We turn now to the Talisman, which, it will be remembered, we left making her way slowly through the reefs towards the northern end of the island, under the pilotage of Gascoyne.
The storm, which had threatened to burst over the island at an earlier period of that evening, passed off far to the south. The light breeze which had tempted Captain Montague to weigh anchor soon died away, and before night a profound calm brooded over the deep.
When the breeze fell, Gascoyne went forward, and, seating himself on a forecastle carronade, appeared to fall into a deep reverie. Montague paced the quarter-deck impatiently, glancing from time to time down the skylight at the barometer which hung in the cabin, and at the vane which drooped motionless from the mast-head. He acted with the air of a man who was deeply dissatisfied with the existing state of things, and who felt inclined to take the laws of nature into his own hands. Fortunately for nature and himself, he was unable to do this.
Ole Thorwald exhibited a striking contrast to the active, impatient commander of the vessel. That portly individual, having just finished a cigar which the first lieutenant had presented to him on his arrival on board, threw the fag end of it into the sea, and proceeded leisurely to fill a large-headed German pipe, which was the constant companion of his waking hours, and the bowl of which seldom enjoyed a cool moment.
Ole having filled the pipe, lighted it; then, leaning over the taffrail, he gazed placidly into the dark waters, which were so perfectly calm that every star in the vault above could be compared with its reflection in the abyss below.
Ole Thorwald, excepting when engaged in actual battle, was phlegmatic, and constitutionally lazy and happy. When enjoying his German pipe he felt inexpressibly serene, and did not care to be disturbed. He therefore paid no attention to the angry manner of Montague, who brushed past him repeatedly in his hasty perambulations, but continued to gaze downwards and smoke calmly in a state of placid felicity.
“You appear to take things coolly, Mister Thorwald,” said Montague, half in jest, yet with a touch of asperity in his manner.
“I always do” (puff) “when the weather’s not warm.” (Puff puff.)
“Humph!” ejaculated Montague, “but the weather is warm just now; at least it seems so to me—so warm that I should not be surprised if a thunder squall were to burst upon us ere long.”
“Not a pleasant place to be caught in a squall,” returned the other, gazing through the voluminous clouds of smoke which he emitted at several coral reefs, whose ragged edges just rose to the level of the calm sea without breaking its mirror-like surface; “I’ve seen one or two fine vessels caught that way, just hereabouts, and go right down in the middle of the breakers.”
Montague smiled, and the commander-in-chief of the Sandy Cove army fired innumerable broadsides from his mouth with redoubled energy.
“That is not a cheering piece of information,” said he, “especially when one has reason to believe that a false man stands at the helm.”
Montague uttered the latter part of his speech in a subdued earnest voice, and the matter-of-fact Ole turned his eyes slowly towards the man at the wheel; but observing that he who presided there was a short, fat, commonplace, and uncommonly jolly-looking seaman, he merely uttered a grunt and looked at Montague inquiringly.
“Nay, I mean not the man who actually holds the spokes of the wheel, but he who guides the ship.”
Thorwald glanced at Gascoyne, whose figure was dimly visible in the fore part of the ship, and then looking at Montague in surprise shook his head gravely, as if to say—
“I’m still in the dark—go on.”
“Can Mr Thorwald put out his pipe for a few minutes and accompany me to the cabin? I would have a little converse on this matter in private.”
Ole hesitated.
“Well, then,” said the other, smiling, “you may take the pipe with you, although it is against rules to smoke in my cabin—but I’ll make an exception in your case.”
Ole smiled, bowed, and, thanking the captain for his courtesy, descended to the cabin along with him and sat down on a sofa in the darkest corner of it. Here he smoked vehemently, while his companion, assuming a rather mysterious air, said in an under tone—
“You have heard, of course, that the pirate Durward has been seen, or heard of, in those seas?”
Ole nodded.
“Has it ever struck you that this Gascoyne, as he calls himself, knows more about the pirate than he chooses to tell?”
“Never,” replied Ole. Indeed nothing ever did strike the stout commander-in-chief of the forces. All new ideas came to him by slow degrees, and did not readily find admission to his perceptive faculties. But when they did gain an entrance into his thick head, nothing was ever known to drive them out again. As he did not seem inclined to comment on the hint thrown out by his companion, Montague continued, in a still more impressive tone—
“What would you say if this Gascoyne himself turned out to be the pirate?”
The idea being a simple one, and the proper course to follow being rather obvious, Ole replied with unwonted promptitude—“Put him in irons, of course, and hang him as soon as possible.”
Montague laughed. “Truly that would be a vigorous way of proceeding; but as I have no proof of the truth of my suspicions, and as the man is my guest at present, as well as my pilot, it behoves me to act more cautiously.”
“Not at all; by no means; you’re quite wrong, captain; (which is the natural result of being young—all young people go more or less;) it is clearly your duty to catch a pirate anyhow you can, as fast as you can, and kill him without delay.”
Here the sanguinary Thorwald paused to draw and puff into vitality the pipe which was beginning to die down, and Montague asked—
“But how d’you know he is the pirate?”
“Because you said so,” replied his friend.
“Nay, I said that I suspected him to be Durward—nothing more.”
“And what more would you have?” cried Ole, whose calm spirit was ruffled with unusual violence at the thought of the hated Durward being actually within his reach. “For my part I conceive that you are justified in taking him up on suspicion, trying him in a formal way (just to save appearances) on suspicion, and hanging him at once on suspicion. Quite time enough to inquire into the matter after the villain is comfortably sewed up in a hammock with a thirty-pound shot at his heels, and sent to the bottom of the sea for the sharks and crabs to devour. Suspicion is nine points of the law in these regions, Captain Montague, and we never allow the tenth point to interfere with the course of justice one way or another. Hang him, or shoot him if you prefer it, at once; that is what I recommend.”
Just as Thorwald concluded this amiable piece of advice, the deep strong tones of Gascoyne’s voice were heard addressing the first lieutenant.
“You had better hoist your royals and skyscrapers, Mr Mulroy; we shall have a light air off the land presently, and it will require all your canvas to carry the ship round the north point, so as to bring her guns to bear on the village of the savages.”
“The distance seems to me very short,” replied the lieutenant, “and the Talisman sails faster than you may suppose with a light wind.”
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