We have endeavoured to give a faint and fleeting sketch of what revolutionising Germany has attained, after a year's revolution. The picture is a dark one, of a truth, but we believe in no ways overdone. In actual progress the sum-total appears to be a zero. The position of Germany, although calmer on the surface, is as difficult, as embarrassing, as much in the "cleft stick," as when we speculated upon it last year. All the well-wishers of the country and of mankind may give it their hopes; but when they look for realisation of their hopes, they can only shake their heads, with the Germans themselves, as they ask, "What will become of Germany?"
[THE GREEN HAND—A "SHORT" YARN.]
PART V.
The next evening our friend the Captain found his fair audience by the taffrail increased to a round dozen, while several of the gentlemen passengers lounged near, and the chief officer divided his attention between the gay group of ladies below and the "fanning" main-topsail high up, with its corresponding studding-sail hung far out aloft to the breeze; the narrative having by this time contracted a sort of professional interest, even to his matter-of-fact taste, which enabled him to enjoy greatly the occasional glances of sly humour directed to him by his superior, for whom he evidently entertained a kind of admiring respect, that seemed to be enhanced as he listened. As for the commander himself, he related the adventures in question with a spirit and vividness of manner that contributed to them no small charm; amusingly contrasted with the cool, dry, indifferent sort of gravity of countenance, amidst which the keen gray seawardly eye, under the peak of the naval cap, kept changing and twinkling as it seemed to run through the experience of youth again—sometimes almost approaching to an undeniable wink. The expression of it at this time, however, was more serious, while it appeared to run along the dotted reef-band of the mizen-topsail above, as across the entry in a log-book, and as if there were something interesting to come.
"Well, my dear captain," asked his matronly relative, "what comes next? You and your friend had picked up a—a-what was it now!"
"Ah! I remember, ma'am," said the naval man, laughing; "the bottle—that was where I was. Well, as you may conceive, this said scrap of penmanship in the bottle did take both of us rather on end; and for two or three minutes Westwood and I sat staring at each other and the uncouth-looking fist, in an inquiring sort of way, like two cocks over a beetle. Westwood, for his part, was doubtful of its being the Planter at all; but the whole thing, when I thought of it, made itself as clear to me, so far, as two half-hitches, and the angrier I was at myself for being done by a frog-eating, bloody-politeful set of Frenchmen like these. Could we only have clapped eyes on the villanous thieving craft at the time, by Jove! if I wouldn't have manned a boat from the Indiaman, leave or no leave, and boarded her in another fashion! But where they were now, what they meant, and whether we should ever see them again, heaven only knew. For all we could say, indeed, something strange might have turned up at home in Europe—a new war, old Boney got loose once more, or what not—and I could scarce fall asleep for guessing and bothering over the matter, as restless as the first night we cruised down Channel in the old Pandora."
Early in the morning-watch a sudden stir of the men on deck woke me, and I bundled up in five minutes' time. But it was only the second mate setting them to wash decks, and out they came from all quarters, yawning, stretching themselves, and tucking up their trousers, as they passed the full buckets lazily along; while a couple of boys could be seen hard at work to keep the head-pump going, up against the gray sky over the bow. However, I was so anxious to have the first look-out ahead, that I made a bold push through the thick of it for the bowsprit, where I went out till I could see nothing astern of me but the Indiaman's big black bows and figurehead, swinging as it were round the spar I sat upon, with the spread of her canvass coming dim after me out of the fog, and a lazy snatch of foam lifting to her cut-water, as the breeze died away. The sun was just beginning to rise; ten minutes before, it had been almost quite dark; there was a mist on the water, and the sails were heavy with dew; when a circle began to open round us, where the surface looked as smooth and dirty as in a dock, the haze seeming to shine through, as the sunlight came sifting through it, like silver gauze. You saw the big red top of the sun glare against the water-line, and a wet gleam of crimson came sliding from one smooth blue swell to another; while the back of the haze astern turned from blue to purple, and went lifting away into vapoury streaks and patches. All of a sudden the ship came clear out aloft and on the water, with her white streak as bright as snow, her fore-royal and truck gilded, her broad foresail as red as blood, and every face on deck shining as they looked ahead, where I felt like a fellow held up on a toasting-fork, against the fiery wheel the sun made ere clearing the horizon. Two or three strips of cloud melted in it like lumps of sugar in hot wine; and, after overhauling the whole seaboard round and round, I kept straining my eyes into the light, with the notion there was something to be seen in that quarter, but to no purpose; there wasn't the slightest sign of the brig or any other blessed thing. What struck me a little, however, was the look of the water just as the fog was clearing away: the swell was sinking down, the wind fallen for the time to a dead calm; and when the smooth face of it caught the light full from aloft, it seemed to come out all over long-winding wrinkles and eddies, running in a broad path, as it were, twisted and woven together, right into the wake of the sunrise. When I came inboard from the bowsprit, big Harry and another grumpy old salt were standing by the bitts, taking a forecastle observation, and gave me a squint, as much as to ask if I had come out of the east, or had been trying to pocket the flying-jib-boom. "D'you notice anything strange about the water at all?" I asked in an offhand sort of way, wishing to see if the men had remarked aught of what I suspected. The old fellow gave me a queer look out of the tail of his eye, and the ugly man seemed to be measuring me from head to foot. "No, sir," said the first, carelessly; "can't say as how I does,"—while Harry coolly commenced sharpening his sheath-knife on his shoe. "Did you ever hear of currents hereabouts?" said I to the other man. "Hereaway!" said he; "why, bless ye, sir, it's unpossible as I could ha' heer'd tell on sich a thing, 'cause, ye see, sir, there an't none so far out at sea, sir—al'ays axin' your parding, ye know, sir!" while he hitched up his trousers and looked aloft, as if there were somewhat wrong about the jib-halliards.
The Indiaman by this time had quite lost steerage-way, and came sheering slowly round, broadside to the sun, while the water began to glitter like a single sheet of quicksilver, trembling and swelling to the firm edge of it far off; the pale blue sky filling deep aloft with light, and a long white haze growing out of the horizon to eastward. I kept still looking over from the fore-chains with my arms folded, and an eye to the water on the starboard side, next the sun, where, just a fathom or two from the bright copper of her sheathing along the water-line, you could see into it. Every now and then little bells and bubbles, as I thought, would come up in it and break short of the surface; and sometimes I fancied the line of a slight ripple, as fine as a rope-yarn, went turning and glistening, round one of the ship's quarters, across her shadow. Just then the old sailor behind me shoved his face over the bulwark, too, all warts and wrinkles, like a ripe walnut-shell, with a round knob of a nose in the middle of it, and seemed to be watching to see it below, when he suddenly squirted his tobacco-juice as far out as possible alongside, and gave his mouth a wipe with the back of his tarry yellow hand; catching my eye in a shame-faced sort of way, as I glanced first at him and then at his floating property. I leant listlessly over the rail, watching the patch of oily yellow froth, as it floated quietly on the smooth face of the water; till all at once I started to observe that beyond all question it had crept slowly away past our starboard bow, clear of the ship, and at last melted into the glittering blue brine. The two men noticed my attention, and stared along with me; while the owner of the precious cargo himself kept looking after it wistfully into the wake of the sunlight, as if he were a little hurt; then aloft and round about, in a puzzled sort of way, to see if the ship hadn't perhaps taken a sudden sheer to port. "Why, my man," I said, meeting his oyster-like old sea-eye, "what's the reason of that?—perhaps there is some current or other here, after all, eh?" Just as he meant to answer, however, I noticed his watch-mate give him a hard shove in the ribs with his huge elbow, and a quick screw of his weather top-light, while he kept the lee one doggedly fixed on myself. I accordingly walked slowly aft as if to the quarterdeck, and came round the long-boat again, right abreast of them.
Harry was pacing fore and aft with his arms folded, when his companion made some remark on the heat, peering all about him, and then right up into the air aloft. "Well then, shipmate," said Harry, dabbing his handkerchief back into his tarpaulin again, "I've seen worse, myself,—ownly, 'twas in the Bight o' Benin, look ye,—an' afore the end on it, d'ye see, we hove o'board nine of a crew, let alone six dozen odds of a cargo!" "Cargo!" exclaimed his companion in surprise. "Ay, black passengers they was, ye know, old ship!" answered the ugly rascal, coolly; "an' I tell ye what it is, Jack, I never sails yet with passengers aboard, but some'at bad turned up in the end,—al'ays one or another on 'em's got a foul turn in his conscience, ye see! I say, 'mate," continued he, looking round, "didn't ye note that 'ere 'long-shore looking customer as walked aft just now, with them bloody soft quest'ns o' his about—" "Why," said Jack, "it's him Jacobs and the larboard watch calls the Green Hand, an' a blessed good joke they has about him, to all appearance,—but they keeps it pretty close." "Close, be d——d!" growled Harry, "I doesn't like the cut of his jib, I tell ye, shipmate! Jist you take my word for it, that 'ere fellow's done some'at bad at home, or he's bent on some'at bad afloat—it's all one! Don't ye mark how he keeps boxhaulin' and skulking fore an' aft, not to say looking out to wind'ard every now an' again, as much as he expected a sail to heave in sight!" "Well, I'm blowed but you're right, Harry!" said the other, taking off his hat to scratch his head, thoughtfully. "Ay, and what's more," went on Harry, "it's just comed ath'art me as how I've clapped eyes on the chap somewheres or other afore this—d——n me if I don't think it was amongst a gang o' Spanish pirates I saw tried for their lives and let off, in the Havanney!" "Thank you, my man!" thought I, as I leant against the booms on the other side, "the devil you did!—a wonder it wasn't in the Old Bailey, which would have been more possible, though less romantic,—seeing in the Havannah I never was!" The curious thing was that I began to have a faint recollection, myself, of having seen this same cross-grained beauty, or heard his voice, before; though where and how it was, I couldn't for the life of me say at the moment. "Lord bless us, Harry!" faltered out the old sailor, "ye don't mean it!—sich a young, soft-looked shaver, too!" "Them smooth-skinned sort o' coves is kimmonly the worst, 'mate," replied Harry; "for that matter ye may be d——d sure he's got his chums aboard,—an' how does we know but the ship's sold, from stem to starn? There's that 'ere black-avizzed parson, now, and one or two more aft—cuss me if that 'ere feller smells brine for the first time! An' as for this here Bob Jacobs o' yours, blow me if there an't over many of his kind in the whole larboard watch, Jack! A man-o'-war's-man's al'ays a blackguard out on a man-o'-war, look ye!" "Why, bless me, shipmate," said Jack, lowering his voice, "by that recknin', a man don't know his friends in this here craft! The sooner we gives the mate a hint, the better, to my thinking?" "No, blow me, no, Jack," said Harry, "keep all fast, or ye'll kick up a worse nitty, old boy! Jist you hould on till ye see what's to turn up,—ownly stand by and look out for squalls, that's all! There's the skipper laid up below in his berth, I hears,—and to my notions, that 'ere mate of ours is no more but a blessed soldier, with his navigation an' his head-work, an' be blowed to him—where's he runned the ship, I'd like to know, messmate!" "Well, strike me lucky if I'm fit to guess!" answered Jack, gloomily. "No, s'help me Bob, if he knows hisself!" said Harry. "But here's, what I says, anyhow,—if so be we heaves in sight of a pirate, or bumps ashore on a ileyand i' the dark, shiver my tawsels if I doesn't have a clip with a handspike at that 'ere soft-sawderin' young blade in the straw hat!" "Well, my fine fellow," thought I, "many thanks to you again, but I certainly shall look out for you!" All this time I couldn't exactly conceive whether the sulky rascal really suspected anything of the kind, or whether he wasn't in fact sounding his companion, and perhaps others of the crew, as to how far they would go in case of an opportunity for mischief; especially when I heard him begin to speculate if "that 'ere proud ould beggar of a naboob, aft yonder, musn't have a sight o' gould and jowels aboard with him!" "Why, for the matter o' that, 'mate," continued he, "I doesn't signify the twinklin' of a marlinspike, mind ye, what lubberly trick they sarves this here craft,—so be ownly ye can get anyhow ashore, when all's done! It's nouther ship-law nor shore-law, look ye, 'mate, as houlds good on a bloody dazart!" "Ay, ay, true enough, bo'," said the other, "but what o' that?—there an't much signs of a dazart, I reckon, in this here blue water!" "Ho!" replied Harry, rather scornfully, "that's 'cause you blue-water, long-v'yage chaps isn't up to them, brother! There's you and that 'ere joker in the striped slops, Jack, chaffing away over the side jist now about a current,—confounded sharp he thinks hisself, too!—but d'ye think Harry Foster an't got his weather-eye open? For my part I thinks more of the streak o' haze yonder-away, right across the starboard bow, nor all the currents in—" "Ay, ay," said Jack, stretching out again to look, "the heat, you means?" "Heat!" exclaimed the ugly topman, "heat be blowed! Hark ye, 'mate, it may be a strip o' cloud, no doubt, or the steam over a sand-bank,—but so be the calm lasts so long, and you sees that 'ere streak again by sundown, with a touch o' yallow in't—" "What—what, shipmate?" asked Jack, breathless with anxiety. "Then, dammee, it's the black coast iv Africay, and no mistake!" said Harry. "And what's more," continued the fellow, coolly, after taking a couple of short turns, "if there be's a current, why, look ye, it'll set dead in to where the land lays—an' I'm blessed if there's one aboard, breeze or no breeze, as is man enough for to take her out o' the suck of a Africane current!" "The Lord be with us!" exclaimed the other sailor, in alarm, "what's to be done, Harry, bo',—when d'ye mean for to let them know, aft?" "Why, maybe I'm wrong, ye know, old ship," said Harry, "an' a man musn't go for to larn his betters, ye know,—by this time half o' the watch has a notion on it, at any rate. There's Dick White, Jack Jones, Jim Sidey, an' a few more Wapping men, means to stick together in case o' accidents—so d—n it, Jack, man, ye needn't be in sich an a taking! What the—" (here he came out with a regular string of topgallant oaths,) "when you finds a good chance shoved into your fist, none o' your doin', an't a feller to haul in the slack of it 'cause he's got a tarry paw, and ships before the mast? I tell ye what it is, old ship, 'tan't the first time you an' me's been cast away, an' I doesn't care the drawin' of a rope-yarn, in them here latitudes, if I'm cast away again! Hark 'ye, ould boy,—grog to the masthead, a grab at the passengers' wallibles, when they han't no more use for 'em, in course—an' the pick on the ladies, jist for the takin' o' them ashore!" "Lord love ye, Harry, belay there!" said Jack, "what's the good o' talkin' on what an't like to be?" "Less like things turns up!" said Harry. "More by token, if I hasn't pitched upon my fancy lass a'ready—an' who knows, old ship, but you marries a naboob's darter yet, and gets yourself shoved all square, like a rig'lar hare, into his heestate, as they calls it? For my part, I've more notion of the maid! An' it'll go hard with me if we doesn't manage to haul that 'ere mishynar' parson safe ashore on the strength of it!" "God bless ye, Harry," answered Jack, somewhat mournfully, "I'm twice spliced already!" "Third time's lucky, though," replied Harry, with a chuckle, as he walked towards the side again, and looked over; the rest of the watch being gathered on the other bow, talking and laughing; the passengers beginning to appear on the poop, and the Scotch second-mate standing up aft on the taffrail, feeling for a breath of wind. The big topman came slowly back to his companion, and leant himself on the spars again. "Blowed if I don't think you're right, 'mate," said he, "you and that 'ere lawyer. You'd a'most say there's a ripple round her larboard bow just now, sure enough—like she were broadside on to some drift or another. Hows'ever, that's nouther here nor there,—for my part, I sets more count by the look o' the sky to east'ard, an' be blowed, shipmate, if that same yonder don't make me think o' woods!" "Well," said Jack, "I goes by sunrise, messmate, an' I didn't like it overmuch myself, d'ye see! That 'ere talk o' yours, Harry, consarnin' dazarts and what not—why, bless me, it's all my eye,—this bout, at any rate—seein' as how, if we doesn't have a stiff snuffler out o' that very quarter afore twenty-four hours is over, you call me lubber!" "Ho, ho! old salt," chuckled Harry, "none o' them saws holds good hereaway, if its the coast of Africay—d——n it, 'mate, two watches 'll settle our hash in them longitudes, without going the length o' six! Han't I knocked about the bloody coast of it six weeks at a time, myself, let alone livin' as many months in the woods?—so I knows the breedin' of a turnady a cussed sight too well, not to speak on the way the land-blink looms afore you sights it!" "Lived in them there woods, did ye?" inquired Jack. "Ay, bo', an' a rum rig it was too, sure enough," said Harry; "the very same time I tould you on, i' the Bight o' Benin." "My eye!" exclaimed the other, "a man never knows what he may come to. Let's into the rights of it, Harry, carn't ye, afore eight-bells strikes?" "Woods!" said Harry, "I b'lieve ye, ould ship. I see'd enough o' woods, that time, arter all!—and 'twan't that long agone, either—I'll not say how long, but it wan't last v'yage. A sharp, clinker-built craft of a schooner she wor, I'm not goin' to give ye her right name, but they called her the Lubber-hater,[13]—an' if there wan't all sorts on as aboard, it's blaming ye—an' a big double-jinted man-eatin' chap of a Yankee was our skipper, as sly as slush—more by token, he had a wart alongside o' one eye as made him look two ways at ye—Job Price by name—an' arter he'd made his fortin, I heard he's took up a tea-total chapel afloat on the Missishippey. She'd got a hell of a long nose, that 'ere schooner, so my boy we leaves everything astarn, chase or race, I promise ye; an' as for a blessed ould ten-gun brig what kept a-cruising thereaway, why, we jest got used to her, like, and al'ays lowers our mainsail afore takin' the wind of her, by way o' good bye, quite perlite. 'Blowed if it warn't rum, though, for to see the brig's white figger'ed over the swell, rollin' under a cloud o' canvass, sten-s'ls crowded out alow an' aloft, as she jogged arter us! Then she'd haul her wind and fire a gun, an' go beating away up in chase of some other craft, as caught the chance for runnin' out whenever they sees the Lubber-hater well to sea—why, s'elp me Bob, if the traders on the coast didn't pay Job Price half a dozen blacks a piece every trip, jist for to play that 'ere dodge! At last, one time, not long after I joined the craft, what does he do but nigh-hand loses her an' her cargo, all owin' to reckonin' over much on this here traverse. Out we comes one night in the tail of a squall, an' as soon as it clears, there sure enough we made out the brig, hard after us, as we thinks,—so never a rag more Job claps on, 'cause two of his friends, ye see, was jist outside the bar in the Noon river. Well, bloody soon the cruiser begins to overhaul us, as one gaff-taups'l wouldn't do, nor yet another, till the flying-jib and bonnets made her walk away from them in right 'arnest,—when slap comes a long-shot that took the fore-topmast out of us in a twinkling. So when the moonlight comed out, lo an' behold, instead o' the brig's two masts stiff and straight against the haze, there was three spanking sticks all ataunto, my boy, in a fine new sloop-o'-war as had fresh came on the station—the Irish, they called her—and a fast ship she wor. But all said and done, the schooner had the heels of her in aught short of a reef-taups'l breeze,—though, as for the other two, the sloop-o'-war picked off both on 'em in the end." At this point of the fellow's account, I, Ned Collins, began to prick up my ears, pretty sure it was the dear old Iris he was talking of; and thought I, "Oho, my mate, we shall have you directly,—listening's fair with a chap of this breed."