It was dark at eight o’clock, and a strange sort of darkness it was. All the wind was gone, and the sea gleamed like black oil smoking. The atmosphere had that smoky look; spiral folds of gloom seemed to stand up on the ocean, stretching tendrils of vapor athwart the stars and hiding most of them. ’Twas a mere atmospheric effect; yet all this blending of dyes, this thickening and thinning of the dusk, this heavy and stagnant intermingling of shadow around the sea produced the very effect of vapor. Sight was blinded at the distance of a pistol-shot, and the ocean lay as though suffocated under the burden of the hush of the night.
We kept all lights carefully screened, and the lookout was told to keep his ears open; but neither Greaves nor I felt uneasy. The schooner had been far astern when the evening fell, and our shift of helm, with a pretty considerable run into the southeast, could scarcely fail to throw her off the scent. But it is true, nevertheless, that vessels in stagnant weather have a human trick of turning up close together. I have been in a flat calm with a ship a long mile and a half distant from us, and in a few hours both vessels have had boats out towing, to keep the ships clear. Have vessels sexes? I believe so. It will not do to talk of the magnetic influence of wooden fabrics. Ships are sentient; the male ship with the nostrils of her hawse-pipes sniffs the female ship afar, and the twain, taking advantage of a breathless atmosphere, and of the helplessness of skippers—which there is no virtue in cursing to remedy—all imperceptibly float one to the other till, if permitted, they affectionately rub noses, then, lover-like, quarrel, snap jib booms, bring down topgallant masts, and behave in other ways humanly.
It was somewhere about ten o’clock that night that Greaves and I were seated on the skylight, smoking and talking, but all the while keeping an eye upon the deep shadow in whose heart the brig was sleeping, and listening for any sound upon the water. All hands were on deck. They lay about, dozing or mumbling in conversation; but they were in readiness, armed as when the boat had been approaching, and the carronades and two great guns were loaded and deck lanterns were alight below, hidden. The brig was prepared, nay, doubly prepared; for it was no man’s intention to let the boats of the schooner take us unawares. Our voyage and our lives were not to be brought to a hideous and untimely end by a scoundrel picaroon.
I had seen Yan Bol that afternoon before the dusk closed in, after looking at the schooner, advance his fearful fist and writhe it into an incomparable suggestion of throttling, with such an expression of countenance as was as heartening as the accession of a dozen picked men. And this little circumstance was I relating to Greaves as we sat together on the edge of the skylight, smoking.
“He is a heavy, terrible man,” said Greaves. “If the schooner’s people are Spanish, as I believe, I shall reckon Yan Bol good for ten of them, at least. The other Dutchmen would be good for four apiece, and the remainder may be left to our own countrymen of the jacket.”
“The Dutch fight well,” said I.
“Deucedly well,” he answered; “often have they proved our match. I would rather have fought the combined fleets at Trafalgar than De Winter’s ships. Duncan’s was a more difficult, and, therefore, a more splendid victory than our nation seems to have realized. But the truth is, little Horatio’s flaming sun filled the national sky at that time with its own blazing light, and all was sunk in the splendor, though there were other suns; oh, yes, there were other suns!”
“Hark!” I cried, “we are hailed.”
“Hailed?” he echoed in a whisper.
We listened. A figure came out of the darkness forward and said in a low voice, “There’s something hard by, hailing us.” Greaves and I went to either rail and searched the thick and silent darkness, over which hovered a faint star or two, pale and dying. I strained my ears. I could hear no sound of oars, not the least noise of any kind to tell that a vessel was near us. I looked for a sparkle of phosphorus, for any blue or white gleam of sea-glow, such as the stroke of an oar, whether muffled or not, will chip out of the water in those parts. The hail was repeated. It was the same hail I had before heard. It sounded like “Ship there!” and seemed to proceed out of the blackness over the larboard bow.