CHAPTER V.
DARKNESS.
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“The busy deck is hushed, no sounds are waking But the watch pacing silently and slow; The waves against the sides incessant breaking, And rope and canvas swaying to and fro. The topmost sail, it seems like some dim pinnacle Cresting a shadowy tower amid the air; While red and fitful gleams come from the binnacle, The only light on board to guide us––where?” |
On went the “Martha Blunt” with no fears of danger near. The bell struck eight, the watch had been called, and the captain, taking a satisfactory look all around the horizon, glanced at the compass, and, with a slight yawn, said,
“Well, Mr. Binks, I believe I’ll turn in for a few hours; keep the brig on her course, and at daylight call me. It will be time enough then to bend the cables, for I don’t think we shall want the anchors much afore noon to-morrow. Where’s the corvette?”
“There she is, sir, away off on the port beam. She made more sail a few minutes ago, and now she appears to be edging off the wind, and steering across our forefoot. I s’pose she’s enjoying of herself, sir, and exercisin’ the crowds of chaps they has on board them craft.”
“Well, good-night, matey”––pausing a moment, however, as the honest old skipper stepped down the companion-way, and half communing with himself, and then, with his head just above the slide, he added, “I say, Mr. Binks, there’s no need, p’r’aps, but you may as well have a lantern alight and bent on to the ensign halliards there under the taffrail, in case you want to signalize the corvette. Ah, Banou! that you, old nigger? Good-night!”
So Captain Blunt went slowly down below, and at the same time the black went aft, coiled himself down on the deck, and made a pillow of the brig’s ensign.
Mr. Binks wriggled himself upon the weather rail, where, with a short pipe in his mouth, he kicked his heels against the bulwarks, and while the old brig plunged doggedly on, he indulged himself with a song, the air, however, being more like the growl of a bull-dog than a specimen of music: