CHAPTER IX. THE INDIAMAN'S BOAT
The seas were breaking fast and fierce from the bows, and the wake flashed into the windy distance in a fan-shaped splendour as of sunshine, and hands were aloft furling the fore and mizzen royals, and some fore-and-aft canvas was rattling hanks and lacing on their stays to the drag of down-hauls; the ship was sonorous with the music of the sea, and by looking over the weather side you could have seen the green sheathing sweating with foam, storming through the dazzling smother like a wounded dolphin whose blood is sweet to dolphins; yet this was but a fragment of the magnificent picture of foaming seas and flying cloud, with the lofty swelling ship shearing through the heart of the day in a thunder-storm of prisms and of spray, lovely as the heights of heaven when some stars are green and some shine like the rose.
Hardy came on deck. He stood and looked about him, refreshed by a shift of clothes and by a nip of grog. He had worked out his sights, and before mounting the steps had stood a minute at the captain's door listening; he heard the poor man's voice, and judged by its solemn imploring note that he was praying, but the noise of the sailors above made him hurry, and though it was his watch below he felt that he was in command, and that the safety of the ship was in his hands.
Any seaman will understand this mate's critical and difficult situation. A captain is not to be lightly deposed; drunken captains and—unless they grow frantic—mad captains must be obeyed or endured or it is mutiny, with heavy penalties awaiting the arrival of the ship; and the mate of a merchantman may, though by conscientious act, lose power of earning bread for himself and his home unless as a foremast hand, for the law is hard, and the shipowner harder still.
"You had better take the mainsail off her, Mr. Candy, and furl the main-royal," said Hardy. "She has more than she wants."
The stu'nsail was in and so was the boom, and Hardy gave other directions, but they need not be repeated because minuteness is tedious, and the language of the sea cryptic to millions. When Sheridan was asked how the poetaster described the phœnix, he answered, "Just as a poulterer would!" The poulterer is not good in art, and the beak, talons, and all are merits when left out.
It was about a quarter to one, and the cabin dinner would be coming aft soon. The cook was busy in his galley, and black smoke was smothering the bulwarks abreast from the chimney. Hardy paced the deck watching the seamen at work, Candy superintended the business. There was plenty for the mate to think of. The grief planted in his kind heart, by recollection of his hopeless effort to rescue the poor drowned child, was overwhelmed by thoughts of the captain, his undoubted madness, the state of the ship; and then his mind on a sudden went away to Julia Armstrong; he wondered what would be her fortune, if luck would attend her in India, if her love for him—he would not pretend aught else to himself—would hold her unwilling to remain, that she might return in the vessel and meet him once more. "In which case," he declared to himself, "I will marry her and chance it."
The ship was rushing onward like a shooting star, and the wind clothed the sails with the thunder of its power; but she was comfortable and dry. The bright bursts were flung clear of her by the rush of the breeze, and she took the seas with that perfect grace of leap and curtsey which sails alone do give.
As Hardy walked, the cabin servant came up to him and reported dinner on the table.