At the helm, not far from where the young lady sat, stood a sturdy seaman, who, by his clear blue eye, fresh, weather-beaten countenance, and bluff, unshrinking look, one might easily have marked out as an English sailor. Leaning on the tiller by which he was steering the vessel on her course, he had marked his worthy captain's conduct with a sort of contemplative frown; but when, stooping down, the Portingallo tore away Lady Constance's veil, and amused himself by staring in her face, the honest sailor stretched out his foot, and touched him on a protuberant part of his person which presented itself behind. The captain, turning sharply round, eyed him like a demon, but the Englishman stood his glance with a look of steady, nonchalant resolution, that it was not easy to put down.
"I say, Portingallo," said he, "do you want me to heave you overboard?"
"You heave me overboard, you mutinous thief!" cried the captain; "I'll have you strung up to the yard-arm, you vaggleboned! I will."
"You'll drown a little first, by the nose of the tinker of Ashford!" replied the other; "but hark you, Portingallo: let the young lady nun alone; or, as I said before, by the nose of the tinker of Ashford, I'll heave you overboard; and then I'll make the crew a 'ration, and tell them what a good service I've done 'em; and I'll lay down the matter in three heads: first, as you were a rascal; second, as you were a villain; and third, as you were a blackguard: then I will show how, first, you did wrong to a passenger; second, how you did wrong to a lady; and third, how you did wrong to a nun: for the first you deserve to be flogged; for the second you deserve to be kicked; and for the third you are devilish likely to be hanged, with time and God's blessing."
For a moment or two the Portingallo was somewhat confounded by the eloquence of the Englishman, who was in fact no other than Timothy Bradford, the chief of the Rochester rioters. Recovering himself speedily, however, he retaliated pretty warmly, yet did not dare to come to extremities with his rebellious steersman, as Bradford, having taken refuge in his vessel, with four or five of his principal associates, commanded too strong a party on board to permit very strict discipline. It was a general rule of the amiable captain never to receive two men that, to his knowledge, had ever seen one another before; but several severe losses in his crew had, in the present instance, driven him into an error, which he now felt bitterly, not being half so much master of his own wickedness as he used to be before. Nevertheless, he did not fail to express his opinion of the helmsman's high qualities in no very measured terms, threatening a great deal more than he dared perform, of which both parties were well aware.
"Come, come, Portingallo!" cried the helmsman; "you know very well what is right as well as another, and I say you sha'n't molest the lady. Another thing, master: you treat that poor lubberly Jekin like a brute, and I'll not see it done, so look to it. But I'll tell you what, captain: let us mind what we are about. These dark clouds that are gathering there to leeward, and coming up against the wind, mean something. Better take in sail."
The effect of this conversation was to free Constance from the persecution of the captain; and turning her eyes in the direction to which the sailor pointed, she saw, rolling up in the very face of the wind, some heavy, leaden clouds, tipped with a lurid reddish hue wherever they were touched by the sun. Above their heads, and to windward, the sky was clear and bright, obscured by nothing but an occasional light cloud that flitted quickly over the heaven, drawing after it a soft shadow, that passed like an arrow over the gay waves, which all around were dancing joyously in the sunshine.
By this time the English coast was becoming fainter and more faint; the long line of cliffs and headlands massing together, covered with an airy and indistinct light, while the shores of France seemed growing out of the waters, with heavy piles of clouds towering above them, and seeming to advance, with menacing mien, towards the rocks of England. Still, though the eye might mark them rolling one over another, in vast, dense volumes, looking fit receptacles for the thunder and the storm, the clouds seemed to make but little progress, contending with the opposing wind; while mass after mass, accumulating from beyond, appeared to bring up new force to the dark front of the tempest.
Still the ship sped on, and, the wind being full in her favour, made great way through the water, so that it was likely they would reach Boulogne before the storm began; and the captain, now obliged to abandon any evil purpose he might have conceived towards Lady Constance, steered towards the shore of France to get rid of her as soon as possible. From time to time every eye on board was turned towards the lowering brow of heaven, and then always dropped to the French coast, to ascertain how near was the tempest and how far the haven; and Constance, not sufficiently sick to be heedless of danger, ceased not to watch the approaching clouds and the growing shore with alternate hope and fear. Gradually the hills towards Boulogne, the cliffs, and the sands, with dark lines of tower, and wall, and citadel, and steeple, began to grow more and more distinct; and the Portingal was making a tack to run into the harbour, when the vane at the mast-head began to quiver, and in a moment after turned suddenly round. Cries and confusion of every sort succeeded; one of the sails was completely rent to pieces; and the ship received such a sudden shock that Constance was cast from her seat upon the deck, and poor Dr. Wilbraham rolled over, and almost pitched out at the other side. Soon, however, the yards were braced round, the vessel was put upon another tack, and from a few words that passed between the captain and the steersman, Constance gathered, that as they could not get into Boulogne, they were about to run for Whitesand Haven as the nearest port.
"Go down below, lady; go down below and tell your beads," cried the steersman, as he saw Constance sitting and holding herself up by the binnacle. "Here, Jekey, help her down."