Because the wax did not continue stiff;
And, had he minded what his father said,
He had not given a name unto his watery bed.
Sands.
We must now advance the time several days, and change the scene to a distant part of the ocean; within the tropics, indeed. The females had suffered slight attacks of sea-sickness, and recovered from them, and the brig was safe from all her pursuers. The manner of Spike’s escape was simple enough, and without any necromancy. While the steamer, on the one hand, was standing away to the northward and eastward, in order to head him off, and the schooner was edging in with the island, in order to prevent his beating up to windward of it, within its shadows, the brig had run close round the northern margin of the land, and hauled up to leeward of the island, passing between it and the steamer. All this time, her movements were concealed from the schooner by the island itself and from the steamer, by its shadow and dark back-ground, aided by the distance. By making short tacks, this expedient answered perfectly well, and, at the very moment when the two revenue vessels met, at midnight, about three leagues to leeward of Blok Island, the brigantine, Molly Swash, was just clearing its most weatherly point, on the larboard tack, and coming out exactly at the spot where the steamer was when first seen that afternoon. Spike stood to the westward, until he was certain of having the island fairly between him and his pursuers, when he went about, and filled away on his course; running out to sea again on an easy bowline. At sunrise the next day he was fifty miles to the southward and eastward of Montauk; the schooner was going into New London, her officers and people quite chop-fallen, and the steamer was paddling up Sound, her captain being fully persuaded the runaways had returned in the direction from which they had come, and might yet be picked up in that quarter.
The weather was light, just a week after the events related in the close of the last chapter. By this time the brig had got within the influence of the trades, and, it being the intention of Spike to pass to the southward of Cuba, he had so far profited by the westerly winds, as to get well to the eastward of the Mona Passage, the strait through which he intended to shape his course on making the islands. Early on that morning Mrs. Budd had taken her seat on the trunk of the cabin, with a complacent air, and arranged her netting, some slight passages of gallantry, on the part of the captain, having induced her to propose netting him a purse. Biddy was going to and fro, in quest of silks and needles, her mistress having become slightly capricious in her tastes of late, and giving her, on all such occasions, at least a double allowance of occupation. As for Rose, she sat reading beneath the shade of the coach-house deck, while the handsome young mate was within three feet of her, working up his logarithms, but within the sanctuary of his own state-room; the open door and window of which, however, gave him every facility he could desire to relieve his mathematics, by gazing at the sweet countenance of his charming neighbor. Jack Tier and Josh were both passing to and fro, as is the wont of stewards, between the camboose and the cabin, the breakfast table being just then in the course of preparation. In all other respects, always excepting the man at the wheel, who stood within a fathom of Rose, Spike had the quarter-deck to himself and did not fail to pace its weather side with an air that denoted the master and owner. After exhibiting his sturdy, but short, person in this manner, to the admiring eyes of all beholders, for some time, the captain suddenly took a seat at the side of the relict, and dropped into the following discourse.
“The weather is moderate, Madam Budd; quite moderate,” observed Spike, a sentimental turn coming over him at the moment. “What I call moderate and agreeable.”
“So much the better for us; the ladies are fond of moderation, sir.”
“Not in admiration, Madam Budd—ha! ha! ha! no, not in admiration. Immoderation is what they like when it comes to that. I’m a single man, but I know that the ladies like admiration—mind where you’re sheering to,” the captain said, interrupting himself a little fiercely, considering the nature of the subject, in consequence of Jack Tier’s having trodden on his toe in passing—“or I’ll teach you the navigation of the quarter-deck, Mr. Burgoo!”
“Moderation—moderation, my good captain,” said the simpering relict. “As to admiration, I confess that it is agreeable to us ladies; more especially when it comes from gentlemen of sense, and intelligence, and experience.”