The bell had struck eight; and the hoarse long-drawn call, which summoned the sleepers to the deck, was heard, before either of the party seemed aware of the lateness of the hour.
“It is the middle watch,” said Wilder, smiling at he observed that Gertrude started at the strange sounds, and sat listening, like a timid doe that catches the note of the hunter’s horn. “We seamen are not always musical, as you may judge by the strains of the spokesman on this occasion. There are, however, ears in the ship to whom his notes are even more discordant than to your own.”
“You mean the sleepers?” said Mrs Wyllys.
“I mean the watch below. There is nothing so sweet to the foremast mariner as his sleep; for it is the most precarious of all his enjoyments: on the other hand, perhaps, it is the most treacherous companion the Commander knows.”
“And why is the rest of the superior so much less grateful than that of the common man?”
“Because he pillows his head on responsibility.”
“You are young, Mr Wilder, for a trust like this you bear.”
“It is a service which makes us all prematurely old.”
“Then, why not quit it?” said Gertrude, a little hastily.
“Quit it!” he replied, gazing at her intently, for an instant, while he suspended his reply. “It would be to me like quitting the air we breathe.”
“Have you so long been devoted to your profession?” resumed Mrs Wyllys, bending her thoughtful eye, from the ingenuous countenance of her pupil, once more towards the features of him she addressed.
“I have reason to think I was born on the sea.”
“Think! You surely know your birth-place.”
“We are all of us dependant on the testimony of others,” said Wilder, smiling, “for the account of that important event. My earliest recollections are blended with the sight of the ocean, and I can hardly say that I am a creature of the land at all.”
“You have, at least, been fortunate in those who have had the charge to watch over your education and your younger days.”
“I have!” he answered, with strong emphasis. Then, after shading his face an instant with his hands, he arose, and added, with a melancholy smile: “And now to my last duty for the twenty four hours. Have you a disposition to look at the night? So skilful and so stout a sailor should not seek her birth, without passing an opinion on the weather.”
The governess took his offered arm, and, with his aid, ascended the stairs of the cabin in silence, each seemingly finding sufficient employment in meditation. She was followed by the more youthful, and therefore more active Gertrude, who joined them as they stood together, on the weather side of the quarter-deck.
The night was rather misty than dark. A full and bright moon had arisen; but it pursued its path, through the heavens, behind a body of dusky clouds, that was much too dense for any borrowed rays to penetrate. Here and there, a straggling gleam appeared to find its way through a covering of vapour less dense than the rest, and fell upon the water like the dim illumination of a distant taper. As the wind was fresh and easterly, the sea seemed to throw upward from its agitated surface, more light, than it received; long lines of white, glittering foam following each other, and lending, at moments, a distinctness to the surface of the waters, that the heavens themselves wanted. The ship was bowed low on its side; and, as it entered each rolling swell of the ocean, a wide crescent of foam was driven ahead, as if the element gambolled along its path. But, though the time was propitious, the wind not absolutely adverse, and the heavens rather gloomy than threatening, an uncertain (and, to a landsman, it might seem an unnatural) light gave to the view a character of the wildest loneliness.
Gertrude shuddered, on reaching the deck, while she murmured an expression of strange delight. Even Mrs Wyllys gazed upon the dark waves, that were heaving and setting in the horizon, around which was shed most of that radiance that seemed so supernatural, with a deep conviction that she was now entirely in the hands of the Being who had created the waters and the land. But Wilder looked upon the scene as one fastens his gaze on a placid sky. To him the view possessed neither novelty, nor dread, nor charm. Not so, however, with his more youthful and slightly enthusiastic companion. After the first sensations of awe had a little subsided, she exclaimed, in the fullest ardour of admiration,—
“One such sight would repay a month of imprisonment in a ship! You must find deep enjoyment in these scenes, Mr Wilder; you, who have them always at command.”
“Yes, yes; there is pleasure to be found in them, without doubt, I would that the wind had veer’d a point or two! I like not that sky, nor yonder misty horizon, nor this breeze hanging so dead at east.”
“The vessel makes great progress,” returned Mrs Wyllys, calmly, observing that the young man spoke without consciousness, and fearing the effect of his words on the mind of her pupil. “If we are going on our course, there is the appearance of a quick and prosperous passage.”
“True!” exclaimed Wilder, as though he had just become conscious of her presence. “Quite probable and very true. Mr Earing, the air is getting too heavy for that duck. Hand all your top-gallant sails, and haul the ship up closer. Should the wind hang here at east-with-southing, we may want what offing we can get.”
The mate replied in the prompt and obedient manner which seamen use to their superiors; and; lifter scanning the signs of the weather for a moment, he promptly proceeded to see the order executed. While the men were on the yards furling the light canvas, the females walked apart, leaving the young Commander to the uninterrupted discharge of his duty. But Wilder, so far from deeming it necessary to lend his attention to so ordinary a service, the moment after he had spoken, seemed perfectly unconscious that the mandate had issued from his mouth. He stood on the precise spot where the view of the ocean and the heavens had first caught his eye, and his gaze still continued fastened on the aspect of the two elements. His look was always in the direction of the wind, which, though far from a gale, often fell upon the sails of the ship in heavy and sullen puffs. After a long and anxious examination, the young mariner muttered his thoughts to himself, and commenced pacing the deck with rapid footsteps. Still he would make sudden and short pauses, and again rivet his gaze on the point of the compass whence the blasts came sweeping across the waste of waters; as though he distrusted the weather, and would fain cause his keen glance to penetrate the gloom of night, in order to relieve some painful doubts. At length his step became arrested, in one of those quick turns that he made at each end of his narrow walk. Mrs Wyllys and Gertrude stood nigh, and were enabled to read something of the anxious character of his countenance, as his eye became suddenly fastened on a distant point of the ocean, though in a quarter exactly opposite to that whither his former looks had been directed.
“Do you so much distrust the weather?” asked the governess, when she thought his examination had endured long enough to become ominous of evil.
“One looks not to leeward for the signs of the weather, in a breeze like this,” was the answer.
“What see you, then, to fasten your eye on thus intently?”
Wilder slowly raised his arm, and was about to point with his finger, when the limb suddenly fell again.
“It was delusion!” he muttered, turning quickly on his heel, and pacing the deck still more rapidly than ever.
His companions watched the extraordinary, and apparently unconscious, movements of the young Commander,