This was an incident to give one a deal to think and talk about. Certainly little imaginable could be stranger than that we, being in chase of a fore-and-aft schooner yacht, should fall in with a vessel so resembling the object of our pursuit as to deceive the sight of men who professed to know the ‘Shark’ well. I should have been glad to ask the Dutchman about his craft, yet it was a matter of no moment whatever. The thing had happened, it was passing strange, and there was an end. Likely enough she was an English vessel purchased for some opulent trader in the island of Cura?oa, and on her way to that possession in charge of the porpoise who had honoured us with a visit. The incident signified only as a disappointment. All dinner time I had been fretting over it, for since sunrise I had been thinking of the vessel ahead as the ‘Shark’; counted, in a sort of unreasoning, mechanical, silent way, upon capturing Lady Monson out of her, which, of course, would mean a shift of helm for us, and home again.

Wilfrid bore the blow better than I had dared to expect. He made a good dinner, for which he had the excuse of having fasted since breakfast, and broke into a noisy roar of laughter out of the air of gloomy resentment with which he had arrived from his cabin on my describing the Dutchman, and repeating his questions and my answers. In short, his weak mind came to his rescue. With the schooner had vanished an inspiration of thought that had served his intellect as an anchor to ride by. His imagination was now fluent again, loose, draining here and there like water on the decks of a rolling ship; and though he spoke with vehement bitterness of his disappointment, and with indignation and rage even of Finn’s ignorance in pursuing a stranger throughout the day, he dwelt very briefly at a time on the subject. Indeed, his talk was just an aimless stride from one thing to another. If he recurred to the Dutch schooner, it was as if by mere chance; and, though the subject would blacken his mood, in a very short while he had passed on to other matters with a cleared face. Miss Laura afterwards said to me that the strain of the day had been too great for him, and that when the tension was relaxed the strings of the instrument of his mind dropped into slack fibres, out of which his reason could fiddle but very little[179] music. Well, I could have wished it thus for everybody’s sake. Better as it was than that he should have shrunk away scowling and hugging a dark mantle of madness to him, and exaggerated the abominably uncomfortable behaviour I had witnessed in him all day.

He arrived on deck after dinner to smoke a cigar, and whilst I sat with Miss Jennings—for it was a quiet night after the stormy blowing of the day, with a tropic tenderness of temperature in the sweet gushing of the southerly wind, the curl of moon gone, and the large stars trembling through the film of their own radiance like dew-drops in gossamer—I could hear my cousin chatting briskly near the wheel with Finn with intonations of voice that curiously proclaimed the variableness of his moods to the ear, sometimes speaking with heat, sometimes in a note of sullen expostulation, sometimes surprising the attention with a loud ha, ha! that came floating back again to the deck in echoes out of the silent canvas, whilst Finn’s deep sea-note rumbled a running commentary as the baronet talked.

‘What do you think of this chase now?’ said I to Miss Laura.

‘I wish it were over,’ she answered. ‘I want to see my sister rescued from the wretch she has run away with, Mr. Monson; but this sort of approaching her recovery is dreadful.’

‘It is worse than dreadful,’ said I; ‘it is tedious with the threat of a neat little tragical complication by-and-bye—any day indeed—if Wilfrid doesn’t stow that gun in his hold or heave it overboard. The Dutchman might very well have answered our shot had he mounted a piece or two or driven alongside and plied us, as they used to say, with small arms. Now one isn’t here for that sort of thing, Miss Jennings.’

‘No. Is there no way of losing the cannon?’

I laughed. ‘If Wilfrid will reserve his fire until he is sure of the “Shark” instead of blazing away at the first craft that resembles her, the weapon might yet prove something to usefully serve his turn; for I doubt if anything will hinder the Colonel from cracking on when he catches sight of us, short of iron messages from the forecastle there. But we shall not meet with the “Shark” this side the Cape, if there.’

‘I fear it will prove a long voyage,’ said she, with the sparkle of the starlight in her eyes.

‘You will be glad to return?’

‘Not without my sister.’

‘But shall you be willing, Miss Jennings, supposing us to arrive at Cape Town without falling in with the “Shark,” to persevere in this very singular and unpromising sea quest?’

‘I will remain with Wilfrid certainly,’ she answered quietly. ‘My duty is to help him in this search, and where he goes I shall go.’

‘But he will be acting cruelly to carry you on from the Cape[180] unless able to certainly tell where to find the fugitives, fixing the date too for that matter.’

‘I see you will leave us at the Cape, Mr. Monson,’ she exclaimed with an accent that could only come from the movement of the lips in a smile.

‘Not unless I prevail upon you to accompany me home,’ said I.

She shook her head lightly, but made no answer. Perhaps it was her silence that rendered me sensible of the unpremeditated significance of my speech. ‘Well,’ said I, lighting a second cigar, ‘whilst you feel it your duty to stick to my cousin I shall feel it mine to stick to you. Not likely I should leave you alone with him. No.’

At that instant the harsh, surly voice of old Jacob Crimp hailed the skipper, who still stood aft talking with Wilfrid. All was in darkness forward; it was hard upon two bells; the canvas rose as elusive to the eye in its wanness as a dim light in windy gloom far out at sea, and the shadow of it plunged a dye as opaque as blindness into the obscurity from the mainmast to the forecastle rail, where the stars were sliding up and down like a dance of fire-flies to the quiet lift and fall of the close-hauled yacht upon the invisible folds brimming to her port bow.

‘Capt’n,’ sung out Crimp’s melodious voice—plaintive as the notes of a knife upon a revolving grindstone—from the heart of the murkiness somewhere near the galley.

‘Hallo!’ answered Finn.

‘Can I speak a word with ye?’

‘Who is it wants me?’

‘The mate.’

‘Tell him to come aft,’ Wilfrid bawled out. ‘If there’s anything wrong I must know it. Step aft, Crimp, step aft, d’ye hear?’ he cried.

Old Jacob’s stunted figure came out of the darkness and walked along to where Finn stood.

‘What is the matter, I wonder?’ said Miss Laura.

I cocked my ear, for there is something in a hail of this sort at sea on a dark night to put an alertness into one’s instincts and nerves. Besides, there was no sounder snorer on board than old Jacob, and his merely coming up on deck during his watch below, though he should have stood mute as a ghost, was something to raise a little uneasy sense of expectation. His voice rumbled, but I could not hear what he said. Wilfrid shouted ‘What d’ye say?’ with an expression of astonishment and incredulity. Finn laughed in a sneering way, whilst old Jacob again rumbled out with some sentence. Then my cousin bawled out, ‘Charles, Charles, come here, will you?’

‘What the deuce is the matter now?’ said I, and Miss Laura followed me as I went over to the group.

‘Here’s a nice pickle we’re in, Charles,’ cried Wilfrid. ‘What think you? Crimp swears the yacht’s haunted.’

[181]

‘So she be,’ said Crimp.

‘Pity your mother didn’t sell vinegar, Jacob, that you might have stayed at home to bottle it off,’ exclaimed Finn. ‘Haunted! That may do for the marines, but you won’t get the sailors to believe it.’

‘That’s jist what they do then,’ remarked Crimp. ‘All the watch below have heard it, and can’t sleep in consequence.’

‘Heard what?’ I asked.

‘The woice,’ answered Jacob, ‘the same as you and me heard t’other night.’

‘Have you heard a voice, Charles?’ exclaimed Wilfrid, suddenly fetching a deep breath.

‘A mere fancy,’ said I.

‘Ye didn’t like it anyhow,’ said Crimp gruffly, as though speaking aside.

‘For God’s sake, tell me about this voice, Charles,’ cried Wilfrid, agitated all on a sudden and restless as a dog-vane, with the twitching of his figure and the shifting of his weight from one leg to another.

I related the incident, making light of it, and tried to persuade him that the mere circumstance of my having said nothing about it proved that I regarded it as a deceit of the hearing.

‘Did you know of this, Laura?’ said Wilfrid.

‘As a joke only,’ she answered.

‘A joke,’ cried he, breathing deep again. ‘The voice sounded off the sea, hey? and two of you heard it? What did it say?’ and I could see him by the starlight looking towards the starboard quarter in the direction whence the syllables had floated to us. ‘What did it say?’ he repeated.

‘Why, that this here yacht was cussed,’ rattled out Jacob defiantly, ‘and dum me if I don’t think she be now that the blooming corpse belonging to the wreck is a-jawing and a-threatening of all hands down in the forepeak.’

‘What is this man talking about?’ I exclaimed, believing that he must either be drunk or cracked.

‘He’s come aft to tell us, Mr. Monson,’ answered Finn, ‘that he and others of the watch below have been disturbed by a woice in the hold saying that there’s a ghost aboard, and that the only way to get rid of him is to sail straight away home and end this woyage which, saving the lady’s presence, it calls blarsted nonsense.’

I observed old Jacob’s head vigorously nodding.

‘You’ve heard the voice, too, Charles?’ said Wilfrid, flitting in short, agitated strides to and fro beside us.

‘Mr. Monson heard it twice,’ growled Jacob, ‘off the wreck as well as off the quarter.’

‘Speak when you’re spoken to,’ cried Finn. ‘Why, spit me, Mr. Monson, if it ain’t old Jacob’s grandmother as has signed on instead of Crimp himself.’

[182]

‘Look here,’ said Crimp, ‘let them what disbelieves step forrards and listen themselves.’

‘Charles, inquire into this matter with Finn, will you?’ exclaimed Wilfrid. ‘I—I—’ he stopped and passed his hand through Miss Jennings’ arm, immediately afterwards saying with a short, nervous laugh, ‘the sound of a supernatural voice would cost me a night’s rest.’

‘Come along, Finn,’ said I. ‘Come along, Crimp. If there be a ghost, as our friend here says, he must promptly be laid by the heels and despatched to the Red Sea.’

‘What did ’ee want to go and tell Sir Wilfrid about that woice you and Mr. Monson heard t’other night?’ grumbled Finn, as we moved forwards into the darkness towards the forehatch.

‘Cause it’s true,’ answered Crimp in his sullenest manner. ‘’Sides, it’s time to end this here galliwanting ramble, seems to me, if we’re going to be talked to and cursed by sperrits.’

Finn made no answer. We arrived at the forehatch and descended. The ‘Bride’s’ forecastle was a large one for a vessel of her size. On either hand abaft was a small cabin partially bulk-headed off from the sailors’ sleeping-room, respectively occupied by Jacob Crimp and Cutbill. Whether the mate ate with the captain, whose berth was just forward of the one that had been occupied by Muffin, with access by means of a sliding door to a small living room through which he could pass into the forecastle, I cannot say. It was a rough scene to light upon, after the elegance, glitter, and rich dyes of the fittings of our quarters aft, but the more picturesque for that quality as I found it now, at least on viewing the homely and coarse interior by the light of a small oil lamp of the shape of a block-tin coffee-pot with a greasy sort of flame coming out of the spout, and burning darkly into a corkscrew of smoke that wound hot and ill-flavoured to the upper deck. There were bunks for the seamen and two or three hammocks slung right forward; suits of oilskins hung by nails against the stanchions, and swung to the motion of the vessel like the bodies of suicides swayed by the wind. The deck was encumbered by sea-chests cleated or otherwise secured. Here and there glimmering through the twilight in a bunk I took notice of a little framed picture, a pipe rack, with other odds and ends, trifling home memorials, and the artless conveniences with which poor Jack equips himself. There were seamen lying in their beds, a vision of leathery noses forking up out of a hedge of whisker, with bright wide-awake eyes that made one think of glow-worms in a bird’s nest; other equally hairy-faced figures in drawers and with naked feet, huge bare arms dark with moss and prickings in ink, sat with their legs over the edge of their bunks. It was with difficulty that I controlled my gravity when on casting a hurried glance round the forecastle on entering it my gaze lighted on the visage of Muffin, whose yellowness in the dull lamplight showed with the spectral hue of ashes. His bunk was well forward; his bare legs hung from the edge like a couple of broomsticks:[183] his hands were clasped; his head slightly on one side; his posture one of alarm, amid which, however, there still lurked a native quality of valet-like sleekness with a suggestion of respectful apology for feeling nervous. Sweet as the ‘Bride’ was, no doubt, as a pleasure vessel compared with other craft of those times, the odour of this interior, improved as it was by the flaring snuff of the lamp, not to mention a decidedly warm night, was by no means of the most delicious. Added to this was the lift and fall of the yacht’s bows which one felt here so strongly, that, coming fresh from the tender heavings of the after-deck, you would have imagined a lively head sea had sprung up on a sudden. That Muffin should have stood it astonished me. Sleeping as he did, right in the ‘eyes,’ he got the very full of the motion. Besides, such an atmosphere as this must needs prove the severer as a hardship after the luminous and flower-sweetened air of ............