Something very like a sob seemed to rise in Roberts’s throat and choke him at this point in his story; but before I had time to frame and arrange the words of sympathy that struggled to my lips—for I am not a quick man with my tongue—he resumed—
“I hope, Captain Saint Leger, that if my manner has seemed to you a little curious to-night, you will not put it down to timorousness, or faintheartedness, or anything of that sort. I do feel very queer, I admit; not ill, you understand, but strange; a kind of—well, it’s more than a presentiment; I might say it’s an absolute certainty that I’m going to die to-night, coupled with another absolute certainty that those treacherous fiends of Malays are gathering round us out there in the darkness. But if my presentiment should prove true, and it comes to a fight, have no fears on my account. I’ll not fail you, sir, in the moment of need and danger. Danger has long ceased to be an enemy of mine, and Death lost all his terrors for me when I stood for the first time beside my Nellie’s grave. I am quite ready to die whenever it may please the Almighty to call me; and if I can do so in defence of those dear, helpless women and children down below, it will suit me well enough.”
“Thank you, Roberts; thank you, my friend,” said I, grasping the hand he held out to me. “Yours is a very sad, pathetic story, and you have my hearty sympathy. As to doubting your courage, my good fellow, no such thought ever entered my head. But I am certain, despite all you say to the contrary, that you are not quite yourself to-night. Therefore, if you will not take any medicine, at least go below and try to get a little sleep; that perhaps will do you as much good as anything. I will keep the remainder of your watch for you; and should anything occur to confirm your suspicions as to the Malays, you may reckon on my calling you in good time.”
The man was, however, obstinate—or, at least, so he seemed to me to be—resolutely declining to accede to either of my suggestions; so, leaving him to complete the few remaining preparations I deemed necessary to meet an attack, should anything of the sort be attempted, I returned aft to the poop, somewhat vexed that so thoroughly sensible a man as Roberts had hitherto proved should suffer himself to be so completely mastered, as I had seen him to be, by a morbid feeling of melancholy that was doubtless due in part to overmuch dwelling of late upon the death of his wife but which I firmly believed was to be still more directly traced to some slight derangement of the system that could easily be put right by the administration of a dose of medicine, could the fellow but be induced to take it. No doubt, too, the fact of our being becalmed, and therefore to a great extent helpless, in a spot notoriously haunted by a people, every mother’s son of whom was but too ready to participate in any act of piracy that seemed to offer a reasonable prospect of success, had a large influence in producing the presentiment of death in the mate’s mind; but that, I felt sure, would pass away with the impenetrable and oppressive darkness by which we were enveloped, or with the advent of a breeze of wind. While, therefore, I sincerely pitied the poor fellow for his disagreeable state of mind, I thought that perhaps it would be wisest to treat it as a matter of no importance, and to leave him to himself until the fit of depression should have passed away.
On groping my way back to the chair I had previously occupied, I found that Sir Edgar was still occupying the chair beside my own, meditatively pulling away at a cigar, the glowing spark of which would probably have still further increased Roberts’s perturbation, had he seen it. As I seated myself beside him the baronet made a half-jesting inquiry as to whether our preparations had had the effect of reassuring the mate; so, to while away the time, and for want of something more interesting to talk about, I told him Roberts’s story, and also described to him the peculiar state of mind under which the poor fellow was labouring. Sir Edgar fully agreed with me that the latter was simply the result of some slight and probably temporary derangement, and was proceeding to discuss the subject of presentiments in general, and the extreme rarity of really well-authenticated cases of verification, when the atmosphere became for an instant faintly luminous with the evanescent, quivering glimmer of the silent, summer lightning. The flash trembled but for a moment in the sky, and was gone again; but in that moment I saw that the firmament was packed with vast masses of dense, heavy, threatening, highly, charged electric cloud, the weird, contorted shapes of which clearly indicated that they were being powerfully acted upon by the mighty antagonistic forces that they carried within their bosoms, and gave unmistakable warning that an elemental strife was impending, for which it would be well to prepare. Beneath this louring canopy the surface of the water shone with the unwrinkled smoothness of polished glass, faithfully reflecting every detail, even to the most minute, of form and colour exhibited by the writhing cloud-shapes that overhung it; and also faithfully reflecting the shapes of four large proas that, in a somewhat scattered fleet, were revealed at a distance of some three miles to the northward and eastward of the spot occupied by ourselves. The barque happened at the moment to be lying with her head pointing about south-east; these proas were therefore broad upon our larboard beam, and they were the first objects that met my sight. Some, if not all, of these craft were working their sweeps; for, with the momentary quiver of the lightning, I had caught the glint of reflected light from wet oar-blades projecting from the dark, shadowy mass of the hull; and they were all heading up or down the straits—I could not tell which in the unexpected glimpse I had caught of them—for they all showed end-on, or nearly so, to us.
Meanwhile, Roberts had completed his task, and was in the act of mounting to the poop—for I caught sight of his figure out of the corner of my eye—when the flash came. As the opaque darkness once more enveloped us I heard his voice exclaiming sharply, and, as it seemed to me, with a note of exultation in it, as though proud at the prospect of at least one half of his presentiment being verified—
“Did you see that, sir?”
I rose from my chair and joined him, so that our voices might not disturb the sleepers below in the saloon, near the open skylight of which I had been seated.
“You mean the proas, I suppose,” said I. “Yes, I saw them. But there are only four of them, thank goodness. And we are not sure that they are not heading up the straits, instead of toward us. If so, it was no doubt from one of them that the sound emanated that startled you a little while ago, as they must have passed us at no great distance.”
“Four of them?” exclaimed Roberts; “I only saw three; and two of them were heading the same way as ourselves. They were all close together; not more than—”