for outward-bound ships, and we must be content to be the sufferers.” He then beckoned the pilot to his side. “What say you, Senhor Nunez, shall we heave the ship to? There is no use running away from our course.”
“We may heave to the ship, if we like,” replied the old seaman; “but I much doubt if we have any canvass on board to keep her there: she would bear it if we made sail; though I suspect the wind would soon take it in for us. If I might advise, we will run on before it while it lasts; for I do not think, by the way it came on, it will hold long; and then there will be less risk of damaging the ship.”
“Let it be so, Senhor Nunez,” answered the Captain. “Such, also, is my opinion. A gale like this is not to be played with, if one would keep one’s gear in condition.”
The waves were not as yet running very high, but were short and broken, tossing up their thin foam-covered crests with sudden, quick, and angry jerks, seeming to excite each other to fury as they vied in their maddening leaps. The sky had become of one dark hue, the thick mist flying rapidly over it; and the sea, when perceived under the frothy sheet which covered it, had assumed a cold, leaden colour. It would have been a sad and dreary prospect to the seamen, with their long night-watch before them, had not custom reconciled them to their hard lot, and caused them to be insensible to the dangers they encountered. Everything was made snug on board; and, steady men being placed at the wheel, the captain, followed by Don Luis, retired unconcernedly to his cabin, desiring to be called, if any change took place. Such was the state of affairs, as the almost impenetrable shades of night fell over the face of the ocean, while onward dashed the ship into the dark unknown expanse, like a man plunging, by his own intent, into the unexplored future of another world.
Volume One – Chapter Two
It was yet some hours before dawn. The gale had rather increased than lessened in fury, the corvette, with all her canvass closely furled, was driving impetuously before it, the wind whistled and howled through the rigging; the waves, now rising in mountainous billows, dashed high in wild confusion, and, rolling towards her, seemed, with savage intent, about to overwhelm her; but, proudly holding her course, she rushed through them unharmed. At intervals, too, flashes of lightning darted from the overcharged clouds, lighting up the scene again to leave the mighty void in greater obscurity than before.
At a moment when the heavens had emitted a flash longer continued and brighter than usual, a loud cry from the look-out men ahead was heard. “A sail ahead! Starboard! hard-a-starboard! or we shall be into her!” was passed along the decks with startling rapidity, and there was scarce time for the vessel to answer the helm, before the lofty masts and spars of a ship were seen towering to the sky, so close on board them, that the corvette seemed to graze her yards, as they flew by her like lightning. The stranger seemed, by the glance they had of her, to be a large ship, hove to on the starboard tack, under a close reefed main-topsail.
The old pilot, who had just come on deck to relieve the second lieutenant from his watch, gazed earnestly towards the void in which she had disappeared, as if he would penetrate its thick curtain of darkness, and shook his head as he observed, “I like not thus to meet a bark such as that we have just passed. She is an omen of death and destruction to some who float on these seas; and if she was built in any known port, I am very much mistaken.”
“What, Senhor Nunez! do you not take her for a real ship?” asked the second lieutenant. “For my own part, by her appearance, I had no doubt of it, and I felt my heart beat all the lighter when we were clear of her; now, if she were a phantom, as you seem to say, we should have gone clean through without any damage.”
“That comes of trusting to your new-fangled philosophy, instead of putting faith in the signs Heaven sends us to warn us of danger,” answered the pilot. “Not that I mean to say there was anything holy in yonder bark; but Heaven often permits evil spirits to work out its own purposes, for which she may perhaps be allowed to wander on this stormy ocean. I have not doubled the Cape for the last fifty years without seeing such sights as would make your hair stand on end, and your heart sink within you.”
“Well, well, I will not now dispute the point with you,” responded the young officer, “you are an older man by many years than I am, and of course have seen many more wonderful things; but we will discuss the subject some day when I can manage to keep my eyes open, which I can now scarcely do; however, ought I not, before I turn in, to let the captain know what we have seen?”
“Do as you like; but it will be rousing him up to little purpose,” said the old man. “The chances are, that the next time we see her, she will be right ahead, with all her canvass set, coming down upon us.”
The lieutenant was just descending to the main-deck, when at that instant a cry of surprise from one of the young midshipmen arrested him, and the stranger was perceived dashing after them, as she emerged from the obscurity, her white canvass gleaming brightly, as it reflected the flashes of lightning. He hastened down to call the captain, who, at the first summons, rushed on deck, where he was soon joined by his young passenger.
“I did not expect to see yonder stranger where he now is,” said the pilot, as, the captain joining him on the poop, he pointed out the phantom-looking ship; “and, for the life of me, I cannot make him out; but I think no good of him. He is more likely to be a foe than a friend to any mortal cruisers.”
“Whether he be friend or foe, he seems at all events in a great hurry to speak us,” exclaimed the Captain; “but methinks his speaking-trumpets will not be of much avail in a hurricane like this; why, the spirit of the storm laughs all human efforts to naught; and I should have thought he could scarcely have distinguished our bare poles through this inky darkness.”
“Those on board her don’t require any night glasses to see their prey,” said the old Pilot, gloomily; “they scent it from afar, as the vulture does a carcass.”
“Whether he can see us or not, here he comes,” shouted the Captain. “Beat to quarters – we will be prepared for him. Topmen, ready aloft. We will make sail, if necessary,” he added, turning to Senhor Nunez; “but he is, probably, one of our fire-eating friends, an Englishman, who will never let a ship on the high seas escape their scrutiny, in the hopes of finding an enemy worth engaging.”
“I don’t think he belongs to any nation that carries a flag,” answered Senhor Nunez, piously crossing himself, “and I have been vowing two wax candles to our Lady of Belem, to be bought out of my arrears of pay, if she will shield us from all the powers of darkness.”
“Our blessed Lady protect us from such!” said the Captain; “but I think we shall have none but mortal enemies to contend with in yonder ship.”
The men, in the meantime, went steadily to their quarters; and now that there was considerable danger to be incurred, their tongues were kept in silence, their ears ready to catch any orders that might follow, though they fully shared in the old pilot’s ideas as to the supernatural character of the ship in sight.
“Let every alternate gun be run out on the starboard side, Senhor Alvez,” said the Captain; “we cannot fight our entire battery in a sea like this; and a few well-handled guns will do more work than a whole broadside ill served; but I do not surmise we shall be brought to that pass. She will scarcely wish to fight us, and I have no intention of attacking her till I know what she is.”
This disposition of the crew took some little time to make, as there was danger, as well as difficulty, in putting the guns in fighting order. “Keep her edging away to the south,” he added, to the quarter-master, who was conning the ship; “we will endeavour to keep our friend on the starboard side.”
The order was scarcely given, when the stranger, ranging up on the starboard quarter, a voice from her forecastle hailed them; but the loud roaring of the blast, and dashing of the waves, drowned all distinctions of sounds, and before Captain Pinto, seizing his speaking-trumpet, had time to answer, a shot from her bow gun whistled over their heads, followed by six or eight others, as she ranged alongside; but, flying high, they did little damage.
“Ah! our friend has taken the tone of his temper to-night from the weather, and is rather inclined for strife; but we will show him, whoever he is, that he has caught a Tartar. Fire! my men,