“It is no Dutchman,” said Wilder, drawing a long breath, like a man awaking from a trance. “Main topmast-cross-trees, there!”
The man who was stationed aloft answered to this hail in the customary manner, the short conversation that succeeded being necessarily maintained in shouts, rather than in speeches.
“How long have you seen the stranger?” was the first demand of Wilder.
“I have just come aloft, sir; but the man I relieved tells me more than an hour.”
“And has the man you relieved come down? or what is that I see sitting on the lee side of the mast-head?”
“‘Tis Bob Brace, sir; who says he cannot sleep, and so he stays upon the yard to keep me company.”
“Send the man down. I would speak to him.”
While the wakeful seaman was descending the rigging, the two officers continued silent, each seeming to find sufficient occupation in musing on what had already passed.
“And why are you not in your hammock?” said Wilder, a little sternly, to the man who, in obedience to his order, had descended to the quarter-deck.
“I am not sleep-bound, your Honour, and therefore I had the mind to pass another hour aloft.”
“And why are you, who have two night-watches to keep already, so willing to enlist in a third?”
“To own the truth, sir, my mind has been a little misgiving about this passage, since the moment we lifted our anchor.”
Mrs Wyllys and Gertrude, who were auditors, insensibly drew nigher, to listen, with a species of interest which betrayed itself by the thrilling of nerves, and an accelerated movement of the pulse.
“And you have your doubts, sir!” exclaimed the Captain, in a tone of slight contempt. “Pray, may I ask what you have seen, on board here, to make you distrust the ship.”
“No harm in asking, your Honour,” returned the seaman, crushing the hat he held between two hands that had a gripe like a couple of vices, “and so I hope there is none in answering. I pulled an oar in the boat after the old man this morning, and I cannot say I like the manner in which he got from the chase. Then, there is something in the ship to leeward that comes athwart my fancy like a drag, and I confess, your Honour, that I should make but little head-way in a nap, though I should try the swing of a hammock.”
“How long is it since you made the ship to leeward?” gravely demanded Wilder.
“I will not swear that a real living ship has been made out at all, sir. Something I did see, just before the bell struck seven, and there it is, just as clear and just as dim, to be seen now by them that have good eyes.”
“And how did she bear when you first saw her?”
“Two or three points more toward the beam than it is now.”
“Then we are passing her!” exclaimed Wilder, with a pleasure too evident to be concealed.
“No, your Honour, no. You forget, sir, the ship has come closer to the wind since the middle watch was set.”
“True,” returned his young Commander, in a tone of disappointment; “true, very true. And her bearing has not changed since you first made her?”
“Not by compass, sir. It is a quick boat that, or would never hold such way with the ‘Royal Caroline,’ and that too upon a stiffened bow-line, which every body knows is the real play of this ship.”
“Go, get you to your hammock. In the morning we may have a better look at the fellow.”
“And—you hear me, sir,” added the attentive mate, “do not keep the men’s eyes open below, with a tale as long as the short cable, but take your own natural rest, and leave all others, that have clear consciences, to do the same.”
“Mr Earing,” said Wilder, as the seaman reluctantly proceeded towards his place of rest, “we will bring the ship upon the other tack, and get more easting, while the land is so far from us. This course will be setting us upon Hatteras. Besides”——
“Yes, sir,” the mate replied, observing his superior to hesitate, “as you were saying,—besides, no one can foretel the length of a gale, nor the real quarter it may come from.”
“Precisely. No one can answer for the weather. The men are scarcely in their hammocks; turn them up at once, sir, before their eyes are heavy, and we will bring the ship’s head the other way.”
The mate instantly sounded the well-known cry, which summoned the watch below to the assistance of their shipmates on the deck. Little delay occurred, and not a word was uttered, but the short, authoritative mandates which Wilder saw fit to deliver from his own lips. No longer pressed up against the wind, the ship, obedient to her helm, gracefully began to incline her head from the waves, and to bring the wind abeam. Then, instead of breasting and mounting the endless hillocks, like a being that toiled heavily along its path, she fell into the trough of the sea, from which she issued like a courser, who, have conquered an ascent, shoots along the track with redoubled velocity. For an instant the wind appear ed to have lulled, though the wide ridge of foam which rolled along on each side the vessel’s bows, sufficiently proclaimed that she was skimming lightly before it. In another moment, the tall spars began to incline again to the west, and the vessel came swooping up to the wind, until her plunges and shocks against the seas were renewed as violently as before. When every yard and sheet were properly trimmed to meet the new position of the vessel, Wilder turned anxiously to get a glimpse of the stranger. A minute was lost in ascertaining the precise spot where he ought to appear; for, in such a chaos of water, and with no guide but the judgment, the eye was apt to deceive itself, by referring to the nearer and more familiar objects by which the spectator was surrounded.
“The stranger has vanished!” said Earing, with a voice in whose tones mental relief and distrust were both, at the same moment, oddly manifesting themselves.
“He should be on this quarter; but I confess I see him not!”
“Ay, ay, sir; this is the way that the midnight cruiser off the Hope is said to come and go. There are men who have seen that vessel shut in by a fog, in as fine a star-light night as was ever met in a southern latitude. But then this cannot be the Dutchman, since it is so many long leagues from the pitch of the Cape to the coast of North-America.
“Here he lies; and, by heaven! he has already gone about!” cried Wilder.
The truth of what our young adventurer had just affirmed was indeed now sufficiently evident to the eye of any seaman. The same diminutive and misty tracery, as before, was to be seen on the light background of the threatening horizon, looking not unlike the faintest shadows cast upon some brighter surface by the deception of the phantasmagoria. But to the mariners, who so well knew how to distinguish between the different lines of her masts, it was very evident that her course had been suddenly and dexterously changed, and that she was now steering no longer to the south and west, but, like themselves, holding her way towards the north-east. The fact appeared to make a sensible impression on them all; though probably, had their reasons been sifted, they would have been found to be entirely different.
“That ship has truly tacked!” Earing exclaimed, after a long, meditative pause, and with a voice in which distrust, or rather awe, was beginning to get the ascendancy. “Long as I have followed the sea, have I never before seen a vessel tack against such a head-beating sea. He must have been all shaking in the wind, when we gave him the last look, or we should not have lost sight of him.”
“A lively and quick-working vessel might do it,” said Wilder; “especially if strong handed.”
“Ay, the hand of Beelzebub is always strong; and a light job would he make of it, in forcing even a dull craft to sail.”
“Mr Earing,” interrupted Wilder, “we will pack upon the ‘Caroline,’ and try our sailing with this