A Whaleman's Wife

by Frank Thomas Bullen

They were nearing the reef passage, and the swell meeting them was causing the boat to leap as she surmounted its crests, and demanding a very steady hand at the steer-oar to keep her bow on to it. Besides, the channel was barely five boats’ lengths wide, and the foam of the incoming breakers almost obscured it at times. Still Rube steered seaward with a steady hand, and presently with a sigh of relief he saw the gallant craft shoot out from between those walls of white on to the dark, free ocean beyond. Then he was about to try and ship the rudder, which always hangs alongside, when he heard her voice saying:

‘Would you please look at the Captain? I think he has fainted, or something, and his clothes are all sticky, as well as wet.’

Rube answered thickly, ‘Certainly, ma’am, only yew must ’scuse me if I divide my ’tention between him and the boat. She wants a good deal of steering just now, an’ we kain’t afford to linger about here, in case we ain’t far enough from that awful place by sun-up.’

Then Rube stooped down and peered into the skipper’s face, feeling all over his body at the same time and noting the sticky feeling of which she spoke. But he knew no more of what it was than she, and as he had no light he could not investigate. And so he gave all his attention to the navigation of the boat away from those dangerous shores while yet the land wind held, knowing full well that it would die away before dawn and the sea breeze come with the sun. Then if he were not well off the land he would run great risk of being caught by the natives, whose blood thirst would by this time be unassuageable.

Priscilla, only conscious apparently of one fact, that her husband needed her ministrations, was doing her best under those sadly hampered conditions to give them. That she was tossing about on the open sea in a small boat with only her unconscious husband and one sailor to keep her company did not seem to impress her at all. And yet it would be grievous if anyone reading her story should think of her scornfully as having degenerated under her terrible trials into something very much resembling an imbecile. Oh, no; really her present state of mind had been reached through a series of shocks that would have driven a weaker woman to death or madness, but in her case had providentially resulted in a sort of calm acceptance, without any apparent surprise, of whatever strange experiences should befall her. Mechanically she bathed her husband’s face with her handkerchief dipped in the water overside, and, warned by his stertorous breathing, she loosed his neckband and managed to raise his head on to her lap. And thus she sat quietly enduring the cramping of her limbs, accepting the sharp pains shooting through her body as inevitable, and making no sound.

A hush stole over the dark sea as the wind died away, broken only by the heavy occasional flap of the now useless sail. Without a word Reuben shipped the steer-oar and stepped lightly forward. In a minute or two he had tightly furled the sail and taken an extra pull at the backstays and stay, after deciding that owing to his being single-handed and not sure of his power to elevate it again he must take the risk of being seen through leaving the mast standing. He did not realise how far the swift boat had glided under the gentle stress of the light land breeze during those past hours of darkness. With almost hungry eagerness he waited for the dawn, noted the first faint blush as of surprise tinting the eastern sky, watched with growing feelings of worship tremulous threads of delicate colour running searchingly into the sombre concave of the departing night, saw the flood of palest golden light appear, and then springing into its midst ablaze with glory, majesty, and life, the sun. And the land out of sight. His head sank upon his bosom, and he thanked God for deliverance. Yet, having done so, he could not help a sinking at his heart as he looked aft at those two crouching forms—one so inexpressibly precious to him, the other a sacred charge because—well, because of right and truth and honour. He knew that upon him, under God, depended their lives, although he did not then know how far gone the skipper was. And just one little moan escaped him as he thought how ill-provided they were for a long cruise in those unfrequented seas. Then hope revived again as he felt, because of his ignorance, that he could not sail far in any direction without making land, and land meant food and water, and (but that he did not trouble about) savages, cannibals made, if possible, worse than they were by nature by the utter villainy of white men far more culpable than they.

Then, treading softly as a cat, he stepped over the thwarts aft again, and as he did so Priscilla lifted her wan face to his, saying calmly:

‘Are we safe from pursuit?’

Rube nodded: he could not trust himself to speak.

‘Then, will you see what you can do for Captain Da Silva. I—I am afraid he is badly injured.’