I boxed his ear and entered the cabin.
I sat down beside Tom, who gave me some tea, and I made a light supper. He told me that he and I would keep watch till midnight, and Bates and Will till four. They would then relieve us. We did not sit long. Whilst I ate, our talk was all about Tristan. He seemed very resolved.
‘We’ll heave-to off the island,’ said he, ‘and I’ll go ashore or send for Glass. There may be a parson on the island by this time. I hope so. It won’t do to go away to the Cape and get married, Marian. Table Bay is all too public. The town’s full of English, and then this brig’s consigned there, and they’ll want the story of our falling in with her and how it came about.’
‘They’ll print what they hear; they have newspapers,’ said the mate.
‘We’ll see what help the islanders can give us. I’d sooner head west than east for a parson, Marian.’
‘One should go west to get married. Heading east makes time, and the less time the better when the job’s over—occasionally,’ said the mate with a dull smile.
‘We’d return in the brig to Tristan,’ continued Tom, who seemed not to know that the mate had made a joke, ‘and Bates and Will would proceed for the Cape with a yarn of falling in with the Old Stormy that’ll utterly sink my name out of the matter.’
So saying, he went to his berth, and returned with a seaman’s jacket and a good, almost new, shawl for the neck. He wrapped me up, saying that I’d be obliged to stand sometimes at the wheel, whilst he looked about him; and that of a night, though a man be under the Line, yet, if it blows, he’ll need plenty of clothes at the helm.
I took the wheel from Will, who went to a cabin to sleep. Bates lay down in the berth he had chosen; and Tom’s and my watch began. It was then drawing on to nine o’clock. There was no moon as yet. The wind blew somewhat strong off the quarter, but it came warm. The dew was very heavy; and every time the brig rolled the reflection of a large, beautiful star just past the maintopsail yardarm shot like a summer flash of lightning along the wet deck. The brig was under very easy canvas, though the whole topsail and foresail swept her along in foam. The sea throbbed black over the rails, with here and there a little burst of phosphoric light in some head of curling yeast.
Sometimes Tom came to the wheel and held it, and then we talked shoulder to shoulder for half an hour together. Sometimes I’d sit in the cabin for rest and shelter, then steer the brig whilst Tom mounted to the roof of the deck-house to take a view of the sea.