Chapter Eight.
The Chief Mate has a Presentiment.
Nothing further of importance occurred during our passage across the Indian Ocean, which was accomplished under exceptionally pleasant circumstances; the weather being gloriously fine, and the wind, if not absolutely fair, always favourable enough to permit of our laying our course.
Java Head was made just before sunset, under a clear sky, with a light air breathing out from the north-west—so light an air, indeed, that when the sun rose next morning the headland was still on our starboard bow. Some two hours later, however, we got a strong breeze out from the north-east, under the influence of which we worked up toward the mouth of the straits in fine style, until noon—by which time we were fairly within the straits—when the wind softened down, finally dwindling away to nothing about an hour before sunset.
We had sighted several sail during the day, three of them being European, bound to the westward, while the rest were country craft—small coasters and fishing vessels for the most part. The Malays have probably, next to the Chinese, the worst reputation in the world for honesty; but it is only just to say that, with one solitary exception, all the native craft we had that day fallen in with had behaved in a manner that left no room whatever for suspicion. The exception was in the case of a large proa that had passed us closely, running out before the wind toward the mouth of the straits during the forenoon, but which, having run to leeward of us for a distance of some six miles, had then hauled her wind and stretched in toward the southern shore, on reaching which she had lowered her canvas, thrown out her sweeps, and made her way to windward with the aid of the latter alone. It was not so much this circumstance, however, though it had a somewhat incomprehensible look about it, as the fact that she pulled twelve sweeps of a side—proving her to be heavily manned—that caused us to regard her and her movements with a certain amount of doubt and suspicion. We were now in waters that, from the numerous acts of piracy that have been committed within them, have acquired a more sinister reputation than is borne by any other spot of ocean of similar area in the whole world; and it was therefore only natural that the fact of our being becalmed in such a spot should have been productive of a certain uneasiness and disquiet of mind throughout the ship.
At sunset, and for an hour or two afterwards, there was every prospect of a fine clear night; but at about two bells in the first watch a thin veil of vapour began to gather in the sky, gradually thickening and blotting out the stars until they were all completely hidden, when the darkness became profound. At this time—or rather, when we had last had an opportunity of distinguishing distant objects—there were only some eight or ten craft, all native, in sight, the nearest of which was fully four miles distant; and they all, without exception, presented an appearance of perfect honesty. Three or four of them were, like ourselves, drifting idly, with their heads pointing in as many different directions; the others had rigged out a sweep, or in some cases a pair, and were slowly making their way inshore.
The baronet and I were reclining in contiguous chairs, placidly smoking our post-prandial cigars; the ladies were below, Miss Merrivale being seated at the piano, accompanying her sister, who—having by this time quite recovered her health and spirits—was singing some quaint, old-fashioned ballad in a full, rich contralto voice that could be distinctly heard from one end of the ship to the other, and probably far beyond. As for the chief mate, he was pacing the deck thoughtfully and steadily to and fro with an energy that, taking the heat and closeness of the night into consideration, seemed to bespeak an uneasy mind. After a while he halted alongside the binnacle, gazed abstractedly into it for about half a minute, and then, turning to the nodding helmsman, inquired whether he knew where he was running the ship to.
“She hasn’t had steerage-way on her since I came aft, at eight bells, sir,” was the reply.
“She hasn’t, eh?” remarked Roberts. “Well, if that’s the case, the compass isn’t of much use to you, is it? So,” pulling off his jacket, “as it’s hardly worth while to proclaim our exact whereabouts to everybody, we’ll just mask the light until a breeze springs up.”
Saying which, he laid his jacket very carefully over the hood of the binnacle, completely obscuring the not very brilliant light that shone therefrom.
“What is Roberts’ idea in hiding the binnacle light in that fashion?” asked Sir Edgar, turning to me, as the mate again walked forward, pausing for some minutes near the head of the short poop ladder, and apparently peering anxiously round him into the obscurity.
“Well,” said I, “I think he perhaps feels a little uneasy at our being becalmed just here, and in such an intensely dark night, too. The Malays have the name of being born pirates, you know, and should they happen to take it into their heads to attack us just now, it would be rather awkward, since we could do absolutely nothing to avoid them while this calm lasts.”
“Do you think there is any danger of such an occurrence, captain?” he asked, with manifest anxiety.
“Not very much,” I replied. “There were no suspicious craft visible at nightfall. Still, an attack is by no means an impossibility, especially on such a dark night. The circumstances are precisely those which I imagine would be deemed highly favourable by people piratically inclined.”
“Then why, in Heaven’s name, my good sir, do you not make preparation for such an eventuality?” exclaimed my companion, excitedly.
“For the simple reason,” I replied, “that all the preparation possible could be made in five minutes; and, as a matter of fact, I was only waiting until you had all retired, when I intended at once making them. Two slashes of a sharp knife would suffice to release those boarding-pikes from the boom; and you can easily calculate for yourself the length of time it would take to serve out a brace of revolvers and a cutlass to each of our small crew.”
“Um!” ejaculated the baronet. “And have you no rifles on board?”
“I have one,” said I; “but of what use would it be on such a dark night as this?”
“True; too true,” muttered Sir Edgar. “Nevertheless, I think I will go down and put my Winchester together, upon the off chance of work being found for it. Confound this calm, say I. If it were not for the fact of my wife and bairns being on board there is nothing I should enjoy more than a brush with the rascals—for my feeling is that pirates deserve no mercy—but, as it is—” An expressive shrug eloquently concluded the sentence; and the baronet at once rose and went below.
A minute or two later the piano became silent, and I heard the sound of the instrument being closed, as Sir Edgar remarked, laughingly—
“Thank you, Emily. If you go on at this rate you will soon recover your old form. I thought, just now, as I sat on deck listening to your singing, that your voice had never sounded sweeter. But, as your chief medical adviser, I really must forbid your using it any more to-night; we must progress gradually, you know, and not overtax nature at the outset (is not that the correct professional jargon?) Joking apart, however, I think you have done enough for to-night; and—ah, there goes four bells—ten o’clock—take my advice, ‘turn in,’ both of you, and get a good long night’s rest.”
“I think I will,” replied Lady Emily; “this hot weather makes me feel very languid and tired. And you, Edgar—what are you going to do? You will not remain on deck very late, will you?”
“Well,” hesitated Sir Edgar, “that depends on circumstances. I shall not turn in until I feel that there is some chance of getting to sleep. And if this calm continues I think I shall sleep on deck; it is too insufferably hot altogether for one down here, just at present. Leave the ports open in your cabins, both of you, so that if there is any air stirring you will get the benefit of it. And now I think I will say good night to you both. Good night, sweetheart, and pleasant dreams. Good night, Agnes.”
I heard the click of the latches of the cabin-doors as the two ladies retired, and presently Sir Edgar came on deck again, with a fresh cigar in his mouth, and seated himself once more beside me, remarking—
“There! I have packed my womankind off to bed, and have laid my rifle, with a good supply of cartridges, in my own bunk—an act which has somewhat relieved my mind. So now, captain, as the coast is clear down below, there is nothing to prevent your making your preparations as soon as you please.”
“Very good,” said I; “then I will set about them at once. And, by way of a start, I think we will ‘blind’ the skylights; as I fully agree with Roberts that there is no especial advantage in revealing four whereabouts to anybody to-night. Nothing but a steamer could run us down in this weather; and, should there happen to be one coming along, we should see her lights in ample time to give her warning of our position.”
The mate was still promenading to and fro between the break of the poop and the binnacle; so when he next passed I requested him to have the canvas covers put over the skylights, also to direct the steward to turn down the lamps in the saloon and my own cabin, and to carefully draw the curtains before all the sidelights, so that no treacherous ray might gleam forth from the ship’s side and betray our locality. This was soon done; and the noiseless movements of the mate as he went forward and gave the necessary orders in a whisper, instead of issuing them in stentorian tones from the break of the poop, sufficiently indicated his conviction of the existence of a lurking peril in our immediate vicinity.
The one thing that we had to fear, above all others—and to guard against—in the event of an attack, was the presence of the pirates on our own decks. Should they succeed in boarding us, it would certainly be in such overwhelming numbers as to render an effective resistance impossible; our small party would be quickly overpowered, and then the fate of everybody on board would be sealed. Our safety depended upon our keeping the foe at arm’s length. Half a dozen fathoms of water would suffice; but the problem was how to accomplish this very desirable end. I had been giving a good deal of thought to this, even while chatting disconnectedly with Sir Edgar in the earlier part of the evening, and had at length hit upon a plan that I thought might be successful. We had on board a small fire engine, mounted on wheels, with a hose and jet attached, and a tank capable of containing some fifty gallons. This engine I now ordered to be uncovered, and prepared for action by securely lashing a small loose mop-head of oakum round the nozzle of the hose, taking especial care that the aperture of the jet should be left perfectly free. Roberts, who seemed at once to divine and understand my plan even before I had explained it to him, undertook this part of the work in person; and in about ten minutes he reported that all was ready, and invited me to inspect his workmanship.
It was by this time “five bells;” and the night was, without exception, the darkest, I think, that I had ever experienced. So dark, indeed, was it, that, well as we knew the ship, we had to feel our way along the deck with hands and feet, for it was absolutely impossible to see anything a foot beyond the end of one’s nose. With such intense darkness as this it was evident that the heavens must be obscured by exceptionally heavy masses of cloud; which, with the hot, breathless condition of the atmosphere, led me to anticipate and hope for a thunderstorm, which would at least afford us sufficient light to inspect our surroundings, and so put an end to a state of suspense that was growing wearisome. And not only was the night intensely dark; it was also oppressively silent; for, the water being perfectly smooth, there was no life or motion in the ship to give rise to those sounds—such as the flapping of canvas, the creaking of timbers and bulkheads, etcetera, etcetera—that usually make a calm so irritating to people who happen to be troubled with nerves. All was silent as death itself; our own movements being hushed, in harmony with the prevailing stillness, so that we spoke under our breath, and moved about on tiptoe.
In this silent, groping way I followed Roberts forward to inspect the fire engine; and it was while thus engaged with the aid of a carefully shielded lantern, that the mate exclaimed, in a hoarse whisper, as he held up his hand, and bent his head in a listening attitude—
“Hark! did you hear that, sir?”
“No,” said I, “I heard nothing. What was it?”
“Why,” answered Roberts, “it sounded to me like the noise of an oar, or a sweep, creaking in a rowlock; and it seemed to come from away yonder,”—pointing, as he spoke, in the direction of the larboard bow.
We both listened intently, for fully a minute, without detecting any sound whatever confirmatory of Roberts’ evident suspicions; and at length I said, turning once more to the examination of the fire engine—
“Tush, man, you were mistaken; you heard nothing. The fact is, Mr Roberts, you are not quite yourself to-night. You seem nervous, and fidgety, and anxious. The heat of to-day has upset you; and I think you had better let me give you a good stiff dose of quinine when you go below, at eight bells.”
“Thank you, sir, no,” answered Roberts; “I don’t need any quinine, or anything else in the shape of medicine to brace me up. There’s nothing the matter with me, bodily; but, to be perfectly candid, I do feel a little bit off my mental balance, as it were, to-night. The fact is—I know you’ll laugh at me, sir, but I can’t help that, and it don’t matter, but I’ve got the feeling strong upon me that something’s going to happen to me to-night. For three nights running—that is to say, last night, and the night before, and the night before that again—I’ve started up out of a sound sleep with the idea that my dear wife was calling me; ay, and with the very sound and tone of her sweet voice in my ears. Now, sir, do you think that is only a coincidence, as they say ashore; or isn’t it more likely to be a sign that something is going to happen to me?”
“Why, what nonsense is this for a sensible, educated man like yourself to be talking!” I exclaimed half angrily. “Let me feel your pulse.”
He held out his hand to me, and I laid my fingers upon his wrist. Contrary to what I had expected, I found the skin to be cool and moist, and the pulse beneath it beating with the steadiness and regularity of a machine.
“Umph! there doesn’t seem to be very much wrong there,” I admitted. “But I didn’t know you were a married man, Roberts; I understood you once to say that you were quite alone in the world—not a soul belonging to you.”
“Quite right, sir; that’s the exact truth,” returned the mate. “But I had a wife once, sir; as sweet, true, and tender-hearted a little woman as you ever met, I’ll be bound. And pretty, she was, too. My little Nellie—I only had her six months, sir.
“We were spliced early in the spring; and I stayed ashore and spent the whole summer and well into the autumn with her; six months—six blessed, happy, joyous months with the sweetest woman that ever lived. We were all by ourselves, excepting for one servant maid, in a pretty little house on the outskirts of Teignmouth. Ah! that was a time for a man to look back upon for the rest of his life. Then by-and-by, when the autumn days began to grow short, the cash began to grow short, too; and I had to go to sea again to earn more. I’m not a particularly soft-hearted man, as a rule, Captain Saint Leger, but I tell you, sir, that that parting from Nellie was just as much as I could stand up against: to be obliged to untwine her loving, clinging arms from about my neck, and to deliberately turn away and leave her standing there by the gate, crying her dear eyes out, was cruel work, sir; it was like tearing my very heartstrings asunder. But it had to be done.
“Of course when we arrived at Durban—for it was while I was in the Natal trade, in this same little barque—there were a couple of letters waiting for me that had passed us on the road out; and every mail that arrived while we were lying in the harbour brought me another, each more cheerful than the last, because the time was passing away and bringing our reunion nearer.
“And when at last I got home again, sir, all that they had to show me was my darling’s new-made grave. She had taken typhoid fever, died, and was carried out of the house in her coffin at the moment that the telegram announcing my arrival in England was handed in.”
Something very like a sob seemed to rise in Roberts’s throat and choke him at this point in his story; but before I had time to frame and arrange the words of sympathy that struggled to my lips—for I am not a quick man with my tongue—he resumed—
“I hope, Captain Saint Leger, that if my manner has seemed to you a little curious to-night, you will not put it down to timorousness, or faintheartedness, or anything of that sort. I do feel very queer, I admit; not ill, you understand, but strange; a kind of—well, it’s more than a presentiment; I might say it’s an absolute certainty that I’m going to die to-night, coupled with another absolute certainty that those treacherous fiends of Malays are gathering round us out there in the darkness. But if my presentiment should prove true, and it comes to a fight, have no fears on my account. I’ll not fail you, sir, in the moment of need and danger. Danger has long ceased to be an enemy of mine, and Death lost all his terrors for me when I stood for the first time beside my Nellie’s grave. I am quite ready to die whenever it may please the Almighty to call me; and if I can do so in defence of those dear, helpless women and children down below, it will suit me well enough.”
“Thank you, Roberts; thank you, my friend,” said I, grasping the hand he held out to me. “Yours is a very sad, pathetic story, and you have my hearty sympathy. As to doubting your courage, my good fellow, no such thought ever entered my head. But I am certain, despite all you say to the contrary, that you are not quite yourself to-night. Therefore, if you will not take any medicine, at least go below and try to get a little sleep; that perhaps will do you as much good as anything. I will keep the remainder of your watch for you; and should anything occur to confirm your suspicions as to the Malays, you may reckon on my calling you in good time.”
The man was, however, obstinate—or, at least, so he seemed to me to be—resolutely declining to accede to either of my suggestions; so, leaving him to complete the few remaining preparations I deemed necessary to meet an attack, should anything of the sort be attempted, I returned aft to the poop, somewhat vexed that so thoroughly sensible a man as Roberts had hitherto proved should suffer himself to be so completely mastered, as I had seen him to be, by a morbid feeling of melancholy that was doubtless due in part to overmuch dwelling of late upon the death of his wife but which I firmly believed was to be still more directly traced to some slight derangement of the system that could easily be put right by the administration of a dose of medicine, could the fellow but be induced to take it. No doubt, too, the fact of our being becalmed, and therefore to a great extent helpless, in a spot notoriously haunted by a people, every mother’s son of whom was but too ready to participate in any act of piracy that seemed to offer a reasonable prospect of success, had a large influence in producing the presentiment of death in the mate’s mind; but that, I felt sure, would pass away with the impenetrable and oppressive darkness by which we were enveloped, or with the advent of a breeze of wind. While, therefore, I sincerely pitied the poor fellow for his disagreeable state of mind, I thought that perhaps it would be wisest to treat it as a matter of no importance, and to leave him to himself until the fit of depression should have passed away.
On groping my way back to the chair I had previously occupied, I found that Sir Edgar was still occupying the chair beside my own, meditatively pulling away at a cigar, the glowing spark of which would probably have still further increased Roberts’s perturbation, had he seen it. As I seated myself beside him the baronet made a half-jesting inquiry as to whether our preparations had had the effect of reassuring the mate; so, to while away the time, and for want of something more interesting to talk about, I told him Roberts’s story, and also described to him the peculiar state of mind under which the poor fellow was labouring. Sir Edgar fully agreed with me that the latter was simply the result of some slight and probably temporary derangement, and was proceeding to discuss the subject of presentiments in general, and the extreme rarity of really well-authenticated cases of verification, when the atmosphere became for an instant faintly luminous with the evanescent, quivering glimmer of the silent, summer lightning. The flash trembled but for a moment in the sky, and was gone again; but in that moment I saw that the firmament was packed with vast masses of dense, heavy, threatening, highly, charged electric cloud, the weird, contorted shapes of which clearly indicated that they were being powerfully acted upon by the mighty antagonistic forces that they carried within their bosoms, and gave unmistakable warning that an elemental strife was impending, for which it would be well to prepare. Beneath this louring canopy the surface of the water shone with the unwrinkled smoothness of polished glass, faithfully reflecting every detail, even to the most minute, of form and colour exhibited by the writhing cloud-shapes that overhung it; and also faithfully reflecting the shapes of four large proas that, in a somewhat scattered fleet, were revealed at a distance of some three miles to the northward and eastward of the spot occupied by ourselves. The barque happened at the moment to be lying with her head pointing about south-east; these proas were therefore broad upon our larboard beam, and they were the first objects that met my sight. Some, if not all, of these craft were working their sweeps; for, with the momentary quiver of the lightning, I had caught the glint of reflected light from wet oar-blades projecting from the dark, shadowy mass of the hull; and they were all heading up or down the straits—I could not tell which in the unexpected glimpse I had caught of them—for they all showed end-on, or nearly so, to us.
Meanwhile, Roberts had completed his task, and was in the act of mounting to the poop—for I caught sight of his figure out of the corner of my eye—when the flash came. As the opaque darkness once more enveloped us I heard his voice exclaiming sharply, and, as it seemed to me, with a note of exultation in it, as though proud at the prospect of at least one half of his presentiment being verified—
“Did you see that, sir?”
I rose from my chair and joined him, so that our voices might not disturb the sleepers below in the saloon, near the open skylight of which I had been seated.
“You mean the proas, I suppose,” said I. “Yes, I saw them. But there are only four of them, thank goodness. And we are not sure that they are not heading up the straits, instead of toward us. If so, it was no doubt from one of them that the sound emanated that startled you a little while ago, as they must have passed us at no great distance.”
“Four of them?” exclaimed Roberts; “I only saw three; and two of them were heading the same way as ourselves. They were all close together; not more than—”
At this moment the tremulous greenish glare of the sheet lightning once more lit up the scene, this time much more strongly than on the first occasion, and in the midst of the quivering radiance there was a single sudden, vivid gleam, like the instantaneous flash of a gigantic lantern behind the dense masses of cloud lying piled along the western horizon, the light being so brilliant as to be quite dazzling after the Cimmerian darkness to which our eyes had become accustomed. But, despite the dazzling brilliancy of the sudden illumination, the retina of my eyes caught and retained the vision of three large proas broad on our starboard quarter, about two miles distant, situated precisely as Roberts had described them; and that this vision was no illusion of my senses was instantly demonstrated by the mate, who interrupted himself to quickly exclaim—
“There they are again, sir.”
“Yes, I saw them,” said I. “And there are four more about three miles up the straits, on our port beam. That makes seven craft in our neighbourhood that were certainly not there when the darkness closed down upon us. Now, in order to get where they are they must have been using their sweeps; which, I must confess, has, to my mind, rather a bad look; as, from what I have heard of the Malays, they are not so fond of hard work as to resort to it for mere pastime. However, we shall soon know what they are after; if they are looking for us, that last flash has most probably enabled them to discover our whereabouts; and if they mean mischief they will all be heading for us when next we see them. Meanwhile, Mr Roberts, it is evident that we are about to be treated to a heavy thunderstorm; and as it may bring a violent wind-squall with it, we will make provision for the possibility by stowing all our light canvas. Ah!”—as another and still brighter flash burst forth, followed this time by the low muttering of distant thunder—“there they come; the rascals are certainly after us! Call all hands at once, if you please, Mr Roberts; there will be time to shorten sail, and to prepare a reception for the Malays before they can get alongside.”
“All hands shorten sail!” shouted the mate, scrambling off the poop, and groping his way forward. “Clew up and furl the royals and to’ga’nts’ls; and see that you stow them in such a way that they won’t blow adrift if a squall happens to strike us. Let go the main-royal and to’gallant and the mizzen-topmast staysail halliards, and man the downhauls; then you can stow the sails, as you work your way down. Is that you, Mr Forbes? Just see that the main and fore tops’l-halliards are all clear for letting run, will ye? And when your lads come on deck we will haul down and stow the flying-jib and get in the gaff-tops’l and mizzen. That’s your sort, my bullies; now, away aloft and stow everything as quickly as you can.”
The men, fearful that the anticipated squall might burst upon the ship before we were prepared for it, worked with a will, their efforts being greatly facilitated by the lightning that was now quivering and flashing all round the horizon with momentarily increasing splendour, and at such brief intervals that the illumination might almost be said to be continuous; while the deep, hollow rumble of the thunder might very well have been mistaken for the booming of a distant cannonade. The effect of the incessant flicker of the lightning was very weird; the tremulous greenish-blue glare illuminating the ponderous masses and contorted shapes of the black clouds overhead, the surface of the ink-black sea around us, the distant proas, and the hull, spars, sails, and rigging of the barque, with the moving figures aloft and at the jib-boom end, and suffusing everything with so baleful and unearthly a light that only the slightest effort of the imagination was needed to fancy ourselves a phantom ship, manned by ghosts of the unquiet dead, floating upon the sooty flood of the Styx, with the adamantine foundations of the world arching ponderously and menacingly over our heads and reflecting from their rugged surfaces the flashing of the flames of Phlegethon.