," said I, gloomily, "perhaps are never
more heard of."</p>

<p>In this way would we talk, and you may
conceive we were at no loss for topics. On
several occasions she showed me some of the
dresses Vanderdecken had furnished her with;
of which I chiefly remember a chintz gown,
spotted with roses, with sleeves swelling out
like ruffs at the elbows;  a pink dress, with a
girdle to bring the waist close under the
bosom; and a slate-coloured dress, with a red
shawl for it, to be worn like a sash, and a
kerchief for the throat; and I also recollect
that she showed me some strange, very
dainty caps, one to sit on the back of the
head, another of black velvet and a feather,
which she told me Vanderdecken had said
was worn on the side of the head. She put
it on to explain its use, and a man's true
darling she looked in it.</p>

<p>Once she came into the cabin dressed in
the pink dress with the high waist; and very<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[50]</a></span>
sweet did she appear. But I said to her that
of all the apparel she had shown me nothing
pleased me better than the black velvet
jacket in which I had first seen her, and
thereafter she constantly wore it.</p>

<p>In short, the clothes Vanderdecken had
stocked her cabin with, including much fine
linen, lace, collars, long gloves, shoes of
several colours, and the like, were such as to
suggest a costly theatrical wardrobe by reason
of the variety of the styles representing
fashions from the middle of the seventeenth
century down to within twenty years of the
time in which happened what I am here relating.
It has been already explained how
these things were gotten. You have only to
consider that this ship sailed from Batavia in
1653, with a large stock of dresses, linen,
jewellery, plate and so forth in her hold,
besides her cargo, which stock Vanderdecken,
in whom there must still work the
thrifty instincts of the Hollander, just as he is<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[51]</a></span>
suffered to love his pipe and bowl, and pine
for both when the tobacco and spirits have
run out, had replenished by appropriating
such wares, treasure and apparel as he had a
fancy for out of the ships he encountered
abandoned at sea or cast away upon the
African coast. You have only to consider
this, I say, and bear in mind the great number
of years he has been afloat, and how many
scores of richly-laden merchantmen have
passed and repassed that part of the ocean to
which the Curse confines him, to find nothing
to marvel at in any catalogue of the contents
of the Braave that could be offered.</p>

<p>Besides having all these strange and often
sumptuous articles of attire to show me and
talk about, Imogene had a great deal to tell
me concerning the weary years she had spent
in the vessel, wondering how her life was to
end, how she was ever to get to England or to
any other civilized country if Vanderdecken
refused to let her leave him, because of his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[52]</a></span>
fatherly affection for her and his conviction
that he was homeward bound, and only temporarily
delayed by the north-west gales
which beat him back. She said that after a
time she began to fear that she would lose
her own language and be able to speak no
tongue but the ancient Dutch in which Vanderdecken
and his men conversed, to preserve
herself from which calamity she regularly
perused the collection of English poetry that
the captain most fortunately had among his
books. Her grief was that the book, instead
of poems, was not the Holy Scriptures, but
she knew many prayers and hymns her
mother had taught her, and these she never
omitted reciting morning and night.</p>

<p>You would have been touched had you
heard her, marked the sadness that rendered
Madonna-like the character of her fragile,
delicate beauty, observed the girlish innocence
of the expression that shone with
the moisture of unwept tears in the eyes she<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[53]</a></span>
fixed on me, and then considered how she
had been bereaved, how frightful for tediousness
and dullness, and for the association of
the mysterious beings into whose society
she had been cast, must have been the five
years she had spent on the Death Ship. I
remember asking if she knew what religion
Vanderdecken was of; she answered she did
not know for certain, but that she had heard
him speak of his wife and family as having
worshipped in the Oude Kerk.</p>

<p>"Indeed, Mr. Fenton," said she, "I don't
believe he is or was of any religion at all.
Van Vogelaar is a Calvinist; he told me
so one evening when I was speaking with
surprise of Antony Jans being a Catholic, as
it is almost impossible to reconcile the fatness
of that man with the austerities and
mortifications of his creed."</p>

<p>"There can be no doubt," said I, "that
Vanderdecken was&mdash;when human like you
and me, without religion. His shocking de<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[54]</a></span>fiance,
and the condemnation that followed,
proved that he acted out of sheer sin in his
soul, and not out of a passing passion. And
yet you would have supposed that a Dutchman,
no matter how secretly impious, would
have behaved with more discretion than this
skipper."</p>

<p>"I dare say he would have been more
discreet," said Imogene, "had he imagined
what was to follow."</p>

<p>It was in this way, and in such talk, that
we killed those six days of storm; and now I
come to other matters.</p>

<hr class="chap" />

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[55]</a></span></p>




<h2>CHAPTER IV.<br />

THE GALE BREAKS.</h2>


<p>On the sixth day, during dinner, Vanderdecken
said he believed we had seen the
worst of the storm. There was a small lull
in the wind, and a faintness sifting up, so to
speak, from behind the peaks and valleys of
the horizon into the sky all around, like a
very dim dawning of fair weather innumerable
leagues distant yet.</p>

<p>"I shall be glad to see the sun again," said
Imogene.</p>

<p>"Let us get quit of these waters," exclaimed
Vanderdecken, moodily, and often
dropping his knife and fork to take his beard
in both hands and stroke it with a fixed look
in his eyes, which would have made you<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[56]</a></span>
swear he beheld a vision, "and we shall have
so much sun every day climbing higher and
higher until it hangs right over our mastheads
like a flaming shield that the coolness
of the Biscayan Sea and the entrance of the
English Channel shall be sweet as drink to a
dry man."</p>

<p>"Pray, mynheer," said I, "how far to the
eastwards do you suppose this gale has
driven us?"</p>

<p>He looked at me with a sudden temper in
his face as if he would crush me for daring to
ask. Nevertheless, he answered, but with a
deep thrill in the rich tremble of his voice,
"About one hundred and fifty leagues, sir;
and what of that?"</p>

<p>"Ay, and what of that?" exclaimed Van
Vogelaar, who had turned a scowling eye on
me on my asking this question.</p>

<p>"Why, nothing, gentlemen," I answered,
warned by the violet eyes that dwelt upon
me to slide out of this matter as quickly as I<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[57]</a></span>
could. "The ground to be recovered is not
great, and a pretty little south-east wind
should float us, with square yards, round the
Cape in three or four days."</p>

<p>Vanderdecken made no response; his eyes
fell away from me to the table, at which he
gazed in the posture of one who dreams
waking. Van Vogelaar, on the other hand,
continued to stare at me for a long minute,
which, as he sate on my right hand and consequently
had to turn his head and hold his
face full towards me, proved a very severe
trial to my temper, insomuch that I could have
beat him for his insolence. But a very little
reflection taught me to consider this steadfast,
surly and abusive regard as meaningless
as a dead man's stare would be if moulded
to the expression Van Vogelaar wore; so I
waited till he should have made an end of his
scrutiny, and the captain shortly after rising,
I followed him on deck, the weather as yet
being too heavy and wet for Imogene.</p>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[58]</a></span></p>

<p>It was as Vanderdecken had said. The gale
had broke and we might look for a clear sky
presently, yet the sea still ran fearfully high,
and the wash and weltering of it along the
sea-line that was now indifferently clear, suggested
a vast sierra whose sides beyond were
in sunshine, whilst over our trucks lay the
sombre twilight of the tempest. There was
still a fine rain in the air, though not such as
to cloud the ocean, but I was so fascinated by
the picture of the Flying Dutchman's fight
with the mighty combers which rolled at her
from the north and west that I lingered
gazing till I was pretty near as soaked as
when I had been fished up and brought
aboard.</p>

<p>But a sailor makes no trouble of a wet
jacket so long as he has a dry shirt for his
back, which I had, thanks to Vanderdecken,
who had been so good as to lend me several
shifts of linen.</p>

<p>I do not know that I ever saw or heard of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[59]</a></span>
a ship that threw from her such bodies of
foam as did this vessel. She would rise at
the sea buoyantly enough, yet at every
lean-to to windward for a giddy sliding swoop
into the hollow, she hurled an enormous space
of seething and spitting and flashing froth
many fathoms from her, into which she would
sink as though it were snow and so squatter,
as 'tis termed, and lie there whilst you might
count to ten or fifteen, ere rising out of it to
the irresistible heave of the next leviathan
sea. Often had I watched this picture during
the six days, but the light breaking around
the whole circle of the sea, like radiance dully
streaming through greased paper, the decreasing
force of the wind, that while leaving
the surges still monstrous, suffered the ship
to fall with deader weight to windward, thus
enlarging the snow-like surface she cast from
her whilst rendering it fiercer in its boiling,
made this particular example of the ship's
sea-going qualities a marvel in my sight,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[60]</a></span>
and I stood for a long time looking and
looking.</p>

<p>If ever a man was to guess the deathless
character of this craft it would be at such a
time as this. The giant forces of nature
with which she had warred were languishing.
The beaten storm, not indeed yet breathless,
was slowly silencing the desperate roar of its
invisible artillery; the seas, like battering-rams,
thundered against her sides, but with a
gradual lessening of their fury, and the victorious
ship, her decks streaming, her bows
and sides hound-like with salival drainings,
a fierce music of triumphant shoutings aloft,
her reefed courses swollen as are the cheeks
of trumpeters urging to the conflict, rose and
fell, pitched and strained, among those liquid
heights and hollows, every nerve in her
ancient fabric strung taut for a battle that
was to be repeated again and again, whilst
the faintness round the horizon waxed into a
delicate brightness of sunshine streaming off<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[61]</a></span>
the edge of the canopy that still hovered on
high, and the wind sank into whistlings,
without admixture of thunderous intervals,
and the surge-slopes drooped out of their
savage sharpness.</p>

<p>By seven o'clock that night the gale was
spent, and there was then blowing a quiet
breeze from the west-south-west. The swell
rolled slowly from the quarter from which the
wind had stormed, and caused the Braave to
wallow most nauseously, but she grew a bit
steadier after they had shaken the reefs out
of the courses and made sail on her. I
watched this business with deep interest.
Vanderdecken, standing on the poop, gave
his orders to Van Vogelaar on the quarter-deck.
The sailors went to work with true
Dutch phlegm and deliberateness, taking
plenty of time to unknot the reef-points,
then carrying the fore and main-jeers to the
capstan, and walking round without a song,
sullen and silent. There was no liveliness<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[62]</a></span>&mdash;none
of the springing and jumping and
cheerful heartiness you would expect in a
crew who, after battling through six dismal
days of black winds and lashing seas, were
now looked down upon by a Heaven of stars,
shining gloriously among a few slowly-moving
clouds.</p>

<p>Ay, you saw how dead were the bodies
which the supernatural life in them kept
a-going. They set their topsails, topgallant-sails
and mizzen, which I have elsewhere
described as a lateen-shaped sail secured to
a yard, like to the triangular canvas carried
by xebecs and gallies, then hoisted their jib
or fore-staysail and let fall the clews of the
spritsail, keeping the sprit-topsail handed.
The larboard tacks were still aboard and the
ship heading north, lying up for the coast
that was now about two hundred and fifty to
three hundred leagues from us. She made a
wild picture, not wanting in solemnity either,
yet charged with an element of fear. Twi<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[63]</a></span>light
is but short-lived in those seas and it
was dark&mdash;though the sky as I have said
was full of radiant galaxies&mdash;some while
before they had ended the business of crowding
sail upon the ship. Amid the fury and
froth of the gale the phosphoric gleamings of
the timbers had been hidden; but now that
peace had come and there was no other
commotion than such as the long cradling
swing of the swell produced, those grave-yard
lights glistened out afresh and they
made you think of the eyes of countless
worms creeping in and out of the rottenness
of an hundred and fifty years. It was certain
that Vanderdecken and his mates saw these
misty, sickly, death-suggestive glimmerings;
for the faint lights trembled along the decks,
twinkled upon the masts, shone with sufficient
power on the sides to make&mdash;as I had observed
when the ship first drew near to the
Saracen&mdash;a light of their own in the black
water; they must have been noticeable things<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[64]</a></span>
to the crew, even as to Imogene and me;
for they saw what we saw&mdash;the sun, the stars,
the ocean, the sails, the directions of the compass&mdash;whatever
was to be seen.</p>

<p>Why, then, was it that this fluttering, malignant
sheen did not catch their notice? I
know not. Maybe the senses permitted to
them went so far only as to impel them to
persevere in making the passage of the Cape.
For besides these phosphoric crawlings, the
aged condition of the ship, her antique rig,
and a variety of other features illustrating the
passage of time, would have been visible to
them, had their perception not been limited
by the Curse to the obligations it imposed.</p>

<p>After a little Vanderdecken went below,
and presently returned bringing Imogene
with him. On the poop 'twas all darkness
save for the phosphorescence in the ship and
the sea-fire over the side. The captain and
the lady came close before I distinguished
them.</p>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[65]</a></span></p>

<p>"Fair weather at last, Mr. Fenton!" she
exclaimed, after peering to make sure of me,
and then stopping so as to oblige Vanderdecken
to stop too, for he had her arm in his,
and I think he meant to walk to and fro the
deck with her.</p>

<p>"Yes," I replied, "Heaven is merciful.
Such another six days I would not pass
through for the wealth in this ship."</p>

<p>"Pray speak in Dutch, sir, that I may
follow you," said Vanderdecken, with a
certain stern and dignified courtesy.</p>

<p>"If I could converse with ease, mynheer,"
said I, "I should speak in no other language
aboard this vessel. As it is, I fear you do
not catch half my meaning."</p>

<p>"Oh, yes! you are intelligible, sir," he
answered, "though you sometimes use words
which sound like Dutch but signify nothing."</p>

<p>"Nothing to you, my friend," thought I;
"but I warrant them of good currency in the
Amsterdam of to-day." In short, his language<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[66]</a></span>
was to mine, or at least to the smattering
I had of the Batavian tongue, what the
speech of a man of the time of Charles II.
would be to one of this century&mdash;not very
wide asunder; only that one would now
and again introduce an obsolete expression,
whilst the other would occasionally employ
a term created years after his colloquist's
day.</p>

<p>"But it pleases me, captain, to speak in
my own tongue," said Imogene. "I should
not like to forget my language."</p>

<p>"It will be strange if you forget your language
in a few months, my child!" he
answered, with a slight surprise.</p>

<p>A sudden roll of the ship causing the great
mainsail to flap, he started, looked around
him, and cried out with a sudden anger in his
deep voice, to the steersman, "How is the
ship's head?"</p>

<p>"North-by-east," was the answer.</p>

<p>"We want no easting," he cried out again,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[67]</a></span>
with the same passion in his voice, and strode
with vehemence to the binnacle where stood
Antony Arents, who had charge of the deck,
and who had gone to view the compass on
hearing the skipper call.</p>

<p>"This will not do!" I heard the captain
say, his deep tones rumbling into the ear as
though you passed at a distance a church in
which an organ was played. "By the bones
of my father, I'll not have her break off!
Sweat your braces, man! Take them to the
capstan! If we spring our masts and yards
for it she'll have to head nothing east of
north!"</p>

<p>There was a fierce impetuosity in his
speech that made the delivery of it sound like
a sustained execration. Arents went forward
and raised some cries. I could see the figure
of Vanderdecken black against the stars, up
and down which he slided with the heave of
the ship. He was motionless, close to the
binnacle, and I could imagine the stormy rise<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[68]</a></span>
and fall of his broad and powerful chest under
his folded arms.</p>

<p>The watch came aft to the braces and
strained at them. 'Twas a shadowy scene.
There were none of those songs and choruses
which seamen used to keep time in their
pulling and hauling and to encourage their
spirits withal. The boatswain, Jans, was on
the forecastle attending the fore: Arents
stood on the quarter-deck. Occasionally one
or the other shouted out an order which the
dim concavities on high flung down again out
of their hollows, as though there were ghosts
aloft mocking at these labours. You saw the
pallid shinings writhing about the feet of the
sailors, and the sharper scintillations of the
wood-work wherever it was chafed by a rope.
When they had trimmed, but not yet with
the capstan, Arents called to the captain, who
returned an answer implying that the ship
had come up again, and that the trim as it
was would serve. Thereupon the men stole<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[69]</a></span>
out of sight into the darkness forward, melting
into the blackness as do visions of a
slumberer into the void of deep and dreamless
rest; Arents returned to the poop and stood
near the captain, who held his place with
the entranced stirlessness I was now accustomed
to see in him. But, no doubt, his
eyes were on the needle, and had I dared
approach, I might have beheld a fire in his
eyes keener than the flame of the mesh with
which the binnacle was illuminated.</p>

<p>"You would know him as one not of this
world," said I to Imogene, "even should he
pass you quickly in a crowd."</p>

<p>"There are some lines in the book of
poetry downstairs which fit him to perfection,"
she answered&mdash;</p>

<div class="poem">
"'Thou hast a grim appearance, and thy face<br />
Bears a command in it; though thy tackle's torn,<br />
Thou shew'st a noble vessel.'"<br />
</div>

<p>"Ay," said I, "they are wonderfully pat;
they might have been made for him."</p>

<p>"Here are others," she continued&mdash;</p>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[70]</a></span></p>

<div class="poem">
"'He has, I know not what,<br />
Of greatness in his looks and of high fate,<br />
That almost awes me.'<br />
</div>

<p>"And when his moods change these verses
are always present&mdash;</p>

<div class="poem">
'Read'st thou not something in my face that speaks<br />
Wonderful change and horror from within me?'"<br />
</div>

<p>She put a tragic note into her voice as she
recited; the starlight was in her eyes, and
they were fixed on me; her face whitened
out to the astral gleaming till you saw her
hair throbbing on her forehead to the blowing
of the wind. She continued&mdash;</p>

<p>"I could quote a score of passages marvellously
true of the captain and his fellows,
serving indeed as revelations to me, so keen
are the eyes of poets. And little wonder,"
says she, with a sigh, "for what else have I
had to read but that book of poetry!"</p>

<p>"Just now," said I, "he asked if you
thought it likely you should lose your language
in a few months. This plainly shows
that he supposes he met with you in his pas<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[71]</a></span>sage
from Batavia&mdash;that is his last passage.
Now, since his finding you dates nearly five
years back, and you tell me that he has only
memory for what happened within the past
few months, how does it fall out that he
recollects your story, which he certainly does,
for he asked me if you had related it to me?"</p>

<p>"It must be," she answered, "because he
is constantly alluding to it in speaking of the
reception his wife and daughters will give
me. It is also impressed upon him by my
presence, by my frequent asking him to put
me on board a homeward-going ship, and so
it is kept in his mind as a thing constantly
happening&mdash;continually fresh."</p>

<p>"Suppose I should stay in this ship say for
six months, never speaking of the Saracen
nor recalling the circumstance of my coming
on board, you believe his memory would drop
the fact, and that he would view me as one
who happened to be in the ship, and that's
all, his mind stopping at that?"</p>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[72]</a></span></p>

<p>"How he would view you I cannot say;
but I am certain he would forget how you
came here, unless there was incessant reference
to the Saracen and to her men shooting
at Van Vogelaar. But time would bear no
part in this sort of recollection: he would
still be living in the year of God 1653, and
sailing home from Batavia; and if he thought
at all he'd imagine it was in that year that
you came on board his ship."</p>

<p>Well, here was a piece of metaphysics a
touch above my intelligence and above this
sweet creature's too, for she could only speak
as she believed, without being able to account
for the miraculous conditions of this ship's
life and of that of her crew. And indeed
I should not have teased her with such
questions but for a great craving to obtain a
just conception of the amazing character who
has been, and must ever remain, the terror of
all mariners; whilst beyond this again was a
secret dread lest this fair enchanting woman<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[73]</a></span>
should have been chosen to play a part in the
marine tragedy; which I would have a right
to fear if I found Vanderdecken's relations
with her, as regards his memory for instance,
different from what they were in all other
directions. Plainly I mean this: that if she
were being used as a Divine instrument, then
it was certain that I should not be suffered
to deliver her from the Death Ship&mdash;an insupportable
reflection at any time, but a
mortal blow now that I had come to love
her.</p>

<p>Meanwhile, the giant figure of the Dutch
captain stood motionless near the binnacle;
close to him was the second mate, himself
like a statue. The tiller-tackles, grasped by
the helmsman, swayed him with every blow
of the sea upon the rudder, yet even his
movements had a lifelessness in them that
was as apparent as though the man had been
stricken dead at his post, and swung there
against the dancing stars.</p>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[74]</a></span></p>

<p>A quick jerk of the ship causing Imogene
to lose her balance, she grasped my arm to
steady herself by, and I took care she should
not release me. Indeed, from almost the first
hour of our meeting there had been a yearning
towards me, a wistfulness of a mute sort
underlying her demeanour, and this night I
found assurance of it by her manner, that
was not indeed clinging, having more of
nestling in it, as if I was her refuge, her
one hope. She may have guessed I loved
her. I cannot tell. My eyes may have said
much, though I had not spoken. But there
was that in her, as she stood by my side,
with her hand under my arm, that persuaded
me her heart was coming to mine, and haply
more quickly because of our sole mortality
amid the substantial shadows of the Death
Ship's crew. You felt what that bond meant
when you looked around you and saw the
dimly-looming figure of Vanderdecken beside
the compass, the ghostly darkness of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[75]</a></span>
second mate's form, the corpse-like swaying
of the helmsman, as of an hanging body
moved by the wind, and thought of the
amazing human mysteries lost in the darkness
forward, or slumbering in the hammocks,
if, indeed, sleep was ever permitted
to visit eyes which death was forbidden to
approach. 'Twas as if Imogene stood on
one side a grave, I on the other, and clasped
hands for the courage we found in warm and
circulating blood, over a pit filled with a
heart-freezing sight.</p>

<p>"We shall escape yet&mdash;fear not!" said I,
speaking out of the heat of my own thoughts
as though we were conversing on that subject.</p>

<p>"May our Saviour grant it!" she exclaimed.
"See how black the white water
around the ship makes her in spite of the
strange fires which glow everywhere!"</p>

<p>I felt her shiver as she cried, "The vessel
seems to grow more terrible to my fancy. It
may be because we have talked so much of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[76]</a></span>
her, and your views of Vanderdecken and
the crew have raised terrifying speculations
in me."</p>

<p>"We shall escape yet!" I repeated, hotly,
for the very sense of our imprisonment and
the helplessness of our condition for the time
being, that might be long in terminating, was
a thought so maddening that I felt in a
temper to defy, scorn and spit in the face of
the very Devil himself was he to appear.
But I had her right hand pressed to my
heart; 'twas sure she felt the comfort of it,
and together for some while in silence we
stood viewing the ship, the fabric of whose
hull stood out as though lined with India ink
upon the ashen tremble of froth that seemed
to embrace her length like shadowy-white
arms, as the wind blowing mildly into her
sails forced her to break the water at her
stern as she slided athwart the swell. She
made a sight to shrink from! The sailor's
heart within me sank to this feebly-luminous<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[77]</a></span>
mystery of aged yet imperishable hull, holding
within her creatures so unnatural that the
eye of man can view the like of them nowhere
else, and raising her structure of ancient
sail and masts to the stars which glided in
blue and green and white along the yards
with the rolling of her. Little wonder that
she should affright the mariner who meets
her amid the lonely paths of the vast ocean
she haunts.</p>

<p>I clasped my brow with bewilderment in
my brain.</p>

<p>"Surely," I cried to my companion, "I
am dreaming. It cannot be that I at this
moment am standing on the deck of the
Death Ship!"</p>

<p>She sought to soothe me, but she was
startled by my behaviour, and that perception
enabled me to rally. If she as a weak and
lonely maiden could bravely support five years
of life amid this crew, what craven was I to
have my brain confused by only seven days'<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[78]</a></span>
association, spent mainly in her company?
Heaven forgive me. But methinks I realised
our condition&mdash;all that it might hereafter
signify&mdash;with a keenness of insight, present
and prophetic, which would be impossible in
her whose knowledge of the sea was but a
child's when she fell into Vanderdecken's
hands.</p>

<p>"We must have patience, courage and
hope, Mr. Fenton," she said, softly. "Look
at that starry jewel yonder," and she turned
up her face to the cross that hung above
the mizzen topmast-head, gleaming very
gloriously in a lake of deep indigo betwixt two
clouds. "It shines for me! and often have
I looked up at it with full eyes and a prayer
in my heart. It shines for you, too! It is
the emblem of our redemption, and we must
drink in faith that God will succour us from
it."</p>

<p>She continued to gaze at it, and there was
sheen enough to enable me to see a tender<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[79]</a></span>
smile upon her upturned face. How sweet
did she then appear, fairer than the "evening
air clad in the beauty of a thousand stars," as
the poet wrote. I looked up to that sparkling
Cross and thought how strange it was
that the Sentence pronounced upon this ship
should doom her to sail eternally over waters
above which there nightly rises the lustrous
symbol of Compassion and Mercy.</p>

<p>"Take my arm, my child; 'tis chilly work
standing," said the deep voice of the captain.</p>

<p>Again had he come upon us unawares, but
this time he found us silent, together gazing
at the Cross of stars. She withdrew her
hand quickly from my arm and took his,
showing wisdom in her promptness, as I was
quick to see. Then, being alone, I went to
the quarter-deck and fell to walking briskly.
For Vanderdecken was right, the wind came
bleak.</p>

<hr class="chap" />

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[80]</a></span></p>




<h2>CHAPTER V.<br />

THE DEATH SHIP'S FORECASTLE.</h2>


<p>Next morning was clear and sunny. I was
up betimes, being always glad to get away
from my cabin, in the which I needed all my
long training at sea to qualify me to sleep,
not only because of the rats and the noises in
the hold, and those mystic fires in the timbers
that never failed to send a shudder through
me if I opened my eyes upon them in the
darkness, but because of my bed, which was
miserably hard and wretched in all ways, and
in which I would lie down dressed, saving
my boots and jacket, never knowing when I
might not be obliged to spring on deck in a
hurry, though I took care to refresh myself
o' morn by going into the head, pulling off<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[81]</a></span>
my shirt and sousing myself with a bucketfull
of salt water&mdash;'twas an old canvas bucket, I
remember&mdash;no man of the crew speaking to
or noticing me.</p>

<p>This morning being very fine, the first
bright day that had broken since I had been
in the ship, I thought, since it was early, an
hour to breakfast, Vanderdecken in his cabin
and Arents alone on the poop-deck with the
man who steered, that I would look a little
closely into the vessel, and ascertain if possible
where and how the men slept, where
they dressed their food and the like. But
first I snatched a glance around to see if any
sail was in sight. No! 'Twas all dark-blue
water meeting the clear sky in an unbroken
girdle, that by holding its sapphire hue against
the light azure of the heavens there, stood
out with surprising sharpness. The swell
left by the gale was not gone, but it came
with a steady rhythmic flowing of folds from
the north-west that seemed to soothe rather<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[82]</a></span>
than to vex the ancient ship, and the heavings
made the eastern sea-board a rich and dazzling
spectacle, by catching the brilliant white
sunshine on the polish of their rounded backs,
and so carrying their burden of blinding
radiance to the verge of the visible deep.</p>

<p>The ship was under all the canvas she had.
That studding-sails have been for ages in use
we know on the authority of Sir Walter
Raleigh, in his writings on the improvements
in ships since Henry the Eighth's days; yet
I can answer that this Death Ship had no
irons on her yards, nor could I anywhere see
any spars that answered to the booms used
for the spreading of those sails. However,
even if she had been furnished with such
canvas, this morning it would have been
no use to her; for the breeze still hung,
westerly and she was going close-hauled,
steering something to the west of north and
moving through the water at about three
knots.</p>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[83]</a></span></p>

<p>I spied the corpulent figure of Jans, the
boatswain, forward of the fore-mast. He was
standing with his arms folded, staring ahead.
His posture somehow suggested a vacancy of
mind, and you thought of him as looking into
God knows what distance, with the unmeaningness
you observe in the fixed gaze of a
babe sucking.</p>

<p>I could not say whether the decks had
been washed down; they seemed damp, as
if newly swabbed. One whom I supposed
to be the ship's carpenter was sawing wood
near the house in which were the live stock.
Two others, hard by him, sat upon a sail,
stitching at it. There was a seaman in the
fore-top, but what doing I could not see;
little more than his head showed above the
barricade. I walked forward to where the
boatswain stood, and, on observing that he
took no notice of me, I touched him lightly
on the shoulder.</p>

<p>He turned his round face, ghastly as<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[84]</a></span>
death yet as fleshy and plump as life, and
gazed at me. I felt nervous&mdash;it was dreadful
to accost these conformations, which were
neither men nor devils&mdash;but I was resolved
to go through with the business I had on
hand, impelled by the thought that if I was
suffered to come off with my life from this
experience there would be that to relate to
the world beyond anything which seamen
have told of the ocean life.</p>

<p>I said to him, "Good morning, Herr Jans.
Here, to be sure, is a fine sky with noble
promise."</p>

<p>"True, sir," he answered, seeming to step
out of the mystery of his stillness and
vacancy without effort. "She looks fairly
up: but so tedious a nor'-wester should be
followed by a southerly gale!"</p>

<p>"Heaven grant it!" cried I, gathering
courage from his civility. "You will be glad
to see old Amsterdam again, no doubt!"</p>

<p>"Ay," said he, "I warrant you; and my<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[85]</a></span>
wife, Amana, too, and my daughter, Tobina.
Ha! ha!"</p>

<p>His laugh was like that of the parrot,
mirthless; and not a wrinkle stirred upon his
countenance to give reality to his shocking
merriment.</p>

<p>To come at what I wanted&mdash;for I did not
wish Vanderdecken to arrive and see me
forward&mdash;I said "Yes, meetings are made
sweeter by a little delay. Pardon me, Heer:
I am an Englishman not well acquainted
with the shipboard usages of the Dutch. In
the ship of which I was second mate, we had
what is called a topgallant forecastle in which
the crew slept&mdash;&mdash;"</p>

<p>He interrupted with a shake of the head.
"I do not understand," said he.</p>

<p>This was not strange, for as I did not know
the Dutch words, I called it topgallant forecastle
in English.</p>

<p>"They slept under a deck resembling the
poop," said I.</p>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[86]</a></span></p>

<p>"Ha!" he exclaimed.</p>

<p>"Where do your crew sleep?"</p>

<p>"Down there," he responded, pointing to
a hatch answering to the forescuttle of these
times.</p>

<p>"Is it a comfortable cabin?" said I.</p>

<p>He made a face and spat behind his hand,
which caused me to see that sailors in all
times have been alike in the capacity of
grumbling, and that even in this man, who
by virtue of the age he had attained had long
ceased to be human and was kept alive only
by the Curse it was his lot to share with the
skipper, the instincts of the seaman still lived,
a few sparks among blackened embers.</p>

<p>"Judge for yourself if you will," said he.
"My last ship was the Maagt van Eukhuysen,
and though her forecastle raised a mutiny
among us for its badness, I tell you, mynheer,
'twas as punch is to stale cold water
compared to this."</p>

<p>He motioned me to descend, but I asked<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[87]</a></span>
him to go first, for how was I to guess what
would be my reception if the men saw me
entering their abode unaccompanied? "Very
good," said he, and catching hold of the
coaming he dropped his great figure through
the hatch, and I followed.</p>

<p>We descended by a ladder in perfect correspondence
with the rest of the fittings of
this ship&mdash;the hand-rails carved, and the
steps a sort of grating&mdash;different, indeed,
from the pieces of coarse, rough wood nailed
to the bulkhead, which in these days form
the road down through the forescuttle. The
light of the heavens fell fair through the
hatch, but seemed powerless to penetrate the
gloom that lay around. I was blinded at
first, and stood a moment under the hatch
idly blinking and beholding nothing. Then
stepping out of the sphere of the daylight,
there stole upon my sight the details of the
place one by one, helped by the wan, sputtering
and smoking flame of a lamp shaped<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[88]</a></span>
like a coffee-pot, the waste or mesh coming
out of the spout fed by what the nose readily
determined to be slush.</p>

<p>Jans stood beside me. "Can you see,
mynheer?" said he.</p>

<p>"Ay, 'tis growing upon me by degrees,"
I replied.</p>

<p>"Master," exclaimed a hollow voice, proceeding
from the darkest part of this forecastle,
"if you could help me fill the bowl of
a tobacco-pipe I should be grateful."</p>

<p>Very luckily I had the remains of what
sailors term a prick of tobacco in my pocket,
which Prins when he dried my jacket had
very honestly suffered to remain there. The
piece had been so hard pressed in the making,
and rendered so water-proof by the rum in it,
that my falling overboard had left it perfectly
sweet and fit for smoking. By a stingy and
cautious use of the knife there was enough of
it to give all hands a smoke. I pulled it out
and handed it to Jans to deliver to the man<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[89]</a></span>
who had addressed me. Jans smelt it and
said "Yes, it was tobacco, but how was it to
be smoked?"</p>

<p>I pulled out my knife, and stepping into
the light under the hatch, put the tobacco
upon one of the ladder-steps and fell to slicing
or rather shaving it, and when I had cut
enough to fill a pipe bowl I rolled up the
shreds in my hands, and taking a sooty clay
pipe from Jans, charged it, and bade him
light it at the lamp. He did so, speedily returning,
smoking heartily, puffing out great
clouds, and crying out, "Oh, but 'tis good!
'tis good!"</p>

<p>It is tiring work cutting up this kind of
tobacco, and Jans now understanding how it
was done, took the knife and the tobacco and
shred about an inch of it, there being in all
between three and four inches. Whilst this
was doing I had leisure to gaze about me.</p>

<p>No sooner had Jans lighted his pipe, so
that all could see he was smoking, than from<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[90]</a></span>
several parts of that gloomy interior there
slided a number of figures who quickly
clustered around the ladder, over one of
whose steps or treads the boatswain leaned,
pipe in mouth, whilst he sliced and shaved.
The daylight fell upon some of them, others
were faintly to be seen in the dim illumination
which the lustre, passing through the
hatch, feebly spread. From rows of old
hammocks, that died out in the gloom, these
men had dropped, and mariners half-perished
with hunger could not have exhibited more
delirious eagerness for food than did these
unhappy creatures for a pipeful of the tobacco
Jans was at work upon. A dismaller and
wilder, nay, a more affrighting picture I defy
the imagination to body forth. It was not
only that many of these unhappy people were
half-naked&mdash;most of them still swinging in
their hammocks, when I descended&mdash;it was
their corpse-like appearance, as though a
grave-yard had disgorged its dead, who had<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[91]</a></span>
come together in a group, quickened and
urged by some hunger, lust or need common
to the whole, and expressing in many
varieties of countenance the same desire.
All about Jans they crowded, fifteen or
twenty men; some thin, with their ribs showing,
others with sturdy legs of the Dutch kind,
some nearly bald, some so hairy that their
locks and beards flowed down their backs
and chests, some dark with black eyes, others
round-faced and blue-eyed; but every man
of them looking as if he was newly risen,
Lazarus-like, from the tomb, as though he
had burst the bondage of the coffin, and
come into this forecastle dead yet living, his
body formed of the earth of the grave, and
his soul of the Curse that kept him alive.</p>

<p>I had particularly hoped to see some of
them sleeping, wondering what appearance
they presented in slumber; also whether such
as they ever dreamed, and what sort of expressions
their faces wore. But the place<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[92]</a></span>
was too dark to have yielded this sight even
had I been at liberty to peer into their hammocks.
When my eyes grew used to the
twilight of the slush-lamp and I could see
plain, I found there was not much to whet
curiosity. Here and there stood a box or
sea-chest. Against the aged sides, hanging
by nails or hooks, were coats, trowsers, oilskins,
and the like, most of them differing in
fashion, swaying with the heaving of the
ship. Some odds and ends of shoes and
boots, a canvas bucket or two, a tall basket,
in which were stowed the dishes and mugs
the men eat and drank with, completed, with
the hammocks overhead, all the furniture
that I could distinguish of this melancholy,
rat-gnawed, yea, and noisome forecastle.</p>

<p>By this time Jans was wearied of slicing
the tobacco, and the fellow called Meindert
Kryns was at work upon what remained of
it. All who had pipes filled them, and I was
surprised to find how well off they were in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[93]</a></span>
this respect, though my wonder ceased when
I afterwards heard that amongst other articles
of freight Vanderdecken had met with in a
derelict were cases of long clay pipes. It
was both moving and diverting to watch these
half-clad creatures smoking, their manner of
holding the smoke in their mouths for the
better tasting of it, the solemn joy with which
they expelled the clouds; some in their hammocks
with their naked legs over the edge;
others on the chests, manifestly insensible to
the chilly wind that blew down through the
hatch. No man spoke. If aught of mind
there was among them, it seemed to be
devoted to keeping their pipe-bowls burning.
Jans stood leaning against the fore-mast, puffing
at his pipe, his eyes directed into the
gloom in the bows. That he had forgotten
the errand that brought him below, that I had
no more existence for him than would have
been the case had I never fallen from the rail
of the Saracen, was clearly to be gathered<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[94]</a></span>
from his strange rapt posture and air. I
touched him again on the shoulder, and he
turned his eyes upon me, but without starting.
'Twas the easiest, nimblest way of
slipping out of a condition of trance into
intelligence and life that can be conceived.</p>

<p>I wished to see all I dared ask to look
at, and said, "Where do you cook your
food?"</p>

<p>"I will show you," he answered, and
walked to some distance abaft the forescuttle.</p>

<p>I followed him painfully, for I could scarce
see; indeed, here would have been total
blackness to one fresh from the sunlight.
There was a bulkhead with an opening on
the larboard hand; we passed through it,
and I found myself on a deck pretty well
filled up at the after-end with coils of cable,
casks, and so forth; a windward port was
open, and through it came light enough to
see by. In the middle of this deck was a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[95]</a></span>
sort of caboose, situated clear of the ropes
and casks. 'Twas, in short, a structure of
stout scantling, open on either side, and fitted
with brick-work contrived for a furnace and
coppers for boiling. A man&mdash;the cook, or
the cook's mate&mdash;his feet naked, his shanks
clothed in breeches of a faded blue stuff, and
his trunk in a woollen shirt&mdash;was at work
boiling a kind of soup for the crew's breakfast.
Another man stood at a dresser, rolling
paste. This fellow was a very short, corpulent
person, with a neck so fat that a
pillow of flesh lay under the back of his
head. Never in my time had I viewed a
completer figure of a Dutchman than this
cook. You would have supposed that into
this homely picture of boiling and pie-making
there would have entered such an element of
life and reality as was nowhere else to be
found in that accurst ship. Yet so little was
this so, that I do not know that in all the
time I had been in the Braave I had beheld<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[96]</a></span>
a more ghastly picture. It was the two men
who made it so; the unreality of their realness,
to comprehend which, if this phrase
should sound foolishly, think upon the vision
of an insane man, or upon some wondrous
picture painted upon the eyes of the dying or
opening upon the gaze of some enthusiast.</p>

<p>The flames of the furnace shot a crimson
glare upon the first of the two men I have
described; he never turned his head to look
at me, but went on stirring what was in the
copper. The place had much of the furniture
of one of our present cabooses or galleys.
There was a kind of dresser and there were
racks for holding dishes, an old brass timepiece
that was as great a curiosity in its way
as the clock in the cabin, a chair of the last
century, a couple of wooden bellows, and such
matters.</p>

<p>I was moving, when the little, fat cook
suddenly fell a-sniffing, and turning to Jans,
said, "Is there tobacco at last?"</p>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[97]</a></span></p>

<p>"No," answered Jans; "this Heer had a
piece which he has distributed. 'Tis all
gone. But there is a smoke left in this
pipe; take it."</p>

<p>He dried the sooty stem upon his sleeve,
and handed it to the cook, who instantly
began to puff, uttering one or two exclamations
of pleasure, but with an unmoved
countenance.</p>

<p>"Is there no tobacco on board?" said I,
following Jans into the forecastle.</p>

<p>"The skipper has a small quantity, but
there is none for the crew," he answered.
"Had your ship supplied us with a little stock
'twould have been a godsend; welcomer, sir,
than the powder and shot you wantonly bestowed
upon our boat."</p>

<p>We were now in the forecastle, and this
reference to the action of the terrified crew
of the Saracen, in the hearing of the seamen
who overhung their hammocks, or squatted
on their chests, smoking, alarmed me; so<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[98]</a></span>
with a quickly uttered "Good-morning" addressed
to them all, I sprang up the ladder
and gained the deck.</p>

<hr class="chap" />

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[99]</a></span></p>




<h2>CHAPTER VI.<br />

WE SIGHT A SHIP.</h2>


<p>It was like coming out of a sepulchre to step
from that forecastle on deck where the
glorious sun was and the swaying shadows,
and where the blue wind gushed in a soft
breathing over the bulwark-rails, with weight
enough in it to hold the canvas stirless, and
to raise a gentle hissing alongside like the
seething of champagne. I spied Vanderdecken
on the poop and near him Imogene,
so I hastened aft to greet the girl and salute
the great bearded figure that nobly towered
beside her. She looked fragrant and sweet
as a white rose in the dewy morn, wore a
straw hat turned up on one side and looped
to stay there with a parti-coloured rosette,
and though this riband was faded with age<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[100]</a></span>
and the straw yellow and dull through keeping,
the gear did suit her beauty most
divinely, and I could have knelt and kissed
her hand, so complete a Princess did she
appear in the royal perfections of her countenance
and shape.</p>

<p>To turn from the sparkle of her violet eye,
the rosiness of her lip, the life that teemed in
the expression of her face, like a blushing
light shining through fragile porcelain, to
turn from her to the great silent figure near
her, with piercing gaze directed over the taffrail,
his beard trembling to the down-rush of
air from the mizzen, was to obtain a proper
contrast to enable you to realise in the aspect
of that amazing person the terrible conditions
of his existence and the enormous significance
of his sentence.</p>

<p>With a smile of pleasure at the sight of me,
Imogene bade me good-morning, saying, "I
am before you for the first time since you
have been in the ship."</p>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[101]</a></span></p>

<p>"I was out of my cabin half-an-hour ago,
perhaps longer," said I. "What, think you,
I have been doing? Exploring the sailors'
quarters and inspecting the kitchen." And
I tossed up my hands and turned up my
eyes that she might guess what I thought
of those places. Then meeting Vanderdecken's
gaze, which he had brought to bear
upon me with a frowning roll of the eyes, I
took off my hat, giving him a bow. He
greeted me in his imperious stormy way, and
asked me what I thought of his ship.</p>

<p>I replied, "She is a very fine vessel, sir."</p>

<p>"Did they lift the hatches to show the
cargo to you?" he exclaimed.</p>

<p>I answered smartly, "No," perceiving
that he was aware I had been below in the
fore-part.</p>

<p>"How does my forecastle show to your
English prejudice?" he said.</p>

<p>"Oh, mynheer!" said I, smiling, with a
look at Imogene, whose eyes were fixed in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[102]</a></span>
the quarter over the stern into which Vanderdecken
had been staring, "so far from
Englishmen being prejudiced, at all events,
in naval matters, we are continually taking
ideas from other nations, particularly from
the French, whose ships of war we imitate
and admire. Perhaps," said I, "that is
one of the reasons why we are incessantly
capturing the vessels of that nation."</p>

<p>But the conceit was lost, because this man
had flourished before we had become the
terror of the French that our admirals have
since made the English flag to be.</p>

<p>Imogene cried out in Dutch, "Do you
know, Mr. Fenton, that there is a sail in
sight?"</p>

<p>My heart gave a bound, and following the
indication of her ivory-white forefinger, which
pointed directly astern, I saw the tiny gleam
of what was unquestionably a ship's canvas,
resembling the curved tip of a gull's wing.</p>

<p>"Ay, to be sure, yonder's a sail!" I ex<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[103]</a></span>claimed,
after keeping my eyes fixed upon it
a while to make sure, and I added in Dutch,
"Which way, madam, does the captain say
she is steering?"</p>

<p>"Directly after us," she replied.</p>

<p>"Judge for yourself, sir," said Vanderdecken,
motioning with his hand toward a
telescope that stood against the deck-house.</p>

<p>It was the ancient, heavy tube I had observed
in his cabin. I picked it up, rested it
upon the rail&mdash;it was too weighty for the
support of my left hand&mdash;and worked away
with it at the sail astern. It was a feeble old
glass, magnifying, I should suppose, to the
proportion of a crown to a groat. In fact I
could see as well with the naked eye. It was
Vanderdecken's telescope, however, and a
curiosity, and still feigning to view the sail, I
secretly ran my eye over the tubes, noticing,
in very faint letters, the words, "Cornelius
Van der Decken, Amsterdam, 1650," graved
in flowing characters upon the large tube.</p>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[104]</a></span></p>

<p>"She is heading after us, you think, mynheer?"
said Vanderdecken as I rose.</p>

<p>"I could not say, sir. Has she grown
since you first observed her?"</p>

<p>"Yes."</p>

<p>He took the glass and levelled it very
easily, and I met Imogene's gaze as she
glanced from him to me, as though she was
sure I could not but admire the massive,
manly figure of that man, drawn to his full
height, and in such a posture as one would
love to see him painted in.</p>

<p>"She is certainly steering our course," said
he, speaking with his eye at the tube, "I
hope she may not prove an English man-of-war.
Who can tell? If a merchantman, be
her nationality what it may, we'll speak her
for tobacco, for that's a commodity we must
have."</p>

<p>I looked earnestly and with a face flushed
with hope at Imogene; but she glanced
away from me to the sail, signalling to me by<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[105]</a></span>
this action in a manner unmistakable, to be
wary.</p>

<p>Vanderdecken put down the glass, cast a
look aloft at the set of his canvas and the
trim of his yards, and then called to Arents
to heave the log. Some seamen came aft, in
response to the second mate's call, and,
bringing out a reel and sand-glass from the
deck-house, measured the speed of the ship
through the water, precisely as we at this day
do, so ancient is this simple device of telling
a ship's speed of passage through the water
by paying out a line marked with knots to
the running of sand! I heard Arents say that
the vessel was going three knots and a half.</p>

<p>"At that rate," said I to Imogene, whilst
Vanderdecken remained aft, watching in a
soulless manner the automaton-like motions
of the men engaged in hauling the line in and
reeling it up, "that vessel yonder, if she be
actually heading our way, will soon overhaul
us."</p>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[106]</a></span></p>

<p>"Mr. Fenton," said she, with subdued
energy in her soft voice, "I earnestly pray
you, neither by word, look or sign to give
Captain Vanderdecken the least reason to
suspect that you mean to escape from his
ship and rescue me whenever the chance shall
offer. I will tell you why I say this: just now
he spoke of you to me, and said if an opportunity
offered he should put you on board
any vessel that would receive you, no matter
where she was bound to, and then he asked
what you and I chiefly talked about. There
was more sternness in his manner than ever
I recollect in him when addressing me."</p>

<p>"If I thought him capable of human
emotions," said I, "I should reckon him
jealous."</p>

<p>"But he <i>has</i> human emotions&mdash;he loves
his wife and children," she replied.</p>

<p>"Ay, but who is to know that that love is
not left to linger in him as a part of his curse?"
said I. "By which I mean, if he was not<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[107]</a></span>
suffered to remember his wife and children
and love them, he might not show himself
very eager to get round the Cape. Possibly
he wants to get rid of me, not because he is
jealous, not because he dislikes me as a man,
but because that malignant baboon, Van
Vogelaar, may have been speaking against
me, putting fears into his head touching
his treasure, and working upon his duty as
a Hollander&mdash;a compatriot of De Ruyter,
God help him&mdash;to hate me as an Englishman."</p>

<p>"But he loves me too, Mr. Fenton," said
she.</p>

<p>"As a father might," said I, not liking this,
yet amused by her sweet tenaciousness.</p>

<p>"Yes, as a father; but it shows he has
capacity for other emotions outside those
which you deem necessary for the duration of
the Sentence."</p>

<p>"I ought to believe so if he hates me,"
said I, looking his way and observing that he<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[108]</a></span>
had turned his back upon us and was watching
the sail astern. "But be all this as it
will, you shall find me as careful as you can
desire."</p>

<p>"If," said she, plaintively, "he should
become even faintly suspicious of your intentions,
he might set you ashore, should we not
meet with a ship to receive you, and then
what would become of you and what would
become of me, Mr. Fenton?"</p>

<p>"Have no fear," said I; "he shall discover
nothing in me to make him suspicious. As
to his setting me ashore, that he could do,
and whether I should be able to outwit him
in such a man&oelig;uvre, I cannot tell; but in no
other way could he get rid of me, unless by
throwing me overboard."</p>

<p>"He would not do that," she exclaimed,
shaking her head; "nor do I think he would
force you from this ship if he could find no
ground for distrust. But something affecting
you has worried his mind, I am certain, or he<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[109]</a></span>
would not have declared his intention to send
you to another vessel. He believes he is
going straight home. Why, then, should he
not be willing to carry you? Maybe he
heard from Arents that you were below
exploring the ship. Oh, Mr. Fenton, be
cautious! If not for your own sake, then for
mine!"</p>

<p>She involuntarily brought her little hands
together into a posture of prayer with the
earnestness of her entreaty, and her warmth
flowed rosily to her cheeks, so that, though
she spoke low, her manner was impassioned,
and I saw how her dear heart was set upon
my delivering her, and how great was her
terror lest my thoughtlessness should end in
procuring our separation. However, I had
no time to then reassure her, though I
resolved henceforth to walk with extraordinary
circumspection, seeing that the people
I had fallen amongst were utterly unintelligible
to me, being so composite in their<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[110]</a></span>
dead-aliveness that it was impossible to come
at their motives and feelings, if they possessed
any resembling ours. I say I had
not time to reassure her, for Prins arrived
to report breakfast, which brought Vanderdecken
to us.</p>

<p>Little was said at table, but that little was
quite enough to make me understand the
wisdom of Imogene's fears, and to perceive
that if I did not check my curiosity to inspect
the ship so as to be able to deliver a true
account of this strange and fearful fabric,
I stood to lose Imogene the chance of escape
which my presence in the vessel provided
her with. No matter which of the two
mates had the watch on deck, Van Vogelaar
always sat down to meals first, Arents following.
He was beside me this morning as
usual, coming fresh from his cabin; and
when we were seated, Vanderdecken told
him there was a ship astern.</p>

<p>"How heading, skipper?"</p>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[111]</a></span></p>

<p>"As we go, without doubt. She hath
grown swiftly since first sighted, yet hangs
steady in the same quarter."</p>

<p>"Let her hoist any colours but those of
this gentleman's country!" said Van Vogelaar,
with an ugly sneer.</p>

<p>"Should that happen, captain, will you
fight her?" I asked, quietly.</p>

<p>"If she be a ship of war&mdash;no; for what
are our defences against the culverins and
demi-culverins of your ships, and how shall
we match perhaps four hundred sailors with
our slender company?" replied Vanderdecken,
with an evil glitter in his eyes, and grasping
his beard as his custom was when wrathful
thoughts surged in him.</p>

<p>"She may prove a harmless merchantman&mdash;perhaps
a sturdy Hollander&mdash;that will give
you plenty of tobacco for a little of your
silver," said Imogene, striking in with her
sweet smile, and melodious voice, like a sunbeam
upon turbulent waters.</p>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[112]</a></span></p>

<p>"If you are in doubt why not shift your
helm, gentlemen?" said I.</p>

<p>"Ah, skipper!" cried Van Vogelaar, sardonically,
"we have an adviser here. It is
fit that a Dutch ship should be served by an
English pilot!"</p>

<p>I held my peace. At this moment the
clock struck, and the parrot, as though some
fiend was inside her green bosom prompting
her to breed trouble, cried out "Wyn Zyn al
Verdomd!" with fierce energy, severely clawing
her wires, and exhibiting more agitation
than seems possible in a fowl of naturally dull
and leaden motions.</p>

<p>"I believe she speaks the truth," exclaimed
Van Vogelaar, turning his face towards the
cage. "The parrot hath been known to
possess a witch-like capacity of forecasting
and divining."</p>

<p>"Oh, but you know, Heer, that she
had that sentence by heart when the
captain bought her," said Imogene, with a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[113]</a></span>
mixed air of distress and petulance in her
face.</p>

<p>"I know, madam," he replied, "that yonder
bird never spoke those words with such
energy as she now puts into them before
this gentleman arrived."</p>

<p>Vanderdecken looked at him and then at
me, but did not speak.</p>

<p>"What do you suspect from the increased
energy of the bird's language?" said I, fixing
my eyes upon the mate.</p>

<p>He would not meet my gaze, but answered
with his eyes upon his plate, "What is your
motive in examining this ship, sir?"</p>

<p>"The harmless curiosity of a sailor," I
replied.</p>

<p>He was about to speak, but I lifted my
hand, meaning to entreat silence whilst I
continued, but he, mistaking the gesture for
a threat, shrank very abjectly from his
seat, proving himself a timorous, cowardly
fellow, and the more to be feared, perhaps,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[114]</a></span>
for being so. "Captain Vanderdecken," said
I, keeping my hand lifted, that he and his
mate might understand I intended no menace,
"I know not what base and degrading
charges Herr Van Vogelaar would insinuate.
I am an honest man and mean well, and, sir,
add to that the gratitude of one whose life
you have preserved. You were pleased, on
one occasion, to speak kindly of my countrymen,
and regret that feud should ever exist
between two nations whose genius seems to
have a common root. I trust that your
sympathy with Britain will cause you to turn
a deaf ear to the unwarrantable hints against
my honour as an English seaman, dropped
by your first mate."</p>

<p>To this speech Vanderdecken made no reply;
indeed, I would not like to swear that
he had heeded so much as a syllable of it.
Van Vogelaar resumed the posture on his
seat from which he had started on my raising
my hand and went on with his meal. Shortly<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[115]</a></span>
after this Imogene left the table and entered
her cabin, on which, weary of the sullen and
malignant company of the mate, and the
ghostly silence and fiery eyes of Captain
Vanderdecken, I rose, bowed to the skipper,
and went on deck.</p>

<p>I walked right aft, past the helmsman, and
stood gazing with a most passionate yearning
and wistfulness at the sail astern. The
stranger had not greatly grown during the
time we had passed below, but her enlargement
was marked enough to make me guess
that she was overhauling us hand over fist, as
sailors say, and I reckoned that if the wind
held she would be within gunshot by three
or four of the clock this afternoon. I went
for Vanderdecken's glass and examined her
again; the lenses imparted an atmospheric
sharpness and pellucidity of outline which
showed plainly enough the royals and topgallant-sails
of apparently a large ship slightly
leaning from the wind. I could not persuade<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[116]</a></span>
myself that she was "reaching," for though
our yards were as sharply braced as they
would lie, the stranger, if she were close
hauled, could have luffed up three or four
more points, but as she held her place it was
certain she was making a free wind and
coming along with her yards braced-in somewhat.
Therefore she was not bound to the
westwards, and if for the Indian Ocean, what
need had she to be heading due north?</p>

<p>I put down the glass, but the yearning
that rose within me at the sight of the vessel
ceased when I thought of Imogene. Suppose
that ship should prove the instrument of
separating me from her! I had talked big
for the sake of comforting her, of fearing
nothing from Vanderdecken save being set
ashore or tossed overboard, for I counted
upon any and all ships we met refusing to
receive me if they found out that this ancient
fabric was the Flying Dutchman. But suppose
Vanderdecken should heave me over<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[117]</a></span>board
on nearing a vessel, leaving it to her
people to succour me if they chose?</p>

<p>These were the fancies which subdued in
me the eager wistfulness raised by yonder
gleaming wing of canvas, whitening like a
mounting star upon the blue edge of the
ocean in the south.</p>

<p>Lost in thought, I continued gazing until
presently I grew sensible of the presence of
someone standing close beside me. It was
Imogene. On the weather quarter was Van
Vogelaar surveying the sail with folded arms
and stooped head. His face wore a malignant
expression, and in his stirlessness he
resembled an effigy, wrought with exquisite
skill to a marvellous imitation of apparel
and shape.</p>

<p>"Where is the captain?" I asked.</p>

<p>"He is smoking in the cabin," Imogene
answered.</p>

<p>"Yonder rascal is evidently my enemy,"
said I.</p>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[118]</a></span></p>

<p>"All will be well if you show no curiosity,"
she replied, softly. "Do you not remember
that I cautioned you at the very beginning?
My belief is that the mate is mad you should
know of the treasure in this ship, and will
be eager to get rid of you lest you should
contrive to possess it."</p>

<p>"But how?"</p>

<p>"By acquainting the master of the ship
you are transferred to with the wealth in this
vessel. Add to this fear&mdash;for he has a share
in all they recover from wrecks, and in a
portion of the cargo&mdash;his hatred of you for
your men firing at him."</p>

<p>"I begin to see," said I, "that there are
several strokes of human nature still to be
witnessed among these unhappy wretches,
spite of their monstrous age, the frightfulness
of the Curse they are under, and their
being men who are alive in death&mdash;corpses
reflecting vitality just as the dead moon
shines. But needs must where the Devil<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[119]</a></span>
drives; speculating will not serve; we must
wait."</p>

<p>I watched her whilst she looked at the sail
in our wake; emotion darkened and lightened
in the violet of her eyes as the blue folds of
Heaven seem to deepen and brighten with
the breathings of the wind; through her delicate
lips her rose-sweet breath came and went
swiftly. She started, looked at Van Vogelaar,
aloft at the canvas, round the deck, with
a sharp tremble running through her light
form, and cried out with an hysteric swiftness,
and in a voice full of tears, "You will
not leave me to this wretched fate, Mr.
Fenton! You will not leave me in this
dreadful ship!"</p>

<p>I grasped her hand. "I swear before the
Majesty of that offended God whose eye is
on this ship as we thus stand, that if I am
forced to leave you it will be at the cost of
my life!"</p>

<hr class="chap" />

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[120]</a></span></p>




<h2>CHAPTER VII.<br />

WE WATCH THE SHIP APPROACH US.</h2>


<p>We stood in silence for some moments, hand
in hand; then finding Van Vogelaar furtively
watching us, I quitted her side; at the same
moment Vanderdecken came on deck.</p>

<p>I went to the foremost end of the poop
and there stayed, leaning against the bulwark,
my mind very full of thought. Though
I had been in this vessel a week, yet now, as
on many occasions, I found myself conceiving
it to be a thing incredible that this craft
should be the famous Death Ship of tradition,
the talk and terror of the mariner's forecastle;
and such a feeling of mystification thickened
my brains that a sudden horror stung me
from head to foot with the sensation the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[121]</a></span>
nervous are possessed with, when, in a
sudden panic, they fear they are going out
of their minds. But, by keeping my eyes
fixed on Imogene, I succeeded ere long in
mastering this terrible emotion, even to the
extent of taking a cheerful view of my
situation; first, by considering that, for all
I knew, I had been led by the Divine hand
to this ship for the purpose of rescuing the
lovely girl from a fate more dismal and
shocking than tongue could utter or imagination
invent; and next, by reflecting that
if God spared my life so that I could
relate what I had seen, I should be famous
among sailors as the only seaman that had
ever been on board the Phantom Ship, as
she is foolishly styled, eaten with her commander,
mixed with her crew, beheld the
discipline of her, and looked narrowly into
all circumstances of her inner or hidden life.</p>

<p>It seemed to me incredible that any vessel
could encounter her and not guess what she<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[122]</a></span>
was, though, of course, I believed what
Imogene had said, that now and again an
unsuspicious ship would traffic with Vanderdecken
in such commodities as the one
wanted or the other had. If her character
was expressed at night by the fiery crawlings
like red-hot wire upon her, in the daytime
she discovered her nature by signs not indeed
so wild and terrifying, but to the full as
significant in a sailor's eyes. Supposing her
to have been built at Hoorn, in 1648&mdash;that
date, I believe, would represent her birth&mdash;there
would be nothing in the mere antiquity
of her hull, or even in the shape of it, to
convict her as Vanderdecken's ship; because
the difference between the bodies and forms
of ships of the time in which she was built
and those of many vessels yet afloat and
actively employed, would not be so great as
to let the mariner know what she was.
For instance, there was a vessel trading in
my time between Strangford and White<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[123]</a></span>haven
that was an hundred and thirty years
old. She was called the Three Sisters, and
the master was one Donnan; she was also
known by the name of the Port-a-Ferry
Frigate. Her burthen was thirty-six tons,
and 'twas positively known she was employed
at the siege of Londonderry, in 1689. Now,
here was a craft once beheld by me, who am
writing this, that was nearly as ancient as the
Flying Dutchman. She was often to be met
coasting, and, in consequence of her having
been the first vessel that ever entered the
Old Dock at Liverpool, was ever after made
free of all port charges. Yet, no sailor
shrank affrighted from her, no grave-yard
fires lived in her timbers; when encountered
at sea she was regarded as a venerable piece
of marine architecture, and that was all. But
why? Because her rig had been changed.
She had been a ship; when I knew her she
was a brigantine. Aloft she had been made
to keep pace with all improvements. Then<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[124]</a></span>
her hull was carefully preserved with paint,
her voyages were short, and she was constantly
being renewed and in divers ways
made good.</p>

<p>But this Death Ship was now as she had
been in 1653 when she set sail from Batavia
for her homeward passage. Aloft she was
untouched&mdash;that is, in respect of her original
aspect, if I save the varying thickness of her
standing gear, which would not be observable
at a short distance. For a century and a
half, when I met her, had she been washing
about in this ocean off the Cape of Storms,
and the exposure had rotted her through and
kindled the glow of deadwood in every pore.
It might be that the Curse which held her
crew living was not yet quick in her. By
which I mean that she had not yet come to
that condition of decay which would correspond
in a ship to the death of a human
being, so that the repairs, careening, calking
and the like which her men found necessary<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[125]</a></span>
for her might be found needful for some years
yet, when she would become as her crew
were&mdash;dead in time but staunch and enduring
so long as the Curse should be in force.</p>

<p>These were the speculations of a troubled
and bewildered mind. I glanced at the sail
astern and guessed it would not be long
before that shining pillar of canvas swept the
hull beneath it on to the delicate azure that
went trembling to the heavens there. Prins
had brought a chair for Imogene and she sat
near the tiller. Vanderdecken stood beside
her, watching the distant ship. Van Vogelaar,
who had the watch, stumped the weather
side of the poop, often coming abreast of
where I stood to leeward, and occasionally
sending a scowling furtive glance my way.
It was not my policy to intrude. Nay, the
rising of that vessel in our wake furnished a
particular emphasis to Imogene's advice to
me, for if haply I should irritate Vanderdecken
by some unwise remark or indiscreet<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[126]</a></span>
behaviour, and the ship should turn out an
Englishman and act in some such fashion as
did the Saracen, my life might have to pay
for the incivility of my countrymen.</p>

<p>I had the yearning of the whole ship's
company in me for a pipe of tobacco, but I
had parted with all I owned&mdash;which now
vexed me, for my generosity had brought me
no particular kindness from the men&mdash;and
had not the courage to solicit a whiff or two
from the skipper's little store. Sometimes
Imogene would turn her head as if to view
the ship or glance at the sea, but in reality to
mark if I was still on deck, but I could not
discover in her way of doing this the slightest
hint that I should approach her. Occasionally
Vanderdecken addressed her, often he
would stand apparently wrapped in thought,
heeding nothing but the vessel astern, if one
might suppose so from his eyes being bent
thitherwards. From time to time Van Vogelaar
picked up the glass and levelled it at the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[127]</a></span>
ship, and then put it down with an air of
angry impatience&mdash;though you found the
motion suggested rather than showed as
an actually definable thing the counterfeit
passion displayed in the gestures and carriage
of an automaton.</p>

<p>Leaning against the rail of the bulwarks
as high as my shoulder-blades, I quietly
waited for what was to come, yet with a
mind lively with curiosity and expectations.
What would Vanderdecken do? What
colours would the stranger show? How
would she behave? What part might I
have to take in whatever was to happen?
To be sure the stranger would not be up
with us for some while yet, but since breakfast
the breeze had slightly freshened, and
by the rapid enlargement of those shining
heights astern you knew that the wind had
but to gather a little more weight to swiftly
swirl yonder nimble craft up to within
musket-shot of this cumbrous ancient fabric.</p>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[128]</a></span></p>

<p>I looked over the rail, watching the sickly-coloured
side slipping sluggishly through the
liquid transparent blue, marbled sometimes
by veins and patches of foam, flung with a
sullen indifference of energy from the hewing
cutwater, on the top of which there projected
a great beak, where yet lingered the remains
of a figure-head that I had some time before
made out to represent an Hercules, frowning
down upon the sea with uplifted arms, as
though in the act of smiting with a club. It
was easy to guess that this ship had kept
the seas for some months since careening by
observing the shell-fish below the water-line,
and the strings of black and green weed she
lifted with every roll. But, uncouth as was
the fabric, gaunt as her aged furniture made
her decks appear, inconvenient and ugly as
was her rig, exhibiting a hundred signs of
the primitiveness in naval construction of the
age to which she belonged, yet, when I lifted
my eyes from the water to survey her, 'twas<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[129]</a></span>
not without a sentiment of veneration beyond
the power of the horror the supernaturalism
of her and her crew raised in me to correct.
For was it not by such ships as this that the
great and opulent islands and continents of
the world had been discovered and laid open
as theatres for posterity to act dazzling parts
in? Was it not with such ships as this that
battles were fought, the courage, audacity,
skill and fierce determination exhibited in
which many latter conflicts may, indeed,
parallel, but never in one single instance
surpass? Was it not by such ships as this
that the great Protector raised the name of
Britain to such a height as exceeds all we
read of in the history of ancient or modern
nations? What braver admirals, more skilful
soldiers, more valiant captains, stouter-hearted
mariners, have flourished than those
whose cannon flamed in thunder from the
sides of such ships as this?</p>

<p>Ay, 'twas a structure to dream in when<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[130]</a></span>
the soul could let slip the dread which the
thought of the Curse and the appearance of
the crew inspired; a wizard to hearken back
the imagination to olden times and show the
sun sparkling, and the Heavens blue, and
the sea azure in pictures, not more dead,
and not less vital either, than the company
who manned her, who were beings with
loving hearts and blood-fed skins in that
distant age into which she drove fancy,
romancing and recreating.</p>

<p>The time passed; at the hour of eleven, or
thereabouts the hull of the ship astern was
visible upon the water-line. The breeze had
freshened, and the long heave of the swell
left by the gale was whipped into wrinkles,
which melted into a creamy sparkling as they
ran. Under the sun, upon our starboard bow,
the ocean was kindled into glory; through
the trembling splendour the blue of the sea
surged up in fluctuating veins, and the conflict
of the sapphire dye welling up into the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[131]</a></span>
liquid dazzle, where it showed an instant,
ere being overwhelmed by the blaze on the
water, was a spectacle of beauty worthy
of life-long remembrance. Elsewhere, the
crisped plain of the ocean stretched darker
than the Heavens, under which were many
clouds, moving with full white bosoms like
the sails of ships, carrying tinted shinings
resembling wind-galls, or fragments of solar
rainbows, upon their shoulders or skirts,
as they happened to offer them to the
sun.</p>

<p>By this time you felt the stirring of
curiosity throughout the ship. Whatever
jobs the crew had been put to they now neglected,
that they might hang over the sides
or stand upon the rail to watch and study the
ship astern of us. Many had an avidity in
their stare that could not have been matched
by the looks of famine-stricken creatures.
Whether they were visited by some dim
sense or perception of their frightful lot and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[132]</a></span>
yearned, out of this weak emotion, for the
ship in pursuit, albeit they might not have
been able to make their wishes intelligible to
their own understandings, God knoweth.
'Twas moving to see them; one with the
sharp of his hand to his forehead, another
fixedly gazing out of a tangle of grey hair,
a third showing fat and ghastly to the sunlight,
a fourth with black eyes charged
with the slate-coloured patches of blindness,
straining his imperfect gaze under a bald
brow, corrugated into lines as hard as
iron.</p>

<p>Vanderdecken had left Imogene and stood
on the weather quarter with the mate. The
girl being alone, I walked aft to her and said
in English, feigning to speak of the weather
by looking aloft as I spoke, "I have held
aloof long enough, I think. He will not
object if I join you now?"</p>

<p>"No&mdash;his head is full of that ship yonder,"
she replied. "For my part I am as weary<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[133]</a></span>
of sitting as you must be of standing. Let
us walk a little. He has never yet objected
to our conversing. Why should he do so
now?"</p>

<p>So saying she rose. Her sheer weariness
of being alone, or of talking to Vanderdecken,
was too much for her policy of
caution. We fell to quietly pacing the poop
deck to leeward, and with a most keen and
exquisite delight I could taste in her manner
the gladness our being together filled her
with, and foresee the spirit of defiance to
danger and risks that would grow in her
with the growth of our love.</p>

<p>No notice was taken of us. The eyes and
thoughts of all were directed to the ship.
From time to time Vanderdecken or Van
Vogelaar would inspect her through the
glass. Presently Antony Arents and Jans,
the boatswain, joined them, and the four
conversed as though the captain had called
a council.</p>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[134]</a></span></p>

<p>"She is picking us up very fast," said I
to Imogene, whilst we stood awhile looking
at the vessel. "I should not like to swear
to her nationality; but that she is an armed
ship, whether French, or Dutch, or English,
is as certain as that she has amazingly lively
heels."</p>

<p>"How white her sails are, and how high
they rise!" exclaimed Imogene. "She leans
more sharply than we."</p>

<p>"Ay," said I, "she shows twice her
number of cloths. Is it not astonishing," I
continued, softening my voice, "that Vanderdecken,
and his mates and men, should
not guess that there is something very wrong
with them, from the mere contrast of such
beautifully cut and towering canvas as that
yonder with the scanty, storm-darkened rags
of sails under which this groaning old hull is
driven along?"</p>

<p>"Yes, at least to you and me, who have
the faculty of appreciating contrasts. But<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[135]</a></span>
think of them as deficient in all qualities but
those which are necessary for the execution
of the Sentence. Then their heedlessness is
that of a blind man, who remains insensible
to the pointing of your finger to the object
you speak to him about."</p>

<p>"Would to God you and I were quit of it
all," said I.</p>

<p>"We must pray for help, and hope for it
too!" she answered, with a swift glance at
me, that for a breathless moment carried the
violet beauty and shining depths of her eyes
fair to mine. An instant's meeting of our
gaze only! Yet I could see her heart in that
rapid, fearless, trustful look, as the depth of
the Heavens is revealed by a flash of summer
lightning.</p>

<p>Suddenly Vanderdecken gave orders for
the ensign to be hoisted. The boatswain
entered the little house, and returned with
the flag which he bent on to the halliards
rove at the mizzen topmast-head. The<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[136]</a></span>
colours mounted slowly to his mechanical
pulling, and they were worthy indeed of
the dead-and-alive hand that hoisted them,
being as ragged and attenuated with age as
any banner hung high in the dusty gloom
of a cathedral. But the flag was distinguishable
as the Hollander's ensign, as you saw
when it crazily streamed out its fabric, that
was so thin in places, you thought you spied
the sky through it. One should say it was
a flag seldom flown on board the Dutchman,
to judge from the manner in which
the crew cast their eyes up at it, never
a one of them smiling, indeed, though here
and there under the death-pallor there lay
a sort of crumpling of the flesh, as of a
grin. 'Twas a flag to drive thoughts of
home deep into them, and now and again
I would catch one muttering to another
behind his hand, whilst the most of them
continued to steadfastly regard the ensign
for many minutes after Jans had mast<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[137]</a></span>headed
it, as though they fancied home could
not be far distant with that flag telling of
it.</p>

<hr class="chap" />

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[138]</a></span></p>




<h2>CHAPTER VIII.<br />

THE CENTAUR FLIES FROM US.</h2>


<p>Now the Dutch flag had not been flying
twenty minutes when, my sight being keen,
I thought I could perceive something resembling
a colour at the fore-royal masthead of
the ship. I asked Imogene if she saw it. She
answered "No." I said nothing, not being
sure myself, and was unwilling to intrude
upon the four men standing to windward by
asking for the telescope. On board our ship
they had set the sprit-topsail, and the forward
part of the dull, time-eaten, rugged old
vessel resembled a Chinese kite. She was
doing her best; but let her splutter as she
would 'twas for all the world like the sailing
of a beer-barrel with a mast steeped in the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[139]</a></span>
bunghole. And this, thought I, was the
vessel that gave the slip to the frigate belonging
to Sir George Ascue's squadron!
The wake she made was short, broad and
oily&mdash;a square, fat, glistening surface of about
her own length&mdash;not greatly exceeding the
smoothness she would leave aweather if drifting
dead to leeward under bare poles; different
indeed from that suggestion of comet-like
speed which you find in the fleecy swirl of a
line of foaming waters boiling out from the
metalled run of a fleet cruiser, and rising and
falling and fading into dim distance like a
path of snow along a hilly land.</p>

<p>On board yonder ship they would have
perspective glasses of a power very different
from the flat lenses in Vanderdecken's tubes;
and since by this time it was certain they had
us large in their telescopes, what would they
be thinking of our huge, old-fashioned tops,
fitter for the bowmen and musqueteers of
Ferdinand Magellan and Drake than for<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[140]</a></span>
the small-armsmen of even the days of the
Commonwealth, of the antique cut of our
canvas and the wild and disordered appearance
its patches and colour submitted, of the
grisly aspect of the wave-worn, storm-swept
hull, of the peaked shape and narrowness of
our stern, telling of times long vanished, as
do the covers of an old book or the arches in
an ancient church?</p>

<p>Imogene and I continued our walk up and
down, talking of many things, chiefly of
England, whereof I gave her as much news,
down to the time of the sailing of the
Saracen, as I carried in my memory, until,
presently coming abreast of the group of
four, still on the weather quarter, every man
of whom, turn and turn about, had been working
away with the telescope at the ship,
Vanderdecken called me by name and
stepped over to us with the glass in his
hand.</p>

<p>"Your sight is younger than ours, myn<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[141]</a></span>heer,"
said he, motioning towards Jans and
the two mates. "What flag do you make
yonder vessel to be flying at her fore-topgallant
masthead?"</p>

<p>I took the glass and pointed it, kneeling to
rest it as before, and the instant the stranger
came within the lenses I beheld Britannia's
glorious blood-red St. George's Cross blowing
out&mdash;a great white flag betwixt the fore-royal
yard and the truck that rose high above.
Pretending to require time to make sure, I
lingered to gather, if possible, the character
of the ship. From the cut of her sails, the
saucy, admirable set of them, the bigness of
the topsails, the hungry yearning for us I
seemed to find in the bellying of the studding-sails
she had thrown out, it would have been
impossible for a nautical eye to mistake her
for anything but a State ship, though of what
rate I could not yet guess. There was a
refraction that threw her up somewhat, and
in the glass she looked to be swelling after us<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[142]</a></span>
in a bed of liquid boiling silver, with a thin
void of trembling blue between the whiteness
and the sea-line.</p>

<p>I rose and said, "The colour she shows is
English."</p>

<p>Vanderdecken turned savagely towards the
others and cried, "English!"</p>

<p>Arents let fly an oath; Jans struck his
thigh heavily with his open hand; Van
Vogelaar, scowling at me, cried, "Are you
sure, sir?"</p>

<p>"I am sure of the flag," said I; "but she
may prove a Frenchman for all I know."</p>

<p>Vanderdecken clasped his arms tightly
upon his breast and sank into thought, with
the fire in his eyes levelled at the coming
ship.</p>

<p>"See there, gentlemen!" I exclaimed. "A
gun!"</p>

<p>Bright as the morning was I had marked
a rusty red spark wink in the bow of the
vessel like a flash of sunshine from polished<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[143]</a></span>
copper; a little white ball blew away to leeward
expanding as it fled. An instant after,
just such another cloudy puff swept into the
jibs and drove out in a gleaming trail or two.
Presently the reports reached our ears in two
dull thuds, one after the other.</p>

<p>Vanderdecken stared aloft at his canvas,
then over the side, and joined the others.
My excitement was intense; I could scarce
contain myself. I knew there was a British
squadron at the Cape, and 'twas possible that
fellow there might be on a reconnoitring or
cruising errand.</p>

<p>"You are sure she is English?" Imogene
whispered.</p>

<p>"She is a man-of-war; she is flying our
flag. I don't doubt she is English," I replied.</p>

<p>The girl drew a long tremulous breath, and
her arm touching mine&mdash;so close together we
stood&mdash;I felt a shiver run through her.</p>

<p>"You are not alarmed, Imogene?" I exclaimed,
giving her her Christian name for<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[144]</a></span>
the first time, and finding a lover's sweetness
and delight in the mere uttering of it. She
coloured very faintly and cast her gaze upon
the deck.</p>

<p>"What is going to happen?" she whispered.
"Will they send you on board that
ship&mdash;keeping me?"</p>

<p>"No! they'll not do that. If she be an
Englishman and has balls to feed her cannon
with&mdash;&mdash;" I cried, raising my voice unconsciously.</p>

<p>"Hush!" she cried, "Van Vogelaar
watches us."</p>

<p>We were silent for a space that the attention
I had challenged should be again given
to the ship. During the pause I thought to
myself, "But can her guns be of use? How
much hulling and wounding should go to the
destruction of a vessel that has been rendered
imperishable by the Curse of Heaven?
What injury could musket and pistol, could
cutlass and hand-grenades deal men to whom<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[145]</a></span>
Death has ceased to be, who have outlived
Time and are owned by Eternity?"</p>

<p>Vanderdecken, who had been taking short
turns upon the deck with heated strides,
stopped afresh to inspect the ship, and as he
did so another flash broke from her weather-bow,
and the smoke went from her in a curl.
The skipper looked at the others.</p>

<p>"She has the wind of us and sails three
feet to our one. Let the mainsail be hauled
up and the topsail brought to the mast. If
she be the enemy her flag denotes, her
temper will not be sweetened by a long pursuit
of which the issue is clear."</p>

<p>Van Vogelaar, scowling venomously,
seemed to hang in the wind, on which
Vanderdecken looked at him with an expression
of face incredibly fierce and terrible.
The posture of his giant figure, his half-lifted
hand, the slight forward inclination of his
head as if he would blast his man with the
lightning of his eyes&mdash;it was like seeing<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[146]</a></span>
some marvellous personification of human
wrath; and I whispered quickly into Imogene's
ear, "That will be how he appeared
when he defied his God!"</p>

<p>It was as if he could not speak for rage.
And swiftly was he understood. In a breath
Jans was rolling forward, calling to the men,
Arents was hastening to his station on the
quarter-deck, and Van Vogelaar was slinking
to the foremost end of the poop. The crew,
to the several cries that broke from the
mates and boatswain, dropped from rail and
ratline, where they had been standing staring
at the pursuing craft, and in ghastly silence,
without exhibition of concern or impatience,
fell to hauling upon the clew-garnets and
backing the yards on the main.</p>

<p>So weak was the ship's progress that the
bringing of the canvas to the mast immediately
stopped her way, and she lay as dead
as a buoy upon the heave of the sea. This
done, the crew went to the weather side,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[147]</a></span>
whence, as they rightly supposed, they would
best view the approaching vessel. Jans held
to the forecastle, Arents to the quarter-deck,
and the mate hung sullen in the shadows cast
by the mizzen-shrouds upon the planks. My
heart beat as quickly as a baby's. I could
not imagine what was to happen. Would
yonder man-of-war, supposing her British,
take possession of the Braave?&mdash;that is,
could she? English powder, with earthquake
power, has thrown up a mighty
mountain of wonders; but could it, with its
crimson glare, thunder down the Curse by
and in which, this ship continued to sail and
these miserable men continued to live? I
shuddered at the impiety of the thought, yet
what ending of this chase was to be conjectured
if it were not capture?</p>

<p>Vanderdecken, on the weather quarter,
watched the ship in his trance-like fashion.
How majestic, how unearthly, too, he looked
against the blue beyond, his beard stirring<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[148]</a></span>
and waving like smoke in a faintly moving
atmosphere to the blowing of the wind! He
wore the aspect of a fallen god, with the fires
of hell glittering in his eyes and the passions
of the damned surging dark from his soul to
his face. Imogene and I had insensibly
gained the lee-quarter, and our whispers were
driven seawards from him by the breeze.</p>

<p>"How will this end?" I asked my sweet
companion. "If there be potency in the
Curse this ship cannot be captured."</p>

<p>She answered: "I cannot guess; I have
not known such a thing as this to happen
before."</p>

<p>"Suppose they send a prize crew on board&mdash;the
Sentence will not permit of her navigation
beyond Agulhas&mdash;there is not a hawser
in all the world stout enough to tow this ship
round the Cape. As it is, is not yonder
vessel doomed by her chasing us, by her
resolution to speak us?"</p>

<p>There was a deep stillness fore and aft.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[149]</a></span>
No human voice broke the silence. You
heard but the purring of the surges frothing
against our sides, the flap of a sail to the
regular roll of the fabric, a groan from the
heart of her, the soft shock of the sudden hit
of a billow. Nothing more. The silence of
the unmeasurable deep grew into a distinct
sense undisturbed by the gentle universal
hissing that went up out of it. The sails of
the oncoming ship shone to the gushing of
the sunlight like radiant leaning columns of
a porphyritic tincture breaking into moonlike
alabaster with the escape of the shadows to
the sunward stare of the cloths. Bland as
the fairy glory of the full moon floating in
a sea of ethereal indigo was the shining of
those lustrous bosoms, each course and topsail
tremulous with the play of the golden
fringe of reef-points, and delicate beyond
language was the pencilled shadowings at the
foot of the rounded cloths. Like cloud upon
cloud those sails soared to the dainty little<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[150]</a></span>
royals, above the foremost of which there
blew Britannia's glorious flag, the blood-red
cross of St. George upon a field white as the
foam that boiled to as high as the hawse
pipes with the churning of the shearing cutwater
storming like a meteor through the
blue. Oh, she was English! You felt the
blood of her country hot in her with the
sight of her flag that was like a crown
upon an hereditary brow, making her queen
of the dominion of the sea, roll where it
would!</p>

<p>She approached us like a roll of smoke,
and the wash of the froth along her black
and glossy bends threw out the mouths of
her single tier of cannon. She was apparently
a thirty-eight-gun ship, and as she
drew up, with a luffing helm that brought the
after-yard-arms stealing out past the silky
swells of the sails on the fore, you spied the
glitter and flash of the gold-coloured figure-head,
a lion, with its paw upon Britannia's<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[151]</a></span>
shield. When she was within a mile of us
she hauled down her studding-sails, clewed
up her royals and mizzen topgallant sail, and
drove quietly along upon our weather-quarter,
still heeling as though she would have us
note how lustrous was the copper, whose
brightness rose to the water-line, and what
finish that ruddy sheathing, colouring the
snow of the blue water leaping along it with
a streaking as of purple sunshine, gave to her
charms.</p>

<p>All this while, the master, mates and crew
of the Death Ship were as mute as though
they lay in their coffins. Vanderdecken
leaned upon his hand on the rail above the
quarter-gallery, and the motion which the
heave of the ship gave to his giant form by
the sweeping of it up and down the heavens
at the horizon emphasised his own absolute
motionlessness. Nevertheless, his gaze was
rooted in the ship, and the brightening of
the angry sparkle in them to the nearing of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[152]</a></span>
the man-of-war was a never-to-be-forgotten
sight.</p>

<p>"How is this going to end?" I whispered
to Imogene. "Is it possible that they are
still unable to guess the character of our
vessel?"</p>

<p>The frigate had drawn close enough to
enable us to make out the glint of buttons
and epaulets on the quarter-deck, the uniform
of marines on the forecastle, and the heads of
seamen standing by the braces or at the guns
along the decks. She now hauled up her
mainsail but without backing her topsail,
luffed so as to shake the way out of her,
giving us, as she did so, an oblique view of
her stern very richly ornamented, the glass
of the windows flashing, and the blue swell
brimming to her name in large characters,
"Centaur."</p>

<p>"Ship ahoy!" came thundering down
through the trumpet at the mouth of a tall,
powerfully-built man erect on the rail close<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[153]</a></span>
against the mizzen-rigging: "What ship is
that?"</p>

<p>Vanderdecken made no answer. The wind
blew in a moaning gust over the bulwark,
and there was the sound of a little jar and
shock as the old fabric leaned wearily on the
swell, but not a whisper fell from the men.
Meanwhile it was grown evident to me that
our ship was greatly puzzling the people of
the frigate. It looked indeed as if the men
had left their stations to crowd to the side,
for the line of the bulwarks was blackened
with heads. A group of officers stood on
the quarter-deck, and I could see them pointing
at our masts as though calling one
another's attention to the Braave's great
barricadoed tops, to her sprit-topmast, the
cut and character of her rigging, and to
the many signs that would convert her into
a wonder, if not a terror, in the eyes of
sailors.</p>

<p>"Ship ahoy!" now came down again, with<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[154]</a></span>
an edge of anger in the hurricane note.
"What ship is that?"</p>

<p>At this second cry Vanderdecken broke
into life. He turned his face forward.
"Bring me my trumpet!" he exclaimed, in a
voice whose rich, organ-like roll must have
been plainly heard on board the frigate,
whether his Dutch was understood or not.
The ancient tube I had seen in his cabin was
put into his hand. He stepped to the rail,
and placing the trumpet to his mouth, cried,
"The Braave."</p>

<p>"Where are you from?"</p>

<p>"Batavia!"</p>

<p>"Where bound?"</p>

<p>"Amsterdam!"</p>

<p>There was another pause. The line of
heads throbbed with visible agitation along
the sides, and I saw one man of the group on
the quarter-deck go up to the captain, who
was speaking our ship, touch his cap, and say
something. But the other imperiously waved<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[155]</a></span>
him off with a flourish of his trumpet, which
he instantly after applied to his lips, and
shouted out, "Haul down your flag and I
will send a boat."</p>

<p>Vanderdecken looked towards me. "What
does he say?" he exclaimed.</p>

<p>I told him. He called to Van Vogelaar,
who promptly enough came to the halliards
and lowered the flag to the deck. I watched
the descent of that crazy, attenuated, ragged
symbol. To my mind it was as affrighting
in its suggestions of unholy survival as the
whole appearance of the vessel or the countenance
and mechanic manners of the most
corpse-like man of the crew of her.</p>

<p>Scarce was the ensign hauled down when
there came to our ears the silver, cheerful
singing of a boatswain's pipe, the main-topsail
was laid aback and the frigate's length
showed out as she fell slightly off from the
luff that had held her canvas trembling in the
wind. We were too far asunder for the nice<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[156]</a></span>
discernment of faces with the naked eye, but
methought since there seemed no lack of
telescopes aboard the frigate, enough should
have been made out of the line of deadly
faces which looked over our bulwark-rail, to
resolve us to the satisfaction of that British
crew.</p>

<p>Again was heard the silver chirping of the
boatswain's whistle; a pinnace was lowered,
into which tumbled a number of armed seamen,
and the blades of eight oars flashed like
gold as they rose feathering from the first
spontaneous dip.</p>

<p>"They are coming!" cried Imogene in a
faint voice.</p>

<p>"Let us keep where we are," I exclaimed,
"Vanderdecken does not heed us. If we
move his thoughts will fly to you, and he may
give me trouble. Dear girl, keep a stout
heart. They will be sure to carry us to the
ship&mdash;proud to rescue you, at least; then,
what follows must come&mdash;you will be safe!"</p>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[157]</a></span></p>

<p>She put her hand under my arm. Tall as
were the bulwarks of the Braave, there was
swell enough so to roll the ship as to enable
me with every windward sway to see clear to
the water where the boat was pulling. With
beating hearts we watched. On a sudden
the oars ceased to rise and fall; the seamen
hung upon them, all to a man, staring at our
ship with heads twisted as if they would
wring their necks; then, as if impelled by
one mind, they let fall their oars to stop the
boat's way, all of them gazing with straining
eyeballs.</p>

<p>The officer who steered stood erect, peering
at us under his hand. The ship, God
knows, was plain to their view now&mdash;the age
and rottenness of her timbers, her patch-work
sails, the sickliness of such ghastly and
dismal hue as her sides discovered, the
ancientness of her guns and swivels; above
all, the looks of the crew watching the boat's
approach&mdash;an array of figures more shocking<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[158]</a></span>
than were they truly dead, newly unfrocked
of their winding sheets and propped up
against the rail to horribly counterfeit living
seamen.</p>

<p>"Why have they ceased rowing?" cried
Imogene, in a voice of bitter distress, and
withdrawing her hand from my arm to press
it upon her heart.</p>

<p>As she spoke a sudden commotion was
perceptible among the men in the boat; the
officer shrilly crying out some order, flung
himself, as one in a frenzy, in the sternsheets;
the larboard oars sparkled, and the desperate
strokes of the men made the foam fly in
smoke, whilst the starboard hands furiously
backed-water to get the boat's head round
swiftly, and before you could have counted
ten she was being pulled, in a smother of
froth, back to the frigate.</p>

<p>I was about to leap to the side and shout
to them, but at the instant Vanderdecken
turned and looked at me. Then it flashed<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[159]</a></span>
upon my mind, "If I hail the boat, he and
Van Vogelaar, all of them, may imagine I
design to inform the frigate of the treasure!"&mdash;and
the apprehension of what might follow
such a suspicion held my feet glued to the
deck.</p>

<p>"They have guessed what this ship is!"
said Imogene, in a voice full of tears.</p>

<p>I could not speak for the crushing disappointment
that caused the heart in me to
weigh down, heavy as lead. I had made
sure of the officer stepping on board, and
of his delivering the girl and me from this
accursed ship on hearing my story, and acting
as a British naval officer should when his
duty as a sailor, or his chivalry as a man, is
challenged; in conformity with that noble
saying of one of our most valiant admirals,
who, on being asked whither he intended to
carry his ship&mdash;"To Hell!" he answered, "if
duty commands!"</p>

<p>Yet one hope lingered, though faintly<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[160]</a></span>
indeed; the captain of the frigate had imperiously
commanded the boat to be manned,
as I gathered by his manner of waving away
the officer, who had addressed him in a
remonstrant manner; would he suffer the
return of the boat's crew until they had
obeyed his orders?</p>

<p>I watched. Headlong went the boat,
smoking through the billows which arched
down upon her from the windward, and her
oars sparkled like sheet lightning with the
panic-terror that plied them; the excitement
in the ship was visible enough, discipline had
given way to superstitious fear. I could see
the captain flourishing his arm with threatening
gestures, lieutenants and midshipmen
running here and there, but to no purpose.
The whole ship's company, about three hundred
sailors and marines as I supposed, knew
what ship we were, and the very frigate herself
as she rolled without way, looked like
some startled beast mad for flight, the foam<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[161]</a></span>
draining from her bows to the slow pitching,
as a terrified steed champs his bit into froth,
and shudder after shudder going up out of
her heart of oak into her sails, as you would
have said to watch the tremble and filling and
backing of them to the wind.</p>

<p>It was as I had feared, and had the captain
of the man-of-war promised to blow his ship
and men into a thousand atoms if the boat's
crew refused to obey his orders to board us,
they would have accepted that fate in preference
to the hideous alternative adventure.
In a trice the pinnace was alongside the
frigate, the crew over the rail, and the boat
hoisted. The yards on the main flew round,
royals and topgallant-sails were set, studding-sails
were run aloft, and before ten minutes
had elapsed since the boat had started to
board us, the frigate, under a whole cloud of
canvas, was heeling and gently rolling and
pitching over the brilliant blue sea, with her
head north east, her stern dead at us, the gilt<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[162]</a></span>
there and the windows converting her betwixt
her quarters into the appearance of a huge
sparkling square of crystal, the glory of
which flung upon her wake under it a splendour
so great that it was as though she had
fouled a sunbeam and was dragging the
dazzle after her.</p>

<p>I looked at Imogene; her beautiful eyes
had yearned after the ship into the dimness
of tears.</p>

<p>"My dear, do not fret,", said I, again
calling her my dear, for I still lacked the
courage to call her my love; "this experience
makes me clear on one point: we shall
escape, but not by a ship."</p>

<p>"How, if not by a ship?" she cried,
tremulously.</p>

<p>Before I could reply, Vanderdecken looked
round upon us, and came our way, at the
same time telling Van Vogelaar to swing the
topsail-yard and board his main tack.</p>

<p>"'Tis in this fashion," he exclaimed, "that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[163]</a></span>
most of the ships I meet serve me. It would
be enough to make me deem your countrymen
a lily-livered lot if the people of other
nations, my own included, did not sheer off
before I could explain my needs or learn
their motives in desiring to board us. What
alarmed the people of that ship, think you,
mynheer?"</p>

<p>"Who can tell, sir?" I responded, in as
collected a manner as I could contrive.
"They might suspect us hardly worth the
trouble of capturing&mdash;&mdash;"</p>

<p>He motioned an angry dissent.</p>

<p>"Or," I continued, abashed and speaking
hurriedly, "they might have seen something
in the appearance of your crew to promise a
bloody resistance."</p>

<p>"By the Holy Trinity!" he cried, with the
most vehement scorn, "if such a thing were
conceivable I should have been glad to confirm
it with a broadside!" and his eye came
from the frigate that was fast lessening in the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[164]</a></span>
distance to his poor show of rust-eaten sakers
and green-coated swivels.</p>

<p>It was sure that he had no suspicion of the
truth. Not knowing that he and his ship
were accurst, how was it possible for him to
guess the cause of the behaviour of the ships
which fled from him? You would suppose
that he and the rest of the crew discovered
many signs of satisfaction and delight at this
escape from a ship to whose commands they
had hauled down their flag; instead, they
hung upon the rail watching the frigate shifting
her helm for a hasty flight without a
murmur, a note of speech; nothing appeared
in them but a dull, leaden, Dutch phlegmatic
curiosity, if indeed this quality at all possessed
them, and when Van Vogelaar sang out to
them to brace round the yards on the main,
they fell to the job of trimming sail and
getting way on the ship with an incredible
ghastly indifference in their countenances
and in their movements, as they went about<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[165]</a></span>
their silent labour. Indeed, whatever passions
they had seemed to pertain to what
was to come; I mean, the heaving in sight of
a ship would make them eager for tobacco or
for whatever else they needed and she might
have; but when the incident, the adventure,
the experience&mdash;call it what you will&mdash;was
passed, they turned a black and passionless
mind upon it, without the capacity of grief or
gladness.</p>

<p>It was an hour after our usual dinner-time,
and Prins arrived to tell the captain the meal
was on the table. He put Imogene's hand
under his arm caressingly, and I followed
them with one wistful look at the frigate that
was already a toy and far off, melting like a
cloud into the junction of sapphire ether and
violet ocean. I saw Vanderdecken level a
glance at her too, and as we entered the
cabin he said, addressing me, but without
turning his head, and leading Imogene to the
table. "It will be a disappointment to you,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[166]</a></span>
mynheer, that your countrymen would not
stay to receive you?"</p>

<p>"It was your intention," said I, "that I
should go with them?"</p>

<p>"Certainly," he answered, confronting me
slowly and eyeing me haughtily; "you
are an Englishman, but you are not my
prisoner."</p>

<p>"We may be more fortunate next time," I
said, coldly.</p>

<p>"'Tis to be hoped!" said Van Vogelaar,
who had followed last, speaking in his
harshest and sourest tone.</p>

<p>I turned to eye him; but at the moment
the parrot, probably animated by our voices,
croaked out, hoarsely, "Wy Zyn al Verdomd!"
on which the fellow broke into a coarse,
raw "ha! ha!" yet never stirring a muscle
of his storm-hammered face. 'Twould have
been like fighting with phantoms and fiends
to war in words with these men. I am here,
thought I, and there is yonder sweetheart<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[167]</a></span>
to rescue before I am done with this Death
Ship; and with a smile at her earnest, half-startled
eyes I seated myself.</p>

<hr class="chap" />

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[168]</a></span></p>




<h2>CHAPTER IX.<br />

CAPTAIN VANDERDECKEN WALKS IN HIS
SLEEP.</h2>


<p>This incident of the English frigate satisfied
me that it was Vanderdecken's intention to
get rid of me at the first opportunity that
offered. There could be no doubt that Van
Vogelaar had poisoned his mind against me,
for, certainly, at the start of this experience
of mine, the skipper had treated me with
humanity and a sort of heated, lofty courtesy;
and since he deemed himself homeward
bound, and regarded his vessel as a good
sailer, he would not think it necessary to
tranship me if his mind had not been
acidulated.</p>

<p>I remember when the evening came on<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[169]</a></span>
that same day we had been chased and
abandoned by the Centaur, walking up and
down the lee-side of the short poop alone,
Arents, who had charge, standing silent near
the helmsman. I had worked myself up into
great confusion and distress of mind. Dejection
had been followed by a fit of nervousness,
and when I looked around me at the
unmeasurable waste of ocean darkling in the
east to the growing shadows there, at the
ancient heights of canvas above me, with the
dingy rusty red of the western light slipping
from the hollow breasts and off the sallow
spars, till the edges of the sails melted into a
spectral faintness upon the gradual gloom, at
the desolate, grassy appearance of the decks,
the dull motions, the death-like posture of the
three or four men standing here and there
forward&mdash;I felt as if the curse of the ship had
fallen upon my heart and life too&mdash;that it was
my doom to languish in her till my death&mdash;to
love and yet be denied fruition&mdash;to yearn for<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[170]</a></span>
our release with the same impotency of desire
that governed the navigation of this Death
Ship towards the home it was the Will of
God she was never to approach.</p>

<p>Yet in any other mood I should have
found an exquisite repose for the soul in this
interval. There was an aroma as of the
tropics in the gentle north-west wind. The
ship, faintly impelled, went with a small curl
of silver at her bow, as softly along the sea as
the reflection of a star slides upon the brow
of a smooth swell. The peace of the grave
was in the floating tomb, and had my spirits
been easy there would have been something
of the delicious rapture of intellectual enjoyment
that the opium smoker is said to inhale
through the stem of his pipe in the indolent
watching of this ancient ship, swimming out
of daylight into darkness, with the reflected
hectic on the larboard beam creeping like
vermilioned smoke up her masts and over
her sails, and vanishing off the trucks like the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[171]</a></span>
trailing skirts of some heavenward flying
vision.</p>

<p>On turning from a short contemplation of
the sea over the stern, I observed Imogene,
at the head of the ladder conducting from the
poop to the quarter-deck, watching me. It
was the first opportunity which had offered
for speaking with her alone since dinner-time.</p>

<p>"Captain Vanderdecken has gone to his
cabin to take some rest," said she. "I knew
you were above by your tread."</p>

<p>"Ah! you can recognise me by that?"</p>

<p>"Yes, and by the dejection in it, too," she
answered, smiling. "There is human feeling
in the echo; the footfalls of the others are as
meaningless as the sound of wood smitten by
wood."</p>

<p>"I am very dull and weary-hearted," said
I. "Thanks be to God that you are in this
ship to give me hope and warmth."</p>

<p>"And I thank Him, too, for sending you
to me," said she.</p>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[172]</a></span></p>

<p>I took her hand and kissed it; indeed, but
for Arents and the helmsman, I should have
taken her to my heart with my lips upon
hers. "Let us walk a little," said I. "We
will step softly. We do not want the captain
to surprise us."</p>

<p>I took her hand, and we slowly paced the
deck.</p>

<p>"All the afternoon," said I, "I have been
considering how we are to escape. There is
no man among this ghostly crew who has a
friendly eye for me, and so whatever is done
must be done by me alone."</p>

<p>"You must trust no one," she cried,
quickly; "the plan you light upon must be
our secret. There is a demon imprisoned in
Vanderdecken; if it should be loosed he
might take your life!"</p>

<p>"I don't doubt it. And suppose I went
armed, my conflict would be with deathless
men! No! no! my plan must be our secret,
as you say. But what is it? If but a gleam<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[173]</a></span>
of light sank its ray into this darkness I
should take heart."</p>

<p>She pressed my hand, saying, "The
frigate's abandoning of us has depressed you.
But an opportunity will surely come."</p>

<p>"Yes, the behaviour of the frigate has
depressed me. But why? Because she has
made me see that the greatest calamity which
could befall us would be our encountering a
ship willing to parley with us."</p>

<p>"Is it so?"</p>

<p>"I fear; because Vanderdecken would
send me to her, and separate us." Then
bethinking me, by observing her head sink,
how doleful and unmanly was such reasoning
as this, such apprehension of what might be,
without regard to the possibility of our salvation
lying in the very circumstance or
situation I dreaded, I said, heartening my
voice, "Imogene, though I have no plan,
yet my instincts tell me that our best, perhaps
our sole chance of escaping from this ship<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[174]</a></span>
will be in some necessity arising for her to
drop anchor off the coast, for careening, or for
procuring provisions and water. Think, my
dear, closely of it! We dare not count upon
any ship we meet taking such action as will
ensure our joint deliverance. No body of
seamen, learning what vessel this is, would
have anything to do with her. Then, as to
escaping from her at sea, even if it were in
the power of these weak, unaided arms to
hoist one of those boats there over the side
unperceived, I know not whether my love
for thee, Imogene&mdash;whether, O forgive me if
I grieve you&mdash;&mdash;"</p>

<p>She stirred her hand, as if to remove it,
but I held it the tighter, feeling in the warm
and delicate palm the dew that emotion was
distilling there.</p>

<p>She was silent, and we came to a stand.
She said in a weak and trembling voice:
"You do not grieve me. Why should I
grieve to be loved?"</p>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[175]</a></span></p>

<p>"You are beautiful and good and a sailor's
child, my dearest," said I.</p>

<p>"And friendless."</p>

<p>"No! bid me say I love thee?"</p>

<p>She bade me whisper, drawing closer to
me. I swiftly kissed her cheek that was cold
with the evening wind. Great Heaven!
what a theatre was this for love-making. To
think of the sweetest, in our case the purest,
of emotions having its birth in, owing its
growth to, the dreaded fabric of the Death
Ship! Yet I, that a short while ago was
viewing the vessel with despondency and
fear and loathing, now for a space found her
transfigured! The kiss my darling had permitted,
her gentle speech, the caress that lay
in her drawing close to me, had kindled a
light in my heart, and the lustre was upon
the ship; a faint radiance viewless to the
sight, but of a power to work such transformation,
that instead of a gaunt phosphoric
structure sailing through the dusk, there<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[176]</a></span>
floated under the stars a fabric whose sails
might have been of satin, whose cordage
might have been formed of golden threads,
whose decks might have been fashioned out
of pearl!</p>

<p>We were silent for awhile, and then she
said, in a coyly-coquettish voice with a
happy note of music in it, "What were you
saying, Mr. Fenton, when you interrupted
yourself?"</p>

<p>"Dear heart!" cried I, "you must call me
Geoffrey now."</p>

<p>"What were you saying, Geoffrey?" said
she.</p>

<p>"Why," I replied, "that even were it
possible for me to secure one of those boats,
and launch it unperceived, my love would
not suffer me to expose you to the perils of
such an adventure."</p>

<p>"My life is in your keeping, Geoffrey,"
said she. "You need but lead&mdash;I will follow.
Yet there is one thing you must consider: if<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[177]</a></span>
we escape to the land, which seems to me the
plan that is growing in you&mdash;&mdash;"</p>

<p>I said, "Yes," watching the sparkling of
the stars in her eyes, which she had fixed
on mine.</p>

<p>"Are not the perils which await us there
greater than any the sea can threaten, supposing
we abandoned ourselves to its mercy
in that little boat yonder? There are many
wild beasts on the coast; often in the
stillness of the night, when we have been
lying at anchor, have I heard the roaring and
trumpeting of them. And more dreadful
and fearful than leopards, wild elephants
and terrible serpents&mdash;all of which abound,
dear&mdash;crocodiles in the rivers and poisonous,
tempting fruit and herbs&mdash;are the savages,
the hideous, unclothed Kaffres, and the barbarous
tribes which I have heard my father
tell of as occupying the land for leagues and
leagues from the Cape to the coast opposite
the Island of Madagascar."</p>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[178]</a></span></p>

<p>A strange shudder ran through her, and
letting slip my hand to take my arm&mdash;for
now that she knew I loved her she passed
from her girlish coyness into a bride-like
tenderness and freedom, and put a caressing
manner into her very walk as she paced at
my side&mdash;she cried, "Oh, do you know,
Geoffrey, if ever a nightmare freezes my
heart it is when I dream I am taken captive
by one of those black tribes, and carried
beyond the mountains to serve as a slave."</p>

<p>There was so much truth in what she said
that I could not listen to her without an
emotion of distress; since, my own judgment
forbidding the escape by the boat&mdash;if it were
possible for us so to escape&mdash;her dread of the
land was like the complete shutting out of all
self-deliverance. However, I felt that no
good could come of a conversation that
insensibly led us into disheartening reflections,
so I gradually worked our thoughts into
another channel, and presently found myself<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[179]</a></span>
breathing my passion afresh into her ear and
hearkening to hurried answers, sighed rather
than spoken, so gentle was her utterance.
The dusk had thickened into night, the stars
swung in glory to the majestical motion of
the mastheads, there was a curl of moon in
the west like a paring of pearl designed for a
further enrichment of the jewelled skies, the
phosphor trembled along the decks, and all
substantial outlines swam into indistinctness
in an atmosphere that seemed formed of fluid
indigo. Visible against the luminaries past
the quarter-gallery was the figure of the
mate; but the helmsman near him was
shrouded by the pale haze that floated
smoke-like about the binnacle. Flakes of
the sea-glow slipped slowly past upon the
black welter as though the patches of stardust
on high mirrored themselves in this
silent ebony water. From time to time a
brilliant meteor flashed out upon the night
and sailed into a ball of fire that far outshone<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[180]</a></span>
the glory of the greatest stars. The dew fell
lightly; the crystals trembled along the rail
and winked to the stirring of the wind with
the sharp sparkle of diamonds; and though
we were in the cold season, yet the light
breeze, having a flush of northing in it, was
pure refreshment without touch of cold, so
that a calmer, fairer night than this I do not
conceive ever descended upon a ship at sea.</p>

<p>I was a young fellow in those days. My
passion for the lonely and lovely girl who
walked beside me was keen and hot; that
she loved me as I loved her I could not be
certain, for women are slower, and therefore
the surer, in their capacity of loving than
men; but that she did love me she made me
know by a subtle sweetness of words and
behaviour. I was young, I say, of a naturally
merry and sanguine heart, and the gladness
of my love entered into the night, smoothing
out all the alarms and anxieties from my
mind, and making me so much myself that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[181]</a></span>
for my light spirits I might have been on
board some English ship with my sweetheart,
swiftly heading for home, instead of treading
with her the deck of a vessel accurst of
Heaven, and moving through the night, a
ghostly shadow palely gleaming with death-fires,
on a voyage that was never to have an
end.</p>

<p>Thrice the clock struck in the cabin, and
whenever the first chime sounded I would
start as if we were near land and the sound
was the note of a distant cathedral bell; and
punctually with the last stroke would come
the rasping voice of the parrot, reminding all
who heard it of their condition. Occasionally,
Arents moved, but never by more than a
stride or two; forward all was dead blackness
and stillness, the blacker for the unholy,
elusive shinings, the stiller for the occasional
sighing of the wind, for the thin, shaling
sound of waters, gently stemmed, for the
moan now and again that floated muffled out<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[182]</a></span>
of the hold of the ship. Twice Imogene said
she must leave me; but I could not bear to
part with her. The night was our own, yea,
even the ship, in her solitude wrought by the
silent figures aft and the tomb-like repose
forward, seemed our own; and my darling,
being in her heart as loth as I to separate,
lingered yet and yet till the silver sickle of
the moon had gone down red into the
western ocean, and the clock below had
struck half-past eleven.</p>

<p>Then she declared it was time, indeed, for
her to be gone; should Vanderdecken come
on deck and find her with me he might
decide to part us effectually by sending me
forward, and forbidding me to approach the
cabin end; so, finding her growing alarmed,
and hearing the quick beating of her heart in
her speech, I said, "Good-night," kissing her
hand, and then releasing her. She seemed
to hurry, stopped and looked behind; I stood
watching her; seeing her stop, I held out my<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[183]</a></span>
arms, and went to her, and she returned to
me. With what love did I kiss her upturned
brow, and hold her to my heart!</p>

<p>She was yet in my arms, when the great
figure of Vanderdecken rose above the ladder,
and ere I could release her he was close to
us, towering in shadow like some giant spirit.
The start I gave caused her to turn; she saw
him, and instantly grasping my hand drew
me against the bulwark, where we stood
waiting for him to speak. Love will give
spirit to the pitifullest recreant, and had I
been the most craven-hearted of men the
obligation to stand between such a sweetheart
as Imogene and one whom she feared,
though he stood as high as Goliath, would
have converted me into a hero. But I was
no coward; I could look back to my earliest
experiences and feel that with strictest confidence.
Yet, spite of the animating presence
of Imogene, the great figure standing in front
of us chilled, subdued, terrified me. Had he<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[184]</a></span>
been mortal I could not have felt so; nay,
had his demeanour, his posture, been that
which intercourse with him had made familiar,
I should not have suffered from the superstitious
fears which held me motionless, and
made my breathing laboured. But there was
something new and frightful in the pause he
made abreast of us, in the strange and menacing
swinging of his arms, in the pose of his
head defiantly held back, and in his eyes,
which shone with a light that owed nothing
to the stars, in the pallid gloom of his face.
His gaze seemed to be rivetted on the ocean-line
a little abaft of where we stood, and
therefore did he appear to confront us. The
expression in his face I could not distinguish,
but I feebly discerned an aspect of distortion
about the brow, and clearly made out that
his under-jaw was fallen so as to let his mouth
lie open, causing him to resemble one whose
soul was convulsed by some hideous vision.</p>

<p>Imogene pressed my hand. I looked at<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[185]</a></span>
her, and she put her white forefinger to her
mouth, saying in accents so faint, that they
were more like the whispers one hears in
memory than the utterance of human lips:
"He is walking in his sleep. In a moment
he will act a part. I have seen this thing
once before;" and so fairily speaking she
drew me lightly towards the deeper gloom
near the bulwarks where the mizzen-rigging
was.</p>

<p>For some moments he continued standing
and gazing seawards, slowly swinging his
arms in a way that suggested fierce yet
almost controlled distress of mind. He then
started to walk, savagely patrolling the deck,
sweeping past us so close as to brush us with
his coat, then crossing athwartships and
madly pacing the other side of the deck,
sometimes stopping with a passionate violent
suddenness at the binnacle, at the card of
which he seemed to stare, then with denunciatory
gesture resuming his stormy striding<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[186]</a></span>
now lengthwise, now crosswise, now swinging
his great figure into an abrupt stand to view
the sea, first to starboard then to larboard,
now standing aloft; and all with airs and gestures
as though he shouted orders to the
crew and cried aloud to himself, though
saving his swift deep breathing that, when he
passed us close, sounded like the panting of
bellows in angry or impatient hands, no
syllable broke from him.</p>

<p>"Some spell is upon him!" I exclaimed.
"I see how it is!&mdash;he is acting over again
the behaviour that renders this ship accurst."</p>

<p>"I saw him like this two years ago; 'twas
earlier in the night," whispered Imogene.
"He so scared me that I fainted."</p>

<p>That Arents and the helmsman took
notice of this strange somnambulistic behaviour
in their captain I could not tell: he
approached them as often as he approached
us, and much of the dumb show of his rage
was enacted close to them; but so far as I<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[187]</a></span>
could judge from the distance at which we
stood, their postures were as quiet as though
they were lay figures, or passionless and in
sensible creatures without understandings to
be touched. It was a heart-subduing spectacle
beyond words to tell of. Bit by bit his
temper grew, till his motions, his frenzied
racings about the deck, his savage glarings
aloft, his fury when, in this distemper of
sleep, his perusal of the compass disappointed
him, were those of a maniac. I saw the
white froth on his lips as he approached us
close to level a flaming glance seawards, and
had he been Satan himself I could not have
shrunk from him with deeper loathing and
colder terror. The insanity of his wrath, as
expressed by his gestures&mdash;for he was as
mute as one bereft of his voice by agony&mdash;was
rendered the wilder, the more striking
and terrible by the contrast of the night,
the peace of it, the splendour of the stars,
the silence upon the deep rising up to those<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[188]</a></span>
luminaries like a benedictory hush! For
such an infuriated figure as this you needed
the theatre of a storm-tossed ship, with the
billows boiling all about and over her, and
the scenery of a pitchy sky torn by violet
lightning and piercing the roaring ebony of
the seas with zig-zag fire, and the trumpetings
of the tempest deepened by a ceaseless
crashing of thunder.</p>

<p>He continued to lash himself into such
a fury that, for very pity, misery and horror,
you longed to hear him cry out, for the
expression would give relief to his soul,
strangling and in awful throes. Suddenly
he fell upon his knees; his hands were
clenched, and he lifted them on high; his
face was upturned; and as I watched him
menacing the stars with infuriate gestures, I
knew that even as he now showed so did he
appear when he blasphemously dared his
Maker. A soft gust of the midnight air blew
with a small moan through the rigging.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[189]</a></span>
Vanderdecken let drop his arms, swayed a
while as if he would fall, staggered to his
feet, and with his hands pressed to his eyes
as though indeed some sudden stroke of
lightning had smitten him blind, came with
wavering gait, in which was still visible a
sullen and disordered majesty, to the poop
ladder, down which he sightlessly went,
steered by the wondrous, unintelligible
faculty that governs the sleep-walker.</p>

<p>I pulled off my hat and wiped my forehead,
that was damp with sweat.</p>

<p>"Great God!" I cried. "What a sight to
behold! What anguish is he made to suffer!
How is it that his human form does not
scatter, like one broken on a wheel, to the
rending of such infernal passions as possess
him?"</p>

<p>Imogene was about to answer when on a
sudden the first stroke of midnight came
floating up in the cathedral-note of the clock.</p>

<p>"Hark!" she exclaimed. "It is twelve!<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[190]</a></span>
Arents will now be relieved by Van Vogelaar.
If that malignant creature spies me here at
this hour with you, oh, 'twould be worse
through the report he would give than if
Vanderdecken himself had surprised us.
Good-night, Mr. Fenton!"</p>

<p>She quickly slipped from my grasp, and
faded down the ladder. As she vanished I
put my hand to my heart to subdue its beating,
and whilst I thus stood a moment the last
note of the clock vibrated into the stillness
on deck and scarcely less clear than had the
accursed croak sounded close beside me, rose
the parrot's detestable cry:</p>

<p>"Wy zyn al Verdomd!"</p>
<hr class="chap" />

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[191]</a></span></p>



<h2>CHAPTER X.<br />

WE SIGHT A DISMASTED WRECK.</h2>


<p>Terrible as must have been the sufferings of
Vanderdecken in the tragic passage through
which his spirit had driven in a silent madness
of sleep, yet next morning I could perceive
no trace of his frenzy in the cold and ghastly
hue of his face. I found him on deck when
I quitted my melancholy cabin, and he responded
to the good morning I gave him with
a touch of civility in his haughty, brooding
manner that was not a little comforting to
me, who had been kept awake till 'twas
hard upon daylight by remembrance of the
spectacle I had witnessed, and by apprehensions
of how a person of his demoniacal
passions might serve me if I should give him,
or if he should imagine, offence.</p>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[192]</a></span></p>

<p>The draught&mdash;for the breeze was little
more&mdash;had come more northerly, and the
ship, as I might guess by the sun, was heading
about north east. There were swathes
and circles of gleaming ribbed clouds of gossamer
texture all about the sky, and they
looked as if some mighty hand had been
swinging pearls, as a sower hurls seeds, about
the heavens, which had been compacted by
the wind into many different figures. They
sobered the dazzle where the sun was, so
that his wake lay upon the ocean in flashing
streaks, instead of the fan-shaped path of
glory he would have wrought had he shone
in unstained azure.</p>

<p>"There should be promise of a breeze,
mynheer," said I, "in the shape and lay of
those high clouds and the little dimness you
notice to windward."</p>

<p>"Yes," he answered, darting a level glance,
under his bushy, corrugated brows, into the
North quarter; "were it not for what hath<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[193]</a></span>
been sighted from aloft, I should be steering
with my starboard tacks aboard."</p>

<p>"What may be in sight, sir?" I asked,
dreading to hear that it was a ship.</p>

<p>He answered, "The sparkle of a wet,
black object was visible from the cross-trees
at sunrise. Arents finds it already in the
perspective glass from the fore-top. He
reports it the hull of an abandoned ship.
He may be mistaken. Your sight is keen,
sir; we greatly need tobacco; but I would
not willingly lose time in running down to a
vessel that may be water-logged, and therefore
utterly unprofitable."</p>

<p>"You wish me to go aloft and see what I
can make of the object, sir?"</p>

<p>"If you will be so good," he answered,
with a grave inclination of the head.</p>

<p>"Captain Vanderdecken," said I, "I should
be glad to serve you in any direction. I only
regret your courtesy will not put me to the
proof."</p>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[194]</a></span></p>

<p>He bowed again and pointed to the telescope
to which Arents had fastened a lanyard
that he might carry it aloft on his back. I
threw the bight over my head and walked
forward, guessing now that Vanderdecken's
civility was owing to his intending to make
me oblige him in this way. Coming abreast
of the weather fore-shrouds, I jumped on to
an old gun, thence leaped to the rail and
swung myself into the rigging, up which,
however, I stepped with the utmost caution,
the seizings of the ratlines looking very
rotten, and the shrouds themselves so grey
and worn that they seemed as old as the ship
herself, and as if generations of seamen had
been employed to do nothing else but squeeze
the tar out of them. There was a good-sized
lubber's hole through which I easily
passed, the barricadoes prohibiting any other
entrance into the top; and when I was
arrived, I found myself on a great circular
platform, green as a field with moss and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[195]</a></span>
grass, and surrounded by a breastwork of
wood to the height of my armpits, the
scantling extraordinarily thick, but answering
in age and appearance to the rest of
the timber in the ship, with loop-holes for
muskets and small cannon.</p>

<p>The foot of the fore-sail having a very
large curve, I had a clear view of the sea on
both bows under it, and the moment I ran
my naked eye from the windward to the
leeward side, then I saw, fair betwixt the
cathead and the knighthead, the flashing of
what was unquestionably the wet side of a
dismasted ship rolling to the sun. The
regular coming and going of the sparkling
was like the discharge of a piece fired and
quickly loaded and fired again. I pointed the
telescope, and the small magnification aiding
my fairly keen sight I distinctly made out the
hull of a vessel of between three hundred and
four hundred tons, rolling with a very sluggish
regularity and shooting out a strong blaze of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[196]</a></span>
light whenever the swell gave her streaming
sides to the glory. I was pretty sure, by the
power and broadness of this darting radiance,
that her decks were not submerged, that
indeed she would still show an indifferently
good height of side above the water, and
thereupon threw the glass over my back for
the descent, pausing, however, to take a
view of the ship from the height I occupied,
and wondering not a little, with something
of amusement, too, at the extraordinary
figure her body offered thus surveyed.</p>

<p>In fact, she was not three times as long as
she was broad, and she had the sawn-off
look of a wagon down there. After every
swimming lift of her head by the swell, the
droop of her bows hove a smearing of froth
into the large blue folds, that might have
passed for an overflowing of soap-suds from
a wash-tub; and upon that whiteness all
the forward part of her stood out in a sort of
jumble of pondrous catheads, curved head<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[197]</a></span>boards
sinking into a well, out of which
forked the massive boltsprit, as the people
who fashioned it would have spelt it, with its
heavy confusion of gear, yards, stays for the
sprit-topmast, and the like. I had a good
sight of the sails up here, and perceived they
were like the famous stocking of which Dr.
Arbuthnot, or Pope, or one of the wits of
Queen Anne's reign, wrote; that is, that
though they might have been the same cloths
which the Braave sheeted home when she
set sail from Batavia, yet they had been so
patched, so darned, and over and over again
so repaired, that to prove they were the
same sails would be as nice a piece of metaphysical
puzzling as to show that they were
not.</p>

<p>Yet the sun flung his light upon their
many-hued dinginess, and as I looked up they
swung to the heave of the ship with a hard
blank staring of their breasts that seemed like
the bending of an idiot's gaze at the clusters<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[198]</a></span>
and wreaths, and curls of pearly vapour over
the lee horizon, and though my glance was
swift yet even in a breathless moment a confusion
was wrought, as though the shining
prismatic clouds were starting to sweep like
some maelstromic brimming of feathery foam
around the ship and founder her in gradual
gyrations of blue ether and snow-like mist.
Great God! thought I, here, to be sure, is a
place to go mad in! To lie upon this dark
green platform, to hearken to the spirit-whisperings
amid this ancient cordage, to behold
these darkened sails sallowly swelling towards
some bloody disc of moon soaring out of a
belt of sooty vapour, to listen to the voices of
the fabric beneath and to the groans of her
old age dying in echoes in the caverns of
her stretched canvas&mdash;by my father's hand!
thought I, if I am to save my brain I must
put myself nearer to Imogene than this; so
I dropped with a loud heart through the
lubber's hole, and stepped down the ratlines<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[199]</a></span>
as fast as my fears of the soundness of the
seizings would suffer me to descend.</p>

<p>"What do you see, mynheer?" asked
Vanderdecken.</p>

<p>"The hull of a ship, sir," I replied. "She
is deep in the water but not too deep for
boarding, I believe, for the sunshine finds a
wide expanse to blaze out upon when she
rolls."</p>

<p>"Well," he exclaimed, "an hour or two can
make but very little difference," and he sent
his impatient, imperious gaze into the blue to
windward, and fell to marching the deck
athwartships, opposite the tiller-head, becoming
suddenly as heedless of my presence
as if I had been a brass swivel on his
bulwarks. But I was less likely to be
chagrined by his discourtesy than by his
attention. It had, indeed, come to my never
feeling so easy in my mind as when he perfectly
neglected me.</p>

<p>Our bringing of that hull within sight from<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[200]</a></span>
the deck ran into more than an hour or two.
Close-hauled, and the breeze light, the Braave
scarce seemed able to push her bows through
the water at all. The bubbles and foam-bells
slided past as languidly as the tide of ebb
in its last quarter wrinkles against the stem
of an anchored vessel.</p>

<p>At breakfast nothing else was talked of,
and little enough was said about it too. We
were, in truth, a silent party. Every look of
Imogene caused me to see how the memory
of last night worked in her&mdash;a night of sweetness
and terror&mdash;of kisses and caresses, and
entrancing revelations&mdash;and of an horrific
spectacle of enormous and speechless anguish,
humanly devilish! On deck, in the early
sparkling breeziness of the morning, I had
been sensible of no recoil on meeting Vanderdecken;
but at table I sat close to him;
to his presence the recollection of the foam
upon his lip, his fallen jaw, the soul-devouring,
feverish restlessness of his enraged move<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[201]</a></span>ments,
his dreadful posture of imprecation,
imparted insufferable emphasis; and when
I quitted the cabin for the deck, not having
spoken half-a-dozen syllables during the
meal, the feeling of relief in me was like the
removal of a cold hand from my heart.</p>

<p>It was two hours-and-a-half after sighting
the hull from the masthead, that it lay visible
upon the sea from the deck. Luckily, the
breeze had stolen a point or two westerly,
which enabled our ship to keep the wreck
to leeward of our bowsprit; otherwise, we
should never have fetched it by two miles,
without a board, and that might have ended
in a week's plying to windward. The crew
had long got scent of this object ahead, and
being as keen for tobacco as was ever a
sharp-set stomach for victuals, they were
collected in a body on the forecastle, where,
in their dull, lifeless, mechanic way they stood
staring and waiting. Although those who
had the watch on deck had been at various<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[202]</a></span>
sorts of work when the wreck hove into view
over the forecastle rail&mdash;such as making
spun-yarn, sawing wood, (as I supposed for
the cook-room) sail-mending, splicing old
running gear, and the like&mdash;yet, I remarked
they dropped their several jobs just as it
suited them, and I never observed that
either of the mates reproved them, or that
the captain noticed their behaviour; whence
I concluded that the Curse had stricken the
ship into a kind of little republic, wherein
such discipline as was found was owing to a
sort of general agreement among the men
that such work as had to be done must be
done.</p>

<p>I found myself watching the wreck with a
keener interest than could ever possess the
breasts of the wretched master, mates, or
crew. Was any stratagem conceivable to
enable me to use that half-sunk vessel as an
instrument for escaping with Imogene from
this Death Ship?</p>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[203]</a></span></p>

<p>My dearest girl came to my side whilst
my brain was thus busy, and in a soft undertone
I told her of what I was thinking. She
listened with eager eyes.</p>

<p>"Geoffrey," said she, "you are my captain.
Command me, and I will do your bidding."</p>

<p>"My darling," I replied, "if you knew
what a miserable, nervous creature this Death
Ship has made of me you would guess I was
the one to be led, you to direct. But yonder
craft will not serve us. No! Better that
little boat there than a hull which the
crew, ay, and perhaps the very rats have
abandoned."</p>

<hr class="chap" />

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[204]</a></span></p>




<h2>CHAPTER XI.<br />

THE DEAD HELMSMAN.</h2>


<p>I proved right in the estimate I had formed
from the fore-top of the size of the wreck.
Her burthen was within four hundred tons.
We gradually drove down to her, and when
we were within musket-shot Vanderdecken
ordered the topsail to be laid aback. The
breeze had freshened, the little surges ran in
a pouring of silver-gushing heads, the broad-backed
swell rose in brimming violet to our
channels, and our ship rolled upon it helpless
as an egg-shell. The wallowing of the wreck,
too, was like the plashing and struggling of
some sentient thing heavily labouring, with
such fins or limbs as God had given it, to
keep itself afloat.</p>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[205]</a></span></p>

<p>That there was no lack of water in her was
certain; yet, having the appearance of a ship
that had been for some days abandoned, at
which time it might be supposed that her
people would imagine her to be in a sinking
condition, it was clear that in a strange
accidental way the leak had been healed,
possibly by some substance entering and
choking it. All three masts were gone
within a foot or two of the deck. Her hull
was a dark brown, that looked black in the
distance against the blue, with the mirror-like
flashing from the wet upon it; she had a
handsome stern, the quarter-galleries supported
by gilt figures, wherefrom ran a broad
band of gilt along her sides to the bows.
Under her counter there stole out in large,
white characters, with every heave of her
stern, the words "Prince of Wales," and
'twas startling to see the glare of the letters
coming out in a ghastly, staring sort of way
from the bald brow of the swell, as it sloped<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[206]</a></span>
from the gilded stern. Her name proved
her English. You could see the masts had
been cut away, by the hacked ends of the
shrouds snaking out into the hollows and
swellings over the side. Her decks were
heavily encumbered with what sailors call
"raffle"&mdash;that is, the muddle of ropes, torn
canvas, staves of boats and casks, fragments
of deck fittings and so forth, with which the
ocean illustrates her violence, and which she
will sometimes for weeks, ay, and for months,
continue to rock and nurse, and hold intact
for very affection of the picture as a symbol
of her wrath when vexed by the gale, and of
her triumphs over those who daringly penetrate
her fortresses to fight her. The confusion
to the eye was so great, and rendered
so lively and bewildering by the hulk's rolling
that, scan her as you would, it was impossible
to master details with any sort of rapidity.</p>

<p>Suddenly Imogene, grasping my wrist in
her excitement, exclaimed, "See! there is a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[207]</a></span>
man there&mdash;he seems to steady himself by
holding the wheel&mdash;look now, Geoffrey, as
she rolls her decks at us!"</p>

<p>I instantly saw him. The wheel was in
front of the break of the poop, where the
cuddy or round-house windows were; and
erect at it stood a man, on the starboard side,
one hand down clutching a spoke at his
waist, and his left arm straight out to a spoke
to larboard, which he gripped. Methought
he wrestled with the helm, for he swerved as
a steersman will who struggles to keep a
ship's head steady in a seaway.</p>

<p>"Is he mad?" cried I. "Ay, it must be
so! Famine, thirst, mental anguish, may
have driven him distracted. Yet, even then,
why does not he look towards us? Why,
were he actually raving, surely his sight
would be courted by our presence."</p>

<p>"Pray God he be not mad," whispered
Imogene; "he is certain to be a sailor and
an Englishman; and if he be mad, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[208]</a></span>
brought here, how will these men deal with
him?"</p>

<p>"Yes; and I say, too, pray God he be not
mad!" I cried; "for back me with a hearty
English sailor and I believe&mdash;yes, I believe I
could so match these fellows as to carry the
ship, without their having the power to resist
me, to any port I chose to steer for to the
eastward;" for with her cry of, "He is sure
to be a sailor and an Englishman," there
swept into my brain the fancy of securing the
crew under hatches, and imprisoning Vanderdecken
and his mates in their cabins&mdash;the
least idle, in sober truth, of all the schemes
that had presented themselves to me.</p>

<p>"Hush!" she exclaimed, breathlessly, and
as she closed her lips to the whisper, Vanderdecken
came to us. But not to speak.
He stood for some minutes looking at the
wreck, with the posture and air of one deeply
considering. The seamen forward gazed
with a heavy steadfastness, too, some under<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[209]</a></span>
the sharp of their hands, some with folded
arms. I heard no speech among them. Yet
though their stillness was that of a swoon,
their eyes shone with an eager light, and
expectation shaped their pallid, death-like
faces into a high and straining look.</p>

<p>There were no signs of life aboard the
wreck, saving the figure of the man that
swayed at the wheel. I was amazed that he
should never glance towards us. Indeed, I am
not sure that the whole embodied ghastliness
of our Death Ship matched in terror what
you found in the sight of that lone creature
grasping the wheel, first bringing it a little to
right, then heaving it over a little to left,
fixedly staring ahead, as though such another
Curse as had fallen upon this Dutch ship had
come like a blast of lightning upon him,
compelling him to go on standing at yonder
helm, and vainly striving to steer the wreck&mdash;as
terribly corpse-like as any man among
us, and as shockingly vital too!</p>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[210]</a></span></p>

<p>It struck my English love of briskness
as strange that Vanderdecken should not
promptly order the boat over, or give
orders that should have reference to the
abandoned hull; yet I could not help thinking
that his Holland blood spoke in this
pause, and that there intermingled with
the trance-like condition that was habitual
in him, the phlegmatic instincts of his
nation&mdash;that gradual walking to a decision,
which in Scotland is termed "takin' a
thocht."</p>

<p>After a while he said to me: "Mynheer,
the wreck hath an English name; she will
be of your country therefore. May I beg of
you to take my trumpet and hail that person
standing at the wheel?"</p>

<p>"I shall not need your trumpet, sir," said
I, at once climbing upon the rail and thinking
to myself that 'twas odd if there was not
wanted a trumpet with a voice as thunderous
as the crack o' doom to bring that silent,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[211]</a></span>
forward-staring man's face round to his
shoulder.</p>

<p>"Wreck ahoy!" I bawled, with my hand to
my cheek, and the wind took the echo of my
voice clear as a bell to the hulk.</p>

<p>There was not a stir in the helmsman
beyond that dreary monotonous waving of his
figure in his struggle to steady the wheel. I
watched the foamless leaning of the wreck
into the hollow, bringing her decks aslant to
us, and the trailing and corkscrewing of the
black gear that was washing over the side,
and the sparkling of the broken glass of a
skylight contrasting with the dead black of
an half-dozen of carronades, and the squattering
of the dead-eyes of her channels upon
the blue volume of sea like the ebony heads
of a row of negroes drowning; and then,
wash! over she rolled to larboard, bringing
a streak of greenish copper sheathing out of
the white water which the fierce drainings
from her side churned up, with a mighty<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[212]</a></span>
flashing of sunlight off her streaming side,
and a sharp lifting of the dark shrouds and
stays and running ropes out of the seething
welter, making her appear as though scores
of sea-snakes had their fangs in her timbers,
and that 'twas the very agony of their teeth,
and the poison, which caused her to roll from
them.</p>

<p>I shouted again, and yet again; then dismounted.</p>

<p>"He is deaf!" said Vanderdecken.</p>

<p>"He is dead!" said I, for this was forced
upon me, spite of the erect and life-like posture
of the figure, and what resembled the
straining of his arms to steady the wheel.</p>

<hr class="chap" />

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[213]</a></span></p>




<h2>CHAPTER XII.<br />

THE DUTCH SAILORS BOARD THE WRECK.</h2>


<p>"Get the boat over," cried Vanderdecken,
turning to Van Vogelaar, "and go and
inspect the wreck. Look to the man first:
Heer Fenton declares him dead; and particularly
observe if there be aught that hath
life in it aboard."</p>

<p>On this, Van Vogelaar went forward,
calling about him. In a few minutes a white-faced
seaman, with yellow beard trembling to
the wind, and his eyes looking like a rat's
with the white lashes and pink retinas,
leisurely climbed aloft with a line in his
hand, and swinging himself on to the main-yard,
slided out upon the horses to the
extremity, or yard-arm as it is termed, which<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[214]</a></span>
he bestrode as a jockey a steed; and then
hauled up the line, to the end of which was
hitched a tackle. This tackle he made fast
to the yard-arm, and by it, with the help of
steadying-ropes or guys, some of the crew
on deck hoisted the little boat out of the
bigger one and lowered it away into the
water alongside.</p>

<p>I watched this business with a sailor's
interest, wondering that so great a ship as
this&mdash;great, that is, for the age to which she
belonged&mdash;should carry no more than two
boats, stowed one in the other after the
fashion of the north-country coastmen. Nor
was I less impressed by the aged appearance
of the boat when she was afloat. She had
the look of a slug with her horns, only that
those continuations of her gunnel rail projected
abaft as well as from the bows. And
when Van Vogelaar and three of the crew
entered her, then, what with the faded red of
her inner skin, the wide, red blades of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[215]</a></span>
short oars, the soulless movements of the
seamen, the hue of their faces, the feverish
unnatural shining of their eyes like sunshine
showing through a cairngorm stone, their
dried and corded hands, which wrapped the
handles of their oars like rugged parchment&mdash;the
little but marvellous picture acted as by
the waving of a magic wand, forcing time
back by a century and a half and driving
shudders through the frame of a beholder
with a sight whose actuality made it a
hundredfold more startling and fearful than
had it been a vision as unsubstantial as the
Death Ship herself is mistakenly supposed
to be.</p>

<p>The wreck being within hailing distance,
the boat was soon alongside her. The
heavy rolling of the hull, and the sharp
rise and fall of the boat, would have made
any human sailor mightily wary in his boarding
of the vessel, but if ever there was
an endevilled wretch among the Phantom's<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[216]</a></span>
horrible crew, Van Vogelaar was he. The
fiend in him stayed at nothing. The instant
the boat had closed the wreck the fellow
leaped, and he was on deck and walking
towards the figure at the wheel, whilst
the other&mdash;that is to say, two of them&mdash;were
waiting for the hull to swing down
for them to follow.</p>

<p>The mate went up to the figure, and
seemed to address him; then, receiving no
reply, he felt his face, touched his hands,
and pulled to get that amazing grip relaxed,
but to no purpose. The others now joining
him, they all stared into the figure's face;
one lifting an eyelid and peering into the
eye, another putting his ear to the figure's
mouth. Van Vogelaar then came to the
side, and shouted in his harsh and rusty
voice that it was a dead man. Vanderdecken
imperiously waved his hand, and
cried, "Fall to exploring her!" and motioned
significantly to the sky, as if he would have<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[217]</a></span>
the mate misgive the weather, though there
was no change in the aspect of the pearly
wreaths and glistening beds of vapour, and
the draught was still a gentle breeze.</p>

<p>"Dead!" I whispered to Imogene; "yet I
feared it!"</p>

<p>"Will he have been English, think you,
Geoffrey?" she said.</p>

<p>"Yes!" cried I, feeling a heat rising to my
cheeks, "name me a foreigner that would
so gloriously have confessed his nation!
English?&mdash;ay, a thousand times over! For
what does that posture indicate, that stern
holding to his place, that dutiful grip of his
iron hands? What but those qualities which
give the British sailor the dominion of the
deep, and which rank him foremost among
the noblest spirits the world has ever seen?
He has died at his post&mdash;one of thousands
who have as heroically perished."</p>

<p>I noticed Vanderdecken looking at the
body. There was deep thought in his im<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[218]</a></span>perious,
menacing expression, with a shadow
of misery that his fierce and glittering eyes
did but appear to coarsen and harshen the
gloom of, and I wondered to myself if ever
moments came when perception of his condition
was permitted to him, for it truly
appeared as though there were a hint of some
such thing in him now whilst he gazed at the
convulsive figure at the wheel, as if&mdash;Jesus
have mercy upon him!&mdash;the sight of the
dead filled his own deadly flesh with poignant
and enraging yearnings, the meanings of
which his unholy vitality was unable to
interpret.</p>

<p>When Van Vogelaar had spent about half-an-hour
on the wreck, he and the others
dropped over the side into the boat and
made for us. We had scarce shifted our
position, for the courses being hauled up and
the topgallant-sails lowered, there was too
little sail abroad for the weak wind then
blowing to give us drift, and the swell that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[219]</a></span>
drove us towards the wreck would also drive
the wreck from us. The mate came over the
side, and stepping up to the captain, said,
"She is an English ship, freighted with
English manufacture; I make out bales of
blanket, clothing and stores, which I imagine
to have been designed for troops.</p>

<p>"What water is in her?"</p>

<p>"Seven and a quarter feet by her own
rod."</p>

<p>"Her pump?"</p>

<p>"She hath two&mdash;both shattered and
useless."</p>

<p>"Does she continue to fill?"</p>

<p>"I believe not, sir; I would not swear to
it; she rolls briskly, but," said he, sending
his evil glance at the wreck, "it does not
appear that she is sunk deeper since we first
made her out."</p>

<p>"Yonder figure at the wheel is dead you
say?"</p>

<p>"As truly dead a Briton as ever fell to a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[220]</a></span>
Dutchman's broadside." I exchanged a swift
look with Imogene. "His eyes are glassy;
his fingers clasp the spokes like hooks of
steel. He must have died on a sudden&mdash;perhaps
from lightning&mdash;from disease of
some inward organ&mdash;or from fear." And
there was the malice of the devil in the sneer
that curled his ugly mouth as he spoke,
taking me in with a roll of his sinister eyes.</p>

<p>I watched him coldly. Remonstrance or
temper would have been as idle with this
man and his mates as pity to that unrecking
heart of oak out there.</p>

<p>"What is to be come at?" demanded
Vanderdecken, with passionate abruptness.</p>

<p>The other answered quickly, holding up
one forefinger after another in a computative
tallying way whilst he spoke, "The half-deck
is free of water, and there I find flour, vinegar,
treacle, tierces of beef, some barrels of
pork, and five cases of this&mdash;which hath the
smell of tobacco, and is no doubt that plant."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[221]</a></span>
And he pulled out of his pocket a stick of
tobacco, such as is taken in cases to sea to be
sold to the crews.</p>

<p>Vanderdecken smelt it. "'Tis undeniably
tobacco," said he, "but how used?" His eye
met mine; I took the hint, and said: "To
be chewed, it is bitten; to be smoked, it has
to be flaked with a knife&mdash;thus, mynheer."
And I imitated the action of cutting it.</p>

<p>Some of the crew had collected on the
quarter-deck to hear the mate's report, and
seeing the tobacco in the captain's hand and
observing my gestures, one of them cried out
that if it was like the tobacco the Englishman
had shown them how to use 'twas rare smoking!
Whether Vanderdecken had heard of
my visit to the forecastle I do not know: he
seemed not to hear the sailor's exclamation,
saying to me, "Yes, mynheer, I see the convenience
of such tablets; they hold much and
are easily flaked." And then, sweeping the
sea and skies with his eyes, he cried: "Get<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[222]</a></span>
the other boat over: take a working party in
her and leave them aboard to break out the
cargo. The smaller boat will tow her to and
fro. Arents, you will have charge of the
working party&mdash;you, Van Vogelaar, will
bring off the goods and superintend the transhipments.
Away, now! There is stuff
enough there to fill the hollowest cheek with
fat and to sweeten the howl of a gale into
melody. Away, then!"</p>

<p>There was excitement in his words, but
none in his rich and thunderous voice, nor in
his manner; and though there seemed a sort
of bustle in the way the men went to work
to hoist out the large boat, it was the
very ghost of hurry, as unlike the hearty
leaping of sailors, fired with expectation,
as are the twitchings of electrified muscles,
to the motions of hale limbs controlled by
healthy intellect.</p>

<p>Yet, to a mariner, what could surpass the
interest of such a scene? As I leaned<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[223]</a></span>
against the bulwark with Imogene, watching
the little boat towing the big one over
the swell, with now a lifting that put the
leaning, toiling figures of the rowers clear
against the delicate, vaporous film over the
sky at the horizon&mdash;the red blades of the
oars glistening like rubies as they flashed
out of the water, and the white heads of
the little surges which wrinkled the liquid
folds melting all about the boats into creaming
silver, radiant with salt rainbows and
prismatic glories&mdash;and now a sinking that
plunged them out of sight in a hollow, I
said to my dear one, "Here is a sight I
would not have missed for a quintal of the
silver below. I am actually witnessing the
manner in which this doomed vessel feeds
and clothes herself, and how her crew
replenish their stores and provide against
decay and diminution. What man would
credit this thing? Who would believe that
the Curse which pronounced this ship im<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[224]</a></span>perishable
should also hold her upon the
verge of what is natural, sentencing her to a
hideous immortality, and at the same time
compelling the crew to labour as if her and
their life was the same as that of other crews,
in other ships."</p>

<p>"If they knew their doom they would not
toil," she answered; "they would seek death
by famine or thirst, or end their horrible lot
by sinking the ship and drowning with her."</p>

<p>"How far away from the dread reality is
the world's imagination of this ship, and the
situation of her people!" cried I. "She has
been pictured as rising out of the waves, as
sailing among the clouds, as being perpetually
attended by heavy black storms, and thunder
claps and blasts of lightning! Here is the
reality&mdash;as sheer a piece of prose at first sight
as any salvage job, but holding in the very
heart of its simplicity so mighty, so complicate,
so unparalleled a wonder, that even
when I speak to you about it, Imogene, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[225]</a></span>
suffer my mind to dwell upon it, my mind
grows numb with a dread that reason has
quitted her throne and left me fit only for a
madhouse!</p>

<p>"You tremble!" she whispered, softly;
"nay, you think too closely of what you are
passing through. Let your knowledge that
this experience is real rob it of its terror.
Are we not surrounded with wonders which
too much thought will make affrighting?
That glorious sun; what feeds his flaming
disk? Why should the moon shine like
crystal when her soil perchance is like that of
our own world, which also gleams as silver
does though it is mere dust and mould and
unreflecting ashes? Think of the miracles
we are to ourselves and to one another!"</p>

<p>She pressed my hand and pleaded,
reproved and smiled upon me with her eyes.
Was she some angelic spirit that had lighted
by chance on this Death Ship, and held it
company for very pity of the misery and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[226]</a></span>
hopelessness of the sailor's doom? But
there was a human passion and tenderness in
her face that would have been weakness in a
glorified spirit. Oh, indeed, she was flesh
and blood as I was, with warm lips for
kissing, and breasts of cream as a pillow for
love, and golden hair too aromatic for
phantasy.</p>

<hr class="chap" />

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[227]</a></span></p>




<h2>CHAPTER XIII.<br />

THE DUTCHMEN OBTAIN REFRESHMENTS.</h2>


<p>Above an hour passed before the big boat,
deeply laden, was towed by the little one
from the wreck. Of what a proportion of
her freight was composed I could not tell,
much of it being in parcels and casks. They
had made sure of the tobacco by bringing
away, at once, all that they could find. I
observed a number of hams stitched up in
canvas, and some sacks of potatoes, two bags
of which were lost by the bottoms bursting
whilst they were being hoisted, on which Van
Vogelaar broke into several terrible oaths in
Dutch, though 'twas like a dramatic rehearsal
of a ranting and bullying scene, for Vanderdecken
took no notice and the men went<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[228]</a></span>
on hoisting and lowering away in the old
phlegmatic mechanic fashion as though they
were deaf. There were likewise other kinds
of provisions of which I need not tease you
with the particulars. I believe that all the
loading of the boat&mdash;in this her first trip, I
mean&mdash;consisted of articles of food; for some
of the parcels which puzzled me proved to
contain cheeses and the others might therefore
as well represent stores of a like kind.</p>

<p>"Is it their custom to bring away the
provisions first," I asked Imogene.</p>

<p>"As a rule," she answered, "they take
whatever comes to hand, that is, if the
articles be such as may be of use. What
they chiefly secure as soon as possible is
tobacco and spirits; then provisions and
clothing; and then any treasure they may
come across, and afterwards any portion of
the cargo they may fancy that is light to
handle, such as silks, pottery, and so forth."</p>

<p>"But they cannot take very much," said I,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[229]</a></span>
"or a few meetings of this kind would sink
their ship for them with overloading."</p>

<p>"There are many of us," she replied, "and
the provisions they bring away do not last
very long. The pottery they use and it is
soon broken. Silk and such materials as
they bring are light; and then, my dear,
they do not meet wrecks every day, nor of
the wrecks they meet may you count one in
five that yields enough to sink this ship by a
foot."</p>

<p>"I am heartily sorry," said I, "that they
should find so much to eat aboard yonder
hulk. With so goodly a store of provisions,
Vanderdecken will not require to run into the
land to shoot; and until this ship brings up
I see no chance for ourselves."</p>

<p>She sighed and looked sadly into the
water, insomuch that she suggested an
emotion of hopelessness; but in an instant
she flashed out of her expression of melancholy
weariness into a smile and gave me<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">[230]</a></span>
the deep perfections of her violet eyes to
look into, as if she knew their power over
me and shaped their shining influence for
my comfort and courage.</p>

<p>When the boat was discharged of her
freight, the men's dinner was passed over
the side for the fellows to eat in snatches,
working the while to save time. The wind
remained weak and quiet, but it was inevitable
that the hamper we showed aloft should give
us a drift beyond the send of the swell; and
to remedy this Vanderdecken clewed up his
topsails and took in all his canvas, leaving his
ship to tumble under bare poles, and by this
means he rendered the drift of the vessel
down upon the wreck extremely sluggish
and scarcely perceptible.</p>

<p>All day long the big boat was towed to
and fro, making many journeys and regularly
putting off from the wreck very deep with
freight. Vanderdecken ate his dinner on
deck. You would have found it hard to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">[231]</a></span>
reconcile any theory of common human
passions such as cupidity, rapacity and the
like, with his bloodless face and grave-yard
aspect; and yet it was impossible to mistake
the stirring of the true Dutch instincts of the
patient but resolved greed in the air he
carried whilst he waited for the return of
the boat, in his frequent levelling of the
telescope at the wreck as one who doubted
his people and kept a sharp eye on them, in
the eagerness his posture indicated as he
hung over the rail watching the stuff as it
was handed up or swayed by yard-arm
tackles over the side, and the fierce peremptoriness
of the questions he put to Van Vogelaar
as to what he had there, how much more
remained, and so on, though nothing that the
mate answered, satisfactory as must have
been the account he gave, softened the captain's
habitual savageness or in any degree
humanised him. Of the majesty of his
deportment I have spoken; likewise of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">[232]</a></span>
thrilling richness of his voice, the piercing
fire of his fine eyes and of his mien and
bearing, so haughtily stately in all respects as
to make one think of him, after a Pagan
fashion, as of some god fallen from his high
estate; but for all that he was a Dutchman
at heart, dead-alive as he was; as true to his
Holland extraction in 1796 as he had been
an hundred and fifty years earlier, when he
was trading to Batavia and nimbly getting
money, and saving it, too, with as sure a hand
as was ever swung in Amsterdam.</p>

<p>The threads and lines and beds of vapour
extending all over the sky served to reverberate
the glory of the sunset, as the crags
and peaks of mountains fling onwards the
echoes of the thunder-clap. In the east it
was all jasper and sapphire, reds and greens,
and a lovely clear blue slowly burning to a
carnelian in the zenith, where the effulgence
lay in a pool of deep red with a haze of light
like fine rain floating down upon it half white,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">[233]</a></span>
half of silver; then followed a jacinthine hue,
a lustrous red most daintily delicate, with
streaks of clear green like the beryl, till the
eye came to the west, where the sun, vastly
enlarged by refraction, hung in enormous
bulk of golden fiery magnificence amid half-curtained
pavilions of living splendour, where
'twas like looking at some newly-wrought fairy
world robed in the shinings of the Heaven of
Christ to see the lakes and lagoons of amber
purple and yellow, the seas of molten gold,
the starry flamings in the chrysolite brows of
vapour, and the sky fading out north and
south in lights and tints as fair as the reflections
in the wet pearly interior of a sea-shell
gaping on a beach towards the setting sun.
The small swell traversing the great red
light that was upon the sea put lines of flowing
glory under the tapestries of that sunset,
and the appearance was that of an eager
shouldering of the effulgence into the grey
of the south quarter, as though old Neptune<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">[234]</a></span>
sought to honourably distribute the glory all
around, and render the western sea-board
ambient.</p>

<p>Then it was, while the lower limb of the
luminary yet sipped from the horizon the gold
of his own showering, that the picture of the
wreck, and the Death Ship heaving pale and
stripped of her canvas, became the wonder
that my memory must for ever find it. How
steadfastly the dead seaman at the wheel kept
watch! The quieted sea now scarce stirred
the rudder, and the occasional light movements
of the figure seemed like starts in him,
motions of surprise at the Dutchmen's antlike
pertinaciousness in their stripping of the
hull.</p>

<p>And they? In that mani-coloured western
blaze they partook more of the character of
corpses, in those faces of theirs, which stared
our way or glimmered for a breath or two
over the bulwarks, than ever I had found
visible in them by moonlight or lamplight<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">[235]</a></span>
or the chilling dimness of a stormy dawn.
The sun vanished and the pale grey of evening
stole like a curtain drawn by spirit-hands
out of the eastern sea and over the waning
glories of the skies, with a star or two glittering
in its skirts; and the wind from the north
blew with a sudden weight and a long moaning,
making the sea whence it came ashen
with gushings of foam which ran into a colour
of thin blood on passing the confines of the
western reflection. Vanderdecken, seizing
his trumpet, sent a loud command through
it to the wreck; but the twilight was a mere
windy glimmering under the stars, which
shone very brightly among the high small
clouds by the time the boats had shoved clear
of the hull and were heading for us, and the
night had come down dark, spite of the stars
and the silver paring of moon, ere the last
fragment of the freight of rope, sail, and raffle
from the wreck had been passed over the side
from the big boat.</p>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">[236]</a></span></p>

<p>It grew into a wild scene then: the light
of the lantern-candles dimly throwing out the
bleached faces and dark figures of the seamen
as they hoisted the boats and stowed them one
inside the other, the ship rolling on the swell
that had again risen very suddenly as though
some mighty hand were striving to press it
down and so forcing the fluid surface into
larger volumes, the heads of the seas frothing
spectrally as they coursed arching and splashing
out of the further darkness, the eastering
slip of moon sliding like a sheering scythe
among the networks of the shrouds and gear,
and nothing to be heard but the angry sobbing
of waters beating themselves into hissing foam
against the ship's side, and the multitudinous
crying, as of a distant but piercing chorussing
of many women and boys, of the freshening
wind flying damp through the rigging.</p>

<p>It had been a busy day, it was still a busy
time; but never throughout the hours, if I
save the occasional cursing of the mate, the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">[237]</a></span>
captain's few questions, his command trumpetted
to the wreck, my talk with Imogene,
had human voice been heard. It was not so
noticeable a thing, this silence of the ghostly
crew, in the broad blaze of sunshine and amid
an exhibition of labour that was like sound to
the eye, as now, in the darkness, with the
wind freshening, sail to be made and much
to be done&mdash;much of the kind that forces
merchant seamen into singing out and bawling
as they drag and pull and jump aloft.
The wreck was a mere lump of blackness
tumbling out to windward upon the dusky
frothing welter, and I thought of the dead
sentinel at the helm. What in the name of
the saints was there in that figure to put into
the sea the enormous solitude I found in the
vast surface glimmering to where it melted
in shadow against the low stars? What was
there in that poor corpse to fling a bleakness
into the night wind, to draw an echo as
chilling as a madman's cry out of the gusty<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">[238]</a></span>
moaning aloft, to sadden the very star-beams
into dull and spectral twinklings? The canvas
shook as the silent sailors sheeted it home
and voicelessly mastheaded the yards. At
three bells in the first watch the Death Ship
had been wore to bring her starboard tacks
aboard, and under all the canvas she had she
was leaning before a small gale with her head
to the southward and westward, her sides and
decks alive with the twistings of the mystic
fires which darkness kindled in her ancient
timbers, and her round weather-bow driving
the rude black surge back into boiling whiteness.</p>

<hr class="chap" />

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">[239]</a></span></p>




<h2>CHAPTER XIV.<br />

MY LIFE IS ATTEMPTED.</h2>


<p>Heading out to sea afresh! Once again
pointing the ship's beak for the solitude of
the ocean, and starting as it might be on a
new struggle that was to end in storm and
defeat, in the heavy belabouring of the
groaning structure by giant surges, and in
a sickening helpless drift of God alone knew
how many leagues, ere the sky brightened
into blueness once more!</p>

<p>Never had I so strongly felt the horror
and misery of the fate which Vanderdecken's
hellish impiety had brought down upon his
ship and her company of mariners as now,
when I saw the yards braced up on the starboard
tack, and the vessel laid with her head<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">[240]</a></span>
to the south and west. The fresh wind seemed
to shriek the word "Forever!" in her rigging,
and the echo was drowned in the wild sobbing
sounds that rose out of each long, yearning
wash of the sea along her dimly shining
bends.</p>

<p>How was I to escape? How deliver Imogene?</p>

<p>I was a sailor, and whilst the ocean found
me business, whilst it defined the periods of
its detentions of me, I loved it! The freedom
of it was dear to my heart; it was my home;
it was a glass in which was mirrored the image
of the Creator I worshipped. But the prospect
of continuously sailing upon it in the
Death Ship, of fighting its subtle winds and
furious storms to no purpose, converted it
into a melancholy waste&mdash;a liquid plain of
desolation&mdash;a mere Hell of waters upon
whose sandy floor Hope, with tempest-torn
wings, would speedily lie drowned, whilst its
surface should grow maddening with the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">[241]</a></span>
reflected icy sparkling of that Starry Crux,
which shone but as a symbol of despair when
the eye sought it from these accursed decks
and beheld the quick light of its jewels trembling
over the yard-arms of the Death Ship.</p>

<p>Shortly after midnight the wind freshened,
and it came on to blow with some weight. I
had been in my cabin an hour, lying there
broad awake, being rendered extraordinarily
uneasy by my thoughts. The sea had grown
hollow, and the ship plunged quickly and
sharply with a heavy thunderous noise of
spurned and foaming waters all about her. It
was sheer misery lying intensely wakeful in
that desolate cabin, that would have been as
pitchy black as any ancient castle dungeon
but for the glimmering lights, which were so
much more terrible than the profoundest shade
of blackness could be, that had there been any
hole in the ship where the phosphor did not
glow, I would cheerfully have carried my
bed to it, ay, even if it had been in the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">[242]</a></span>
bottom of the fore-peak or in the thickest
of the midnight of the hold. The rats
squeaked, the bulkheads and ceilings seemed
alive with crawling glow-worms, groans as
of dying, cries as of wounded men sounded
out of the interior in which lay stowed the
pepper, mace, spices and other Indian commodities
of a freight that was hard upon an
hundred and fifty years old!</p>

<p>I suspected from the motions of the ship
and the hollow, muffled roarings outside, that
a gale of wind was brewing, and I resolved
to go on deck and take a look at the
weather since I could not sleep, for if the
wind was north west it would give us such a
further drift to the eastwards as would set
the African coast at a fearful distance for our
round-bowed sea-wagon to come at. On
the other hand, the gale might have veered
to a quarter favourable to heading for Cape
Agulhas. Should this happen, how would
the Curse operate? Would the ship be per<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">[243]</a></span>mitted
to near the Cape before being blown
back? But I suspected the operation of no
fixed laws in this doom. To suffer the Death
Ship to draw close, to fill the minds of
the crew with triumphant assurance of their
weathering the Cape of Storms, would be a
mere hideous tantalising of them that could
surely form no part of the sentence which
obliterated from their minds the recollection
of past failures. For, let the readers of my
narrative bear this steadfastly in view: that
if Vanderdecken and his men knew of a
surety that they were never to pass the
cape into the South Atlantic Ocean, then, as
beings capable of thinking and acting, they
would long ago have desisted from the attempt
and sought rest&mdash;if they could not
procure death for themselves&mdash;haply in that
same island of Java from which they had
sailed.</p>

<p>I crawled into my clothes by feeling for
them, and groped my way on to the poop.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">[244]</a></span>
The sky was black with low-flying cloud,
from the speeding rims of which a star would
now and again glance, like the flash of a
filibuster's fusil from the dark shrubbery of
a mountain slope. But there was so much
roaring spume and froth all about the ship,
that a dim radiance as of twilight hung in
the air, and I could see to as high as the
topmast heads.</p>

<p>I stepped at once to the binnacle without
noticing who had the watch and found the
ship's head south-east by south. I could
not suppose the ancient magnet showed the
quarters accurately, but, allowing for a
westerly variation of thirty degrees, the
indication came near enough to satisfy me
that the wind was as it had been ever since
the night I first entered this ship&mdash;right in
our teeth for the passage of the Cape, and
that though we might be sluggishly washing
through it close-hauled, we were also driving
away broadside on, making a clean beam<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">[245]</a></span>
course for the heart of the mighty Southern
Ocean.</p>

<p>This vexed and harassed me to the soul,
and occasioned in me so lively a sympathy
with the rage that adverse gales had kindled
in Vanderdecken, that had he contented himself
with merely damning the weather instead
of flying in the face of the Most High and
behaving like some foul fiend, I should have
deeply pitied him and considered his case the
hardest ever heard of. The main-yard was
lowered and a row of men were silently knotting
the reef-points. The topgallant-sails had
been handed, reefs tied in the topsails, and
the vessel looked prepared for foul weather.</p>

<p>But though the wind blew smartly, with
weight in its gusts and plenty of piping and
screaming and whistling of it aloft, there was
no marked storminess of aspect in the heavens,
sombre and sullen as was the shadow that
ringed the sea-line, and fiercely as flew the
black clouds out of it in the north west; and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">[246]</a></span>
with this appearance I essayed to console
myself as I stood near the mizzen-shrouds
gazing about me.</p>

<p>Seeing a figure standing near the larboard-shrouds,
I stepped over and found it to be
Van Vogelaar. My direct approach made
some sort of accost a formal necessity, but I
little loved to speak with this man, whom I
considered as wicked a rascal as ever went to
sea.</p>

<p>"These nor'-westers are evil winds,
mynheer," said I, "and in this sea they
appear to have the vitality of easterly gales
in England. What is the weather to be
like? For my part, I think we shall find a
quieter atmosphere before dawn."</p>

<p>He was some time in answering, feigning
to watch the men reefing the mainsail, though
by the light of the white water I could catch
the gleam of his eyes fixed upon me askant.</p>

<p>"What brings you on deck at this hour?"
said he, in his rasping, surly voice.</p>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">[247]</a></span></p>

<p>I answered, quietly, that feeling wakeful
and hearing the wind, I rose to view the
weather for myself.</p>

<p>"A sailor is supposed to rest the better for
the rocking of seas and the crying of wind,"
said he, with a mocking, contemptuous tone
in his accents. "That saying is intended no
doubt for the Dutch seamen; the English
mariner nobly shines as a sailor in his own
records, but you will admit, sir, that he is
never so happy as when he is ashore."</p>

<p>"Sir," I replied, suppressing my rising
temper with a very heavy effort, "I fear you
must have suffered somewhat at the hands of
the English sailor that you should never
let slip a chance to discharge your venom
at him. I am English, and a sailor, too,
and I should be pleased to witness some
better illustrations of Dutch courage than
the insults you offer to a man who stands
defenceless among you, and must be beholden,
therefore, wholly to your courtesy."</p>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">[248]</a></span></p>

<p>He said, in a sneering, scornful voice,
"Our courtesy! A member of a dastardly
crew that would have assassinated me and my
men with their small arms, hath a great
claim upon our courtesy!"</p>

<p>"I was aft, and ignorant of the intentions
of the men when that thing was done," said
I, resolved not to be betrayed into heat, let
the struggle to keep calm cost what it would.</p>

<p>To this he made no reply, then after a
pause, said in a mumbling voice as if he
would, and yet would not have me hear him,
"I brought a curse into the ship when I
handed you over the side; the devil craved
for ye, and I should have let you sink into
his maws. By the holy sepulchre, there are
many in Amsterdam who would have me
keel-hauled did they know this hand had
saved the life of an Englishman!" And he
tossed up his right hand with a vehement
gesture of rage.</p>

<p>I was a stoutly-built fellow, full of living<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">[249]</a></span>
and healthy muscle, and I do solemnly affirm
that it would not have cost me one instant of
quicker breathing to have tossed this brutal
and insulting anatomy over the rail. But it
was not only that I feared any exhibition of
temper in me might end in my murder; I
felt that in the person of this ugly and
malignant mate I should be dealing with a
sentence that forbade his destruction, that
must preserve him from injury, and that rendered
him as superior to human vengeance
as if his body had been lifeless. And what
were his insults but a kind of posthumous
scorn, as idle and contemptible as that inscription
upon a dead Dutchman's grave in
Rotterdam, in which the poor Holland corpse
after eighty years of decay goes on telling
the world that in his opinion Britons are poor
creatures?</p>

<p>I held my peace, and Van Vogelaar went
to the break of the poop, whence he could
better see what the men were doing upon the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">[250]</a></span>
main-yard. The enmity of this man made
me feel very unhappy. I was never sure
what mischief he meditated, and the sense of
my helplessness, the idleness of any resolution
I might form in the face of the supernatural
life that encompassed me, made the
flying midnight seem inexpressibly dreary
and dismal, and the white foam of the sea
carrying the eye to the ebony cloud-girdle
that belted the horizon, suggested distances
so prodigious that the heart sank to the sight
of them, as to thoughts of eternity.</p>

<p>I was running my gaze slowly over the
weather sea-board, whence came the endless
procession of ridged billows like incalculable
hosts of black-mailed warriors, with white
plumes flying and steam from the nostrils of
their steeds boiling and pouring before them,
and phosphoric lights upon them like the
shining points of couched spears, when
methought a dim pallid shadow, standing just
under a star that was floating a moment<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">[251]</a></span>
betwixt two flying shores of cloud, was a
ship; and the better to see, I sprang on to
the rail about abreast of the helmsman, for
my support catching hold of some stout rope
that ran transversely aft out of the darkness
amidships. What gear it was I never
stopped to consider, but gripping it with my
left hand swayed to it erect upon the rail,
whilst with my right I sheltered my eyes
against the smarting rain of spray, and stared
at what I guessed to be a sail. I have said
that the creaming and foaming of the waters
flung from the vessel's sides and bows made
a light in the air, and the sphere of my sight
included a space of the poop-deck to right
and left of me, albeit my gaze was fastened
upon the distant shadow.</p>

<p>All on a sudden the end of the rope I
grasped was thrown off the pin to which it
was belayed and I fell overboard. 'Twas
instantaneous! And so marvellously swift is
thought that I recollect even during that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">[252]</a></span>
lightning-like plunge thinking how icy-cold
the sea would be, and how deep my dive
from the great height of the poop-rail. But
instead of striking the water, the weight of
me swung my body into the mizzen-channels
by the rope my left hand desperately gripped.
I fell almost softly against a shroud coming
down to a great dead-eye there and dropped
in a sitting posture in the channel itself which
to be sure was a wide platform to windward
and therefore lifted very clear of the sea,
spite of the ship's weather rolls. My heart
beat quickly, but I was safe: yet a moment
after I had liked to have perished, indeed, for
the rope I mechanically grasped was all at
once torn from my fingers with so savage a
drag from some hand on deck that nothing
but the pitting of my knee against a dead-eye
preserved me from being tweaked into the
hissing caldron beneath. I could see the
rope plain enough as it was tautened, through
the pallid atmosphere and against the winking<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">[253]</a></span>
of the stars sliding from one wing of vapour
to another, and perceived that it was the
main-brace, the lowering of the yard or
reefing the sail having brought it within reach
of my arm. Then, with this, there grew in
me a consciousness of my having noticed a
figure glide by me whilst I stood on the rail;
and, putting these things together, I guessed
that Van Vogelaar, having observed my
posture, had sneaked aft to where the main-brace&mdash;that
was formed of a pendant and
whip&mdash;was made fast and had let go of it,
never doubting that, as I leaned against it,
so, by his whipping the end off the pin it
would let me fall overboard!</p>

<p>I was terribly enraged by this cowardly
attempt upon my life and was for climbing
inboard at once and manhandling him, ghost
or no ghost; then changed my mind and
stayed a bit in the channel considering what
I should do. Thin veins of fire crawled upon
this aged platform as upon all other parts of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">[254]</a></span>
the ship; but the shrouds coming very thick
with leather chafing-gear to the dead-eyes
made such a jumble of black shapes, that I
was very sure Van Vogelaar could not see me
if he should take it into his head to peer down
over the rail.</p>

<p>After casting about in my mind, the determination
I arrived at was to treat my tumble
from the rail as an accident, for I very
honestly believed this: that if I should
complain to Vanderdecken of his mate's
murderous intention, I would not only harden
the deadly malignity of that ghastly ruffian's
hatred of me, insomuch, that it might come
to his stabbing me in my sleep, but it might
end in putting such fancies into the captain's
head as should make him desire my destruction,
and arrange with his horrid lieutenant
to procure it. Indeed, I had only to think of
Amboyna and the brutal character of the
Dutch of those times, and remember that
Vanderdecken and his men belonged to that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">[255]</a></span>
age, and would therefore have the savagery
which one hundred and fifty years of civilization,
arts, and letters have somewhat abated
in the Hollanders, to determine me to move
with very great wariness in this matter.</p>

<p>But I had been dreadfully near to death,
and could not speedily recollect myself. The
white heads of the surges leaped, boiled and
snapped under the channels, like wolves
thirsting for my blood; and the crying of the
wind among the shrouds, in whose shadows
I sat, and the sounds it made as it coursed
through the dark night and split shrilly upon
the ropes and spars high up in the dusk,
ran echoes into those raving waters below,
which made them as much wild beasts to the
ear as they looked to the eye.</p>

<p>But little good could come of my sitting
and brooding in that mizzen-channel; so,
being in no mood to meet the villain, Van
Vogelaar, I very cautiously rose, and with
the practised hand of a sailor crawled along<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256">[256]</a></span>
the lap of the covering-board, holding by the
rail but keeping my head out of sight, and
reached the main-chains, whence I dropped
on to the deck unseen among the tangled
thickness of the shrouds, and slided, as stilly
as the ghostliest man among that ghastly
crew could tread, to my cabin.</p>

<hr class="chap" />

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257">[257]</a></span></p>




<h2>CHAPTER XV.<br />

MY SWEETHEART'S JOY.</h2>


<p>Once asleep I slept heavily, and it was
twenty minutes past the breakfast hour by
the time I was ready to leave the crazy and
groaning dungeon that served me for a
bedroom.</p>

<p>I entered the cabin, but had scarcely made
two steps when there sounded a loud cry in
a girl's voice, half of terror, half of joy; a
shriek so startling for the passions it expressed
that it brought me to a dead stand.
It was Imogene. I saw her jump from her
seat, make a gesture with her arms as though
she would fly to me, then bring both hands
violently to her heart with a loud hysterical
ha! ha! as if she could only find breath in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258">[258]</a></span>
some such unnatural note of laughter, whilst
she stood staring at me with straining eyes
that filled her violet beauty with a light like
that of madness.</p>

<p>The clock struck the half-hour as she
cried, and the echo of her voice and the deep,
humming vibration of the bell were followed
by the parrot's diabolical croak:</p>

<p>"Wy zyn al Verdomd!"</p>

<p>"God in Heaven!" exclaimed Vanderdecken,
in a tone deep with amazement, "I
thought that man was drowned!"</p>

<p>It was a picture of consternation that I
should not have dreamt to expect in men
who had outlived life and in whom you
would think of seeking qualities and emotions
outside those which were necessary to the
execution of their sentence. Vanderdecken,
leaning forward at the head of the table upon
his great hands, the fingers of which were
stretched out, glared at me with a frown of
astonishment. Prins&mdash;whose attendance<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259">[259]</a></span>
upon me in my cabin had long been limited
to his placing a bucket of salt-water at my
door without entering&mdash;Prins, I say, arrested
by my entry whilst in the act of filling a cup
of wine for the captain, watched me with a
yawn of wonder, and stood motionless as
though blasted by a stroke of lightning;
whilst Van Vogelaar, with his head upon his
shoulder, the blade of the knife with which
he had been eating forking straight up out of
his fist that lay like a paralysed thing upon
the table, eyed me with a sunk chin and
under a double fold of brow; his level, enchained
stare full of fear, and cruelty and
passion.</p>

<p>I saw how it was, and giving the captain a
bow and my darling a smile, I went to my
place at the table and sat down. Van
Vogelaar shrunk as I passed him, keeping
his eyes upon me as a cat follows the motions
of a dog; and when I seated myself he fell
away by the length of his arm, dropping his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260">[260]</a></span>
knife and fork and watching me. Imogene,
breathing deeply, resumed her seat; nothing
but Vanderdecken's amazement hindered him
from observing her agitation, which was of a
nature he could not possibly have mistaken,
if indeed he still possessed the capacity of
distinguishing such emotions as love.</p>

<p>She merely said, letting out her words in a
tremulous sigh: "O Geoffrey, thank God!
thank God!" The food in front of her was
untasted; but what grief there had been in
her face before was lost in the confusion of
feelings which worked in her loveliness with
a vitality that made her red and white in the
same moment. She repeated under her
breath to herself: "Thank God! thank God!"</p>

<p>This, while the others stared.</p>

<p>I turned to Van Vogelaar. "Mynheer,"
said I, "you regard me with astonishment."</p>

<p>He shrank a little further yet, and, after a
pause, said, "Are you man or devil?"</p>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261">[261]</a></span></p>

<p>"Captain Vanderdecken," said I, "has your
mate lost his reason?"</p>

<p>On this Van Vogelaar cried out: "Captain,
by the Holy Trinity, I swear it was as I have
reported. This Englishman, after prowling
on deck last night in the early hours of the
middle watch, suddenly clambered on to the
rail, for what purpose I know not, and leaned
his weight against the starboard main-brace,
the sail then reefing. I looked round&mdash;on
turning again he was gone! and Nicholas
Houltshausen, who was at the helm, swore
he saw him rise black upon the white eddies
of the wake."</p>

<p>Vanderdecken frowningly questioned me
with his eyes. I should have been acting a
sillier part than a fool's to have jested with
these men, besides, I had long since resolved
to be plain.</p>

<p>"Herr Van Vogelaar," said I, "doubtless
refers to my having fallen into the weather
mizzen-channel last night from the rail, whilst<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_262" id="Page_262">[262]</a></span>
peering at what I believed to be a ship. The
main-brace, upon which I had put my hand
to steady myself, yielded very suddenly," and
here I shot a look at the mate, "but I fell
lightly, and after sitting a little to recover my
breath, made my way to my cabin."</p>

<p>Van Vogelaar's death-like face darkened.
An oath or two rattled in his throat, and returning
to his old posture he fell to the meat
upon his plate with the ferocity of some
starving beast, insomuch that the veins about
his forehead stood out like pieces of cord.</p>

<p>The feelings with which Vanderdecken
received my explanation I could not gather.
He gazed hard at me with fiery eyes, as
though, mistrusting me, he sought to burn
his sight down to my heart, and then, slowly
resuming his knife and fork, went on with his
breakfast in his familiar trance-like way, mute
as a dead man.</p>

<p>I constantly exchanged glances with Imogene,
but held my peace since she remained<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_263" id="Page_263">[263]</a></span>
silent. She struggled to compose her face,
but her joy at my presence shone through her
mask of reserve, twitching the corners of her
mouth into faint smiles, and dancing in her
eyes like sunshine on the ripples of a sapphire
pool. Her love for me spoke more in this
quiet delight than she could have found room
for in a thousand words. How sweet and
fair she looked! The light of her heart lay
with a fair rosiness upon her cheeks, which
had been as pale as marble when she had
risen with her shriek and laughter to my first
coming.</p>

<p>Presently Van Vogelaar left the cabin,
going out scowling and talking to himself,
but not offering so much as to glance at me.
There was a piece of hung meat on the
table, of what animal I did not know; it
proved indifferent good eating. This and
some cakes made of flour, with a goblet of
sherry and water, formed my breakfast. I
ate slowly, knowing that Vanderdecken would<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_264" id="Page_264">[264]</a></span>
not smoke whilst I breakfasted, and wishing
to tire him away that Imogene and I might
have the cabin to ourselves. But my stratagem
was to no purpose. He started suddenly
from his waking dream&mdash;if, indeed, it was
to be credited that any sort of intellectual
faculty stirred in him when he lapsed into
these cataleptic stillnesses&mdash;and bade Prins
go and get cut up some of the tobacco they
had removed from the wreck, and then erecting
his figure and stroking down his beard,
he looked from me to Imogene and back to
me again, and said, "The weather promises
to mend; but this wind must come from a
witch's mouth&mdash;and a witch of deep and
steady lungs. I hope you may not have
brought us ill-luck, sir?"</p>

<p>"I hope not," said I, shortly.</p>

<p>"There are malign stars in the heavens,"
he continued, in a voice that trembled richly
upon the air, like the waving echoes of
some deep-throated melodious bell, "and there<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_265" id="Page_265">[265]</a></span>
are men born under them. North of the
Baltic, on Muskovite territory, is a nation of
wretches who can bewitch the winds and
sail their ships through contrary gales. They
are not far removed from Britain," said he,
significantly.</p>

<p>"They are as close to Holland, mynheer,"
said I.</p>

<p>"Oh, captain!" cried Imogene, "you do
not wish to say that Mr. Fenton has had a
hand in the fixing of this wind?"</p>

<p>He leaned his forehead upon his elbow,
and stretching forth his other hand, drummed
lightly on the table with his long, lean,
leprous-coloured fingers as he spoke. "Why,
Mynheer Fenton, Miss Dudley must allow
that a curious luck attends you. How many
of a crew went to your ship?"</p>

<p>"Forty, sir."</p>

<p>"Mark your star! Of forty men you alone
fall overboard! But fortune goes with you
and you are rescued by Van Vogelaar.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_266" id="Page_266">[266]</a></span>
Observe again! Of forty men you alone are
delivered into a ship whose nation is at war
with yours! Yet fortune still attends you and
you are hospitably received, yea, even made
welcome, and clothed, and fed and housed."</p>

<p>I bowed.</p>

<p>"More yet! Last night you fell from the
bulwark-rail. What sorcery is it that sways
you into the mizzen-channel and presently,
unseen, to your bed? Nicholas Houltshausen
is noted among us for his shrewd sight.
Did not he swear he saw you rise black after
your plunge among the froth of the ship's
wake? What was it that he beheld? Can
the soul shed its body as the butterfly its skin
and yet appear clothed, substantial, real as
flesh and blood?"</p>

<p>"I exactly explained that accident," said I.
"If there be sorcery in my having the luck
to tumble into a ship's mizzen-chains instead
of the water, then am I a witch fit for a
broomstick and a grinning moon!"</p>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_267" id="Page_267">[267]</a></span></p>

<p>"Captain Vanderdecken does but amuse
himself with you, Mr. Fenton," said Imogene.
"It is true, mynheer," she continued,
putting on an inimitable air of sweet dignity,
which was vastly reassuring to me as proving
that she had recovered her old easiness of
mind and was now playing a part, "that
we believed you had fallen overboard last
night, and this being our conclusion you may
judge how greatly your entrance just now
amazed us. For me, I was so frightened that
I shrieked out, as you doubtless heard.
Truly I thought you, the dead, arisen.
Captain Vanderdecken cannot recover his
surprise, and would have himself to believe
that you are a sorcerer. You, who are so
young, and an English sailor!" She laughed
out, and a truer ring she could not have put
into her forced merriment had she been a
Pritchard, or a Clive, or a Cibber. "Indeed,"
she added, "to be a necromancer, you need
a beard as long and as grey as the captain's."</p>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_268" id="Page_268">[268]</a></span></p>

<p>There was no temper in the look Vanderdecken
cast upon her, nay, it almost deserved
the name of mildness in him whose eyes were
forever fiery with hot thought and passions
of undivinable character. But not the phantom
of a smile showed in his face in response
to her laughter.</p>

<p>"Madam," said I, putting on a distant air
in conformity with the hint of her own
manner, "I am no sorcerer. For your sake
I would I were, for then my first business
would be to veer this wind south, and keep it
there till it had thundered our ship with
foaming stem into the smooth waters of the
Zuyder-Zee."</p>

<p>This seemed to weigh with Vanderdecken.
He reflected a little and then said, with
something of lofty urbanity in his mode
of addressing me, "Had you that power,
mynheer, I do not know that I should
object to your presence were you Beelzebub
himself."</p>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_269" id="Page_269">[269]</a></span></p>

<p>Imogene's smile betrayed the delight she
felt in her gradual, happy, nimble drawing of
this fierce man's thoughts away from his
astonishing suspicions of me as a wizard.</p>

<p>"Have you ever heard, Mr. Fenton," said
she, "of that nation to the north of the Baltic
of whom Captain Vanderdecken has spoken?"</p>

<p>"Oh! yes, madam," I replied; "they are well
known as Russian Finns, and are undoubtedly
wizards, and will sell such winds to ships as
captains require. I knew a master of a vessel
who, being off the coast of Finland, grew impatient
for a wind to carry him to a certain
distant port. He applied to an old wizard,
who said he would sell him a gale that
should enable him to fetch the Promontory of
Rouxella, but no further, for his breeze ceased
to obey him when that point was reached.
The captain agreed, holding that a wind to
Rouxella was better than light airs and
baffling calms off the Finland coast, and paid
the wizard ten kronen&mdash;about six and thirty<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_270" id="Page_270">[270]</a></span>
shillings of English money&mdash;and a pound of
tobacco; on which the conjurer tied a woollen
rag to the fore-mast, the rag being about half
a yard long and a nail broad. It had three
knots, and the wizard told him to loose the
first knot when he got his anchor, which he
did, and forthwith it blew a fresh favourable
gale."</p>

<p>"That is so?" demanded Vanderdecken,
doubtingly, and folding his arms over his
beard.</p>

<p>"I knew the captain, mynheer," I
answered; "his name was Jenkyns, and
his ship was a brig called the True Love."</p>

<p>"Did the first knot give him all the wind
he wanted?" asked he.</p>

<p>"No, sir. It gave them a brisk west south-west
gale that carried them thirty leagues
beyond the maelstrom in the Norwegian
sea; then shifted, on which Captain Jenkyns
untied the second knot, which brought the
wind back to its own quarter. It failed them<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_271" id="Page_271">[271]</a></span>
again, but when the third knot was untied
there arose so furious a tempest that all hands
went to prayers, begging for mercy for
choosing to deal with an infernal artist instead
of trusting to Providence."</p>

<p>It was not easy to make out the thoughts
in Vanderdecken's mind, not less because of
the half of his countenance being densely
clothed with hair, than because of the white,
iron rigidity of as much of his face as was
visible; yet I could not doubt that he believed
in those Finnish wizards from a sudden
yearning in his manner, followed by a flashing
glance of impatience at the cabin entrance,
that was for all the world as though he had
cried out "Would to God there was a purchasable
wind hereabouts!" But the reader
must consider that this man belonged to an
age when wise men soberly credited greater
wonders than Icelandish and Finnish wind-brokers.</p>

<p>By this I had made an end of breakfast,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_272" id="Page_272">[272]</a></span>
and Prins arriving with a jar full of the
tobacco, flaked and fit for smoking, the
captain filled his pipe, first pushing the jar
to me, and then fell into one of his silences,
from which he would emerge at wide intervals
to say something that was as good as
a warrant he was thinking no longer of the
sorcery of my fall and appearance. When he
had emptied his bowl, he went to his cabin.
Imogene instantly arose and came to my
side.</p>

<p>"Oh, my dearest!" she whispered, with a
sudden darkening of her eyes by the shadow
of tears, "I did believe, indeed, you were
lost to me for ever! My senses seemed to
leave me when Vanderdecken accounted for
your absence."</p>

<p>"Dear heart! My precious one!" I
answered, fondling her little hand, which
lay cold with her emotion in mine; "I am
still with thee, and hope with us may remain
fearless. But it was a narrow escape. Van<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_273" id="Page_273">[273]</a></span>
Vogelaar came red-handed to this table. For
hours he has had my blood upon his devilish
soul. No wonder the villain quailed when I
entered this cabin."</p>

<p>"What did he do?" she cried.</p>

<p>"I believed I saw a ship," I answered;
"I jumped on to the rail to make sure, and
leaned against the brace that governs the
main-yard. He slipped aft and let go the
rope, meaning that I should fall overboard,
but my grip was a sailor's, and I swung with
the rope into the mizzen-chains."</p>

<p>"The wretch! He told Vanderdecken that
you had climbed on to the bulwarks and
fallen. I could kill him!" She clenched her
white fingers till the jewels on them flashed
to the trembling of the tension, and a delicate
crimson surged into her face. "I could kill
him!" she repeated.</p>

<p>"Hush, sweet one! It is our business to
escape, and we need an exquisite judgment.
I, too, could kill the treacherous ruffian, only<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_274" id="Page_274">[274]</a></span>
that he is deathless. You, brave heart, will
advise me that we are not to know of this
thing. No, let it be an accident of my own
doing. We are in a shipful of devils, and
must act as if we believed them angels."</p>

<p>Her face slowly paled, her fingers opened,
and the angry shining faded out of her eyes
leaving the soft, violet pensive light there.</p>

<p>"Yes, you are right; we must not know
the truth of this thing," said she, musingly,
after a little. "But be on your guard,
Geoffrey; keep well away from that rogue.
His Spanish treachery is made formidable by
his Dutch cunning. How swiftly he acted
last night! His thoughts must have been
intent for some time or even the demon in
him would not have been equal to such
readiness. See to your cabin door at night&mdash;O
Geoffrey, he might steal in upon
you."</p>

<p>I smiled. "He has spoken once; I shall
not require a second hint."</p>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_275" id="Page_275">[275]</a></span></p>

<p>"O that I had a man's arm, Geoffrey, that
I might be your sentinel whilst you slept!"</p>

<p>"Precious one! You shall sentinel me yet!
Patience, meanwhile! It is this ship that
makes home so distant. Once clear of this
groaning vault and we shall be smelling the
sweetbriar and the violet."</p>

<p>Vanderdecken came out of his cabin and
went on deck. He walked with impetuosity
and passed without regarding us. Through
the open door leading to the quarter-deck I
saw him stand a minute with his face upturned
and then toss his hand with a gesture
of baffled rage.</p>

<p>"He is cursing the wind," said Imogene.
"How often has he done so since I have
been in this ship! And when will a last day
come to him, when there shall be no wind to
curse, when death shall have paralysed his
tongue and silenced his heart? How fiercely
it now throbs! Surely there is more stormy
passion in one day of its beating than in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_276" id="Page_276">[276]</a></span>
twenty years of a human pulse! O, my
dear, that you had the northern wizard's
power of evoking prosperous gales!"</p>

<p>"I should be glad of that power," said I,
"for better reasons than to help this man to
fight against his Sentence. Can you guess
what I would do? I would straightway blow
this old ship ashore. Dread the Afric coast
as you will, dear one, it will be our only
chance."</p>

<p>"I dread it for its savages&mdash;the thought of
captivity beyond the mountains is horrible!
I have heard my father tell of the wreck of
an East Indiaman named the Grosvenor, in
which were ladies of distinction, who were
seized by the natives and carried far inland
and made wives of. That is not more than
twenty years ago. O, Geoffrey, sooner than
that&mdash;I would be content to die in this ship&mdash;to
go on sailing about in her till my hair
was as white as the foam about our keel!"
and as she said this she grasped a handful of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_277" id="Page_277">[277]</a></span>
her golden hair and held it to me, unconscious
in the earnestness of her fears of the
child-like simplicity of her action. I put my
lips to the tress, that flowed from her head
through the snow of her hand and thence
down like a stream of sunny light or the
raining of the jet of a golden fountain, and
told her not to fear, that I loved the natives
as little as she, and would contrive to give
them a wide berth; and then I changed the
subject by wondering what the consequences
would be if last night's business and Vanderdecken's
talk this morning put it into the
minds of the crew that I was as much a
wizard as any Finn and could control the
breezes if I chose.</p>

<p>She shook her head. "Better that they
should regard you as what you really are&mdash;an
English sailor. Suppose they persuaded
themselves that you could raise and sell
winds, they might determine to test you,
and imprison, even torture you in the belief<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_278" id="Page_278">[278]</a></span>
you were stubborn and would not do their
bidding; or, if they came to consider you a
wizard, they might think your presence in
the ship unlucky, and, being half-savages,
with demons for souls, as I believe, and with
instincts belonging to a time when the world
was brutal and human life held in no account&mdash;there
is no imagining how they would
serve you."</p>

<p>"Oh, Imogene!" cried I, "you are my
good angel&mdash;&mdash;"</p>

<p>"A true sweetheart must ever be that to
the boy she loves," she whispered, looking
down and softly blushing.</p>

<p>"You are my true sweetheart, Imogene!
And how faithfully you are able to guide me
through the marvellous experience we are
both passing through, I know by the words
you have just uttered," and I went on to tell
her how Van Vogelaar had under his breath
talked as if to himself of my being a curse in
the ship.</p>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_279" id="Page_279">[279]</a></span></p>

<p>As I said this, Prins came to the cabin
door, and stood looking in. Perceiving him,
Imogene rose and saying quietly, "He has
perhaps been sent to report if we are together;
go you on deck, dearest; I will
join you, presently," went to her berth.</p>


<div class="center">END OF VOLUME II.</div>

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