Kitabı oku: «Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 66 No.406, August 1849», sayfa 8

At eight bells, again, I found it a fine breezy night, the two upper mates walking the weather quarterdeck in blue-water style, six steps and a look to windward, then a wheel round, and, now and then, a glance into the binnacle. I went aft and leant over the Seringapatam's lee quarter, looking at the white backwash running aft from her bows, in green sparks, into the smooth alongside, and the surge coming round her counter to meet it. Everything was set aloft that could draw, even to a starboard main-topmast-stunsail; the high Indiaman being lighter than if homeward-bound, and the breeze strong abeam, she had a good heel-over to port: but she went easily through the water, and it was only at the other side you heard it rattling both ways along the bends. The shadow of her went far to leeward, except where a gleam came on the top of a wave or two between the sails and under their foot. Just below the sheer of the hull aft it was as dark as night, though now and then the light from a port struck on it and went in again; but every time she sank, the bight of her wake from astern swelled up away round the counter, with its black side as smooth as a looking-glass. I kept peering into it, and expecting to see my own face, while all the time I was very naturally thinking of one quite different, and felt uneasy till I should actually see her. "Confound it!" I thought, "were it only a house, one might walk round and round it till he found out the window!" I fancied her bewitching face through the garden door, as clearly as if I saw it in the dark head of the swell; but I'd have given more only to hear that imp of a cockatoo scream once – whereas there was nothing but the water working up into the rudder-case; the pintles creaking, and the tiller-ropes cheeping as they traversed; and the long welter of the sea when the ship eased down, with the surgeon and his friends walking about and laughing up to windward. From that, again, I ran on putting things together, till, in fact, Jacobs's notion of a shipwreck seemed by far the best. No doubt Jacobs and Westwood, with a few others, would be saved, while I didn't even object much to the old nabob himself, for respectability's sake, and to spare crape. But, by Jove, wouldn't one bring him to his bearings soon enough there! Every sailor gets hold of this notion some night-watch or other, leaning over the side, with pretty creatures aboard he can scarce speak to otherwise; and I was coiling it down so fast myself, at the moment, that I had just begun to pitch into the nabob about our all being Adam's sons and daughters, under a knot of green palm-trees, at the door of a wooden house, half thatched with leaves, when I was brought up with a round turn by seeing a light shining through the hazy bull's-eye in the deck where I stood. No doubt the sweet girl I had been thinking of was actually there, and going to bed! I stretched over the quarter, but the heavy mouldings were in the way of seeing more than the green bars of the after window – all turned edgeways to the water, where the gallery hung out like a corner turret from the ship's side. Now and then, however, when she careened a little more than ordinary, and the smooth lee swell went heaping up opposite, I could notice the light through the venetians from the state-room come out upon the dark water in broad bright lines, like the grate across a fire, then disappearing in a ripple, till it was gone again, or somebody's shadow moved inside. It was the only lighted window in the gallery, and I looked every time it came as if I could see in; when at last, you may fancy my satisfaction, as, all of a sudden, one long slow heave-over of the ship showed me the whole bright opening of the port, squared out of her shadow, where it shone upon the glassy round of the swell. 'Twas as plain as from a mirror in a closet, – the lighted gallery window with its frame swung in, a bit of the deck-roof I was standing on, and two female figures at the window – mere dark shapes against the lamp. I almost started back at the notion of their seeing me, but away lengthened the light on the breast of the swell, and it sank slowly down into a black hollow, as the Indiaman eased up to windward. Minute by minute, quite breathless, did I watch for such another chance; but next time she leant over as much, the port had been closed, and all was dark; although those few moments were enough to send the heart into my mouth with sheer delight. The figure I had seen holding with one hand by the portsill, and apparently keeping up her dress with the other, as if she were looking down steadily on the heave of the sea below – it couldn't be mistaken. The line of her head, neck, and shoulders, came out more certain than if they hadn't been filled up with nothing but a black shadow; it was just Lota Hyde's, as she sat in the ball-room amongst the crowd, I'd have bet the Victory to a bumboat on it: only her hair hung loose on one side, while the girl behind seemed to be dressing the other, for it was turned back, so that I saw clear past her cheek and neck to where the lamp was, and her ear gleamed to the light. For one moment nothing could be plainer, than the glimpse old Davy Jones gave me by one of his tricks; but the old fellow was quite as decorous in his way as a chamberblind, and swallowed his pretty little bit of blab as quickly as if it had been a mermaid caught at her morning toilet. Whenever I found there was to be no more of it for the night, the best thing to calm one's feelings was to light a cigar and walk out the watch; but I took care it should rather be over the nabob's head than his daughter's, and went up to the weather side, where there was nobody else by this time, wishing her the sweetest of dreams, and not doubting I should see her next day.

I daresay I should have walked out the first watch, and the second too, if Westwood hadn't come up beside me before he turned in.

"Why, you look like the officer of the watch, Ned!" said my friend, after taking a glance, round at the night. "Yes – what? – a – a – I don't think so," stammered I, not knowing what he said, or at least the meaning of it, though certainly it was not so deep. "I hope not though, Tom!" said I again, "'tis the very thing I don't want to look like!" "You seem bent on keeping it up, and coming the innocent, at any rate," said he; "I really didn't know you the first time I saw you in the cuddy." "Why, man, you never saw our theatricals in the dear old Iris, on the African station! I was our best female actor of tragedy there, and did Desdemona so well that the black cook who stood for Othello, actually cried. He said, 'Nobody but 'ee dibble umself go forsmudder missee Dasdemoner!'" "I daresay," said Westwood; "but what is the need for it now, even if you could serve as a blind for me?" "My dear fellow!" said I, "not at all – you've kept it up very well so far – just go on." "Keep it up, Ned?" inquired he, "what do you mean? I've done nothing except keep quiet, from mere want of spirits." "So much the better," I said; "I never saw a man look more like a prophet in the wilderness; it doesn't cost you the least trouble – why you'd have done for Hamlet in the Iris, if for nothing else! After all, though, a missionary don't wear blue pilot-cloth trousers, nor tie his neckerchief as you do, Tom. You must bend a white neckcloth to-morrow morning! I'm quite serious, Westwood, I assure you," continued I. "Just think of the suspicious look of two navy men being aboard an Indiaman, nobody knows how! Why, the first frigate we speak, or port we touch at, they'd hand one or both of us over at once – which I, for my part, shouldn't at all like!" "Indeed, Collins," said Tom, turning round, "I really cannot understand why you went out in her! It distresses me to think that here you've got yourself into this scrape on my account! At least you'll put back in the first home-bound ship we – "

"Oh!" exclaimed I, blushing a little in the dark though, both at Westwood's simplicity and my not wishing to tell him my secret yet – "I'm tired of shore – I want to see India again – I'm thinking of going into the army, curse it!" "The army, indeed!" said Westwood, laughing for the first time, "and you midshipman all over. No – no – that won't do! I see your drift, you can't deceive me! You're a true friend, Ned, – to stand by an old schoolmate so!" "No, Tom!" said I; "'tis yourself has too kind a heart, and more of a sailor's, all fair and above-board, than I can manage! I won't humbug you, at any rate – I tell you I've got a scheme of my own, and you'll know more of it soon." Tom whistled; however I went on to tell him, "The long and the short of it is, Westwood, you'll bring both of us by the head if you don't keep up the missionary." "Missionary!" repeated he; "you don't mean to say you and Neville intended all that long toggery you supplied my kit with, for me to sail under missionary colours? I tell you what, Ned, it's not a character I like to cut jokes upon, much less to sham!" "Jokes!" said I; "there's no joking about it; 'tis serious enough." "Why," said Westwood, "now I know the reason of a person like a clergyman sighting me through his spectacles for half an hour together, these two evenings below! This very afternoon he called me his brother, and began asking me all manner of questions which I could no more answer than the cook's mate." "Clergyman be hanged!" said I, "you must steer clear of him, Tom – take care you don't bowse up your jib too much within hail of him! Mind, I gave your name, both to the head-steward and the skipper, as the Reverend Mr Thomas, going back to Bombay." "The devil you did!" "Why there was nothing else for it, Westwood," I said, "when you were beyond thinking for yourself. All you've got to do with that solemn chap in the spectacles, is just to look as wise as possible, and let him know you belong to the Church. And as for shamming, you needn't sham a bit —taketoit my dear fellow, if that will do you good!" I said this in joke, but Westwood seemed to ponder on it for a minute or two. "Indeed, Collins," said he gravely, "I do think you're right. What do we sailors do, but give up everything in life for a mere schoolboy notion, and keep turning up salt water for years together like the old monks did the ground; only they grew corn and apples for their pains, and we have nothing but ever so many dull watches and wild cruises ashore to remember! How many sailors have turned preachers and missionaries, just because something, by accident as it were, taught them to put to account what you can't help feeling now and then in the very look of the sea? What does it mean in the Scriptures, Ned, about 'seeing the wonders of the Lord in the deep?'" As Westwood said this, both of us stopped on the taffrail, and, somehow or other, a touch of I didn't well know what went through me. I held my breath, with his hand on my arm, just at the sight I had seen a thousand times – the white wake running broad away astern, with a mark in the middle as if it had been torn, on to the green yeast of the waves, then right to their black crests plunging in the dark. It was midnight ahead, and the clouds risen aloft over where I had been looking half all hour before; but the long ragged split to westward was opened up, and a clear glaring glance of the sky, as pale as death, shot through it on the horizon. "I can't be sorry for having gone to sea," said Westwood again; "but isn't it a better thing to leave home and friends, as those men do, for the sake of carrying the gospel to the heathen?" As soon as we wheeled round, with the ship before us, leaning over and mounting to the heave, and her spread of canvass looming out on the dark, my thoughts righted. "Well," said I, "it may be all very well for some – every one to his rope; but, for my part, I think if a man hadn't been made for the sea, he couldn't have built a ship, and where would your missionaries be then? You're older than I am, Westwood, or I'd say you let some of your notions run away with you, like a Yankee ship with her short-handed crew!" "Oh, Ned," said he, "of all places in the world for one's actions coming back on him the sea is the worst, especially when you're an idler, and have nothing to do but count the sails, or listen to the passengers' feet on deck. These two days, now, I've thought more than I ever did in my life. I can't get that man's death out of my head; every time, the sea flashes round me as I come from below, I think of him – it seems to me he is lying yet by the side of the Channel. I can't help having the notion he perhaps fired in the air!" "'Twas a base lie!" said I; "If he weren't there, you wouldn't be here, I call tell you, Westwood." "I don't know how I shall ever drag through this voyage," continued he. "If there were a French gunboat to cut out to-morrow morning, or if we were only to have a calm some day in sight of a Spanish slaver, – 'tis nothing but a jogging old Indiaman though! I shall never more see the flag over my head with pride – every prospect I had was in the service!"

Next morning was fine, and promised to be hot; the ship still with a sidewind from near south-west, which 'twas easy to see had slackened since midnight with a pour of rain, the sails being all wet, and coats hung to dry in the fore-rigging; she was going little more than five or six knots headway. The water was bluer, lifting in long waves, scarce a speck of foam except about the ship; but instead of having broke up with the sun, or sunk below the level, the long white clouds were risen high to leeward, wandering away at the top and facing us steady below out of the sky, a pretty sure sign they had more to do. However, the Indiaman was all alive from stem to stern: decks drying as clean as a table; hens and ducks clucking in the coops at their food; pigs grunting; stewards and cabin-boys going fore and aft, below and above, and the men from aloft coming slowly down for breakfast, with an eye into the galley funnel. Most of the passengers were upon deck, in knots all along the poop-nettings, to look out for Corvo and Flores, the westernmost of the Azores, which we had passed before daybreak.

"I say, Fawd!" said the warlike cadet with the mustache, all of a sudden yawning and stretching himself, as if he'd been struck with the thing himself, "Cussed dull this vessel already, ain't it?" "Blast me, no, you fellow!" said Ford, the nautical man – "that's because you're not interested in the ocean – the sea – as I am! You should study the craft, Bob, my boy! I'll teach you to go aloft. I only wish it would blow harder – not a mere capful of wind, you know, but a tempest!" "By Jove! Fawd," said the other, "how we shall enjoy India – even that breakfast with old Rollock! By the bye, ain't breakfast ready yet?" These two fellows, for my part, I took for a joint-model, just trying to hit a mid-helm betwixt them, else I couldn't have got through it: accordingly they both patronised me. "Haw, Cawlins!" said one, nodding to me. "Is that you, my boy?" said the other; "now you're a fellow never would make a sailor!" "I daresay not," I said, gravely, "if they have all to commence as horse-marines." "Now, such ignorance!" said Ford; "marines don't ride horses, Collins, you fellow! – how d'you think they could be fed at sea – eh?" "Well – now – that didn't occur to me!" said I, in the cadet key. "Fawd, my boy, you – demmee – you know too much – you're quite a sea-cook!" "Oh, now! But I'm afraid, Winterton, I never shall land ashore in India – I am tempted to go into the navy instead." "I say, Mr Ford," put in a fat unlicked cub of a tea-middy, grinning as he listened, "I've put you up to a few rises aboard, but I don't think I told you we've got a dozen or so of donkeys⁸ below in the steerage?" "Donkeys! – no?" said the griffin. "Yes," replied the midshipman; "they kick like blazes, though, if they get loose in a gale – why mine, now, would knock a hole through the side in no time – I'll show you them for a glass of grog, Mr Ford." "Done!" and away they went. "That fool, Fawd, you know, Cawlins, makes one sick with his stuff; I declare he chews little bits of tobacco in our room till he vomits as much as before," said Winterton. "I tell you what, Cawlins, you're a sensible man – I'll let you into a secret! What do you think – there's the deucedest pretty girl in the vessel, we've none of us seen except myself; I caught a sight of her this very mawning. She don't visit the cuddy at all; papa's proud, you pusseeve – a nabob in short!" "Oh, dear!" said I. "Yes, I do assure you, quite a bew-ty! What's to be done? – we absolutely must meet her – eh, Cawlins?" Here I mused a bit. "Oh!" said I, looking up again, "shall we send a deputation, do you think?" "Or get up a ball, Cawlins? – Hallo, what's this?" said he, leaning over the breast-rail to look at a stout lady who was lugging a chubby little boy of three or four, half-dressed, up the poop-stair, while her careful husband and a couple of daughters blocked it up above. "See, Tommy, dear!" said she, "look at the land– the nice, land, you know, Tommy." "Come away, my love," said her spouse, "else you won't see it." Tommy, however, hung back manfully. "Tommy don't want wook at yand," sang out he, kicking the deck; "it all such 'mell of a sheep, ma; me wook at 'at man wis gate feel. Fare other feel, man? Oh, fat a ugwy man!" The honest tar at the wheel pulled up his shirt, and looked terribly cut at this plain remark on his phiz, which certainly wasn't the most beautiful; meanwhile he had the leech of the main to'gallant sail shaking. "Mind your helm, there," sung out the second mate from the capstan. "My good man," said the lady, "will you be so kind as to show us the land?" "Ay, ay, sir," growled he, putting up his weather spokes; "sorry I carn't, ma'am – please not to speak to the man at the wheel." Jacobs was coiling down the ropes on a carronade close by, and stepped forward: "Beg your ladyship's pardon," said he, but if ye'll give me charge o' the youngster till you goes on the poop – why, I've got a babby at home myself." The stout lady handed him over, and Jacobs managed the little chap wonderfully. This was the first time Tommy had been on deck since leaving home, and he couldn't see over the high bulwarks, so he fancied it was a house he was in. "Oh, suts big tees, man!" shouted he, clapping his hands as soon as he noticed the sails and rigging aloft; "suts warge birds in a tees!" "Ay, ay, my little man," answered Jacobs, "that's the wonderfowl tree! Did ye ever hear Jack and the Bean-stalk, Tommy?" "Oh, 'ess, to be soo, man!" said Tommy, scornfully, as if he should think he had. "Well, little un," said Jacobs, "that's it, ye see. It grows up every night afore Jack's door – and them's Jack an' his brothers a-comin' down out on the wonderfowl country aloft, with fruits in their hands." The little fellow was delighted, and for going aloft at once. "Ye must wait a bit, Tommy, my lad, till you're bigger," said Jacobs; "here I'll show you the country, though;" so he lifted the boy up to let him see the bright blue sea lying high away round the sky. In place of crying, as he would have done otherwise, Tommy stared with pleasure, and finished by vowing to get as soon big as possible, Jacobs advising him to eat always as hard as he had been doing hitherto.

This morning the breakfast party was in high spirits: Mr Finch, the chief officer, rigged up to the nines in white trowsers and Company's jacket, laying himself out to please the young ladies, with whom he began to be a regular hero. He was as blustering as a young lion, and as salt-tongued as a Channel pilot to the men; but with the ladies, on the poop or in the cabin, he was always twisting his sea-talk into fine language, like what you see in books, as if the real thing weren't good enough. He rubbed his hands at hearing the mate on deck singing out over the skylight to trim yards, and gave a look along to the captain. "You must understand, ladies," said the mate, "this is what we mariners call the 'ladies' wind!'" "Oh delightful!" "Oh so nice!" "You sailors are so polite!" exclaimed the young ladies – "then does it actually belong to us?" "Why it's a Trade wind, Miss Fortescue!" said Ford the nautical cadet, venturing to put in a word; but the ladies paid no attention to him, and the chief mate gave him a look of contempt. "You see, ladies, the reason is," said the mate, in a flourishing way, "because it's so regular, and as gentle as – as – why it wafts your bark into the region of, you see, – the – " "The 'Doldrums,'" put in the third mate, who was a brinier individual by far, and a true seaman, but wished to pay his compliments too, between his mouthfuls. "At any rate," Finch went on, "it's congenial, I may say, to the feelings of the fair – you need never touch her braces from one day to another. I just wish, Miss Fortescue, you'd allow me the felicity of letting you see how to put the ship about!" "A soldier might put her in stays, miss," said the third mate again, encouragingly, "and out of 'em again; she's a remarkable easy craft, owing to her – " "Confound it! Mr Rickett," said the first mate, turning round to his unlucky inferior, "you're a sight too coarse for talking to ladies. Well the captain didn't hear you!" Rickett looked dumbfounded, not knowing what was wrong; the old ladies frowned; the young ones either blushed or put their handkerchiefs to their mouths, and some took the occasion for walking off.

The weather began to have a different turn already by the time we got up – the clouds banking to leeward, the sea dusky under them, and the air-line between rather bluish. Two or three lazy gulls in our wake began to look alive, and show themselves, and a whole black shoal of porpoises went tumbling and rolling across the bows for half an hour, till down they dived of a sudden, head-foremost, one after another in the same spot, like so many sheep through a gap.

My gentleman-mate was to be seen everywhere about the decks, and active enough, I must say: the next minute he was amongst two or three young ladies aft, as polite as a dancing-master, showing them everything in board and out, as if nobody knew it except himself. Here a young girl, one of Master Tommy's sisters, came skipping aft, half in a fright. "Oh, Miss Fortescue!" cried she, "just think! – I peeped over into a nasty black hole there, with a ladder in it, and saw ever so many common sailors hung up in bags from the ceiling. Oh, what do you think, one of them actually kissed his hand to me!" "Only one of the watch below awake, Miss," said the mate; "impertinent swab! – I only wish I knew which it was." "Poor fellows!" said the young ladies; "pray, don't be harsh to them – but what have they been doing?" "Oh, nothing," said he, with a laugh, "but swing in their hammocks since eight bells." "Then are they so lazy as to dislike getting up to such delightful-looking occupations?" "Why, ma'am," said the mate, staring a little, "they've been on deck last night two watches, of four hours each, I must say that for them." "Dear me!" broke out the ladies; and on this the chief officer took occasion to launch out again concerning "the weary vigils," as he called them, "which we mariners have to keep, far distant from land, without a smile from the eyes of the fair to bless us! But, however, the very thought of it gives courage to the sailor's manly heart, to disregard the billows' fearful rage, and reef topsails in the tempest's angry height!" Thought I, "he'd much better do it before." However, the young ladies didn't seem to see that, evidently looking upon the mate as the very pink of seamen; and he actually set a second lower stud-sail, to show them how fast she could walk.

"D'ye know, sir," put in the third mate, coming from forward, "I'm in doubt it's going to be rather a sneezer, sir, if ye look round the larboard stuns'ls." Sure enough, if our fine gentleman had had time, amidst his politeness, just to cast an eye beyond his spread of cloth, he would have noticed the clouds gathered all in a lump to north-eastward, one shooting into another – the breast of them lowering down to the horizon, and getting the same colour as the waves, till it bulked out bodily in the middle. You'd have fancied the belly of it scarce half a mile off from the white yard-arms, and the hollow of it twenty – coming as stealthily as a ghost, that walks without feet after you, its face to yours, and the skirt of its winding-sheet in "kingdom come" all the while. I went up on the poop, and away behind the spanker I could see the sun gleam for one minute right on the eye of stray cloud risen to nor'-west, with two short streaks of red, purple, and yellow together – what is called a "wind-gall;" then it was gone. The American was talking away with jovial old Rollock and Ford, who began to look wise, and think there was mischief brewing in the weather. "Mind your helm there, sirrah!" sung out the mate, walking aft to the wheel, as everything aloft fluttered. "She won't lie her course, sir!" said the man. "All aback for'ud!" hailed the men at work on the bowsprit; and hard at it went all hands, trimming yards over and over again; the wind freshening fast, stunsails flapping, booms bending, and the whole spread of canvass in a cumber, to teach the mate not to be in such a hurry with his infernal merchantman's side-wings next time. The last stunsail he hauled down caught full aback before the wheel could keep her away quick enough; the sheet of it hitched foul at the boom-end, and crack through went the boom itself, with a smash that made the ladies think it a case of shipwreck commencing. The loose scud was flying fast out from behind the top of the clouds, and spreading away overhead, as if it would catch us on the other side; while the clouds themselves broke up slowly to both hands, and the north-east breeze came sweeping along right into the three topsails, the wind one way and the sea another. As she rounded away steadying before it, you felt the masts shake in her till the topsails blew out full; she gave one sudden bolt up with her stern, like an old jackass striking behind, which capsized three or four passengers in a heap; and next minute she was surging along through the wide heave of the water as gallantly as heart could wish, driving a wave under her bows that swung back under the forechains on both sides, with two boys running up the rigging far aloft on each mast to stow the royals. The next thing I looked at was poor Ford's nautical hat lifting alongside on the top of a wave, as if it were being handed up to him; but no sooner seen, than it was down in the hollow a quarter of a mile off, a couple of white gulls making snatches at it and one another, and hanging over it again with a doubtful sort of a scream. Still the wind was as yet nothing to speak of when once aft; the sea was getting up slowly, and the Indiaman's easy roll over it made every one cheerful, in spite of the shifts they were put to for getting below. When the bell struck for dinner, the sun was pretty clear, away on our starboard bow; the waves to south-westward glittered as they rose; one side of the ship shone bright to the leech of the mainto'gallant-sail, and we left the second mate hauling down the jibs for want of use for them.

The splendid pace she went at was plain, below in the cuddy, to everybody; you felt her shoving the long seas aside with the force of a thousand horses in one, then sweep they came after her, her stern lifted, she rolled round, and made a floating rush ahead. In the middle of it all, something darkened the half-open skylight, where I perceived the Scotch second-mate's twisted nose and red whiskers, as he squinted down with one eye aloft, and disappeared again; after which I heard them clue up to'gallant-sails. Still she was driving through it rather too bodily to let the seas rise under her; you heard the wind hum of the main-topsail, and sing through betwixt it and the main-course, the scud flying over the skysail-mast truck, which I could see from below. The second mate looked in once more, caught the first officer's eye with a glance aloft, and the gallant mate left attending to the ladies to go on deck. Down went the skylight frame, and somebody carefully threw a tarpaulin over it, so that there was only the light from the port-windows, by which a dozen faces turned still whiter.

The moment I shoved my head out of the booby-hatch, I saw it was like to turn out a regular gale from nor'-east. Both courses brailed close-up, and blowing out like rows of big-bladders; the three topsail-yards down on the caps to reef, their canvass swelling and thundering on the stays like so many mad elephants breaking loose; the wild sky ahead of us staring right through in triumph, as it were, and the wind roaring from aft in her bare rigging; while a crowd of men in each top were laying out along the foot-ropes to both yard-arms. Below, they were singing out at the reef-tackles, the idlers tailing on behind from the cook to the cabin-boys, a mate to each gang, and the first officer with his hands to his mouth before the wheel, shouting "Bear a hand! – d'ye hear! – two reefs!" It did one's heart good, and I entered into the spirit of it, almost forgiving Finch his fine puppy lingo, when I saw him take it so coolly, standing like a seaman, and sending his bull's voice right up with the wind into the bellies of the topsails – so I e'en fell-to myself, and dragged with the steward upon the mizen reef-tackle till it was chock up. There we were, running dead before it, the huge waves swelling long and dark after us out of the mist, then the tops of them scattered into spray; the glaring white yards swayed slowly over aloft, each dotted with ten or a dozen sturdy figures, that leant over with the reef-points in their hands, waiting till the men at the earings gave the word; and Jacobs's face, as he looked round to do so – hanging on heaven knows what at one of the ends – was as distinct as possible against the gray scud miles off, and sixty feet above the water. A middy, without his cap, and his hair blowing out, stood holding on in the main-top to quicken them; the first mate waved his hand for the helmsman to "luff a little." The ship's head was rounding slowly up as she rose on a big blue swell, that caught a wild gleam on it from westward, when I happened to glance towards the wheel. I could scarcely trust my eyes – in fact it had never been less in my mind since coming aboard than at that very point – but outside one of the round-house doors, which was half open, a few feet from the bulwark I leant over – of all moments in the day, there stood Lota Hyde herself at last! Speak of faces! – why, I hadn't even power to turn farther round, and if I was half out of breath before, what with the wind and with pulling my share, I was breathless now – all my notions of her never came up to the look of her face at that instant! She just half stopped, as it were, at sight of the state of things, her hands letting go of the large shawl, and her hair streaming from under a straw hat tied down with a ribbon – her lips parted betwixt dread and bewilderment, and her eyes wandering round till they settled a-gazing straight at the scene ahead, in pure delight. I actually looked away aloft from her again, to catch what it was she seemed to see that could be so beautiful! – the second reef just made fast, men crowding in to run down and hoist away with the rest, till, as they tailed along decks, the three shortened topsails rose faster up against the scud, and their hearty roaring chorus was as loud as the gale. "Keep her away, my lad!" said the mate, with another wave of his hand; the topsails swelled fair before it, and the Indiaman gave a plunge right through the next sea, rising easily to it, heave after heave. The setting sun struck two or three misty spokes of his wheel through a cloud, that made a big wave here and there glitter; the ship's white yards caught some of it, and a row of broad backs, with their feet stretching the foot-rope as they stowed the foresail, shone bright out, red, blue, and striped, upon the hollow of the yellow fore-topsail, in the midst of the gale; while just under the bowsprit you saw her black figure-head, with his white turban, and his hand to his breast, giving a cool salaam now and then to the spray from her bows. At that moment, though, Lota Hyde's eye was the brightest thing I could find – all the blue gone out of the waves was in it. As for her seeing myself, I hadn't had space to think of it yet, when all of a sudden I noticed her glance light for the first time, as it were, on the mate, who was standing all the while with his back to her, on the same plank of the quarterdeck. "Down main-course!" he sung out, putting one hand in his jacket-pocket; "down both tacks – that's it, my men – down with it!" – and out it flapped, slapping fiercely as they dragged it by main force into the bulwark-cleats, till it swelled steady above the main-stay, and the old ship sprang forward faster than before, with a wild wash of the Atlantic past her sides. "Another hand to the wheel, here!" said the first officer. He took a look aloft, leaning to the rise of her bows, then to windward as she rolled; everything looked trim and weatherly, so he stepped to the binnacle, where the lamp was ready lighted, and it just struck me what a smart, good-looking fellow the mate was, with his sun-burnt face; and when he went to work, straight-forward, no notion of showing off. "Confound it, though!" thought I of a sudden, seeing her eyes fixed on him again, and then to seaward. "Mr Macleod," said he to the second mate, "send below the watch, if you please. This breeze is first-rate, though!" When he turned round, he noticed Miss Hyde, started, and took off his cap with a fine bow. "I beg pardon, ma'am," said he, "a trifle of wind we have! I hope, Miss Hyde, it hasn't troubled you in the round-house?" What Miss Hyde might have said I don't know, but her shawl caught a gust out of the spanker, though she was in the lee of the high poop; it blew over her head, and then loose – I sprang forward – but the mate had hold of it, and put it over her again. The young lady smiled politely to the mate, and gave a cold glance of surprise, as I thought, at me. I felt, that moment, I could have knocked the mate down and died happy. "Why, sir," said he, with a cool half sneer, "I fancied none of you gentlemen would have favoured us this capful of wind – plenty of air there is on deck, though." It just flashed through my mind what sort of rig I was in – I looked over my infernal 'long-shore toggery, and no wonder she didn't recollect me at all! "Curse this confounded folly!" muttered I, and made a dart to run up the poop-steps, where the breeze took me slap aback, just as the judge himself opened the larboard door. "Why, Violet!" exclaimed he, surprised at seeing his daughter, "are you exposing yourself to this disagreeable – I declare a perfect storm!" "But see, papa!" said she, taking hold of his arm, "how changed the sea is! – and the ship! – just look where the sun was!" "Get in – get in, do!" kept on her father; "you can see all that again in some finer place; you should have had a servant with you, at least, Violet." "I shall come out oftener than I thought, papa, I can tell you!" said she, in an arch sort of way, before she disappeared. The mate touched his cap to the judge, who asked where the captain was. "'Gad sir," said the judge crossly, "the floor resembles an earthquake – every piece of furniture swings, sir; 'tis well enough for sleeping, but my family find it impossible to dine. If this oolta-poolta continues in my apartments, I must speak to Captain Williamson about it! He must manage to get into some other part of the sea, where it is less rough," saying which he swayed himself in and shut the door. I still kept thinking and picturing her face – Lota Hyde's – when she noticed the mate. After all, any one that knew tack from bowline might reef topsails in a fair wind; but a girl like that would make more count of a man knowing how to manage wind and sea, than of the Duke on his horse at Waterloo beating Bonaparte; and as for talk, he would jaw away the whole voyage, no doubt, about moonlight and the ocean, and your genteel fancy mariners! "By George, though!" thought I, "if the mate's a better man than me, hang me – it's all right; but burn my wig if I don't go and turn a Hindoo fakeer, with my one arm stuck up in the air till I die! Go it, old lady!" said I, as I glanced over the side before going below for the night, "roll away, only shake something or other to do out of the pace you're going at!"