Chapter Forty Seven.
A Tattoo that needs Retouching.
The great Pacific current in many respects resembles the Gulf Stream of the Atlantic. Passing eastward under the Aleutian Archipelago, it impinges upon the American continent by Vancouver’s Island; thence setting southward, along the Californian coast, curves round horseshoe shape, and sets back for the central part of the South Sea, sweeping on past the Sandwich Isles.
By this disposition, a ship bound from San Francisco for Honolulu has the flow in her favour; and if the wind be also favourable, she will make fast way.
As chance has it, both are propitious to the Crusader, and the warship standing for the Sandwich Islands will likely reach them after an incredibly short voyage.
There are two individuals on board of her who wish it to be so; counting every day, almost every hour, of her course. Not that they have any desire to visit the dominions of King Kamehameha, or expect pleasure there. On the contrary, if left to themselves, the frigate’s stay in the harbour of Honolulu would not last longer than necessary to procure a boat-load of bananas, and replenish her hen-coops with fat Kanaka fowls.
It is scarce necessary to say that they, who are thus indifferent to the delights of Owyhee, are the late-made lieutenant, Crozier, and the midshipman, Cadwallader. For them the brown-skinned Hawaian beauties will have little attraction. Not the slightest danger of either yielding to the blandishments so lavishly bestowed upon sailors by these seductive damsels of the Southern Sea. For the hearts of both are yet thrilling with the remembrance of smiles vouchsafed them by other daughters of the sunny south, of a far different race—thrilling, too, with the anticipation of again basking in their smiles under the sky of Andalusia.
It needs hope—all they can command—to cheer them. Not because the time is great, and the place distant. Sailors are accustomed to long separation from those they love, and, therefore, habituated to patience. It is no particular uneasiness of this kind which shadows their brows, and makes every mile of the voyage seem a league.
Nor are their spirits clouded by any reflections on that, which so chafed them just before leaving San Francisco. If they have any feelings about it, they are rather those of repentance for suspicions, which both believe to have been unfounded, as unworthy.
What troubles them now—for they are troubled—has nought to do with that. Nor is it any doubt as to the loyalty of their fiancée; but fear for their safety. It is not well-defined; but like some dream which haunts them—at times so slight as to cause little concern, at others, filling them with keen anxiety.