He remembered how his predecessor, Paul Bitts—an enemy from the hour he joined the ship—by his cruelty, tyranny, and terror, had blotted out the short life of poor little Tom Titford on that terrible night at Fernando Noronha; and he wondered if some such untoward fate might befal himself at the hands of this unscrupulous wretch. But then Tom Tit, as they called him, was but a child compared with what Derval was now, and he resolved, as he said to Harry Bowline, "to keep his weather-eye remarkably wide open."
As for his growing inheritance, sailor like, he set no store on it then, and actually cared little, if he always had a ship, whether every shilling of it went to Rookleigh, the failings in whose disposition and character seemed to soften by time and distance, and often in lone watches of the night did Derval think he would try to love him, when the selfish little Rook of the nursery became, like himself, a man. Was he not his brother, and, moreover, the nearest kinsman he had on earth? They had the same father, though different mothers—oh, so different! Yes, yes, a day would come when Rook would cease to be under his mother's influence, and the bonds of fraternal affection would naturally strengthen between them as years rolled on.
Alas! Could Derval have foreseen the future!
About the time when the Amethyst began to feel the main equatorial current, one evening the sea, which had been as smooth as the Serpentine in Hyde Park on a summer day, suddenly became torn up by a hurricane, which a rapid fall in the barometer indicated, but scarcely in time for preparations to meet it.
The wind seemed to come from all quarters at once, as if contending for mastery, and the spray flew over the ship in blinding clouds. The weightiest blast struck her on the lee bow, and, as the yards were braced that way, she was nearly thrown on her beam ends.
"Hold on!" was the shout that went from stem to stern, and every man grasped something to prevent himself being swept overboard.
For nearly a minute the ship lay in the same position, when she righted a little, and then payed off before the blast, when Joe Grummet joined the man at the wheel.
Darkness came on with more than tropical rapidity. Luckily the royals had not been set, and topsails, close-reefed, were lowered upon the caps, while the vessel drove before her courses and fore-staysail.
"We are in for a rough night," said Mr. Rudderhead grimly, as he tied the strings of a yellow south-wester under his chin. "A night as may make some beggar lose the number of his mess, if it don't send us all to Davy Jones's locker before morning."
Twice during this short speech his eye wandered, perhaps unconsciously, to Derval; but, as the event proved, the night was to have more terror for himself than any man on board.