I saw his brow begin to lower again, so the devil prompted me to advert, by way of changing the subject, to a file of newspapers, which, as it turned out, might have proved to be by far the most dangerous topic I could have hit upon. He had laid them aside, having taken them out of the locker when he was rummaging for the linen. “What have we here? Kingston Chronicle, Montego Bay Gazette, Falmouth Advertiser. A great newsmonger you must be. What arrivals?—let me see;—you know I am a week from headquarters. Let me see.”
At first he made a motion as if he would have snatched them out of my hands, but speedily appeared to give up the idea, merely murmuring “What can it signify now?”
I continued to read—“Chanticleer from a cruise—Tonnant from Barbadoes Pique from Port-au-Prince. Oh, the next interests me the Firebrand is daily expected from Havanna; she is to come through the gulf, round Cape Antonio, and beat up the haunts of the pirates all along the Cuba shore.” I was certain now that at the mention of this corvette mine host winced in earnest. This made me anxious to probe him farther. “Why, what means this pencil mark—‘Firebrand’s number off the Chesapeake was 1022?’ How the deuce, my fine fellow, do you know that?”
He shook his head, but said nothing, and I went on reading the pencil memoranda—“But this is most probably changed; she now carries a red cross in the head of her foresail, and has very short lower masts like the Hornet.” Still he made me no answer. I proceeded—“Stop, let me see what merchant ships are about sailing. Loading for Liverpool, the John Gladstone, Peter Ponderous master;” and after it, again in pencil “Only sugar: goes through the gulf.—Only sugar,” said I, still fishing; “too bulky, I suppose.—Ariel, Jenkins Whitehaven;” remark—“sugar, coffee, and logwood. Nuestra Senora de los Dolores, to sail for Chagres on 7th proximo;” remark—“rich cargo of bale goods, but no chance of overtaking her.” “El Rayo to sail for St Jago de Cuba on the 10th proximo;” remark—“sails fast; armed with a long gun and musketry; thirty hands; about ten Spanish passengers; valuable cargo of dry goods; mainmast rakes well aft; new cloth in the foresail about half-way up; will be off the Moro about the 13th.—And what is this written in ink under the above?—The San Pedro from Chagres, and Marianita from Santa Martha, although rich, have both got convoy.—Ah, too strong for your friends, Obed—I see, I see.—Francis Baring, Loan French, master—an odd name, rather, for a skipper;” remark—“forty seroons of cochineal and some specie; is to sail from Morant Bay on 5th proximo, to go through the windward passage; may be expected off Cape St Nicolas on the 12th, or thereby.” I laid down the paper and looked him full in the face. “Nicolas is an ominous name. I fear the good ship Francis Baring will find it so. Some of the worthy saint’s clerks to be fallen in with off the Mole, eh? Don’t you think as I do, Obed?” Still silent. “Why you seem to take great delight in noting the intended departures and expected arrivals, my friend—merely to satisfy your curiosity, of course; but, to come to close quarters with you, captain, I now know pretty well the object of your visiting Jamaica now and then you are indeed no vulgar smuggler.”
“It is well for you and good for myself, Mr Cringle, that something weighs heavy at my heart at this moment, and that there is that about you which, notwithstanding your ill-timed jesting, commands my respect, and engages my goodwill—had it not been so, you would have been alongside of poor Paul at this moment.” He leant his arms upon the table, and gazed intensely on my face as he continued in a solemn tremulous tone—“Do you believe in auguries, Mr Cringle? Do you believe that coming events cast their shadows before?’”—oh, that little Wiggy Campbell had been beside me to have seen the figure and face of the man who now quoted him!
“Yes, I do, it is part of the creed of every sailor to do so; I do believe that people have had forewarnings of peril to themselves or their friends.”
“Then what do you think of the mate beckoning me with his dead hand to follow him?”
“Why, you are raving, Obed; you saw that he had been much convulsed, and that the limb, from the contraction of the sinews, was forcibly kept down in the position it broke loose from—the spunyarn gave way, and of course it started up—nothing wonderful in all this although it did at the time somewhat startle me, I confess.”
“It may be so, it may be so. I don’t know,” rejoined he, “but taken along with what I saw before”—Here his voice sank into so hollow and sepulchral a tone as to be almost unintelligible. “But there is no use in arguing on the subject. Answer me this, Lieutenant Cringle, and truly, so help you God at your utmost need, did the mate leave the cabin at any moment after I was wounded by the splinter?” And he seized one of my hands convulsively with his iron paw, while he pointed up through the open scuttle towards heaven with the other, which trembled like a reed. The moon shone strong on the upper part of his countenance, while the yellow smoky glare of the candle over which he bent, blending harshly and inharmoniously with the pale silver light, fell full on his uncouth figure, and on his long scraggy bare neck and chin and cheeks, giving altogether a most unearthly expression to his savage features, from the conflicting tints and changing shadows cast by the flickering moonbeams streaming fitfully through the skylight, as the vessel rolled to and fro, and by the large torchlike candle as it wavered in the night wind. The Prince of the Powers of the Air might have sat for his picture by proxy. It was just such a face as one has dreamed of after a hot supper and cold ale, when the whisky had been forgotten—horrible, changing, vague, glimmering, and undefined; and as if something was still wanting to complete the utter frightfulness of his aspect, the splinter wound in his head burst out afresh from his violent agitation, and streamed down in heavy drops from his forehead, falling warm on my hand. I was much shaken at being adjured in this tremendous way, with the hot blood gluing our hands together, but I returned his grasp as steadily as I could, while I replied, with all the composure he had left me, and that would not have quite filled a Winchester bushel.
“He never left my side from the time he offered to take your place after you had been wounded.”