The deep breathing of the wind swept by them, but no human sound responded to his shout. They had already fallen, between two seas, into a deep vale of water, where the narrow view extended no farther than the dark and rolling barriers on either side.
“Merciful Providence!” exclaimed the governess, “can there be others as unhappy as ourselves!”
“It was a boat, or my sight is not true as usual,” returned Wilder, still keeping his stand, to watch the moment when he might catch another view. His wish was quickly realized. He had trusted the helm, for the moment, to the hands of Cassandra, who suffered the launch to vary a little from its course. The words were still on his lips, when the same black object came sweeping down the wave to windward, and a pinnace, bottom upwards, washed past them in the trough. Then followed a shriek from the negress, who abandoned the tiller, and, sinking on her knees, hid her face in her hands. Wilder instinctively caught the helm, as he bent his face in the direction whence the revolting eye of Cassandra had been turned. A grim human form was seen, erect, and half exposed, advancing in the midst of the broken crest which was still covering the dark declivity to windward with foam. For a moment, it stood with the brine dripping from the drenched locks, like some being that had issued from the deep to turn its frightful features on the spectators; and then the lifeless body of a drowned man drove past the launch, which, at the next minute, rose to the summit of the wave, to sink into another vale where no such terrifying object floated.
Not only Wilder, but Gertrude and Mrs Wyllys. had seen this startling spectacle so nigh them as to recognize the countenance of Nighthead, rendered still more stern and forbidding than ever, in the impression left by death. But neither spoke, nor gave any other evidence of their intelligence. Wilder hoped that his companions had at least escaped the shock of recognizing the victim; and the females themselves saw, in the hapless fortune of the mutineer too much of their own probable though more protracted fate, to be able to give vent to the horror each felt so deeply, in words. For some time, the elements alone were heard sighing a sort of hoarse requiem over the victims of their conflict.
“The pinnace has filled!” Wilder at length observed, when he saw, by the pallid features and meaning eyes of his companions, it was in vain to affect reserve on the subject any longer. “Their boat was frail, and loaded to the water’s edge.”
“Think you all are lost?” observed Mrs Wyllys, in a voice that scarcely amounted to a whisper.
“There is no hope for any! Gladly would I part with an arm, for the assistance of the poorest of those misguided seamen, who have hurried on their evil fortune by their own disobedience and ignorance.”
“And, of all the happy and thoughtless human beings who lately left the harbour of Newport, in a vessel that has so long been the boast of mariners, we alone remain!”
“There is not another: This boat, and its contents are the sole memorials of the ‘Royal Caroline!’”
“It was not within the ken of human Knowledge to foresee this evil,” continued the governess, fastening her eye on the countenance of Wilder, as though she would ask a question which conscience told her, at the same time, betrayed a portion of that very superstition which had hastened the fate of the rude being they had so lately passed.
“It was not.”
“And the danger, to which you so often and so inexplicably alluded, had no reference to this we have incurred?”
“It had not.”
“It has gone, with the change in our situation?”
“I hope it has.”
“See!” interrupted Gertrude, laying a hand, in her haste, on the arm of Wilder. “Heaven be praised! yonder is something at last to relieve the view.”
“It is a ship!” exclaimed her governess; but, an envious wave lifting its green side between them and the object, they sunk into a trough, as though the vision had been placed momentarily before their eyes, merely to taunt them with its image. The quick glance of Wilder had caught, however, a glimpse of the tracery against the heavens, as they descended. When the boat rose again, his look was properly directed, and he was enabled to be certain of the reality of the vessel. Wave succeeded wave, and moments followed moments, during which the stranger was given to their gaze, and as often disappeared, as the launch unavoidably fell into the troughs of the seas. These short and hasty glimpses sufficed, however, to convey all that was necessary to the eye of a man who had been nurtured on that element, where circumstances now exacted of him such constant and unequivocal evidences of his skill.
At the distance of a mile, there was in fact a ship to be seen, rolling and pitching gracefully, and without any apparent effort, on those waves through which the launch was struggling with such difficulty. A solitary sail was set, to steady the vessel, and that so reduced, by reefs, as to look like a little snowy cloud amid the dark maze of rigging and spars. At times, her long and tapering masts appeared pointing to the zenith, or even rolling as if inclining against the wind; and then, again, with slow and graceful sweeps, they seemed to fall towards the ruffled surface of the ocean, as though about to seek refuge from their endless motion, in the bosom of the agitated element itself. There were moments when the long, low, and black hull was seen distinctly resting on the summit of a sea, and glittering in the sun-beams, as the water washed from her sides; and then, as boat and vessel sunk together, all was lost to the eye, even to the attenuated lines of her tallest and most delicate spars.
Both Mrs Wyllys and Gertrude bowed their faces to their knees, when assured of the truth of their hopes, and poured out their gratitude in silent and secret thanksgivings. The joy of Cassandra was more clamorous, and less restrained. The simple negress laughed, shed tears, and exulted in the most touching manner, on the prospect that was now offered for the escape of her young mistress and herself from a death that the recent sight had set before her imagination in the most frightful form. But no answering look of congratulation was to be traced in the contracting and anxious eye of their companion.
“Now,” said Mrs Wyllys, seizing his hand in both her own, “may we hope to be delivered; and then shall we be allowed, brave and excellent young man, some opportunity of proving to you how highly we esteem your services.”
Wilder permitted the burst of her feelings with a species of bewildered care, but he neither spoke, nor in any other manner exhibited the smallest sympathy in her joy.
“Surely you are not grieved, Mr Wilder,” added the wondering Gertrude, “that the prospect of escape from these awful waves is at length so mercifully held forth to us!”
“I would gladly die to shelter you from harm,” returned the young sailor; “but”—
“This is not a time for any thing but gratitude and rejoicing,” interrupted the governess; “I cannot hearken to any cold exceptions now; what mean you with that ‘but?’”
“It may be not so easy as you think to reach yon ship—the gale may prevent—in short, many is the vessel that is seen at sea which cannot be spoken.”
“Happily, such is not our cruel fortune. I understand considerate and generous youth, your wish to dampen hopes that may possibly be yet thwarted, but I have too long, and too often, trusted this dangerous element, not to know that he who has the wind can speak, or not, as he pleases.”
“You are right in saying we are to windward Madam; and, were I in a ship, nothing would be easier than to run within hail of the stranger.—That ship is certainly lying-to, and yet the gale is not fresh enough to bring so stout a vessel to so short canvas.”
“They see us, then, and await our arrival.”
“No, no: Thank God, we are not yet seen! This little rag of ours is blended with the spray. They take it for a gull, or a comb of the sea, for the moment it is in view.”
“And do you thank Heaven for this!” exclaimed Gertrude, regarding