Chapter XI: My Poor Darling

It was ten o'clock. For half-an-hour had I been sitting in the cabin alone waiting for Vanderdecken to come below and go to bed. I heard the parrot angrily clawing about her cage to the chiming of the bell, as if impatient of the slowness of the strokes and enraged by their disturbing notes; and when the last chime died out she violently flapped her wings and cried, with an edge of scream in the ordinary harshness of her voice, "Wy zyn al Verdomd!"

"Verdomd for you, you vile croaker!" thought I, involuntarily clenching my fist as I looked towards her. "Such another yell might bring Van Vogelaar out of his berth."

But she was never again to utter that curse in my hearing.

I went to the cabin door, and found the thickness boiling black about the decks, not an outline visible, nothing to be seen but the lantern-shine, dim as a glow-worm in the crystalline denseness. The clanking of the pump seemed to find twenty echoes in the great concealed fabric of round-tops and square yards on high. How ghostly the stillness with which the brake was plied! You listened till your ear seemed in pain for the sound of a human laugh, the growl of a human voice.

Whilst I stood looking into the thickness, Vanderdecken came down the quarter-deck ladder. The wet of the fog sparkled in his beard, and his fur cap glistened to the lamplight. He stood in the doorway and stared at me under his great heavy brows as though surprised, and even startled, to see me; then exclaimed, "_Ach_, I had forgotten you sleep in this cabin to-night. The lamp can be left alight, if you please."

"If you please, mynheer," said I, with a note of careless indifference in my voice. In fact I would rather have been in darkness, but it was my policy to seem as if his wishes were all the same to me, let them run as they would.

"Tell Prins when he comes, it is my order he should leave the lamp burning," said he, speaking quietly and in a manner that recalled my earliest impressions of him when he talked low lest he should disturb Imogene. He gave me a stiff bow and walked to his cabin.

Five minutes after arrived Prins.

"'Tis the captain's wish," said I, in a low voice, "that the lamp should be kept alight."

"Good, sir," he replied, imitating my soft speech.

"It is for my convenience; I sleep here as you know, that the pump may be less disturbing. Captain Vanderdecken is good enough to consult my comfort, but as the light is bright, pray dim it, Prins. That may be managed, I hope?"

"Easily," he answered, and climbed upon the table to come at the lamp.

"So," said he, turning down the mesh, "how is that, Herr Fenton?"

"A little fainter yet--so! I thank you, Prins. Have you made an end of your work? I am in no hurry to lie down."

He slipped off the table with a look round, and said: "My work is finished, Herr. You can take your rest at once for me." He yawned. "These African fogs make one gape. Good-night, sir."

"Good-night, Prins."

He halted in the doorway.

"I will shut this door to keep the damp out," he said. I motioned with my hand as though bidding him shut it, which he did, and I was left alone.

I wrapped Vanderdecken's large rich cloak about me, and stretched myself along the bench, using my arm as a pillow. I resolved to lie thus for at least half-an-hour, conceiving that this would be long enough to weary any one who should take it into his head to watch me through the cabin window. As to Vanderdecken, I did not fear his seeing me whilst he kept his door closed. The bulkhead of his berth was thick and apparently seamless, and his door fitted into overlaps of the jambs, for the exclusion of draughts of air after the fashion in old shipbuilding. I lay very quiet hearkening to the dulled beating of the pump and watching the clock, the great hand of which was just visible. When it came round so as to lie upon the quarter before the hour, I rose with the utmost stealth, arranging the cloak in such a fashion as to make the dark shape of it resemble a recumbent form, and holding my breath, stole on tiptoe to Imogene's cabin and pushed the door. It opened; I entered and pushed the door to again, and it jammed noiselessly upon the soft substance that had kept it closed before.

Imogene sat on the side of her bed, that exactly resembled the bed in Vanderdecken's room which I have described. She was fully dressed, and had on a fur or sealskin cap, with flaps for the ears. A small silver lamp of a very ancient pattern hung from a hook in the great beam that traversed the ceiling of her cabin, but she had trimmed or depressed the mesh into a feeble gleam. The little door that led to the quarter-gallery stood open. I kissed her cold forehead, and whispered, "Are you ready?"

"Yes!"

I held her hand whilst I could have counted ten, but found it steadier than mine.

"Come, dearest!" said I, and I stepped into the gallery.

The fog put an intolerable blackness into the air, and the chill of it was like frost upon the flesh. But for the phosphorescence of the sea, which I had before lamented, I should not have been able to see the boat under the counter. As it was, the tweaking of the line to the rise and fall of the Death Ship kept a small stir of water about the boat; the greenish-yellow shining showed through the fog and threw out the figure of the structure. The railing of the gallery rose to the height of my breast. I leaned over it, waving my hand in the blackness for the rope, and not catching it, bade Imogene seize my coat to steady me, and jumped on to the rail, and in a moment felt the line and grasped it; then dismounted, holding the rope. In a few seconds I had the boat's head--that was square and horned, as you will remember--fair under the gallery, and in that posture I secured her by hitching the slack of the line to the rail.

Everything continued to help us; first the fog, that made an astonishing blackness of the night, though I guessed this would grow into a pallid faintness presently, when the moon was up and had gathered power; next the phosphoric shinings upon which the boat rose and fell like a great blot of ink; then the noise of the pump, which, to the most attentive ear on deck, would absorb all such feeble sounds as our movements were likely to cause; and again, there was the small but constant grinding of the sudden jumping of the rudder to the action of the swell, very nicely calculated to lull the suspicions of Vanderdecken in the adjacent cabin should he be awake and hear us. But this I did not fear, for the quarter-gallery was outside the ship, and we worked in the open air, and made no noise besides.

Not a moment was to be lost; the halliards I had unrove from the mizzen-peak lay in a heap at my feet. I ran the length through, doubled it, and made a bowline-on-the-bight of the two thicknesses. This bight or loop I slipped over Imogene's shoulders, bringing the running or lowering part in front of her that there should be no pressure to hurt her tender breasts, and then took two turns round a stancheon on the quarter-gallery.

"Dearest," I whispered, kissing her, "keep a stout heart and do exactly as I bid. First, in what part of the cabin shall I find the pitcher and the provisions?"

"Between the foot of the bedstead and the door. They are covered with a dress."

"Right. I am now about to lower you into the boat. I will lower very gently. The moment your feet touch the boat, cough--but not loudly--as a sign for me to lower handsomely, for the rise and fall of the boat necessitates smart action. When you are safe--that is when you are gotten into the middle of the boat--sit down, and throw the rope off you. I will then send down the pitcher and bags by the line which you will cast adrift from them. It will then be my turn to join you."

So saying I took her in my arms and lifted her on to the rail, seating her there an instant, then taking in one hand the end of the rope which was twisted round the stancheon, with the other I gently slided her over the rail, easing her down with my arm round her till she hung by the line. In another moment she was in the boat.

I hauled up the line, went for the pitcher and bags and sent them down to her, she receiving and detaching them from the line with a promptitude equal to anything I could have hoped to find in that way in a sailor. I called to her softly--that she might know why I lingered--"I am going for the cloak," for the moment I saw it I had made up my mind to carry it off as a covering for Imogene.

I opened her cabin door breathlessly and peered out; then stole soft as a mouse to the cloak and threw it over my arm. The interior lay in a sullen gloom to the dim shining of the lamp. Our stock of provisions was small, and my eye catching sight of the chest under the table I recollected having seen Prins put a canvas bag full of biscuit into it after supper. This I resolved to take. So I went to the chest, raised the lid, and found the bag, but my hurry and agitation being great I let fall the lid which dropped with a noisy bang. Heaping curses upon my clumsiness, I fled like a deer into the cabin and on to the quarter-gallery, threw the cloak and bag into the boat, and followed headlong down the rope I had left dangling from the rail.

I was scarce arrived when the faint light that streamed from Imogene's berth into the quarter-gallery was obscured, and to my horror I saw the loom of a human shape overhanging the rail.

"Imogene! Imogene! Come back--come back!" rang out Vanderdecken's deep and thrilling voice. "Herr Fenton, restore to me the treasure thou wouldst rob me of and I swear not a single hair of thy head shall be harmed."

In mad haste I sawed through the rope that held the boat with my pocket-knife. He could not see, but he heard me; and springing on to the rail, roared, in his thunderous notes, "Arents, Arents, the Englishman hath seized one of the boats and is kidnapping Miss Dudley. Do you hear me? Speak--or you swing!"

I heard the clattering of heavy boots running along the tall echoing poop high over our heads.

"Sir--sir--I am here! Your orders, sir?" bawled Arents.

Again roared out Vanderdecken, in a hurricane note fit to awaken the echoes of the inland mountains, "The Englishman is kidnapping Miss Dudley, and hath already seized the larger boat. Send the men from the pump to man the other boat!"

"No, by Heaven, you don't!" I shouted, mad with the excitement of the minute. The line that held us was severed; the boat's head swung round; I leaned half my length over the gunwale, caught the other boat, and severed the rope that secured her to the ship; then, in a frenzy of haste, tumbled a couple of oars over and pulled away. But I had not measured five boat's lengths when the fog in which the ship, even at that short distance, lay completely swallowed was gashed and rent by a blaze of red fire. The explosion of a musket followed. I knew, by the flame leaping out of the quarter-gallery, that it was Vanderdecken who had fired, and with set teeth strained with all my might at the oars.

A dead stillness reigned. The clanking of the chains had ceased. I could hear nothing but the grind of the oars in the pins, and the sound of the water seething to the unnatural vigour with which I rowed. After a little I paused to gather from the noise of the surf how the boat headed. I bent my ear and found that the boiling was on my left.

"How does it strike you, Imogene?" I asked, in a broken voice, being terribly distressed for breath.

She answered, very low, "The sound is on your left."

"That should signify," said I, "that we are heading out to sea. The breakers are heavy in the west, and 'tis down there the noise of them seems greatest. We must head right out, or this bay will prove worse than a rat-trap."

As I spoke I heard the scattering reports of some six or eight muskets discharged one after another, but the glare of the explosions was absorbed by the fog.

"Ha!" cried I; "they shoot in hope!"

I fell to rowing again, and held to the weighty job stoutly for a good quarter-of-an-hour. Weighty it was, for not only was the boat extremely cumbrous about the bows--if one square end of her more than another could be so termed--the oars were heavy, the blades being spoon-shaped, though flat, and the harder to work not only for the breadth of the boat, but because of the pins being fixed too far abaft the seats.

I had now not much fear of being chased. Even if they found the boat I had liberated by sending men overboard to swim in search of it--there was movement enough in the water to glide it very swiftly into obscurity--I did not apprehend they would venture to pursue me in so great a fog. I threw in my oars and listened. A faint air stirred in the blackness, and if I was correct in supposing that we were heading seawards, then this draught was coming about south-east. The sound of the surf was like a weak rumbling of thunder. I strained my hearing to the right--that is, to starboard, for I sat with my back to the bows; but though indeed I could catch a faint, far-off moan of washing waters that way, the noise of the boiling was on our left.

"I am sure we are out of the bay," said I; "were we penetrating it we should be by this time among the breakers. I heartily pray now this fog will soon thin out. It may whiten into something like light when the moon rides high. There is a faint wind, and I should be glad to step the mast and set the sail. But that isn't to be done by feeling. Besides, there is no rudder, and what there may be in the stern to steady an oar with I cannot conceive."

I paused, thinking she would speak. Finding she was silent, and fearing her to be cold and low-hearted, I said: "My dearest, you will gain confidence with the light. Meanwhile, we have good reason to be grateful for this blackness. They might have killed us could they have seen the boat, for they were prompt with their fire-arms."

"Geoffrey, dear," she exclaimed, in the same low voice I had before noticed in her, "I fear I am wounded."

"Wounded!" I shrieked, springing to my feet.

"The instant Vanderdecken fired--if it was he--" she continued, "I felt a stinging blow in my shoulder. I am very cold just there; I am bleeding, I believe."

"Oh, my God! Oh, my God!" I cried, for now she spoke at some little length I could hear in her voice the pain she was in; and the feebleness of her voice was like to break my heart, as was the thought of her suffering and bleeding in silence until I had rowed the boat a long distance from the ship.

I felt for her, and took her in my arms, but the shiver that ran through her warned me that my caress increased her pain. I would have given ten years of my life for a light. 'Twas maddening to have to sit in such blackness, with nothing but a dim star or two of the green sea-glow rising with the invisible heave of the water to the gunwale for the eye to rest upon, and to think of my precious one bleeding--perhaps wounded to death--utterly concealed from me, so that I could not staunch her wound, nor comfort her except by speech, nor help her in any way. 'Twas the doing of Vanderdecken! the murderer! Oh, why, when there was all the wide black air for the shot to whistle through, had it struck my life, my love, the darling whom I had snatched to my heart from the huge desolation of the deep, and from the horrible companionship of beings accurst of God?

I groped about for the cloak I had flung into the boat, and found it; I made a bed of it, and pulling off my jacket rolled it up into a pillow. I felt for her again, and told her that the bleeding might lessen if she would lie down. She answered, "I will lie down, dearest."

I took her in my arms very tenderly and carefully, and laid her upon the cloak with the wounded shoulder uppermost, covered her as far as the skirts of the cloak would suffer, and chafed her hands. I was in so great a confusion and agony of mind that had I heard the dip of the oars astern and knew Vanderdecken was after me in the other boat, I should not have let go her hand. I could not have stirred from my kneeling posture beside her to help myself. But now that we were out of the bay, as I might be sure by the sound of the surf, I knew that our keel would be in the grip of the westerly current, and that whether I rowed or not every hour must increase our distance from the Death Ship, and improve our prospect of escape.

I asked her if she was thirsty, understanding how quickly wounded persons crave in this direction. She answered "No;" but, as I believed, out of the sweetness of her heart, to save me anguish by any kind of confession of suffering beyond what she had already owned to. Believing her to be bleeding all the time, I held her hand, in constant expectation of feeling it frosted and turning heavy with death. The sea, in its mighty life of a thousand centuries, has upborne many dismal and affrighting pictures to the chill eye of the moon, to the fiery inspection of the sun, to the blindness of the cloud-blackened sky; but none worse than what our boat made; no torments direr than what I suffered. I could not see her face to observe whether she smiled upon me or not; the love in her eyes was hidden from me, and my heart could take no comfort from imagination when, for all I knew, the glazing of approaching dissolution might have iced those liquid violet impassioned depths into an unmeaning stare.

Add to her lying in the blackness, wounded and bleeding; add to the anguish with which I probed the ebon smother for the merest glimpse of her, till my eyes burned like red-hot balls of fire under my brows; add to this, those elements of mystery, of horror, which entered into and created that black, sightless time; the desolate thunder of surf, defining to the ear the leagues and leagues of savage coast aswarm with roaring beasts, with hissing reptiles, with creatures in human form fiercer and of crueller instincts than either; the magnitude of the ocean on whose breathing breast our tiny bark lay rocking; the wondrous darkness of the deep shadow of the fog upon the natural gloom of the night; the commingling of sullen and mysterious tones in the sulky obscurity--notes that seemed to come out of the seaward infinity, that seemed to rise from each swinging respiring fold under us, in voiceless sound that made you think of a moody conscience in some labouring breast troubling the ear of imagination with mutterings whose audibility was that of the inarticulate speech of phantoms.