IX.
Corbet at the Helm.—Visions by Night.—The Vis-ion of sudden Wealth.— Over the Waters.—The Ocean Isles.—A startling and unwelcome Sight.—Landing of Corbet.—Corbet among the Moun-seers.—Unpleasant Intelligence.—An unwelcome Visitor.—A sharp Inquisition.—Corbet in a Corner.—Answers of Guile and Simplicity.—Perplexity of Cross examiner.
THUS the Antelope passed away from the eyes of the boys, and vanished into the shades of night. The breeze was light, and Corbet stood at the helm, shaping his course for the Magdalen Islands. The first feeling of uneasiness which he had experienced on leaving ‘the boys in so very peculiar, perhaps dangerous, a situation, had passed away with the boys themselves, and his thoughts now turned on other things. He was virtually alone. Wade indeed, was on board, but the captain had sent him below to sleep, so that he might be able to relieve him and take his turn at midnight.
Thus alone at the helm, Captain Corbet looked out over the silent sea, and up into the starry sky, and lost himself in peaceful meditations. But his thoughts were not concerned with sea or sky. Other and dearer subjects gave them occupation. It was his “babby” that occupied his mind; that babby for whose sake he had deserted the boys, and left them alone in mid ocean. He was going to make a fortune for his son. He was going to take measures for securing the wrecked ship, so as to bring her into some port, sell her, and divide the proceeds.
Night, and solitude, and silence are ever the best promoters of meditation, and Captain Corbet’s fancy was stimulated and quickened by his present surroundings. In thought he went all over the Petrel. He examined her hull; he considered her cargo; he made light of her injuries—He concluded that a very small sum might make her once more seaworthy, and he thought that fifteen thousand pounds might be easily obtained for her. Then as to her cargo; that he knew must be perfectly free from injury. He tried to estimate the number of tons; then he multiplied these by the price per ton, so as to get at the value of the entire cargo. Then he added this to the value of the ship, and allowed his mind to play freely around the aggregate. It was a sum of dazzling proportions—a sum far greater than he had been able to make after the hard toil and persevering efforts of many laborious years! And all this he was now about to achieve by one stroke. It was to be the work of a few days. It was to be for the good of the “babby.”
Here another theme attracted the thoughts of the good captain,—the fondest of all themes,—his infant son. That son would now have something that would approximate to wealth. All his future would take tone and flavor from this adventure. The father’s best feelings were roused, and in fancy he traced the future of his beloved infant. He saw him pass from long clothes into short clothes, from frocks into jackets, and from jackets into coats. He followed him in thought from his mother’s arms to his own legs; from his home to the school; from the school to the college. He watched him consume the midnight oil for years, until he at length reached the brilliant end of his educational goal. Then he portrayed before his mind the form of his son in the future,—now at the bar pleading, or on the bench judging; now at the bedside of the sick; now in the pulpit preaching. He listened to the sermon of the imaginary preacher, and found himself moved to tears.
“Dear, dear!” he murmured to himself; “I’d no idee the little feller’d be so eliquint. It doos beat all, railly.”
Captain Corbet was really like one who had taken intoxicating liquor, or opium; and, in fact, he was intoxicated, but the stimulus was no drink or drug; it was merely his fancy, which had become heated by the extravagant dream of sudden wealth. Gold produces its own fevers and deliriums; and the good captain had been seized by one of these. Yet, after all, let it be remembered that his avarice was not for himself, but for his child. And as the lone navigator stood at his post under the midnight sky, in solitude and darkness, heaping up those bright fancies, out of which he was rearing so stupendous a castle in the air, he was building, all the while, not for himself, but for another.
Had he left the boys under any other circumstances,—that is, supposing that he had been capable of so leaving them,—there is no doubt that he would have been a prey to the most harassing anxiety on their account, and would have passed a wakeful night, full of mental distress. But now these new thoughts so occupied him that there was no place for anxiety, and he went on towards the accomplishment of his purpose as resolutely as though he had left them all in the safest and pleasantest place in the world.