Chapter IX: Captain Vanderdecken Walks in His Sleep

This incident of the English frigate satisfied me that it was Vanderdecken's intention to get rid of me at the first opportunity that offered. There could be no doubt that Van Vogelaar had poisoned his mind against me, for, certainly, at the start of this experience of mine, the skipper had treated me with humanity and a sort of heated, lofty courtesy; and since he deemed himself homeward bound, and regarded his vessel as a good sailer, he would not think it necessary to tranship me if his mind had not been acidulated.

I remember when the evening came on that same day we had been chased and abandoned by the Centaur, walking up and down the lee-side of the short poop alone, Arents, who had charge, standing silent near the helmsman. I had worked myself up into great confusion and distress of mind. Dejection had been followed by a fit of nervousness, and when I looked around me at the unmeasurable waste of ocean darkling in the east to the growing shadows there, at the ancient heights of canvas above me, with the dingy rusty red of the western light slipping from the hollow breasts and off the sallow spars, till the edges of the sails melted into a spectral faintness upon the gradual gloom, at the desolate, grassy appearance of the decks, the dull motions, the death-like posture of the three or four men standing here and there forward--I felt as if the curse of the ship had fallen upon my heart and life too--that it was my doom to languish in her till my death--to love and yet be denied fruition--to yearn for our release with the same impotency of desire that governed the navigation of this Death Ship towards the home it was the Will of God she was never to approach.

Yet in any other mood I should have found an exquisite repose for the soul in this interval. There was an aroma as of the tropics in the gentle north-west wind. The ship, faintly impelled, went with a small curl of silver at her bow, as softly along the sea as the reflection of a star slides upon the brow of a smooth swell. The peace of the grave was in the floating tomb, and had my spirits been easy there would have been something of the delicious rapture of intellectual enjoyment that the opium smoker is said to inhale through the stem of his pipe in the indolent watching of this ancient ship, swimming out of daylight into darkness, with the reflected hectic on the larboard beam creeping like vermilioned smoke up her masts and over her sails, and vanishing off the trucks like the trailing skirts of some heavenward flying vision.

On turning from a short contemplation of the sea over the stern, I observed Imogene, at the head of the ladder conducting from the poop to the quarter-deck, watching me. It was the first opportunity which had offered for speaking with her alone since dinner-time.

"Captain Vanderdecken has gone to his cabin to take some rest," said she. "I knew you were above by your tread."

"Ah! you can recognise me by that?"

"Yes, and by the dejection in it, too," she answered, smiling. "There is human feeling in the echo; the footfalls of the others are as meaningless as the sound of wood smitten by wood."

"I am very dull and weary-hearted," said I. "Thanks be to God that you are in this ship to give me hope and warmth."

"And I thank Him, too, for sending you to me," said she.

I took her hand and kissed it; indeed, but for Arents and the helmsman, I should have taken her to my heart with my lips upon hers. "Let us walk a little," said I. "We will step softly. We do not want the captain to surprise us."

I took her hand, and we slowly paced the deck.

"All the afternoon," said I, "I have been considering how we are to escape. There is no man among this ghostly crew who has a friendly eye for me, and so whatever is done must be done by me alone."

"You must trust no one," she cried, quickly; "the plan you light upon must be our secret. There is a demon imprisoned in Vanderdecken; if it should be loosed he might take your life!"

"I don't doubt it. And suppose I went armed, my conflict would be with deathless men! No! no! my plan must be our secret, as you say. But what is it? If but a gleam of light sank its ray into this darkness I should take heart."

She pressed my hand, saying, "The frigate's abandoning of us has depressed you. But an opportunity will surely come."

"Yes, the behaviour of the frigate has depressed me. But why? Because she has made me see that the greatest calamity which could befall us would be our encountering a ship willing to parley with us."

"Is it so?"

"I fear; because Vanderdecken would send me to her, and separate us." Then bethinking me, by observing her head sink, how doleful and unmanly was such reasoning as this, such apprehension of what might be, without regard to the possibility of our salvation lying in the very circumstance or situation I dreaded, I said, heartening my voice, "Imogene, though I have no plan, yet my instincts tell me that our best, perhaps our sole chance of escaping from this ship will be in some necessity arising for her to drop anchor off the coast, for careening, or for procuring provisions and water. Think, my dear, closely of it! We dare not count upon any ship we meet taking such action as will ensure our joint deliverance. No body of seamen, learning what vessel this is, would have anything to do with her. Then, as to escaping from her at sea, even if it were in the power of these weak, unaided arms to hoist one of those boats there over the side unperceived, I know not whether my love for thee, Imogene--whether, O forgive me if I grieve you----"

She stirred her hand, as if to remove it, but I held it the tighter, feeling in the warm and delicate palm the dew that emotion was distilling there.

She was silent, and we came to a stand. She said in a weak and trembling voice: "You do not grieve me. Why should I grieve to be loved?"

"You are beautiful and good and a sailor's child, my dearest," said I.

"And friendless."

"No! bid me say I love thee?"

She bade me whisper, drawing closer to me. I swiftly kissed her cheek that was cold with the evening wind. Great Heaven! what a theatre was this for love-making. To think of the sweetest, in our case the purest, of emotions having its birth in, owing its growth to, the dreaded fabric of the Death Ship! Yet I, that a short while ago was viewing the vessel with despondency and fear and loathing, now for a space found her transfigured! The kiss my darling had permitted, her gentle speech, the caress that lay in her drawing close to me, had kindled a light in my heart, and the lustre was upon the ship; a faint radiance viewless to the sight, but of a power to work such transformation, that instead of a gaunt phosphoric structure sailing through the dusk, there floated under the stars a fabric whose sails might have been of satin, whose cordage might have been formed of golden threads, whose decks might have been fashioned out of pearl!

We were silent for awhile, and then she said, in a coyly-coquettish voice with a happy note of music in it, "What were you saying, Mr. Fenton, when you interrupted yourself?"

"Dear heart!" cried I, "you must call me Geoffrey now."

"What were you saying, Geoffrey?" said she.

"Why," I replied, "that even were it possible for me to secure one of those boats, and launch it unperceived, my love would not suffer me to expose you to the perils of such an adventure."

"My life is in your keeping, Geoffrey," said she. "You need but lead--I will follow. Yet there is one thing you must consider: if we escape to the land, which seems to me the plan that is growing in you----"

I said, "Yes," watching the sparkling of the stars in her eyes, which she had fixed on mine.

"Are not the perils which await us there greater than any the sea can threaten, supposing we abandoned ourselves to its mercy in that little boat yonder? There are many wild beasts on the coast; often in the stillness of the night, when we have been lying at anchor, have I heard the roaring and trumpeting of them. And more dreadful and fearful than leopards, wild elephants and terrible serpents--all of which abound, dear--crocodiles in the rivers and poisonous, tempting fruit and herbs--are the savages, the hideous, unclothed Kaffres, and the barbarous tribes which I have heard my father tell of as occupying the land for leagues and leagues from the Cape to the coast opposite the Island of Madagascar."

A strange shudder ran through her, and letting slip my hand to take my arm--for now that she knew I loved her she passed from her girlish coyness into a bride-like tenderness and freedom, and put a caressing manner into her very walk as she paced at my side--she cried, "Oh, do you know, Geoffrey, if ever a nightmare freezes my heart it is when I dream I am taken captive by one of those black tribes, and carried beyond the mountains to serve as a slave."

There was so much truth in what she said that I could not listen to her without an emotion of distress; since, my own judgment forbidding the escape by the boat--if it were possible for us so to escape--her dread of the land was like the complete shutting out of all self-deliverance. However, I felt that no good could come of a conversation that insensibly led us into disheartening reflections, so I gradually worked our thoughts into another channel, and presently found myself breathing my passion afresh into her ear and hearkening to hurried answers, sighed rather than spoken, so gentle was her utterance. The dusk had thickened into night, the stars swung in glory to the majestical motion of the mastheads, there was a curl of moon in the west like a paring of pearl designed for a further enrichment of the jewelled skies, the phosphor trembled along the decks, and all substantial outlines swam into indistinctness in an atmosphere that seemed formed of fluid indigo. Visible against the luminaries past the quarter-gallery was the figure of the mate; but the helmsman near him was shrouded by the pale haze that floated smoke-like about the binnacle. Flakes of the sea-glow slipped slowly past upon the black welter as though the patches of stardust on high mirrored themselves in this silent ebony water. From time to time a brilliant meteor flashed out upon the night and sailed into a ball of fire that far outshone the glory of the greatest stars. The dew fell lightly; the crystals trembled along the rail and winked to the stirring of the wind with the sharp sparkle of diamonds; and though we were in the cold season, yet the light breeze, having a flush of northing in it, was pure refreshment without touch of cold, so that a calmer, fairer night than this I do not conceive ever descended upon a ship at sea.

I was a young fellow in those days. My passion for the lonely and lovely girl who walked beside me was keen and hot; that she loved me as I loved her I could not be certain, for women are slower, and therefore the surer, in their capacity of loving than men; but that she did love me she made me know by a subtle sweetness of words and behaviour. I was young, I say, of a naturally merry and sanguine heart, and the gladness of my love entered into the night, smoothing out all the alarms and anxieties from my mind, and making me so much myself that for my light spirits I might have been on board some English ship with my sweetheart, swiftly heading for home, instead of treading with her the deck of a vessel accurst of Heaven, and moving through the night, a ghostly shadow palely gleaming with death-fires, on a voyage that was never to have an end.

Thrice the clock struck in the cabin, and whenever the first chime sounded I would start as if we were near land and the sound was the note of a distant cathedral bell; and punctually with the last stroke would come the rasping voice of the parrot, reminding all who heard it of their condition. Occasionally, Arents moved, but never by more than a stride or two; forward all was dead blackness and stillness, the blacker for the unholy, elusive shinings, the stiller for the occasional sighing of the wind, for the thin, shaling sound of waters, gently stemmed, for the moan now and again that floated muffled out of the hold of the ship. Twice Imogene said she must leave me; but I could not bear to part with her. The night was our own, yea, even the ship, in her solitude wrought by the silent figures aft and the tomb-like repose forward, seemed our own; and my darling, being in her heart as loth as I to separate, lingered yet and yet till the silver sickle of the moon had gone down red into the western ocean, and the clock below had struck half-past eleven.

Then she declared it was time, indeed, for her to be gone; should Vanderdecken come on deck and find her with me he might decide to part us effectually by sending me forward, and forbidding me to approach the cabin end; so, finding her growing alarmed, and hearing the quick beating of her heart in her speech, I said, "Good-night," kissing her hand, and then releasing her. She seemed to hurry, stopped and looked behind; I stood watching her; seeing her stop, I held out my arms, and went to her, and she returned to me. With what love did I kiss her upturned brow, and hold her to my heart!

She was yet in my arms, when the great figure of Vanderdecken rose above the ladder, and ere I could release her he was close to us, towering in shadow like some giant spirit. The start I gave caused her to turn; she saw him, and instantly grasping my hand drew me against the bulwark, where we stood waiting for him to speak. Love will give spirit to the pitifullest recreant, and had I been the most craven-hearted of men the obligation to stand between such a sweetheart as Imogene and one whom she feared, though he stood as high as Goliath, would have converted me into a hero. But I was no coward; I could look back to my earliest experiences and feel that with strictest confidence. Yet, spite of the animating presence of Imogene, the great figure standing in front of us chilled, subdued, terrified me. Had he been mortal I could not have felt so; nay, had his demeanour, his posture, been that which intercourse with him had made familiar, I should not have suffered from the superstitious fears which held me motionless, and made my breathing laboured. But there was something new and frightful in the pause he made abreast of us, in the strange and menacing swinging of his arms, in the pose of his head defiantly held back, and in his eyes, which shone with a light that owed nothing to the stars, in the pallid gloom of his face. His gaze seemed to be rivetted on the ocean-line a little abaft of where we stood, and therefore did he appear to confront us. The expression in his face I could not distinguish, but I feebly discerned an aspect of distortion about the brow, and clearly made out that his under-jaw was fallen so as to let his mouth lie open, causing him to resemble one whose soul was convulsed by some hideous vision.

Imogene pressed my hand. I looked at her, and she put her white forefinger to her mouth, saying in accents so faint, that they were more like the whispers one hears in memory than the utterance of human lips: "He is walking in his sleep. In a moment he will act a part. I have seen this thing once before;" and so fairily speaking she drew me lightly towards the deeper gloom near the bulwarks where the mizzen-rigging was.

For some moments he continued standing and gazing seawards, slowly swinging his arms in a way that suggested fierce yet almost controlled distress of mind. He then started to walk, savagely patrolling the deck, sweeping past us so close as to brush us with his coat, then crossing athwartships and madly pacing the other side of the deck, sometimes stopping with a passionate violent suddenness at the binnacle, at the card of which he seemed to stare, then with denunciatory gesture resuming his stormy striding now lengthwise, now crosswise, now swinging his great figure into an abrupt stand to view the sea, first to starboard then to larboard, now standing aloft; and all with airs and gestures as though he shouted orders to the crew and cried aloud to himself, though saving his swift deep breathing that, when he passed us close, sounded like the panting of bellows in angry or impatient hands, no syllable broke from him.

"Some spell is upon him!" I exclaimed. "I see how it is!--he is acting over again the behaviour that renders this ship accurst."

"I saw him like this two years ago; 'twas earlier in the night," whispered Imogene. "He so scared me that I fainted."

That Arents and the helmsman took notice of this strange somnambulistic behaviour in their captain I could not tell: he approached them as often as he approached us, and much of the dumb show of his rage was enacted close to them; but so far as I could judge from the distance at which we stood, their postures were as quiet as though they were lay figures, or passionless and in sensible creatures without understandings to be touched. It was a heart-subduing spectacle beyond words to tell of. Bit by bit his temper grew, till his motions, his frenzied racings about the deck, his savage glarings aloft, his fury when, in this distemper of sleep, his perusal of the compass disappointed him, were those of a maniac. I saw the white froth on his lips as he approached us close to level a flaming glance seawards, and had he been Satan himself I could not have shrunk from him with deeper loathing and colder terror. The insanity of his wrath, as expressed by his gestures--for he was as mute as one bereft of his voice by agony--was rendered the wilder, the more striking and terrible by the contrast of the night, the peace of it, the splendour of the stars, the silence upon the deep rising up to those luminaries like a benedictory hush! For such an infuriated figure as this you needed the theatre of a storm-tossed ship, with the billows boiling all about and over her, and the scenery of a pitchy sky torn by violet lightning and piercing the roaring ebony of the seas with zig-zag fire, and the trumpetings of the tempest deepened by a ceaseless crashing of thunder.

He continued to lash himself into such a fury that, for very pity, misery and horror, you longed to hear him cry out, for the expression would give relief to his soul, strangling and in awful throes. Suddenly he fell upon his knees; his hands were clenched, and he lifted them on high; his face was upturned; and as I watched him menacing the stars with infuriate gestures, I knew that even as he now showed so did he appear when he blasphemously dared his Maker. A soft gust of the midnight air blew with a small moan through the rigging. Vanderdecken let drop his arms, swayed a while as if he would fall, staggered to his feet, and with his hands pressed to his eyes as though indeed some sudden stroke of lightning had smitten him blind, came with wavering gait, in which was still visible a sullen and disordered majesty, to the poop ladder, down which he sightlessly went, steered by the wondrous, unintelligible faculty that governs the sleep-walker.

I pulled off my hat and wiped my forehead, that was damp with sweat.

"Great God!" I cried. "What a sight to behold! What anguish is he made to suffer! How is it that his human form does not scatter, like one broken on a wheel, to the rending of such infernal passions as possess him?"

Imogene was about to answer when on a sudden the first stroke of midnight came floating up in the cathedral-note of the clock.

"Hark!" she exclaimed. "It is twelve! Arents will now be relieved by Van Vogelaar. If that malignant creature spies me here at this hour with you, oh, 'twould be worse through the report he would give than if Vanderdecken himself had surprised us. Good-night, Mr. Fenton!"

She quickly slipped from my grasp, and faded down the ladder. As she vanished I put my hand to my heart to subdue its beating, and whilst I thus stood a moment the last note of the clock vibrated into the stillness on deck and scarcely less clear than had the accursed croak sounded close beside me, rose the parrot's detestable cry:

"Wy zyn al Verdomd!"