Would they spare my cousin Will? Would they spare me? How could Tom be sure? The liberation of the convicts would be like the disgorging of hell. How could Tom foretell what would follow the demons’ seizure of the ship? But I cared not. Let Tom but gain his liberty and it mattered nothing to me what followed, though my own life should be forfeited. By the magic of sympathy the change that I had noticed in him was working in me. I felt as though a devil had entered into me, even as Tom had whispered that they had driven him to it: that injustice and labour and punishment, maddening to an innocent heart, had made a devil of him.
I was in the way of the walk of the forecastle sentry; that is to say, at the extremity of it, and twice he halted at my side to look at the moon, but never spoke. I heard the doctor talking to the prisoners. He addressed them from over the rail of the poop, and no doubt made the most of this solemn occasion of eclipse and the terror of the gathering storm and the mighty scene of loneliness in whose heart the ship slumbered.
I was forced to the quarter-deck presently by a ridiculous argument between the boatswain and the cook. The cook declared that it had long ago been proved that the earth was flat; therefore, as that corner of shadow upon the moon was round, it could not be cast by the earth. Mr. Balls, with a loud, hoarse laugh, exclaimed that those who believed the earth to be flat were misled by the shape of their own heads.
‘Not that I’m a-going to argue,’ said he, ‘that that there shadder’s the earth’s. For the matter of that, who’s going to say it’s a shadder at all? The moon has a hatmosphere, I suppose, and why shouldn’t its hatmosphere be shaped as our’n is with mucky thicknesses like to what’s blazing away yonder? Who’s a-going to prove to me that that there shadder, instead of an eclipse, as they calls it, ain’t a storrum?’
I walked aft and sat upon the coamings of the booby-hatch where I was alone. A fresh division of convicts had been brought up, and the doctor stood over my head haranguing them. He spoke of the enormity of the crimes they had committed, and begged them to consider the moon as a likeness of their soul and the shadow overcreeping it as the darkness of sin and death. ‘But presently,’ said he, ‘that shadow will pass, and the brightness of the moon will look forth in splendour, and the sea beneath it will smile and rejoice in her light. Be it even so with you, my brother sinners; pray that the shadow that is upon you may pass away, that the light which is within you may purely shine again.’
CHAPTER XXXI
SHE DESCRIBES A STORM
But now the storm was approaching, the moon’s light was growing weak and the stars over our mastheads dim and spare. The lightning was incessant; its flashes glanced into the remotest recesses of the north and brought out the horizon there in gleams of sulphur. The hum of the thunder was deep and ceaseless, with many savage cracks and rattling peals. I cannot tell what progress the eclipse had made by this hour; the moon hung distorted in the sky like a dim silver shield with its sides hacked, and the night looked wild with her and the gathering tempest.
I heard the commander of the ship address the doctor, who called to the captains of the division to march the prisoners below; and he added that the last of the divisions could not be brought up, as sail was to be reduced and room was wanted. Moreover, in a very short time the moon would have vanished. Now followed a lively time. The prisoners’ inclosure being clear, Mr. Bates, at the head of the poop-ladder, began to shout out orders; all hands were on deck and all hands were wanted. ‘Clew up the royals and furl them! Down flying and outer jibs and topgallant staysails! Clew up topgallant sails and furl them! Main-clewgarnets and let the sail hang!’ So ran the orders; the lightning played upon the figures of the seamen as they trotted aloft; the moon turned a watery, silvery, oozing, draining through the film of the advanced shadow of the storm, then vanished behind a jagged peak of cloud, and the night-dye sank upon the ocean in deepest shadow, the deeper for the play of the lightning; after each flash the blackness thrilled with the blindness of the vision.