The cool of the night was immediately felt in the air, and now the circling draughts thrown down upon the decks by every flap of the lower canvas could be felt and enjoyed. With the row of lanterns along the poop, here a red and there a green one, mingling with the yellow radiance of the other lamps, the lustrous pearl of the moonlight on the main deck and forecastle, and the drowsily-flapping sails lifting their pale heights to the stars, the ship was a picturesque object indeed. The musicians posted themselves against the rail at the break of the poop, so that all hands could hear their strains and dance to them; and everything being ready, they dashed into a waltz, keeping very good time, and accompanied (after a fashion) by the piano in the cuddy, the notes of which rose very clearly through the open sky-lights. Aft, of course, there was the necessary decorum, ladies and gentlemen gliding over the smooth planking and skimming along with great propriety, and with a more or less tolerable exhibition of art. But on the main deck and forecastle shore customs were not very strictly adhered to. Women danced with women, men with men; the children hopped to and fro, clapping their hands and getting in the way; here and there a sailor would be showing off his paces in a lonely dance, slapping the deck with his heels in a hornpipe without the least reference to the music, which, so long as it kept going, was all the same to him, no matter what dances it played. The steward and his mates bustled about with wine and glasses; but the wine was light, and Jack, and many of the steerage and ’tween-deck passengers too, no doubt, were seasoned, and the mild refreshment did no further mischief than impart a sense of festivity.
They say, and I can well believe, that a prettier sight was never seen than all those people dancing, and laughing, and enjoying themselves on the decks of that becalmed and sleeping Australian vessel. You must figure yourself taking your stand on one of the poop-ladders, say, clear of the awning, where, looking aft, you could see the row of lanterns and the dancers shifting their colours as they swept round into the rays of the green and red lamps, with little floods of moonlight here and there upon the deck under the awning; and beyond, the man at the wheel, standing there like a bronze figure, the binnacle lamp softly touching his shape with light, and making his image clear against the stars which slowly slided to and fro, past him; or where, looking forward, you commanded the vessel to the very eyes of her, whence the great bowsprit and long jibbooms forked into the gloom like a spear pointed by a giant, on which the row of jibs glimmered as they soared into the pale obscurity. On those decks the moonlight lay broad; but in places shone a yellow light which, with the moonshine, threw twin-shadows upon the silvered planks, and the shadows of the rigging were sharp and black, and scored the sails as though they were ruled with lines of India ink. The crowd of big spare booms over the galley, the outline of the huge windlass barrel under the forecastle, the solid masts piercing the night and bearing on high their vast stretches of symmetrical canvas, from which an occasional shower of dew would fall when the sails came in to the masts, loomed large and vague in the moonlight; there was something of shadowiness, too, in the figures of the dancers as they swayed in crowds between the bulwarks, and frollicked on the forecastle, with frequent bursts of hearty laughter and loud calls, which were thrown back in light echoes from the lofty sails.
The musicians varied the dances often, but it was all one to the sailors and the steerage passengers, and whilst the cuddy people were staidly stalking through quadrilles or decorously gyrating in waltzes or hopping gravely through a mazurka, the company on the main deck kept steadily to galops and polkas—this last, a beloved dance among sailors—floundering against each other, capsizing over the children, spinning around the main hatch and through the galley, and awaking the echoes of the forecastle with their active toeing and heeling.
But it was impossible to look abroad upon the vast and vague distances of the dark sea, upon whose horizon, down to the very water’s edge, the stars were shining like fireflies, without a mingling of melancholy in the thoughts. How small a speck that ship made in the midst of the lonely leagues of ocean! how minute a theatre sufficed for the revelry of near upon two hundred human souls! The contrast between the sounds in the vessel and the deep silence upon the sea was defined to a degree such as no pen could give expression to. The silence was like the night itself, a near and impervious envelopment which absorbed the shouts and laughter of the dancers as a stone flung at a mound of snow vanishes in it. The water against the ship’s side looked thick and black and sluggish as liquid pitch, but now and again the wash of the swell would set it on fire with phosphorous, that poured away under the surface in bright illuminated clouds, which sparkled and faded until they vanished utterly and the water was black again. Once an exclamation from the second mate, who was looking over the rail at the sea, brought several dancers to his side, and, following the indication of his outstretched finger, they perceived a fiery oval shape sneaking stealthily along towards the bows of the ship. “Only a shark, ladies, hoping that some of us may waltz ourselves overboard;” and, merrily laughing, the dancers drew away and fell to their prancings afresh.
But presently, and in the midst of all this gaiety, the stream of moonlight in the south-west sea—a reflection that had hung like a cone of solid silver without a breath to tarnish the exquisite polish of its surface—trembled, and the water on either hand of it took a deeper shadow. Overhead the sails were silent, and a faint air streamed athwart the poop under the awning. The skipper, a fine-looking, hearty seaman, swung himself abreast of the officer in charge, with his arm still clasping the waist of his partner, said something in a low voice, and whisked off again. The officer walked to the break of the poop, and his loud cry startled the dancers on the main deck for a moment.
“Trim sail, the watch! Lay aft some hands, and man the starboard main braces. Wheel, there; how’s her head?”
“North-west by north, sir.”
And now some new strains were added to those produced by the musicians. The rough voices of seamen rounding in the braces rose harshly, and the measures of the dance music were somewhat perplexed by the sharp cries of “Belay all that!” “Haul taut to wind’ard!” “Too much the royal yard. Slacken a bit to leeward!” But the dancers, to whose ears those cries were as familiar as their fingers were to their eyes, went on footing it bravely. The decks grew steady and slightly inclined; the sails had fallen asleep, and there was not a stir among the pallid folds; a pleasant sound of tinkling water came up from the ship’s side, and under the counter a narrow wake of green fire crawled away, with little eddies of foam twinkling among the ghastly sparkles of the phosphorus.
But the musicians began to slacken; the piano had given over, and Jack had lighted his pipe forward, and was beginning to remember that his watch below would be up in two hours. By-and-by a bell was rung in the cuddy, and those who looked through the skylight saw that the grog and the biscuits were on the table. The music ended suddenly, and the fiddlers and the others gathered around the cuddy door, where they were received by the steward, who handed them each a glass of liquor. In twos and threes the steerage and ’tween-deck passengers went below, and in half an hour the ship’s decks were deserted save by the steersman, the pacing officer of the watch, and some dark figures leaning over the head-rail, visible from the poop under the arched foot of the foresail. Up through the booby and main hatches would come fitfully the sound of a child crying, or a woman’s voice talking low, or the growling hum of men; otherwise the silence was profound, the ship like a phantom in the moonlight, and nothing audible aloft but the moan of the tropical night breeze in the rigging, with now and again the creak of a sheave as the light swing of the swell hove the great ship very gently to windward, and brought an extra strain upon the taut sheets.