CHAPTER XXVIII
SHE OVERHEARS TWO SAILORS TALKING
For many days we met with very beautiful weather, and every day the sun grew hotter and hotter. The moon enlarged and became a full moon, and the prospect of the dark blue night, with the moon shining higher in the heavens than ever I had seen her shine, and the stars in multitudes of brilliants trembling in a very sheet of silver down to the vague, obscure line of the horizon, was glorious and wonderful. Often on those fine nights, instead of going to bed, I’d creep to the forecastle, where nobody walked but the sentry and a seaman on the look-out. There I would overhang the head rail and gaze down at the star-white foam as it spread out with a soft, boiling noise from the steady, shearing thrust of the cutwater. The sea was full of fire and many strange shapes of dim, greenish flame swept past in the black water as I looked. The moonlight lay upon the sails and they rose stirless as carvings in marble. The stars glittered like jewels in the dark arches under the sails and twinkled gem-like along the black lines of the yards, and danced like the mystic fire of the corposant beyond the trucks to the swaying of the fragile points of masthead.
Oh, it was at such times as these that I longed for Tom! What happiness, I would think, to have his hand in mine; to be standing here at his side, gazing up with him at the moon-whitened canvas, or watching the sea-fire leaping in sparks amidst the rushing froth on either hand! He had talked once of my going a voyage with him. He had talked, too, of his carrying me to sea when we were married. I could understand what I had lost when I stood lonely on that dark forecastle watching the yearning breasts of canvas leaning from the wind and thinking of the home that was low down behind the sea. My heart beat with passion when, on these lovely moonlight nights, sweet with the strong blowing of the trade-wind, I’d think of my dear one locked up in the ’tweendecks below—imprisoned with the rest of them since half-past six, to emerge from the pestilential atmosphere at daybreak—for what?
Whilst I thus thought, I’d clench my hands in the agony of my mind till the nails were driven into the palms of them.
But everything went along very quietly. Tables were knocked together, and schools held on deck in the inclosure; that is, a proportion of the schools. There was not room for all, and the convict classes alternated between the ’tweendecks and the main-deck. The doctor speedily found out that Tom was one of the best educated of the prisoners, and set him to help in teaching the many wretches who knew not their alphabet. But it rarely happened, as I have said, that I saw my sweetheart. Either I was at work in the cuddy when he was on deck, or he was below, or the schools broken up when I might have found leisure to watch him.
I often speculated upon the histories of the many convicts—chose a face and mused upon it. My conviction—nay, my knowledge—that Tom was as innocent as I of the crime for which he was being transported made me think that there might be others as guiltless as he; and this sort of fancy or sympathy often raised a passion of pity in me as I’d stand staring at a convict, striving to fetch his life-story out of his face, though, for all I knew, the man I watched might have been one of the very worst scoundrels in the ship.
What affected me most was the guessing that lots of them must have left wives and mothers, children and dear ones behind. I had heard the doctor say that not above one out of every one hundred convicts ever returned home, so that, unless the parents or the wives of the poor, miserable felons followed them, they would be as completely sundered from home ties as though they had been sentenced to the gallows instead of to the hulks and transport. My eyes would moisten sometimes in thus thinking whilst I watched a prisoner in some hour of leisure, fancying a past for him. Once I saw this: Two children belonging to the soldiers had strayed into the gangway alley and were playing there. I observed a convict, a middle-aged man, watching them. A sudden spasm contorted his face. He jerked down his hand in a snapping way, in some instant anguish of memory, as though he cast something from him, and turned his head and moved a few paces, then raised his cuff to his eye, with a look-round afterward to see if he was noticed.
One evening I went forward, meaning to get upon the forecastle to breathe the air. It was hot in the recess. Some women were seated round the booby-hatch, and the noise of the children vexed the mood I was then in. It was toward the close of the second dog-watch and dark. I saw some figures on the forecastle, and learnt by the voices that Mr. Stiles, Mr. Balls, and the sailmaker were of them. Therefore, that I might be private, meaning to breathe in solitude upon the forecastle later on, I went round to the lee side of the galley, the door of which was closed, and stood there, looking at the dark sea above the line of the bulwark-rail, for the ship was heeling over somewhat sharply this night.
Though the noise of the pouring and foaming brine rose shrill and strong, other sounds were very plainly to be heard. For instance, I often caught what they said upon the forecastle, though the speakers were at a distance. The main-deck was empty. A few figures moved about the poop. Presently two sailors stationed themselves against the foremost end of the galley, round the corner, so to say, facing the lofty pillar of the foremast. I smelt the fumes of their coarse tobacco. They could not see me nor I them; but what they said was as distinct as though they stood alongside of me, spite of their speaking in subdued voices. I knew not who they were, but guessed them to be two forecastle hands.
‘I had a yarn along with Bob this morning,’ said one of them. ‘Them gallus sentries are made up of eyes. Fust time I’ve been able to speak to him.’