Chapter X.

Otago Witness, Issue 1911, 6 July 1888, Page 30

Chapter X.

We Draw Close to a Strange and Luminous Ship,

Now, I might have stood thus for 10 minutes, when I was awakened from my dream by an eager feverish muttering of voices forward, and on a sudden the harsh notes of a seaman belonging to my watch cried out, " D'ye see that sail, right broad abeam, sir?"

I sprang from my leaning posture, and peerei, but my eyes were heavy, the night was dark, and whilst I stared several of the sailors came hurriedly aft to where I stood and said, all speaking together :

"There I—see1 — see her, sir? Look yonder, Mr Fonton 1" and their arms, to a man, shot out to point, as if every one levelled a pistol.

Though I could not immediately make out the object, I was not surprised by the consternation the sailors were in ; for such was the mood and temper of the whole company that not the most familiar and prosaic craft that floats on the ocean could have broken through the obscurity of the night upon their gaze without tickling their superstitious instincts till the very hair of their heads crawled to the inward motions. In a few moments, sure enough, I made out the loom of what looked a large ship, out on the starboard beam. As well as I could distinguish she was close hauled, and so standing as to pass under our stern. She made a sort of faintness upon the sea and sky where she was — nothing more. And even to be sure of her, it was necessary to look a little on one side or the other of her ; for if you gazed full she went out, as a dim distant light at sea does, thus viewed.

" She may be an enemy !" I cried. " There should be no lack of Dutch, or even French, hereabouts. Quick, lads, to stations. Send the boatswain here."

I ran to the companion hatch and called loudly to Mr Hall. He had fallen asleep on a locker, and came running in a blind sort of way to the foot of the ladder, shouting out :

" What is it ? What is it ?"

I answered that there was a large ship heading directly for us, whereupon he was instantly wide awake, and sprang up the ladder crying :

" Where away ? Where away ?"

If there was any wind I could feel none. Yet some kind of draught there must have been, for the ship out in the darkness held a brave luff, which proved her under command. We, on the other hand, rested upon the liquid ebony of the ocean with square yards, the mizzen furled, the starboard clew of the mainsail hoisted, and the greater number of our staysails down. Whilst Mr Hall stared in the direction of the ship the boatswain arrived for orders. The mate turned smartly to me and said :

"We must make ready and take our chance. Bo's'n pipe to quarters ; and Mr l<"enton, see all clear."

For the second time in raj watch the boatswain's pipe shrilled clear to the canvas, from whose stretched, still folds the sound broke away in ghostly echoes. Wo were not ii man-of-war, had no drums, and to martial duties we could but address ourselves clumsily. But all felt that there might be a great danger in the pale shadow yonder that had seemed to ooze out upon our eyes from the darkness as strangely as a cloud shapes itself upon a mountain-top. So we tumbled about quickly and wildly enough, got our little batteries clear, put on the hatch gratings and tarpaulins, opened the magazine, lighted the matches, provided the guns with spare breeches and tackles, and stood ready for whatever was to come. All this we contrived with the aid of one or I'.vo lanthorns, ver.v secretly moved about, as Mr Hall did not wish us to be seen making ready ; but the want oE li.nht delayed us. and by the lime we were, fully prepared the htraugc ship had insensibly floated down to ;ib>ut three-quarters of a mile on our starboard quarter.

At that distance it was too black to enable i..-; lo make anything of her, but we oomlorted ourselves I y observing that she did »•.,( offer tonlrer hci course, whence we might 3 uiisonably hope that she was a peaceful i i-i.'lor, like ourselves. She showed no lights

--her saiis were all that was visible of her, owing to the hue they put into the darkness

over her hull. It was a time of heavy trial to our patience. Our ship had come to a dead stand, as it was easy to discover by looking over the side, where the small, pale puffs of phosphoric radiance that flashed under water at the depth of a man's hand from our vessel's strakes whenever she rolled, no matter how daintily, to the swell, hung glimmering for a space in the selfsame spot where they were discharged. Nor was there the least sound of water in motion under the counter, unless it were the gurgling, drowning sobbing you hear there on a still night, when the stern stoops to the drop of the fold, and raises that strange, hollow noise of washing all about the rudder.

" I would to meroy a breeze would come, if only to resolve her 1" said Mr Hall to me in a low voice. " There's but little fun to be got out of this sort of waiting. At this rate wo must keep the men at their stations till daylight to find out what she is. Pleasant if she should prove some lump of a Dutch man-of-war ! She shows uncommonly large, don't you think, Fenton?"

" So do we to her, I dare say, in this obGcmity," I replied. "But I doubt that she's a man-of-war. I have been watching her closely and have never once caught sight of the least gleam of a light aboard her."

"Maybe the officer of the watch and the look-out are sound asleep," said he,- with a jtlightand not very merry laugh ; " and if she's steered on her quarter-deck she'll be coo depp-waisted perhaps for the helmsman to see us."

I heard him say this without closely heeding it, for my attention at that moment was attracted by what was unquestionably the enlargement of her pallid shadow ; sure proof that she had shifted her helm, and was slowly coming round so as to head for us. Mr Hall "noticed this as well as I. •

" Ha ! " he cried, " they mean to find out what we are, hey ? They've observed us at last. Does she bring an air with her that she's under control, or is it tnat she's lighter and taller than we ?"

It was beyond question because she was lighter and taller, and having been closehauled to the faint draught, had made more of it than we who carried it aft. Besides, we were loaded down to our chain-plate bolts with cargo, and the water and other stores we had shipped at the Cape. Yet her approach was so sluggish as to be imperceptible, and I would not like to say that our gradual drawing together was not as much due to the current which, off this coast, runs strong to the westward, setting us, who were deep, faster towards her than it set her from us, as it was also owing to the strange attraction which brings bocalmed vessels near to each other — often, indeed, to their having to be towed clear by their boats.

Meanwhile, the utter silence on board the stranger, the blackness in which her hull lay hidden, the strangeness of her bracing-in her yards to head up for us without any signal being shown that she designed to fight us, wrought such a fit of impatience in Mr Hall that he swung his body from the backstay he clutched in movements positively convulsive.

" Are they all dead aboard ? On such a night as this one should be able to hear ihft least sound — the hauling taut of a tackle — the rasping of the wheel ropes 1"

" She surely doesn't hope to catch us napping ?" said I.

" God knows !" cried the mate. " What would I give nrw for a bit of moon !"

"If it's to be a fight it'll have to be a shooting match for a spell, or wind must come quickly," said I. "Bat if she meant mischief, wouldn't she head to pass under our stern, where she could rake us, rather than steer to come broadside on ?"

Instead of responding, the mate sprang on to the bulwark rail, and in tones such as only the practised and powerful lungs of a seaman can fling, roared out :

" Ho, the ship, ahoy !"

We listened with so fierce a strain of attention that the very beating of our hearts rung in our oars ; but not a sound came across the water. Twice yet did Mr Hall hail that pallid fabric, shapeless as yet in the dark air, but to no purpose. On this there was much whispering among the men clustered about the guns. Their voices came along in a low, grumbling sound like the growling of dogs, dulled by threats.

" Silence, fore and aft !" cried the mate "We don't know what she is — but we know what we are ! and, as Englishmen we surely have spirit enough for whatever may come."

There was silence for some minutes after these few words ; then the muttering broke out afresh, but scattered, a group talking to larboard, another on the forecastle, and so forth.

Meanwhile the vessels, all insensible, had continued to draw closer and closer to each other. A small clarification of the atmosphere happening past the stranger, suffered a dim disclosure of her canvas, whence I perceived that she had nothing set above her topgallant sails, though it was impossible to see whether she carried royal masts, or indeed whether the yards belonging to those masts were crossed on them. Her hull had now also stolen out", into n. pitch-black shadow, and after gazing at it with painful intentness for some moments, I was extravagantly astonished to observe a kind of crawling and flickering of light, resembling that which burnt in the sea, stirring like glowworms along the vessel's side.

I was about to direct Mr Hall's attention to this thing, when he said in a subdued voice, " Fenton, d'ye notice the faint shining about her hull 7 What in God's name can it be T

Scarcely had he uttered these words when a sailor on the starboard side of our ship, whom I recognised by the voice as one Ephraim Jacob*, an elderly, sober, piousminded seaman, cried out with a sort of scream in his notes :

"As I hope, tn be forpiven my sins for Jesus' ?;ii<o, yon's the ship that was curst last contnry V

(To he rontinncL)

Cuurui of Di:r.'-'Kt\G.— " A young frteud of mine ws cured of a-i insatiable thirst tor liquor, which had .so pivsi.iated him that; he wna urabln to dn any business. He was entirely enre.l tiytlic i.se of I'r .Souli-'s American Hoo Hitters. It 'allay «•' all Hint, bur -in?, thief; took away the appetitv for lui'ior; mi ! o lii < nei v K-.f/-a<)v, nml ho lias roraai.-x-.-l n sober an.l stead v man f>r iru>rp than f,«o y-arj, and h&* no du-hv to return to hi* euti9 ; I know of a number of others tb'at. havo been cured of drinking by it."— From a leading R. E. Official, Chicago, 111. - Times.