Two bells—nine o’clock—had been struck. Most of the passengers were below, for there was a deal of dew in the air, too much of it for the thin dresses of the ladies, who, through the skylight, were to be seen reading and chatting in the cuddy, with a party of whist-players at the table, Mr. Emmett’s and Mr. Hodder’s noses close together over a cribbage board, and Colledge at chess with Miss Temple, Miss Hudson opposite, leaning her shining head on her arm bare to the elbow, a faultless limb indeed, watching them. The breeze had freshened at sundown. There was a half-moon in the heavens, with a tropic brightness of disc, and the ocean under her light spread away to its limits in a surface firm and dark as polished indigo, saving that under the planet there was a long trembling wake, and an icy sparkle in the eastern waters, over which some large, most beautiful star was hanging; but though there was breeze enough to put a merry rippling into the sea, the feathering of each little surge was too delicate to catch the eye, unless the white water broke close; and the deep brimmed to the distant luminaries, a mighty shadow.
The skipper was below; Mr. Cocker had charge of the deck, and I joined him in his walk. He talked of the monkeys, how the poor wretches had died one after another in the forecastle.
‘I saw one of them die,’ said he: ‘upon my life, Mr. Dugdale, it was like seeing a human being expire. I don’t wonder women dislike that kind of beasts. For my part, I regard monkeys as poor relations.’
‘What were the men laughing at, shortly after we had come up from dinner?’ I asked.
‘Why, sir, at little John Chinaman. The ape was on the fore-hatch, secured by a piece of line round his waist. Johnny went to have a look at him. There was nobody about—at least he thought so. He stared hard at the ape, who viewed him eagerly with his one eye, and then said: “I say, where you from, hey?” The ape continued to look. “Oh, you can speakee,” continued John; “me savee you can for speakee. Why you no talkee, hey? Me ask where you from? Where you from?” The ape caught a flea. “How you capsize, hey?” asked the Chinese lunatic as gravely, Mr. Dugdale, so the men say, as if he were addressing you or me. “Speakee soft—how you capsize, hey?” This went on, I am told, for ten minutes, the men meanwhile coming on tip-toe to listen over the forecastle edge till they could stand it no longer, and their roar of laughter was what you heard, sir.’
‘A mere bit of sham posture-making in Johnny, don’t you think?’ said I. ‘He might guess the men were listening. Had he been a negro, now. But a Chinaman would very well know that a monkey can’t talk.’
‘This John is one who doesn’t know, I’ll swear. Besides, sir, the Chinese are not such geniuses as are imagined. There are thousands amongst them to correspond with our ignorant superstitious peasantry at home. I remember at Chusan that four Chinamen were engaged to carry a piano out of the cabin. Whilst they were wrestling with it on the quarter-deck, a string broke with a loud twang, on which they put the instrument down and ran away, viewing it from a distance with faces working with alarm and astonishment. The mate called to know what they meant by dropping their work. “Him spirit! him speakee,” they cried; in fact, they would have no more to do with the piano; and when some of the crew picked it up to carry it to the gangway, the quivering Johns went backing and recoiling on to the forecastle, as though the instrument were a cage with a wild beast in it that might at any moment spring out on them.’
Whilst he was speaking I had been watching a star slowly creeping away from the edge of the mainsail to leeward, as though it were sweeping through the sky on its own account on a course parallel with the line of the horizon. My attention was fixed on what my companion said, and my gaze rested mechanically upon the star. Suddenly the truth flashed upon me, and I started.
‘Why, Mr. Cocker, what’s happening to the ship? Are we going home again? She is coming to rapidly! You will be having all your stun’-sails there to larboard aback in a minute.’
He had been too much engrossed by our chat to notice this.