"One passenger after another came peeping sleepily out of the companion-hatch at the men clearing away the wreck of the spars, and swabbing the quarter-deck down; but scarce had Smith, one of the young writers, reached the poop, when he gave a shout that covered both poop-ladders in no time, with people scrambling over each other to get up. Next minute you'd have fancied them a knot of flamingoes with their wings out, as the bright red daybreak brought out the edge of the woods far astern, through a hazy lane in the purple mist, topped so with stray cocoa-nut trees and cabbage-palms, dabbled like brushes in the colour, that they scarce knew them to be woods at all, and not a whole lot of wild savages fresh from other business of the kind, coming down with all sorts of queer tools upon us; more especially when one heard such a chorus of unaccountable cries, whistling and screaming, as seemed to struggle with the sound of the sea ahead of us, and the plash alongside.
"The huge round sun struck hot crimson along the far turn of the reach, with all manner of twisted blots upon him, as it were, and the very grass and long reeds seemingly rustling into his face, so one didn't for the moment know him either; while the muddy chocolate-coloured eddies, sweeping and closing beyond the ship's rudder, glittered and frothed up like blood; and every here and there, along the streak of light, the head of a log or a long branch came dipping up terribly plain—no wonder the old Seringapatam had apparently turned tail to it all, ready to bolt if she could.
"Almost as soon as you took your hands off your eyes, though, and could see without a red ball or two before them—there was the nearest shore growing out toward our starboard bulwark all along, crowded with wet green woods, up into steaming high ground—all to eastward a dazzle of light, with two or three faint mountain-peaks shooting up far off in it, and a woody blue hill or so between; while here and there a broad bright hazy spoke of the sun's great wheel came cutting down into the forest, that brought out a patch full of long big leaves, ten times greener than the rest, and let you look off the deck into the heart of it amongst the stems over the bank. The jabber in the woods had passed off all at once with the dusk, the water deepening over the bar, and the tide running slower, so that everyone's confused face turned breathless with delight as it grew stiller and stiller.
"The whole breadth of the river shone out by this time, full and smooth, to the opposite shore three times as far away, where the wood and bulrushes seemed to grow out of the water; a long thick range of low muddy-looking mangroves, with a cover of dark green, rounding from the farthest point one saw, down to some sandy hummocks near the mouth, and a ridge of the same drifted up by the wind off the beach. Beyond that side there was nothing, apparently, but a rolling sweep of long coarse grass, with a few straggling cocoa-nut trees and baobabs, like big swollen logs on end, and taken to sprouting at top: a dun-coloured heave of land in the distance, too, that came out, as it got hotter, in a long desert-like, redbrick-dust sort of a glare. The sole living things to be seen as yet were some small birds rising up out of the long grass, and the turkey-buzzards sailing high over all across, as if on the look-out.
"The air was so cool and clear, however, from the tornado overnight—not a cloud in the sky, and the strange scent of the land reaching us as the dew rose off it—you could see far and wide, with a delicious feeling of it all, that kept everyone standing fixed on the spot where he first gained the deck, even the men looking over their shoulders with the ropes in their fists, and the fresh morning breeze lifting one's hair. Surprised as the passengers were, nobody spoke a word, except the three or four children shouting, dancing, and pointing together, without being noticed, till, all at once, the whole poopful burst into one confusion of questions and exclamations, running hither and thither, shaking hands and jostling each other like distracted people.
"I had a spy-glass at my eye, making out the other shore, when, turning round in the middle of it, the first thing I saw was Violet Hyde's face, as she stood with one little foot on the stair-head behind me, holding the rail with one hand, her eyes sparkling, and her parted lips murmuring like one in a dream: 'Oh, Mr Collins!' exclaimed she, breathless; 'what is this? Where are we—is it Fairyland? A river!' 'Yes, in Africa,' I said; 'but whether it's the Bembarooghe or the——' 'That fearful, fearful evening!' continued she, shuddering: 'I saw the frightful sky, and heard the storm—and now!—Were we not in some very great danger, sir?' 'Yes, ma'am, we were,' replied I, as stiffly as I could; 'but, happily, it's over now!' And I gave my cap a lift to move off, uneasy as I was, every moment, lest Sir Charles should catch me speaking again to his daughter. However, Miss Hyde was gazing eagerly at the land, and I had to wait. 'What lovely, lovely green!' she half whispered: 'oh, if one could only tread upon it!—so un-English those strange tall trees look! are they not cocoa-nut trees and—and——' Suddenly, her voice faltered, and she turned round with her bright blue eyes swimming in tears—'How—how thankful we should be that we are not—like our poor, poor friends, who were lost!' exclaimed she. I thought of the poor captain below in his cot, but next moment I was explaining, to her sheer amazement, how the real truth of the matter stood, though, if possible, it seemed to horrify her still more. 'I can't think what they may be,' I rapped out; 'but if I had the command of this ship, I'd up anchor this very hour, and go out—at least as soon as the tide ebbed; but, at any rate, at the Cape I mean to get hold of some schooner or other, and if it were to China, why, I'll cruise after 'em till I——' 'Then you think,' began she, and an arch inquisitive sort of look danced in both her eyes as she turned away to watch the shore again, saying slowly, 'You are a—a naval gentleman then, Mr West—Mr Collins?' I tried to stammer out something by way of an explanation, but it wouldn't do, and I said, 'At any rate, I'm no better, by this time, than an idler aboard here, ma'am!'
"All at once, I caught a side-look from her eyes, that wasn't meant for me, as she glanced over the poop-netting. Half provoking and half sweet it was, though, and it made my brain somehow or other seem to spin round, till a little after, before I well knew what I was about, I was holding the long spy-glass for her to see the bank of the river—her warm breath coming on my ear as I stooped before her, near enough to have kissed the muslin on her shoulder, while her rosy mouth changed with every new spot that the glass brought near; and she had to hold one taper forefinger on the other eyelid to keep it shut, so that I could dwell on her face as if she'd been asleep. 'There, there!' exclaimed she, 'are actually flowers—with such immense leaves! And now—an enormous tree, with roots hanging from the branches, and other stems growing up into them. Why, yes!—is not that a banyan-tree, Mr——?' and she looked away at me, when of course the tree was vanished, and instead of that, the rather undeniable expression of a fellow in love, two or three inches off, bent fair upon her. Violet Hyde coloured a little, and looked in again. 'And, I think,' continued she, 'I see—oh, two such beautiful creatures—deer, I think, coming out to drink from the river!' All this time, the ecstasies of the rest kept up the noise and confusion; the young lady's-maid was gaping open-mouthed at the shore, not even noticing her young mistress's straw bonnet fall off, and I had just picked it up with one hand, to put it quietly over that matchless nut-brown hair of hers, shining suddenly in the sun, like silk, when the judge's voice rang out sharp from the other stair, 'Violet, child, you'll have a sunstroke. Kitmagar, you scoundrel, beebee sahib punkah lao, sirrah!' I held on to the telescope like grim death, while that eternal punkah was hoisted over us both, the judge eyeing me somewhat coolly for the first moment. 'Well, well, Mr Westwood,' said he, however, 'you've got rid of that proud freak of yours; such behaviour as yours yesterday, I assure you, I shouldn't have endured from anyone else, young man! But, my dear boy,' added he, suddenly, 'from what I can gather, indeed, saw myself last night, I am convinced we owe you a very great deal—even, I suspect, the safety of the entire vessel!' Miss Hyde had left off using the glass, and, as I stood up, she gave me a quick glance of amazement. 'Mere chance, sir,' I stammered. 'Why,' said Sir Charles, 'I saw you at the steerage in the middle of the hurricane, when I believe the actual officers of the ship had left it in dismay. I tell you what, Mr Westwood, you're a bold fellow; and your uncle and I must see in India if we can't reward you in some way, my dear boy!' All this fondling style of thing, and for little more than a piece of luck, would have disgusted me if I hadn't been more taken up with watching the side of Violet Hyde's face, as she listened for sounds in the woods ashore. 'Strange, wasn't it, Violet, my dear,' continued he to his daughter, 'that my friend the Councillor's nephew should have gone out in the same Indiaman, so fortunately—though, of course, after all, it was the first this season.' 'Ah!' said she, starting, 'I beg pardon, papa—what did you—weren't you talking of the river?' 'Don't you hear, child,' said the judge, 'I said it was a curious coincidence, Mr Westwood's going in this vessel.' 'Oh yes, indeed!' answered she, and couldn't help looking down a little confounded. But the lady's-maid was putting on her tiny slipper, which had come off, while her father mentioned that of course I'd had practical reasons for not owning my profession hitherto; meaning, I suppose, that I didn't speak for fear of having to work, like the monkeys—though the sharp old lawyer must have had a better guess by this time, and queer enough it must have been to see her face, listening to him as he explained it all. I stood biting my lips, meanwhile—two or three times on the point of telling him it was all nonsense about my being a nephew of any hanged old nabob whatever; when Sir Charles said carelessly he should leave the Seringapatam, if possible, at the Cape of Good Hope, as he couldn't trust safely to the present officers.
"Just then up got the merry chant of the men running round with the capstan-bars, to get up anchor; the chief officer wishing, as it was found, to carry her farther into the river with the breeze—for the sake of filling our water-casks the easier, according to him, but more likely out of sheer spite at what had been done without him. What with eagerness in the cuddy to get on shore and see the woods, the breakfast below was a rare scene, no one minding what he did, even to rushing slap into a couple of ladies' berths for his boots, or laying a couple of loaded Joe Mantons into somebody's bed, swallowing biscuit and butter on the way.
"Suddenly, we heard the splash of paddles in the water, with a hail in some foreign tongue or other, and hurried on deck in a body; where we found the ship tiding it slowly up, under jibs and fore-topsail, and beginning to open a longer reach where the river seemed to narrow in. A black-eyed, black-bearded fellow, with a tallow, yellow, sweaty sort of complexion, in a dirty jacket, drawers, and short boots, and an immense grass hat, shouting Portuguese louder and louder into the first mate's ear, till he actually put both hands together, and roared through them, pointing to himself now and then, as if surprised he wasn't known.
"All at once, evidently quite disgusted, he turned and looked over the side, saying something to one of the ugliest and most ill-looking mulattoes I ever saw, who sat in the stern of a long rough canoe, hollowed out of some tree, with two naked black rowers, less of the real nigger than himself, as they leant grinning up at the bulwarks with their sharp teeth, that appeared as if they'd been filed to a point. The mulatto gloomed, but he gave no answer, and as one of the cadets and I knew a little Portuguese, we managed together to get something out of the fellow on deck, though, at noticing him for the first time that morning, I saw Finch turn red with surprise.