“ ‘I tell you, Captain Catherton,’ said I, ‘you can have no idea of the means which that accursed eunuch has of obtaining information. He has spies every where—perhaps in this very ship, and I know him too well not to feel certain that, should any of the ship’s company be found in any way implicated in the plot, you and I in less than an hour afterward would be tenants of the same dungeon, with a fair prospect of being kept prisoners for life, or perhaps put to death in some diabolical way.’
“ ‘Mr. Miller,’ he answered quietly, ‘I command this ship. Do you bring the woman off safely, and I’ll stake my neck on the rest.’
“And without another word he walked down into the cabin. This was decided enough, so I remained standing by the mizzen-rigging, endeavoring to forget my presentiments of evil by watching the motions of Muscat Tom, who had been cruising in the cove all day. By this time, though the sun was behind the mountains, it wanted still an hour and more of dark, when the second mate called my attention to the large flocks of birds flying confusedly in from the offing and disappearing among the rocks. A dirty, yellowish cloud suddenly obscured the air, making it still more oppressive, if possible, and causing you to wonder if the day was not nearer its end than you had deemed. The atmosphere was insufferably hot and oppressive, the little air astir coming from the land, like the breath of a furnace; you could see through the stifling gloom that the thin strips of haze were melting away from the peaks and small watch-towers in sight from our present berth: a swell, too, was getting up with the tide, and, presently, we could hear from seaward a low, indistinct, appalling sound—which every seaman knows full well—rising, stealthily, as it were, over the hum of living voices in the harbor. It was the moan of the Arabian Sea awakening from its long sleep, and the swell was the forerunner of the heavy surf which it sometimes sends in on the rocky coast, before a severe squall. All at once, as we were noting these ominous signs, the whale, with a flap of his flukes that was loudly reverberated by the rocks, threw half his length clear, and then setting his stem-propeller and side-paddles in play, commenced making an offing, slowly at first, but gradually increasing his speed, until, before he was out of sight, the water was all in a foam behind him. A moment after the gloom suddenly deepened, till Parker’s face at my elbow seemed dusky as an Indian’s—a few large drops fell upon the awning, and looking aloft we saw again, over our heads and to the north, the glaring, vivid blue sky with nothing between, as if the demon of the storm had flapped his wings at our mast-head, and then sailed swiftly away, to wreak his wrath on more defenseless heads. The land-wind, more like the breath of a flame than a current of air, coming as it did from the sandy plains of the interior, was less strong than usual; while the swell continued to rise with the tide, the water lapping with a dull splash against the whaleman’s bends, and the low, aweing, ominous sound still falling upon the ear at regular intervals.
“When the captain came on deck, while the steward was setting the table in the cabin, we got our heavy anchors all ready to let go at a moment’s warning, and secured our boats inboard, though the Arab frigate did not appear to take the alarm. In fact, Captain Catherton did not think it advisable, under circumstances, to send down his upper spars, while the heavy frigate rode to a single anchor, with boats towing astern, and royal yards across. As for the corvette, she was hidden in her present berth by Muscat Island.
“After supper, the land-wind died entirely away; the stars came shimmering through the blue ether; the haze settled about the granite peaks again, and, with the exception of the low, murmuring sound to seaward, and the almost imperceptible rise of the swell, the night bid fair to be as calm as the last.
“About nine in the evening I went below to get, if possible, a wink of sleep. I had strong doubts of the weather, it being now near the time for the setting in of the dry monsoon, although I thought it probable that a day or two might pass before it took a decided change, having seen the same signs prove false tokens before in this very harbor, the land-wind sometimes filling the atmosphere with minute particles of dust, and the whale regularly making a stretch to sea at sundown for fear of the currents, which here, of all coasts in the world, are the most shining and treacherous. The dust-cloud, too, might have driven the birds to cover sooner than usual, and, in fact, the only sign to be relied on was the distant moan of the sea, reaching the ear it was hard to tell how, as there was not the least flutter of a breeze to be felt. The tide, too, which rises here about six feet, was higher than usual, and what with thinking of this, and of the stories I had heard about the captain, to say nothing of the heat and the adventure before me that night, it was long before I fell asleep.
“When I awoke, I knew, if it were only by the dull glimmer of the cabin-lamp, and the capers the rats were cutting along the deck, that it must be near the hour when Captain Catherton had settled to call me himself. Looking across the cabin to his berth I saw that it was empty, and feeling sure that he was on deck, I again closed my eyes against the light. However, the mood was past for the time, and between the smell of the oil, the rats and the roaches, and the captain, as I supposed, walking the deck over my head, I found it useless to close an eyelid. So, gentlemen, I lay wide awake listening to the tramp above, as of some one in a spell of deep thought, and watching the pranks of the long-tailed gentry as they manœuvred around the stands of arms on the bulkhead, or marched in squads under the berths; the boldest of them climbing up repeatedly into the foot of mine, and plumping down again when I stirred, as if they were bent upon rousing me out for some end of their own, which, as I afterward discovered, was for free admission into a cabinet of marine curiosities, which the mate, who was dead and gone, had been collecting for some scientific gentlemen of the Granite state. Where the rats came from should have been submitted to these same savants, when, as I heard afterward, they boarded every ship which come into Bedford Bay for months after the Tartar was expected home, inquiring after their curiosity-box, then lying snugly enough at the bottom of the cove of Muscat.
[Conclusion in our next.
| [4] | Scimetars. |