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The Red Rover: A Tale, a novel by James Fenimore Cooper |
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Chapter 18 |
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_ Chapter XVIII --"Every day, some sailor's wife,
The females had buried their faces in the folds of the vestments and clothes on which they were sitting; nor did even the governess raise her countenance until twice assured by her companion that the imminency of the risk was past. Another minute went by, during which Mrs Wyllys and Gertrude were rendering their thanksgivings, in a manner and in words less equivocal than the expression which had just broken from the lips of the young seaman. When this grateful duty was performed, they stood erect, as if emboldened, by the offering, to look their situation more steadily in the face. On every side lay the seemingly illimitable waste of waters. To them, their small and frail tenement was the world. So long as the ship, sinking and dangerous as she was, remained beneath them, there had appeared to be a barrier between their existence and the ocean. But one minute had deprived them of even this failing support, and they now found themselves cast upon the sea in a vessel that might be likened to one of the bubbles of the element. Gertrude felt, at that instant, as though she would have given half her hopes in life for the mere sight of that vast and nearly untenanted Continent which stretched for so many thousands of miles along the west, and kept the world of waters to their limits. But the rush of emotions that so properly belonged to their forlorn condition soon subsided, and their thoughts returned to the study of the means necessary to their further safety. Wilder had, however anticipated these feelings; and, even before Mrs Wyllys and Gertrude had recovered their recollections, he was occupied, aided by the ready hands of the terrified but loquacious Cassandra, in arranging the contents of the boat in such a manner as would enable her to move through the element with the least possible resistance. "With a well-trimmed ship, and a fair breeze," cried our adventurer, cheerfully, so soon as his little job was ended, "we may yet hope to reach the land in one day and another night. I have seen the hour when, in this good launch, I would not have hesitated to run the length of the American coast, provided"-- "You have forgotten your provided," said Gertrude observing that he hesitated, probably from a reluctance to express any exception to the opinion, which might increase the fears of his companions. "Provided it were two months earlier in the year," he added, in a tone of less confidence. "The season is, then, against us: It only requires the greater resolution in ourselves!" Wilder turned his head to regard the fair speaker, whose pale and placid countenance, as the moon silvered her fine features, expressed any thing but the courage to endure the hardships he so well knew she was liable to encounter, before they might hope to gain the Continent. After musing a moment, he lifted his open hand towards the south-west, and held its palm some little time to the air of the night. "Any thing is better than idleness, for people in our condition," he said. "There are some symptoms of the breeze coming in this quarter; I will be ready to meet it." He then spread his two lug-sails; and, trimming aft the sheets, placed himself at the helm, like one who expected his services there might be shortly needed. The result did not disappoint his expectations. Ere Long, the light canvas of the boat began to flutter; and then, as he brought the bows in the proper direction, the little vessel commenced moving slowly along its blind and watery path. The wind soon came fresher upon the sails, heavily charged with the dampness of the hour. Wilder urged the latter reason as a motive for the females to seek their rest beneath a little canopy of tarpaulings, which his foresight had also provided, and on mattresses he had brought from the ship Perceiving that their protector wished to be alone, Mrs Wyllys and her pupil did as desired; and, in a few minutes, if not asleep, no one could have told that any other than our adventurer had possession of the solitary launch. The middle hour of the night went by, without any material change in the prospects of those whose fate so much depended on the precarious influence of the weather. The wind had freshened to a smart breeze; and, by the calculations of Wilder, he had already moved across many leagues of ocean, directly in a line for the eastern end of that long and narrow isle that separates the waters which wash the shores of Connecticut from those of the open sea. The minutes flew swiftly by; for the time was propitious and the thoughts of the young seaman were busy with the recollections of a short but adventurous life. At moments he leaned forward, as if he would catch the gentle respiration of one who slept beneath the dark and rude canopy, and as though he might distinguish the soft breathings of her slumbers from those of her companions. Then would his form fall back into its seat, and his lip curl, or even move, as he gave inward utterance to the wayward fancies of his imagination. But at no time, not even in the midst of his greatest abandonment to reverie and thought, did he forget the constant, and nearly instinctive, duties of his station. A rapid glance at the heavens, an oblique look at the compass, and an occasional, but more protracted, examination of the pale face of the melancholy moon, were the usual directions taken by his practised eyes. The latter was still in the zenith; and his brow began again to contract, as he saw that she was shining through an atmosphere without a haze. He would have liked better to have seen even those portentous and watery circles by which she is so often environed and which are thought to foretel the tempest, than the hard and dry medium through which her beams fell so clear upon the face of the waters. The humidity with which the breeze had commenced was also gone; and, in its place, the quick, sensitive organs of the seaman detected the often grateful, though at that moment unwelcome, taint of the land. All these were signs that the airs from the Continent were about to prevail, and (as he dreaded, from certain wild-looking, long, narrow clouds, that were gathering over the western horizon) to prevail with a power conformable to the turbulent season of the year. If any doubt had existed in the mind of Wilder as to the accuracy of his prognostics, it would have been solved about the commencement of the morning watch. At that hour the inconstant breeze began again to die; and, even before its last breathing was felt upon the flapping canvas, it was met by counter currents from the west. Our adventurer saw at once that the struggle was now truly to commence, and he made his dispositions accordingly. The square sheets of duck, which had so long been exposed to the mild airs of the south, were reduced to one third their original size, by double reefs; and several of the more cumbrous of the remaining articles such as were of doubtful use to persons in their situation, were cast, without pausing to hesitate, into the sea. Nor was this care without a sufficient object. The air soon came sighing heavily over the deep from the north-west, bringing with it the chilling asperity of the inhospitable regions of the Canadas. "Ah! well do I know you," muttered Wilder, as the first puff of this unwelcome wind struck his sails, and forced the little boat to bend to its power in passing; "well do I know you, with your fresh-water flavour and your smell of the land! Would to God you had blown your fill upon the lakes, without coming down to drive many a weary seaman back upon his wake, and to eke out a voyage, already too long, by your bitter colds and steady obstinacy!" "Do you speak?" said Gertrude, half appearing from beneath her canopy, and then shrinking back, shivering, into its cover again, as she felt the influence in the change of air. "Sleep, Lady, sleep," he answered, as though he liked not, at such a moment, to be disturbed by even her soft and silvery voice. "Is there new danger?" asked the maiden, stepping lightly from the mattress, as if she would not disturb the repose of her governess. "You need not fear to tell me the worst: I am a soldier's child!" He pointed to the signs so well comprehended by himself, but continued silent. "I feel that the wind is colder than it was," she said, "but I see no other change." "And do you know whither the boat is going?" "To the land, I think. You assured us of that, and I do not believe you would willingly deceive." "You do me justice; and, as a proof of it, I will now tell you that you are mistaken. I know that to your eyes all points of the compass, on this void, must seem the same; but I cannot thus easily deceive myself." "And we are not sailing for our homes?" "So far from it, that, should this course continue we must cross the whole Atlantic before your eyes could again see land." Gertrude made no reply, but retired, in sorrow, to the side of her governess. In the mean time, Wilder again left to himself, began to consult his compass and the direction of the wind. Perceiving that he might approach nearer to the continent of America by changing the position of the boat, he wore round, and brought its head as nigh up to the south-west as the wind would permit. But there was little hope in this trifling change. At each minute, the power of the breeze was increasing until it soon freshened to a degree that compelled him to furl his after-sail. The slumbering ocean was not long in awakening; and, by the time the launch was snug under a close-reefed fore-sail, the boat was rising on dark and ever-growing waves, or sinking into the momentary calm of deep furrows, whence it rose again, to feel the rapidly increasing power of the blasts. The dashing of the waters, and the rushing of the wind, which now began to sweep heavily across the blue waste, quickly drew the females to the side of our adventurer. To their hurried and anxious questions he made considerate but brief replies, like a man who felt that the time was far better suited to action than to words. In this manner the last lingering minutes of the night went by, loaded with a care that each moment rendered heavier, and which each successive freshening of the breeze had a tendency to render doubly anxious. The day came, only to bestow more distinctness on the cheerless prospect. The waves were looking green and angrily, while, here and there, large crests of foam were beginning to break on their summits--the certain evidence that a conflict betwixt the elements was at hand. Then came the sun over the ragged margin of the eastern horizon, climbing slowly into the blue arch above, which lay clear, chilling, distinct, and entirely without a cloud. Wilder noted all these changes of the hour with a closeness that proved how critical he deemed their case. He seemed rather to consult the signs of the heavens than to regard the tossings and rushings of the water, which dashed against the side of his little vessel in a mariner that, to the eyes of his companions, often appeared to threaten their total destruction. To the latter he was too much accustomed, to anticipate the true moment of alarm, though to less instructed senses it might already seem so dangerous. It was to him as is the thunder, when compared to the lightning, in the mind of the philosopher; or rather he knew, that, if harm might come from the one on which he floated, its ability to injure must first be called into action by the power of the sister element. "What think you of our case now?" asked Mrs Wyllys, keeping her look closely fastened on his countenance, as if she would rather trust its expression than even to his words for the answer. "So long as the wind continues thus, we may yet hope to keep within the route of ships to and from the great northern ports; but, if it freshen to a gale, and the sea begin to break with violence. I doubt the ability of this boat to lie-to." "Then our resource must be in endeavouring to run before the gale." "Then must we scud." "What would be our direction, in such an event?" demanded Gertrude, to whose mind, in the agitation of the ocean and the naked view on every hand, all idea of places and distances was lost, in the most inextricable confusion. "In such an event," returned our adventurer, regarding her with a look in which commiseration and indefinite concern were so singularly mingled, that her own mild gaze was changed into a timid and furtive glance, "in such an event, we should be leaving that land it is so important to reach." "What 'em 'ere?" cried Cassandra, whose large dark eyes were rolling on every side of her, with a curiosity that no care or sense of danger could extinguish; "'em berry big fish on a water?" "It is a boat!" cried Wilder, springing upon a thwart, to catch a glimpse of a dark object that was driving on the glittering crest of a wave, within a hundred feet of the spot where the launch itself was struggling through the brine. "What ho!--boat, ahoy!--holloa there!--boat, ahoy!" 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 the anxious Wilder with a wonder that her more cautious governess had the power to restrain. "Did I thank Heaven for not being seen! I may have mistaken the object of my thanks: It is an armed ship!" "Perhaps a cruiser of the King's! We are the more likely to meet with a welcome reception! Delay not to hoist some signal, lest they increase their sail, and leave us." "You forget that the enemy is often found upon our coast. This might prove a Frenchman!" "I have no fears of a generous enemy. Even a pirate would give shelter, and welcome, to females in such distress." A long and profound silence succeeded. Wilder still stood upon the thwart, straining his eyes to read each sign that a seaman understands; nor did he appear to find much pleasure in the task. "We will drift ahead," he said, "and, as the ship is lying on a different tack, we may yet gain a position that will leave us masters of our future movements." To this his companions knew not well how to make any objections. Mrs Wyllys was so much struck with the remarkable air of coldness with which he met this prospect of refuge against the forlorn condition in which he had just before confessed they were placed, that she was much more disposed to ponder on the cause, than to trouble him with questions which she had the discernment to see would be useless. Gertrude wondered, while she was disposed to think he might be right, though she knew not why. Cassandra alone was rebellious. She lifted her voice in loud objections against a moment's delay, assuring the abstracted and perfectly inattentive young seaman, that, should any evil come to her young mistress by his obstinacy, General Grayson would be angered; and then she left him to reflect on the results of a displeasure that to her simple mind teemed with all the danger that could attend the anger of a monarch. Provoked by his contumacious disregard of her remonstrances, the negress, forgetting all her respect, in blindness in behalf of her whom she not only loved, but had been taught to reverence, seized the boat-hook, and, unperceived by Wilder, fastened to it, with dexterity, one of the linen cloths that had been brought from the wreck, and exposed it, far above the diminished sail, for a couple of minutes, ere her device had caught the eyes of either of her companions. Then, indeed she lowered the signal, in haste, before the dark and frowning look of Wilder. But, short as was the triumph of the negress, it was crowned with complete success. The restrained silence, which is so apt to succeed a sudden burst of displeasure, was still reigning in the boat, when a cloud of smoke broke out of the side of the ship, as she lay on the summit of a wave; and then came the deadened roar of artillery struggling heavily up against the wind. "It is now too late to hesitate," said Mrs Wyllys; "we are seen, let the stranger be friend or enemy." Wilder did not answer, but continued to profit, by each opportunity, to watch the movements of the stranger. In another moment, the spars were seen receding from the breeze, and, in a couple of minutes more, the head of the ship was changed to the direction in which they lay. Then appeared four or five broader sheets of canvas in different parts of the complicated machinery, while the vessel bowed to the gale, as though she inclined still lower before its power. At moments, as she mounted on a sea, her bows seemed issuing from the element altogether and high jets of spray were cast into the air, glittering in the sun, as the white particles scattered in the breeze, or fell in gems upon the sails and rigging, "It is now too late, indeed;" murmured our adventurer bearing up the helm of his own little craft, and letting its sheet glide through his hands, until the sail was bagging with the breeze nearly to bursting. The boat, which had so long been labouring through the water, with a wish to cling as nigh as possible to the Continent, flew over the seas, leaving a long trail of foam behind it; and, before either of the females had regained their entire self-possession, she was floating in the comparative calm that was created by the hull of a large vessel. A light active form stood in the rigging of the ship, issuing the necessary orders to a hundred seamen; and, in the midst of the confusion and alarm that such a scene was likely to cause in the bosom of woman, Gertrude and Mrs Wyllys, with their two companions, were transferred in safety to the decks of the stranger. The moment they and their effects were secured the launch was cut adrift, like useless lumber. Twenty mariners were then seen climbing among the ropes; and sail after sail was opened still wider, until bearing the vast folds of all her canvas spread, the vessel was urged along the trackless course, like a swift cloud drifting through the thin medium of the upper air. _ |
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