One morning, when I came on deck, I found that we were lying becalmed. The sea was as smooth as glass, but it could not be called level; for ever and anon there came a slow rising swell, which made the little craft rock from side to side, and the sails flap with a loud irregular sound against the masts, as if they were angry at having nothing to do, and wished to remind the wind to fulfil its duty. The sun shone out of the sky, without a cloud to temper its heat, and its rays made one side of the ocean shine like molten gold. Every one was suffering more or less from the lassitude produced by excessive heat; the pitch was bubbling up from the seams of the deck; a strong, hot, burning smell pervaded the vessel; the chickens in the hencoops hung their heads and forgot to cackle; the ducks refused to quack, and sat with their bills open, gasping for breath; the pig lay down, as if about to yield up the ghost; and even Ungka, who generally revelled in a fine hot sun, and selected the warmest place on board, now looked out for a shady spot, and sat with his paws over his head to keep it cool. The bulkheads groaned, the booms creaked against the masts, every particle of grease being speedily absorbed; while, if the hand touched a piece of metal, it felt as if heated by the fire. Two of the youngsters of the crew were actually amusing themselves by frying a slice of meat on a bit of tin exposed to the sun. As one looked along the deck, one could see the heat-mist playing over every object on which the eye rested. If it is hot thus early in the day, what will it become by noon, we thought, unless a breeze spring up to cool us? However, no breeze did spring up, and hotter and hotter it grew, if possible, till Dick Harper declared we should all be roasted, and become a fat morsel for one of the big sea-serpents which were known to frequent those seas. We got an awning spread, and breakfasted on deck, for below it was insupportable; and though we none of us starved ourselves, we were unable to do the ample justice we generally did to the viands. Van Graoul lighted his pipe, and leaning back in his chair, watched the smoke, with calm composure, ascending in a perpendicular column above his nose. Fairburn kept his eye carefully ranging round the horizon, to look out for any signs of coming wind; for we could not but suspect that this calm was the forerunner of a hurricane, or a gale of wind of some sort. I tried to read; but I found that reading was impossible. It was even difficult to carry on a conversation with any degree of briskness. Hour after hour slowly passed away, and there was no change in the weather, when a sound struck our ears which suddenly aroused us all from our apathy.
“A gun!” exclaimed Fairburn; “and a heavy one too—”
“There’s another—and another,” we repeated in chorus.
“De pirates of Sooloo or Borneo attacking some merchant vessel,” observed Van Graoul.
“Can it be the Emu engaged with a man-of-war, by any possibility?” I asked, my thoughts always naturally recurring to her.
“There are too many guns, and the firing is too brisk for that,” remarked Fairburn. “More likely some Dutch men-of-war, or perhaps some of the Company’s cruisers engaged with a fleet of prahus.”
“Where do you make out the firing to come from?” I asked, rather puzzled myself to say from what direction the sounds proceeded.
“From the southward,” he answered. “Some of the sounds seem so loud, that if it were night, I should say we ought to see the flashes; but that arises, I expect, from the peculiar state of the atmosphere.”
“I wish we had a breeze, to be able to get up to see what it is all about,” I exclaimed.
“It is one great puzzle,” observed Van Graoul sagaciously, as he re-lit his pipe, and puffed away as before.