Chapter XV: My Sweetheart's Joy

Once asleep I slept heavily, and it was twenty minutes past the breakfast hour by the time I was ready to leave the crazy and groaning dungeon that served me for a bedroom.

I entered the cabin, but had scarcely made two steps when there sounded a loud cry in a girl's voice, half of terror, half of joy; a shriek so startling for the passions it expressed that it brought me to a dead stand. It was Imogene. I saw her jump from her seat, make a gesture with her arms as though she would fly to me, then bring both hands violently to her heart with a loud hysterical ha! ha! as if she could only find breath in some such unnatural note of laughter, whilst she stood staring at me with straining eyes that filled her violet beauty with a light like that of madness.

The clock struck the half-hour as she cried, and the echo of her voice and the deep, humming vibration of the bell were followed by the parrot's diabolical croak:

"Wy zyn al Verdomd!"

"God in Heaven!" exclaimed Vanderdecken, in a tone deep with amazement, "I thought that man was drowned!"

It was a picture of consternation that I should not have dreamt to expect in men who had outlived life and in whom you would think of seeking qualities and emotions outside those which were necessary to the execution of their sentence. Vanderdecken, leaning forward at the head of the table upon his great hands, the fingers of which were stretched out, glared at me with a frown of astonishment. Prins--whose attendance upon me in my cabin had long been limited to his placing a bucket of salt-water at my door without entering--Prins, I say, arrested by my entry whilst in the act of filling a cup of wine for the captain, watched me with a yawn of wonder, and stood motionless as though blasted by a stroke of lightning; whilst Van Vogelaar, with his head upon his shoulder, the blade of the knife with which he had been eating forking straight up out of his fist that lay like a paralysed thing upon the table, eyed me with a sunk chin and under a double fold of brow; his level, enchained stare full of fear, and cruelty and passion.

I saw how it was, and giving the captain a bow and my darling a smile, I went to my place at the table and sat down. Van Vogelaar shrunk as I passed him, keeping his eyes upon me as a cat follows the motions of a dog; and when I seated myself he fell away by the length of his arm, dropping his knife and fork and watching me. Imogene, breathing deeply, resumed her seat; nothing but Vanderdecken's amazement hindered him from observing her agitation, which was of a nature he could not possibly have mistaken, if indeed he still possessed the capacity of distinguishing such emotions as love.

She merely said, letting out her words in a tremulous sigh: "O Geoffrey, thank God! thank God!" The food in front of her was untasted; but what grief there had been in her face before was lost in the confusion of feelings which worked in her loveliness with a vitality that made her red and white in the same moment. She repeated under her breath to herself: "Thank God! thank God!"

This, while the others stared.

I turned to Van Vogelaar. "Mynheer," said I, "you regard me with astonishment."

He shrank a little further yet, and, after a pause, said, "Are you man or devil?"

"Captain Vanderdecken," said I, "has your mate lost his reason?"

On this Van Vogelaar cried out: "Captain, by the Holy Trinity, I swear it was as I have reported. This Englishman, after prowling on deck last night in the early hours of the middle watch, suddenly clambered on to the rail, for what purpose I know not, and leaned his weight against the starboard main-brace, the sail then reefing. I looked round--on turning again he was gone! and Nicholas Houltshausen, who was at the helm, swore he saw him rise black upon the white eddies of the wake."

Vanderdecken frowningly questioned me with his eyes. I should have been acting a sillier part than a fool's to have jested with these men, besides, I had long since resolved to be plain.

"Herr Van Vogelaar," said I, "doubtless refers to my having fallen into the weather mizzen-channel last night from the rail, whilst peering at what I believed to be a ship. The main-brace, upon which I had put my hand to steady myself, yielded very suddenly," and here I shot a look at the mate, "but I fell lightly, and after sitting a little to recover my breath, made my way to my cabin."

Van Vogelaar's death-like face darkened. An oath or two rattled in his throat, and returning to his old posture he fell to the meat upon his plate with the ferocity of some starving beast, insomuch that the veins about his forehead stood out like pieces of cord.

The feelings with which Vanderdecken received my explanation I could not gather. He gazed hard at me with fiery eyes, as though, mistrusting me, he sought to burn his sight down to my heart, and then, slowly resuming his knife and fork, went on with his breakfast in his familiar trance-like way, mute as a dead man.

I constantly exchanged glances with Imogene, but held my peace since she remained silent. She struggled to compose her face, but her joy at my presence shone through her mask of reserve, twitching the corners of her mouth into faint smiles, and dancing in her eyes like sunshine on the ripples of a sapphire pool. Her love for me spoke more in this quiet delight than she could have found room for in a thousand words. How sweet and fair she looked! The light of her heart lay with a fair rosiness upon her cheeks, which had been as pale as marble when she had risen with her shriek and laughter to my first coming.

Presently Van Vogelaar left the cabin, going out scowling and talking to himself, but not offering so much as to glance at me. There was a piece of hung meat on the table, of what animal I did not know; it proved indifferent good eating. This and some cakes made of flour, with a goblet of sherry and water, formed my breakfast. I ate slowly, knowing that Vanderdecken would not smoke whilst I breakfasted, and wishing to tire him away that Imogene and I might have the cabin to ourselves. But my stratagem was to no purpose. He started suddenly from his waking dream--if, indeed, it was to be credited that any sort of intellectual faculty stirred in him when he lapsed into these cataleptic stillnesses--and bade Prins go and get cut up some of the tobacco they had removed from the wreck, and then erecting his figure and stroking down his beard, he looked from me to Imogene and back to me again, and said, "The weather promises to mend; but this wind must come from a witch's mouth--and a witch of deep and steady lungs. I hope you may not have brought us ill-luck, sir?"

"I hope not," said I, shortly.

"There are malign stars in the heavens," he continued, in a voice that trembled richly upon the air, like the waving echoes of some deep-throated melodious bell, "and there are men born under them. North of the Baltic, on Muskovite territory, is a nation of wretches who can bewitch the winds and sail their ships through contrary gales. They are not far removed from Britain," said he, significantly.

"They are as close to Holland, mynheer," said I.

"Oh, captain!" cried Imogene, "you do not wish to say that Mr. Fenton has had a hand in the fixing of this wind?"

He leaned his forehead upon his elbow, and stretching forth his other hand, drummed lightly on the table with his long, lean, leprous-coloured fingers as he spoke. "Why, Mynheer Fenton, Miss Dudley must allow that a curious luck attends you. How many of a crew went to your ship?"

"Forty, sir."

"Mark your star! Of forty men you alone fall overboard! But fortune goes with you and you are rescued by Van Vogelaar. Observe again! Of forty men you alone are delivered into a ship whose nation is at war with yours! Yet fortune still attends you and you are hospitably received, yea, even made welcome, and clothed, and fed and housed."

I bowed.

"More yet! Last night you fell from the bulwark-rail. What sorcery is it that sways you into the mizzen-channel and presently, unseen, to your bed? Nicholas Houltshausen is noted among us for his shrewd sight. Did not he swear he saw you rise black after your plunge among the froth of the ship's wake? What was it that he beheld? Can the soul shed its body as the butterfly its skin and yet appear clothed, substantial, real as flesh and blood?"

"I exactly explained that accident," said I. "If there be sorcery in my having the luck to tumble into a ship's mizzen-chains instead of the water, then am I a witch fit for a broomstick and a grinning moon!"

"Captain Vanderdecken does but amuse himself with you, Mr. Fenton," said Imogene. "It is true, mynheer," she continued, putting on an inimitable air of sweet dignity, which was vastly reassuring to me as proving that she had recovered her old easiness of mind and was now playing a part, "that we believed you had fallen overboard last night, and this being our conclusion you may judge how greatly your entrance just now amazed us. For me, I was so frightened that I shrieked out, as you doubtless heard. Truly I thought you, the dead, arisen. Captain Vanderdecken cannot recover his surprise, and would have himself to believe that you are a sorcerer. You, who are so young, and an English sailor!" She laughed out, and a truer ring she could not have put into her forced merriment had she been a Pritchard, or a Clive, or a Cibber. "Indeed," she added, "to be a necromancer, you need a beard as long and as grey as the captain's."

There was no temper in the look Vanderdecken cast upon her, nay, it almost deserved the name of mildness in him whose eyes were forever fiery with hot thought and passions of undivinable character. But not the phantom of a smile showed in his face in response to her laughter.

"Madam," said I, putting on a distant air in conformity with the hint of her own manner, "I am no sorcerer. For your sake I would I were, for then my first business would be to veer this wind south, and keep it there till it had thundered our ship with foaming stem into the smooth waters of the Zuyder-Zee."

This seemed to weigh with Vanderdecken. He reflected a little and then said, with something of lofty urbanity in his mode of addressing me, "Had you that power, mynheer, I do not know that I should object to your presence were you Beelzebub himself."

Imogene's smile betrayed the delight she felt in her gradual, happy, nimble drawing of this fierce man's thoughts away from his astonishing suspicions of me as a wizard.

"Have you ever heard, Mr. Fenton," said she, "of that nation to the north of the Baltic of whom Captain Vanderdecken has spoken?"

"Oh! yes, madam," I replied; "they are well known as Russian Finns, and are undoubtedly wizards, and will sell such winds to ships as captains require. I knew a master of a vessel who, being off the coast of Finland, grew impatient for a wind to carry him to a certain distant port. He applied to an old wizard, who said he would sell him a gale that should enable him to fetch the Promontory of Rouxella, but no further, for his breeze ceased to obey him when that point was reached. The captain agreed, holding that a wind to Rouxella was better than light airs and baffling calms off the Finland coast, and paid the wizard ten kronen--about six and thirty shillings of English money--and a pound of tobacco; on which the conjurer tied a woollen rag to the fore-mast, the rag being about half a yard long and a nail broad. It had three knots, and the wizard told him to loose the first knot when he got his anchor, which he did, and forthwith it blew a fresh favourable gale."

"That is so?" demanded Vanderdecken, doubtingly, and folding his arms over his beard.

"I knew the captain, mynheer," I answered; "his name was Jenkyns, and his ship was a brig called the True Love."

"Did the first knot give him all the wind he wanted?" asked he.

"No, sir. It gave them a brisk west south-west gale that carried them thirty leagues beyond the maelstrom in the Norwegian sea; then shifted, on which Captain Jenkyns untied the second knot, which brought the wind back to its own quarter. It failed them again, but when the third knot was untied there arose so furious a tempest that all hands went to prayers, begging for mercy for choosing to deal with an infernal artist instead of trusting to Providence."

It was not easy to make out the thoughts in Vanderdecken's mind, not less because of the half of his countenance being densely clothed with hair, than because of the white, iron rigidity of as much of his face as was visible; yet I could not doubt that he believed in those Finnish wizards from a sudden yearning in his manner, followed by a flashing glance of impatience at the cabin entrance, that was for all the world as though he had cried out "Would to God there was a purchasable wind hereabouts!" But the reader must consider that this man belonged to an age when wise men soberly credited greater wonders than Icelandish and Finnish wind-brokers.

By this I had made an end of breakfast, and Prins arriving with a jar full of the tobacco, flaked and fit for smoking, the captain filled his pipe, first pushing the jar to me, and then fell into one of his silences, from which he would emerge at wide intervals to say something that was as good as a warrant he was thinking no longer of the sorcery of my fall and appearance. When he had emptied his bowl, he went to his cabin. Imogene instantly arose and came to my side.

"Oh, my dearest!" she whispered, with a sudden darkening of her eyes by the shadow of tears, "I did believe, indeed, you were lost to me for ever! My senses seemed to leave me when Vanderdecken accounted for your absence."

"Dear heart! My precious one!" I answered, fondling her little hand, which lay cold with her emotion in mine; "I am still with thee, and hope with us may remain fearless. But it was a narrow escape. Van Vogelaar came red-handed to this table. For hours he has had my blood upon his devilish soul. No wonder the villain quailed when I entered this cabin."

"What did he do?" she cried.

"I believed I saw a ship," I answered; "I jumped on to the rail to make sure, and leaned against the brace that governs the main-yard. He slipped aft and let go the rope, meaning that I should fall overboard, but my grip was a sailor's, and I swung with the rope into the mizzen-chains."

"The wretch! He told Vanderdecken that you had climbed on to the bulwarks and fallen. I could kill him!" She clenched her white fingers till the jewels on them flashed to the trembling of the tension, and a delicate crimson surged into her face. "I could kill him!" she repeated.

"Hush, sweet one! It is our business to escape, and we need an exquisite judgment. I, too, could kill the treacherous ruffian, only that he is deathless. You, brave heart, will advise me that we are not to know of this thing. No, let it be an accident of my own doing. We are in a shipful of devils, and must act as if we believed them angels."

Her face slowly paled, her fingers opened, and the angry shining faded out of her eyes leaving the soft, violet pensive light there.

"Yes, you are right; we must not know the truth of this thing," said she, musingly, after a little. "But be on your guard, Geoffrey; keep well away from that rogue. His Spanish treachery is made formidable by his Dutch cunning. How swiftly he acted last night! His thoughts must have been intent for some time or even the demon in him would not have been equal to such readiness. See to your cabin door at night--O Geoffrey, he might steal in upon you."

I smiled. "He has spoken once; I shall not require a second hint."

"O that I had a man's arm, Geoffrey, that I might be your sentinel whilst you slept!"

"Precious one! You shall sentinel me yet! Patience, meanwhile! It is this ship that makes home so distant. Once clear of this groaning vault and we shall be smelling the sweetbriar and the violet."

Vanderdecken came out of his cabin and went on deck. He walked with impetuosity and passed without regarding us. Through the open door leading to the quarter-deck I saw him stand a minute with his face upturned and then toss his hand with a gesture of baffled rage.

"He is cursing the wind," said Imogene. "How often has he done so since I have been in this ship! And when will a last day come to him, when there shall be no wind to curse, when death shall have paralysed his tongue and silenced his heart? How fiercely it now throbs! Surely there is more stormy passion in one day of its beating than in twenty years of a human pulse! O, my dear, that you had the northern wizard's power of evoking prosperous gales!"

"I should be glad of that power," said I, "for better reasons than to help this man to fight against his Sentence. Can you guess what I would do? I would straightway blow this old ship ashore. Dread the Afric coast as you will, dear one, it will be our only chance."

"I dread it for its savages--the thought of captivity beyond the mountains is horrible! I have heard my father tell of the wreck of an East Indiaman named the Grosvenor, in which were ladies of distinction, who were seized by the natives and carried far inland and made wives of. That is not more than twenty years ago. O, Geoffrey, sooner than that--I would be content to die in this ship--to go on sailing about in her till my hair was as white as the foam about our keel!" and as she said this she grasped a handful of her golden hair and held it to me, unconscious in the earnestness of her fears of the child-like simplicity of her action. I put my lips to the tress, that flowed from her head through the snow of her hand and thence down like a stream of sunny light or the raining of the jet of a golden fountain, and told her not to fear, that I loved the natives as little as she, and would contrive to give them a wide berth; and then I changed the subject by wondering what the consequences would be if last night's business and Vanderdecken's talk this morning put it into the minds of the crew that I was as much a wizard as any Finn and could control the breezes if I chose.

She shook her head. "Better that they should regard you as what you really are--an English sailor. Suppose they persuaded themselves that you could raise and sell winds, they might determine to test you, and imprison, even torture you in the belief you were stubborn and would not do their bidding; or, if they came to consider you a wizard, they might think your presence in the ship unlucky, and, being half-savages, with demons for souls, as I believe, and with instincts belonging to a time when the world was brutal and human life held in no account--there is no imagining how they would serve you."

"Oh, Imogene!" cried I, "you are my good angel----"

"A true sweetheart must ever be that to the boy she loves," she whispered, looking down and softly blushing.

"You are my true sweetheart, Imogene! And how faithfully you are able to guide me through the marvellous experience we are both passing through, I know by the words you have just uttered," and I went on to tell her how Van Vogelaar had under his breath talked as if to himself of my being a curse in the ship.

As I said this, Prins came to the cabin door, and stood looking in. Perceiving him, Imogene rose and saying quietly, "He has perhaps been sent to report if we are together; go you on deck, dearest; I will join you, presently," went to her berth.

END OF VOLUME II.

PRINTED BY
TILLOTSON AND SON, MAWDSLEY STREET
BOLTON

Transcriber's Notes

Obvious punctuation errors repaired.

Inconsistent hyphenation fixed.

P. 28: stancheons -> stanchions.

P. 33: schellings -> schillings.

P. 60: silival -> salival.

P. 63: rotteness -> rottenness.

P. 109: least my thoughtlessness -> lest my thoughtlessness.

P. 197: mani-hued dinginess -> many-hued dinginess.

P. 227: Voeglaar -> Vogelaar.

P. 248: assasinated -> assassinated.

P. 249: solemly -> solemnly.

End of Project Gutenberg's The Death Ship, Vol. II (of 3), by W. Clark Russell