“Sir.”
“Double the men's grog: they have been cheated of their meal.”
“Ay, ay, sir.”
“And stop the cook's and his mate's for a week.”
“Ay, ay, sir.”
“Bosen, pipe down.”
“Shipmates, listen to me,” said the foretopman. “This old Agra is a d——d com—for—table ship.”
The oracular sentence was hailed with a ringing cheer. Still, it is unlucky the British seaman is so enamoured of theological terms; for he constantly misapplies them.
After lying a week like a dead log on the calm but heaving waters, came a few light puffs in the upper air and inflated the topsails only: the ship crawled southward, the crew whistling for wind.
At last, one afternoon, it began to rain, and after the rain came a gale from the eastward. The watchful skipper saw it purple the water to windward, and ordered the topsails to be reefed and the lee ports closed. This last order seemed an excess of precaution; but Dodd was not yet thoroughly acquainted with his ship's qualities: and the hard cash round his neck made him cautious. The lee ports were closed, all but one, and that was lowered. Mr. Grey was working a problem in his cabin, and wanted a little light and a little air, so he just drooped his port; but, not to deviate from the spirit of his captain's instructions, he fastened a tackle to it; that he might have mechanical force to close it with should the ship lie over.
Down came the gale with a whoo, and made all crack. The ship lay over pretty much, and the sea poured in at Mr. Grey's port. He applied his purchase to close it. But though his tackle gave him the force of a dozen hands, he might as well have tried to move a mountain; on the contrary, the tremendous sea rushed in and burst the port wide open. Grey, after a vain struggle with its might, shrieked for help; down tumbled the nearest hands, and hauled on the tackle in vain. Destruction was rushing on the ship, and on them first. But meantime the captain, with a shrewd guess at the general nature of the danger he could not see, had roared out, “Slack the main sheet.” The ship righted, and the port came flying to, and terror-stricken men breathed hard, up to their waists in water and floating boxes. Grey barred the unlucky port and went aft, drenched in body, and wretched in mind, to report his own fault. He found the captain looking grim as death. He told him, almost crying, what he had done, and how he had miscalculated the power of the water.
Dodd looked and saw his distress. “Let it be a lesson, sir,” said he, sternly. “How many ships have been lost by this in fair weather, and not a man saved to tell how the craft was fooled away?”
“Captain, bid me fling myself over the side, and I'll do it.”
“Hummph! I'm afraid I can't afford to lose a good officer for a fault he—will—never—repeat”
It blew hard all night and till twelve the next day. The Agra showed her weak point: she rolled abominably. A dirty night came on. At eight bells Mr. Grey, touched by Dodd's clemency and brimful of zeal, reported a light in Mrs. Beresford's cabin. It had been put out as usual by the master-at-arms; but the refractory one had relighted it.
“Go and take it away,” said Dodd.
Soon screams were heard from the cabin. “Oh, mercy! mercy! I will not be drowned in the dark.”
Dodd, who had kept clear of her so long, went down and tried to reassure her.
“Oh, the tempest! the tempest!” she cried. “AND TO BE DROWNED IN THE DARK!”
“Tempest? It is blowing half a gale of wind; that is all.”
“Half a gale! Ah! that is the way you always talk to us ladies. Oh, pray give me my light, and send me a clergyman.”
Dodd took pity, and let her have her light, with a midshipman to watch it. He even made her a hypocritical promise that should there be one grain of danger, he would lie to; but said he must not make a foul wind of a fair one for a few lee lurches. The Agra broke plenty of glass and crockery though, with her fair wind and her lee lurches.
Wind down at noon next day, and a dead calm.
At two P. M. the weather cleared; the sun came out high in heaven's centre; and a balmy breeze from the west.
At six twenty-five, the grand orb set calm and red, and the sea was gorgeous with miles and miles of great ruby dimples: it was the first glowing smile of southern latitude. The night stole on so soft, so clear, so balmy, all were loth to chose their eyes on it: the passengers lingered long on deck, watching the Great Bear dip, and the Southern Cross rise, and overhead a whole heaven of glorious stars most of us have never seen, and never shall see in this world. No belching smoke obscured, no plunging paddles deafened; all was musical; the soft air sighing among the sails; the phosphorescent water bubbling from the ship's bows; the murmurs from little knots of men on deck subdued by the great calm: home seemed near, all danger far; Peace ruled the sea, the sky, the heart: the ship, making a track of white fire on the deep, glided gently yet swiftly homeward, urged by snowy sails piled up like alabaster towers against a violet sky, out of which looked a thousand eyes of holy tranquil fire. So melted the sweet night away.
Now carmine streaks tinged the eastern sky at the water's edge; and that water blushed; now the streaks turned orange, and the waves below them sparkled. Thence splashes of living gold flew and settled on the ship's white sails, the deck, and the faces; and with no more prologue, being so near the line, up came majestically a huge, fiery, golden sun, and set the sea flaming liquid topaz.
Instantly the look-out at the foretop-gallant-mast-head hailed the deck below.
“STRANGE SAIL! RIGHT AHEAD!”
The strange sail was reported to Captain Dodd, then dressing in his cabin. He came soon after on deck and hailed the lookout: “Which way is she standing?”
“Can't say, sir. Can't see her move any.”
Dodd ordered the boatswain to pipe to breakfast; and taking his deck glass went lightly up to the fore-top-gallant-mast crosstrees. Thence, through the light haze of a glorious morning, he espied a long low schooner, lateen-rigged, lying close under Point Leat, a small island about nine miles distant on the weather bow, and nearly in the Agra's course, then approaching the Straits of Gaspar, 4 latitude S.
“She is hove-to,” said Dodd very gravely.
At eight o'clock, the stranger lay about two miles to windward, and still hove-to.
By this time all eyes were turned upon her, and half a dozen glasses. Everybody, except the captain, delivered an opinion.
She was a Greek lying-to for water: she was a Malay coming north with canes, and short of hands: she was a pirate watching the Straits.
The captain leaned silent and sombre with his arms on the bulwarks, and watched the suspected craft.
Mr. Fullalove joined the group, and levelled a powerful glass, of his own construction. His inspection was long and minute, and, while the glass was at his eye, Sharpe asked him half in a whisper, could he make out anything?
“Wal,” said he, “the varmint looks considerable snaky.” Then, without removing his glass, he let drop a word at a time, as if the facts were trickling into his telescope at the lens, and out at the sight “One—two—four—seven, false ports.”
There was a momentary murmur among the officers all round. But British sailors are undemonstrative: Colonel Kenealy, strolling the deck with his cigar, saw they were watching another ship with maritime curiosity, and making comments but he discerned no particular emotion nor anxiety in what they said, nor in the grave low tones they said it in. Perhaps a brother seaman would though.
The next observation that trickled out of Fullalove's tube was this: “I judge there are too few hands on deck, and too many—white—eyeballs—glittering at the portholes.”