‘Oh yes,’ I exclaimed. ‘But yonder, abreast of the wheel there, is the captain to confirm my words.’
She gave me a bow, or rather a curtsey of those days, and walked aft to address the captain, as I supposed. Instead, she descended the companion hatch, and I lost sight of her.
A disdainful lady, thought I, but a rare beauty too!—marvellous eyes, anyhow, to behold by such an illumination as this of rockets and blue lights, and flying moonshine, and the yellow glimmer of flare-tins.
All this while the ship lay hove-to, her maintopsail to the mast, the folds of her hanging mainsail sending a low thunder into the wind as it shook its cloths, the seas breaking in stormy noises from her bow; but now there fell a dead silence upon the people along her decks: nothing broke this hush upon the life of the vessel, save the occasional harsh hissing rush of a rocket piercing the restless noises of the sea and the whistling of the wind in the rigging. The bulwark rail was lined with sailors, eagerly looking towards the tail of the misty wake of the moon, into which the black surges went shouldering and changing into troubled hills of dull silver. The captain and two of the mates stood aft, intently watching the water, often putting themselves into strained hearkening postures, their hands to their ears. Most of the lady passengers went below, but not to bed, for you could catch a sight of them through the skylight seated at the table talking swiftly, often directing anxious glances at the window-glass through which you could see them. There was one majestic old lady amongst them with grey hair that looked to be powdered, a hawk’s-bill nose, an immense bosom, that started immediately from under her chin. The lamplight flashed in diamonds in her ears, and in rubies and in stones of value and beauty upon her fingers. She was Colonel Bannister’s wife, and was apparently not wanting in her husband’s fiery energy and capacity of taking peppery views of things, if I might judge by her vehement nods, and the glances she shot around her from her grey eyes. It was a cabin picture I caught but a glimpse of as I crossed the deck to take a look to leeward, but one, somehow, that sunk into my memory, maybe because of the magic-lantern-like look of the interior, with its brilliant lamps and many-coloured attire of the ladies in their shawls, dressing-gowns, and what not—standing out upon the eye amidst the wild dark frame of the seething clamorous night.
All at once there was a loud cry. I rushed back to the weather rail.
‘There’s a boat heading for us, sir—see her, sir? Away yonder, this side o’ the tumble of the moon’s reflection!’
‘Ay, there she is! It’ll be the lugger’s boat. God, how she dives!’
Twenty shadowy arms pointed in the direction which had been indicated by the gruff grumbling cries of the sailors. The second mate, Mr. Cocker, came hastily forward to the break of the poop.
‘Stand by, some of you,’ he shouted, ‘to heave them the end of a line. Make ready with bowlines to help them over the side.’
I could see the boat clearly now as she rose to the height of a sea, her black wet side sparkling out an instant to the moonlight ere she sank out of sight past the ivory white head of the surge sweeping under her. She seemed to be deep with men; but I could count only two oars. She was rushed down upon us by the impulse of the sea and wind, and I felt my heart stand still as she drove bow on into us, whirling round alongside in a manner to make you look for the wreck of her in staves washing away under our counter. She was full of people, with women amongst them—poor creatures, in great white caps and long golden earrings, the men for the most part in huge fishermen’s boots, and tasselled caps and jerseys that might have been of any colour in that light. One could just make these features out, but no more, for the contents of the boat as it rose soaring and falling alongside were but a dark huddle of human shapes, writhing and twisting like a mass of worms in a pot, vociferating to us in the scarce intelligible patois of Gravelines or Calais or Boulogne.