CHAPTER III.
TROUBLED MEN ON THE TROUBLED SEA.
Two men on board the craft were absorbed in thought--the old man, andthe skipper of the hooker, who must not be mistaken for the chief of theband. The captain was occupied by the sea, the old man by the sky. Theformer did not lift his eyes from the waters; the latter kept watch onthe firmament. The skipper's anxiety was the state of the sea; the oldman seemed to suspect the heavens. He scanned the stars through everybreak in the clouds.
It was the time when day still lingers, but some few stars begin faintlyto pierce the twilight. The horizon was singular. The mist upon itvaried. Haze predominated on land, clouds at sea.
The skipper, noting the rising billows, hauled all taut before he gotoutside Portland Bay. He would not delay so doing until he should passthe headland. He examined the rigging closely, and satisfied himselfthat the lower shrouds were well set up, and supported firmly thefuttock-shrouds--precautions of a man who means to carry on with a pressof sail, at all risks.
The hooker was not trimmed, being two feet by the head. This was herweak point.
The captain passed every minute from the binnacle to the standardcompass, taking the bearings of objects on shore. The _Matutina_ had atfirst a soldier's wind which was not unfavourable, though she could notlie within five points of her course. The captain took the helm as oftenas possible, trusting no one but himself to prevent her from dropping toleeward, the effect of the rudder being influenced by the steerage-way.
The difference between the true and apparent course being relative tothe way on the vessel, the hooker seemed to lie closer to the wind thanshe did in reality. The breeze was not a-beam, nor was the hookerclose-hauled; but one cannot ascertain the true course made, except whenthe wind is abaft. When you perceive long streaks of clouds meeting in apoint on the horizon, you may be sure that the wind is in that quarter;but this evening the wind was variable; the needle fluctuated; thecaptain distrusted the erratic movements of the vessel. He steeredcarefully but resolutely, luffed her up, watched her coming to,prevented her from yawing, and from running into the wind's eye: notedthe leeway, the little jerks of the helm: was observant of every rolland pitch of the vessel, of the difference in her speed, and of thevariable gusts of wind. For fear of accidents, he was constantly on thelookout for squalls from off the land he was hugging, and above all hewas cautious to keep her full; the direction of the breeze indicated bythe compass being uncertain from the small size of the instrument. Thecaptain's eyes, frequently lowered, remarked every change in the waves.
Once nevertheless he raised them towards the sky, and tried to make outthe three stars of Orion's belt. These stars are called the three magi,and an old proverb of the ancient Spanish pilots declares that, "He whosees the three magi is not far from the Saviour."
This glance of the captain's tallied with an aside growled out, at theother end of the vessel, by the old man, "We don't even see thepointers, nor the star Antares, red as he is. Not one is distinct."
No care troubled the other fugitives.
Still, when the first hilarity they felt in their escape had passedaway, they could not help remembering that they were at sea in the monthof January, and that the wind was frozen. It was impossible to establishthemselves in the cabin. It was much too narrow and too much encumberedby bales and baggage. The baggage belonged to the passengers, the balesto the crew, for the hooker was no pleasure boat, and was engaged insmuggling. The passengers were obliged to settle themselves on deck, acondition to which these wanderers easily resigned themselves. Open-airhabits make it simple for vagabonds to arrange themselves for the night.The open air (_la belle etoile_) is their friend, and the cold helpsthem to sleep--sometimes to die.
This night, as we have seen, there was no _belle etoile_.
The Languedocian and the Genoese, while waiting for supper, rolledthemselves up near the women, at the foot of the mast, in some tarpaulinwhich the sailors had thrown them.
The old man remained at the bow motionless, and apparently insensible tothe cold.
The captain of the hooker, from the helm where he was standing, uttereda sort of guttural call somewhat like the cry of the American birdcalled the exclaimer; at his call the chief of the brand drew near, andthe captain addressed him thus,--
"Etcheco Jauena." These two words, which mean "tiller of the mountain,"form with the old Cantabri a solemn preface to any subject which shouldcommand attention.
Then the captain pointed the old man out to the chief, and the dialoguecontinued in Spanish; it was not, indeed, a very correct dialect, beingthat of the mountains. Here are the questions and answers.
"Etcheco jauena, que es este hombre?"
"Un hombre."
"Que lenguas habla?"
"Todas."
"Que cosas sabe?"
"Todas."
"Quai pais?"
"Ningun, y todos."
"Qual dios?"
"Dios."
"Como le llamas?"
"El tonto."
"Como dices que le llamas?"
"El sabio."
"En vuestre tropa que esta?"
"Esta lo que esta."
"El gefe?"
"No."
"Pues que esta?"
"La alma."[3]
The chief and the captain parted, each reverting to his own meditation,and a little while afterwards the _Matutina_ left the gulf.
Now came the great rolling of the open sea. The ocean in the spacesbetween the foam was slimy in appearance. The waves, seen through thetwilight in indistinct outline, somewhat resembled plashes of gall. Hereand there a wave floating flat showed cracks and stars, like a pane ofglass broken by stones; in the centre of these stars, in a revolvingorifice, trembled a phosphorescence, like that feline reflection, ofvanished light which shines in the eyeballs of owls.
Proudly, like a bold swimmer, the _Matutina_ crossed the dangerousShambles shoal. This bank, a hidden obstruction at the entrance ofPortland roads, is not a barrier; it is an amphitheatre--a circus ofsand under the sea, its benches cut out by the circling of the waves--anarena, round and symmetrical, as high as a Jungfrau, only drowned--acoliseum of the ocean, seen by the diver in the vision-like transparencywhich engulfs him,--such is the Shambles shoal. There hydras fight,leviathans meet. There, says the legend, at the bottom of the giganticshaft, are the wrecks of ships, seized and sunk by the huge spiderKraken, also called the fish-mountain. Such things lie in the fearfulshadow of the sea.
These spectral realities, unknown to man, are manifested at the surfaceby a slight shiver.
In this nineteenth century, the Shambles bank is in ruins; thebreakwater recently constructed has overthrown and mutilated, by theforce of its surf, that high submarine architecture, just as the jetty,built at the Croisic in 1760, changed, by a quarter of an hour, thecourse of the tides. And yet the tide is eternal. But eternity obeys manmore than man imagines.