Wonderful to relate, the health of the recent invalids held out against this tremendous strain upon it, and as soon as the last carcass plunged overboard blubber watches were set, and it looked as though relief had come. But not yet. Some attempt must be made to remove a portion at least of the accumulated filth from the deck, and so for nearly half of their first watch below the almost fainting men toiled with water-buckets and brooms to that end. And as they did so they noticed, in half-dazed, unappreciative fashion, how frequently the skipper mounted his little deck aft and gazed earnestly at the lee quadrant of the horizon. This happened so often that at last long dormant curiosity was aroused also, and they looked earnestly in that direction too. ‘Thank God,’ all thought, ‘it isn’t whales he’s looking at.’ No, it was not: it was an awful-looking Himalaya of blackest cloud, violet edged, that reared its mighty head persistently in that quarter, but did not seem to rise any higher than half-way to the zenith. No one on board knew with what consummate skill and attention, in spite of the many matters claiming his oversight, this wonderful man was manœuvring his ship out of the path of what he knew to be a devastating cyclone. He needed no sympathy, no help in his calculations; in fact, he took a secret but colossal pride in standing alone. And reckoning to a nicety, but with a dangerously narrow margin, he kept his crew going to clear away their last great catch, at the same time making all preparations to meet what he knew would soon be there—the frightful swell raised by the hurricane and extending for thousands of miles on either side of its track.
When it came all was ready for it. Double lashings on everything, the tiers of casks below all carefully chocked and tom’d off to beams above, preventer backstays on masts, &c. And as the great green hills of water reaching from horizon to horizon came sweeping onward, tossing the noble ship from summit to valley and back again as if she were just a ball in the hands of gleeful children, the crew cast wistful glances at their saturnine tyrant, wondering, ‘How did he know this was coming? What kinder man is he, anyhow?’ Well, had the answer been forthcoming it would have been just this: That Captain Da Silva was one of those men of native genius who first of all absorb knowledge as a sponge does water, whose capacity for courage is as great as their capacity for mercy or consideration is small, whose frames are more like automata constructed of steel wire and rubber than sinews and flesh, and who, given the opportunity, could juggle the globe in their hands as a conjurer does his properties, and would do so, but for the wisdom of God, who has ordained that such men shall never go too far. If this sounds like fantastic eulogy as applied to the obscure master of a whaleship, I do not feel at all inclined to argue the point: it is for each one to study out for him or herself and see whether the theory be reasonable or no.
The decks were quite clear, three-fourths of the blubber had been boiled out and the resultant oil run below, when a very strange thing happened. The weather was beautifully fine, the air serene, and a little breeze wafted the Grampus at a gentle rate over the sunlit sea. Captain Da Silva, fully contented with himself, was lolling in his wife’s chair abaft the wheel smoking a peculiarly rank, oily, and foul-smelling cigar, one of a large quantity which, just suiting his taste, he had bought at Brava. I think it may safely be said that he was just then in the full enjoyment of dolce far niente, that peculiarly delightful frame of mind and body conjoined of which ‘sweet doing nothing’ seems so poor a description—when into the midst of it came Priscilla. Lest it should be thought that I have neglected her of late, I feel bound to say that she had been leading a sort of comatose existence, in this busy little cosmos but not of it, alive but hardly conscious of her surroundings. What could I have said of her but that she awoke, ate a little, lived alone through the day, and slept again? If perfect life be, as Herbert Spencer says, perfect correspondence with a perfect environment, then was Priscilla only just dwelling on the fringes of life, and might truly be said to be nine-tenths dead. Her placid demeanour and speechless endurance of all things as they came had become so regular an experience with her husband that it was with something very like alarm that he saw her standing before him on deck and heard her sweet, low voice saying distinctly, ‘May I speak to you, Ramon?’ With a gasp of surprise he rose to his feet and, stepping to the wheel, said to the shrinking helmsman: ‘Git t’ ’ell forrard outa this,’ and the man was gone. Then, turning his lowering eye upon Priscilla, yet not without a certain noticeable twitching of his facial muscles, he muttered, ‘Wall, what is it naow? Spit it eout.’ She answered timidly, but as if she must speak: ‘Ramon, please forgive me, but I know there’s a boat with some dying men in it over there.’ And she pointed to the north. ‘It’s a whaleboat, and there’s six men, all alive, but going fast. Will you try and save them?’ He burst into a very storm of curses upon her for daring to interfere with the working of his ship and for her unmentionable folly in supposing that he, of all men in the world, would be likely to take any notice of such a baby-tale as that. But even as he raved and hissed his foul language at his wife, she could see that in his fierce eyes there was a latent look of awe—that he was only trying by noise and bluster to persuade himself that he was asserting his power in the surest way. Priscilla appeared to be entirely deaf to his awful words. And when, breathless, he paused, she resumed quietly, ‘You will find the boat before evening if you alter the course now, but I am afraid some of the men are already dying.’ And with that she turned and went away, leaving her husband like a man just about to have an epileptic fit. However, he managed to restrain himself, and presently his voice was heard roaring for the man whom he had sent from the wheel. Having given up the wheel, he took a few short, undecided turns about the quarter-deck, and then, like one acting upon some entirely irresistible impulse, he growled to the helmsman, ‘Keep her away!’ ‘Keep her away, sir,’ replied the man, immediately putting the helm up. As she swung off the wind the skipper shouted, ‘Square the mainyard!’ and as the watch flew to the braces and trimmed sail he steadied the course at north, which brought the wind a little on the starboard quarter and made the speed about four knots.
This being done he went below as if, disgusted beyond measure at having to do such a thing, he must needs use more opprobrious language to his wife for thus in some mysterious way imposing her will upon his. But when he saw her sitting in their little cabin looking with preternaturally bright eyes into vacancy as if she were seeing something with other than mortal vision, he could say nothing to her at all, but with a muttered curse upon himself for this unheard-of folly he fled on deck, not daring to look behind him. As if he must do something, he slung his binoculars about his neck and mounted to the fore crow’s-nest, from which the occupant had to depart suddenly upon the skipper’s appearance. He searched the horizon with most jealous care, but nothing could be seen, nothing but sea and sky and an occasional bird. So after half an hour up there he descended again and solaced his excited feelings by harrying the men, who, as usual, were kept at work upon perfectly needless jobs as if their very lives depended upon getting the work done in record time. And so congenial did he find this occupation that he had almost forgotten why, contrary to his own plans, he was running his ship almost dead before the wind up the middle of the Indian Ocean instead of getting away across to the Straits of Sunda as he had intended, when ‘What’s that?’ shouted the mate. ‘Somethin’ right ahead, sir; looks like dead whale ’r a boat ’r a big log.’ Ah! Trembling in every limb, Captain Da Silva snatched his glasses and sprang aloft. Panting with his speed he reached the crow’s-nest. He did not need to ask where the object was. It stood up with remarkable distinctness against that wide, clear blue, a little ungainly black patch. He focussed his glasses upon it and stared through the double tubes so earnestly that his eyeballs burnt in their sockets. A cold shudder, in that tropical day, possessed him, ran through him, and made the hair of his flesh stand up. It was a boat and nothing else. What manner of woman could his wife be, and was it safe for him to treat her as he had been doing? Superstitious fears seized upon him, for ever it will be found that gross cruelty and superstition go hand in hand, and at that moment he registered a mental vow that in future there should be a great change in his treatment of Priscilla. Indeed, he blamed himself bitterly for having allowed himself to behave to her as he had done. But he took refuge in the mental coward’s lying plea by muttering, ‘How was I to know?’
Go down from aloft he dared not. Slow, exasperatingly slow, as his ship’s progress was, he felt that he must remain at his lofty perch until the last moment, when he would go himself and see what this strange business meant. It was a weary business, for under such circumstances a ship’s progress seems to be so deliberate, one’s impatience is so futile and yet so impossible to avoid showing, that it tries men more than any words can say. It was nearly sunset when at last the waif was near enough for a boat to be lowered for the purpose of bringing her alongside. Long before that time arrived Captain Da Silva had devoured every detail of her—had seen that to all appearance the six men in her were dead, that she was a whaleboat, but, of course, could not read her name, since it was not the practice for whaleboats to carry the name of their ship painted on them, as is done in the merchant service. The same haughty disregard of any other person’s curiosity is usually shown in the Navy, where scarcely any of the smaller boats give the ship’s name—you can read it on the men’s caps if you want to know it.
Leaping into the boat he had ordered to be lowered, the skipper gave the order to ‘give way’ in such a tone that the men fairly lifted the boat through the water. None of them dared to steal a glance at him; if they had they would have marvelled. He was in a piteous state of nervous excitement. He felt as if his wife’s eyes were penetrating through the massive sides of the ship, that she was cognisant of his very thoughts; and the idea made great beads of cold sweat stand out upon his swarthy skin. He fought with his fears as a man fights with death, now devising strange punishments for Priscilla for having thus obtained a strange power of frightening him, and now vowing to himself that he would devote the rest of his time with her to making amends for his previous treatment of her. Not that he was conscious of having done anything he should not do—men of that class seldom are—but because she did not seem to be happy under the discipline which he felt was his prerogative to mete out to all under his command. And then they reached the boat.
Are those bundles of rags and bones men? By night the dews and by day the pitiless sun have alternately soaked and scorched them. They have endured such agonies as men do not care to think of. The boat herself is so bleached with sun and dew and wind that it seems wonderful she still holds together. And there is a faint smell as of death. Round to windward, quick. Look closely. Is there any life at all? Yes, there is a slight movement. A bight of tow-line is flung on board and secured to the bow thwart, a curt order is given, and the waif is being towed to the ship. Arriving alongside, she is hoisted level with the rail so that the hapless ones may be lifted out, as they are, so gently, so tenderly, by those rude, much-persecuted men, while the skipper looks on loweringly. One is dead. He is a little Italian apparently so reduced by his sufferings that he looks more like an Egyptian mummy uncased than anything else. But in all the rest there is some spark of life, notably in one big-framed—alas, every bone is awfully visible, and his eyes are away in the back of his head somewhere at the bottom of two long tunnels—fair-haired man, whose broken lips part and whose blackened tongue tries pitifully to frame a word.
The skipper goes away and leaves willing, eager hands to attend mercifully upon these castaways. He has said no word forbidding anything to be done, and so the group around the bodies give such aid as they know how, while the rest of the crew trim yards again for Anjer. And by the time she is settled upon her old course and the Captain has carelessly strolled forward again, he is humbly informed that five of the men he has rescued are not only still alive, but likely to go on living.
CHAPTER XXII
THE MEETING