Chapter XXVII. The Cautaur Plies From Us.

Otago Witness, Issue 1918, 24 August 1888, Page 29

Chapter XXVII. The Cautaur Plies From Us.

Now the Dutch flag had not been flying 20 minutes when, my sight being keen, I thought I could perceive something resembling colour at the foreroyal mast-head of the ship I asked Imogene if she 'saw it. She an swered no. I said nothing, not being sure myself, and was unwilling to intrude upon the four men standing to windward by asking for the telescope. On board our ship they had set the sprit topsail, and the forward part of the dull, time- eaten, rugged old vessel resembled a Chinese kite. She was doing her best ; but let her splutter as she would, 'twas for all the world like the sailing of a beer-barrel with a mast steeped in the bunghole. And this, thought I, was the vessel that gave the slip to the frigate belonging to Sir George Ascue's squadron I Tbe wake she made was short, broad, and oily — a square, fat, glistening surface of about her own length— not greatly exceeding the smoothness she would leave a-wcather if drifting dead to leeward under bare poles ; different indeed from that suggestion of comet-like speed which you find in oheileecy swirl of a line of foaming waters boiling out from the metalled run of a fleet cruiser, and rising 'and falling and fading into dim dist ance like a path of snow along a hilly land.

On board yonder ship they would have perspective glasses of a power very different from the flat lenses in Yanrlc.rdecken\s tubes; and since by this lime it was certain they had us large in their telescopes, what would they be thinking of our huge old- fashioned tops, fit tor for t lie 1> nvtnen and musketeers of Ferdinand Magellan and Drake than for the small armsmen of even the days of the Commonwealth, of the antique cut of our canvas and the wild and disordered appearance its patches and colour submitted, of the grisly aspect of the wave- worn, storm-swept hull, of the peaked shape and narrowness of our stern, telling of times long vanished, as do the covers of an old book or the arches in an ancient church ?

Imogene and I continued our walk up and down, talking of many things, chiefly of England, whereof I gave her as much news, dowrto the time of the sailing of the Saracene as I carried in my memory, until, presently coming abreast of the group of four, still on the weather quarter, every man of whom, turn and turn about, had been working away' with the telescope at the ship, Vanderdecken called me by name and stepped over to us with the glass in his hand. " Your sight is younger than ours, mynheer," said he, motioriing towards Jans and the two mates. " What flag do you make yonder vessel to be living at her foretopgallant masthead 1 " I took the glass and pointed it, kneeling to rest it as before, and the instant the stranger came within the lenses I beheld Britannia's glorious blood-red St. George's Cross blowing out— a great white flag butwixt the foreroyal yard and the truck that rose high above. Pretending to require time to make sure,' I lingered to gather if possible the chafactei of the ship. From the cut of her sails, the saucy, admirable set of them, the bigness of the topsails, the hungry yearning for us I seemed to find in the bellying of the studding 'ails she had thrown out, it would have been impossible for a nautical eye to mistake her for anything but a State ship, though of what rate I could not yet guess. There was a refraction that* threw her up somewhat, ard in the glass she looked to be swelling after us in a bed of liquid boiling silver, with a thin void of trembling blue between the whiteness and the sea line.

I rose and said, " The colour she shows is English." - Vanderdecken turned savagely towards the others and cried, " English ! " Arents let fly an oath ; Jans struck his thigh heavily with his open hand; fan Vogelaar, scrowling at me, cried, " Are you sure, sir ? "

" I am sure of the flag," said I ; " bnt she may prove a Frenchman for all I know."

Vanderdecken clasped his arms tightly upon bis breast and sank into thought, with the fire in his eyes levelled at the coming ship. " See there, gentlemen ! " I exclaimed. "A gun!" Bright as the morning was, I had marked a rusty red spark wink in the bow of the vessel like a flash of sunshine from polished copper ; a little white ball blew away to leeward, expanding as it fled. An instant after, just such another cloudy puff swept into the jibs and drove out in a gleaming trail or two. Presently the reports reached our ears in two dull thuds, one after the other.

Vanderdecken stared aloft at his canvas, then over the side, and joined the others. My excitement was intense ; I could scarce contain myself. I knew there was a British squadron at the Cape, and 'twas possible that fellow there might be on reconnoitring or cruising errand. " You are sure she is English ? " Imogene whi?pered. s. " She is a man-of-war ; she is flying onr flag. I don't doubt she is English," I replied.

The girl drew a long tremulous breath, and her arm touching mme — so close together we stood — I felt a shirer run through her. "You are not alarmed, Imogens?" lex-

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claimed} giving her her Christian name for the first time, and finding a lover's sweetness and delight in the mere uttering of it. She coloured very faintly and cast her gaze upon the deck.

" What is going to happen ?" she whispered. "Will they send you on board that ship — keeping me ?"

"No ! they'll not do that. If she be an Englishman, and has balls to feed her cannon with " I cried, raising my voice unconsciously.

"Hush I" she cried, "Van Vogelaar watches us."

We were silent for a space, that the attention I had challenged should be again given o the ship. During the pause I thought to myself, " But can her guns be of use ? How much hulling and wounding should go to the destruction of a vessel that has been rendered imperishable by the Curse of Heaven? What injury could musket and pistol, could cutlass and hand-grenades deal men to whom Death has ceased to be, who have outlived Time and are owned by Eternity ?"

Vanderdecken, who had been taking short turns upon the deck with heated strides, stopped afresh to inspect the ship, and as he did so another flash broke from her weather bow, and the smoke went from her in a curl. The skipper looked at the others.

" She has the wind of us, and sails three feet to our one. Let the mainsail be hauled up and the topsail brought to the mast. If she be the enemy her flag denotes, her temper will not be sweetened by a long pursuit of which the issue is clear."

Van Vogelaar, scowling venomously, seemed to hang in the wind, on which Vanderdecken looked at him with an expression of face incredibly fierce and terrible. The posture of his giant figure, his half, lifted hand, the slight forward inclination of his head, as if he would blast his man with the lightning of his eyes— it was like seeing some marvellous personification of human wrath ; and I whispered quickly into Imogene's ear ; "That will be how he appeared when he defied his God 1 "

It was as if he could not speak for rage. And swiftly v\ as he understood. Iv a breath Jans was* rolling forward, calling to the men, Arents was hastening to his station on the quarter-deck, and Van Vogelaar was slinking to the foremost end of the poop. The crew, to the several cries that broke from the mates and boatswain, dropped from rail and ratline, where they had been standing staring at tho pursuing craft, and in ghastly silence, without exhibition of concern or impatience, fell to hauling upon the clew-garnets and backing the yards on the main.

S» weak was the ship's progress that the bringing of the canvas to the mast irnmedi-' ately stopped her way, and she lay as dead as a buoy upon the heave of the sea. This done, the crew went to the weather side, whence, as they rightly supposed, they would bafct view the approaching vessel. Jans held to the forecastle, Arents to the quarter-deck, and the mate hung sullen in the shadows cast by the raizzen shrouds upon the planks. My heart beat as quickly as a baby's. I could nob imagine what was to happen. Would yonder maia-df-war, supposing her British, take possession of the Braave? — that is, could she? English powder, with earthquake power, has thrown up a mighty mountain of wonders ; but could it, with its crimson glare, thunder down the Curse by and in which this ship continued to sail and these miserable men continue to live ? I shuddered at the impiety of the thought, yet what ending of this chase was to be conjectured if it were not capture ?

Vanderdecken, on the weather quarter, watched the ship, in his trance-like fashion. How majestic, how unearthly, too, he looked against the blue beyond, his beard stirring and waving like smoke in a faintly moving atmosphere to the blowing of the wind ! He wore the aspect of a fallen god, with thq fires of hell glittering iv his eyes and the passions of the damned surging dark from his soul to his face. Itnogene and I had insensibly gained the lee quarter, and our whispers were driven seawards from him by the breeze.

"How will this end?" I asked my sweet companion. "If there be potency in the Curse this ship cannot be captured."

She answered : " I cannot guess ; I have not known such a thing as this to happen before."

" Suppose they send a prize crew on board — the Sentence will not permit of her navigation beyond Agulhas — there is not a hawser in all the world stout enough to tow this ship round the Cape. As it is, is not yonder vessel doomed by her chasing us, by her resolution to speak us ? "

There was a deep silence fore and aft. No humau voice broke the silence. You heard but the purring of the surges frothing against our sides, the flap of a sail to the regular roll of the fabric, a groan from the heart of her, the soft shock of the sudden hit of a billow. Nothing more. The silence of the immeasurable deep grew into a distinct sense undisturbed by the gentle universal hissing that went up out of it. The sails of the oncoming ship shone to the gushing of the sunlight like radiant leaning columns of a porphyritic tincture breaking into moonlike alabaster with the escape of the shadows to the sunward stare of tho cloths. Bland as the fairy glory of the full moon floating in a soa of ethereal indigo was the shining of thoso lustrous bosoms, each course and topsail tremulous with the play of the golden hinge of reefpoints, and delicate beyond language were the pencilled shadowings at the foot of the rounded cloths. Like cloud upon cloud those sails soared to the dainty little royals, above the foremost of which there flew Britannia's glorious flag, the blood-red cross of St. George upon a field white as the foam that boiled to as high as the hawse-pipes with the churning of the shearing cut-water storming like a meteor through tho blue. Oh, sho was English ! You felt thy blood of lu-r country hot in her with the siglf? of her flag, that was like a crown upon an hercliUiry brow, m iking hexqueen of the dominion of the sea, roll whepe it would !

Sho approached us like a roll of smoke, and the wash of the froth along her black and glossy beud>s threw out tho mouths of her single tier of cannon. She was apparently a 38-gun ship, and as sho drew up, with a lutting helm that brought the after-yardarm stealing out past the silky swells of the sails'

on the fore, you spied the glitter and. flash of the gold-coloured figurehead, a lion wiuh its paw upon Britannia's shield. When she was within a mile of us she hauled down her studding-sail, clewed up her royals and mizzeu topgallant sail, and drove quietly along upon our weather quarter, still heeling as though she would have us note how lustrous was the copper, whose biightness rose to the waterline, and what finish that ruddy sheathing, colouring the snow of the blue water leaping along io with a streaking as of purple sunshine, gave to her charms.

All this while the master, mates, and crew of the Death Ship were as mute as though they lay in their coffins. Vanderdecken leaned upon his hand on the rail above the quarter-gallery, and the motion which the heave of the ship gave to his giant form by the sweeping of it up and down the heavens at the horizon emphasised his own absolute motionlessness. Nevertheless, his gaze was rooted in the ship, and the brightening of the angry sparkle in his eyes to the nearing of the man-of-war wasja never-to-be-forgotten sight.

" How is this going to end 1" I whispered to Imogene. " Is" it possible that they are still unable to gues3 the character of our vessel 1"

The frigate had drawn close enough to enable us to make out the glint of buttocs acd epaulets on the quarter- leek, the uniform of marines on the forecastle, and the heads of seamen standing by the braces or at the guns along the decks. She now hauled up her mainsail but without backing her topsail, luffed so as to shake the way out of her, giving us, as she did so, an oblique view of her stern, very richly ornamented, the glass of the windows flashing, and the blue swell brimming to her name in large characters,, " Centaur."

" Ship ahoy 1 " came thundering down through the trumpet at the mouth of "a tall, powerfully-built man erect on the rail dose against the mizzen rigging : " What ship is that ? "

Vanderdecken made no answer. The wind blew in a moaning gust over the bulwark, and there was the sound of a little jar and shock as the old fabric leaned wearily on the swell, but not a whisper fell from the men. Meanwhile it was grown evident to me that our ship was greatly puzzling the people of the frigate. It looked, indeed, as if the men had left their stations to crowd to the side, for the line of the bulwarks was blackened with heads. A group of officers stood on the quarter deck, and I could see them pointing at our masts as though calling one another's attention to the Braave's great, barricaded tops, to her sprit-topmast, the cut and character of her rigging, and to the many signs that would convert her into a wor der, if not a terror, in the eyes of sailors.

" Ship ahoy ! " now came down again, with an edge of anger in the hurricane note. " What ship is that ? "

At this second cry Vanderdecken broke into life. He turned his face forward. " Bring me my trumpet 1 " he exclaimed in a voice whose rich, organ-like roll must have been plainly heard on board the frigate, whether his Dutch was understood or not. The ancient tube I liad seen in the cabin was put into his hand. He stepped to the rail, and placing the trumpet to his mouth, cried, "The Braave." "Where are you'from?/' " Batavia I " . "Where bound?" "Amsterdam l ' There was another pause. The line of heads throbbed with visible agitation along the sides, and I saw one man of the group on the quarter-deck go up to the captain, who was speaking our ship, touch his cap and say something. But the other imperiously waved him off with a flourish of his trumpet, which he instantly after applied to his lips, and shouted out, " Haul down your flag and I will send a boat."

Vanderdecken looked towards me. " What does he say ? " he exclaimed.

I told him. He called to Van Vogelaar, who promptly enough came to the halliards, and lowered the flag to the deck. I watched the descent of that crazy, attenuated, ragged symbol. To my mind it was as affrighting in its suggestions of unholy survival as the whole appearance of the vessel or the countenance and mechanical manners of the most corpse-like man of the crew of her.

Scarce was the ensign hauled down when there came to our ears the silver, cheerful singing of a boatswain's pipe ; the maintopsail was laid aback, and the frigate's length showed out as she fell slightly off from the luff that had held her canvas trembling in the wind. We were too far asunder for the nice discernment, of faces with the naked eye, but meth ought since there seemed no lack of telescopes aboard the frigate, enough should have been made out of the line of deadly faces which looked over our bulwark rail to resolve us to the satisfaction of that British crew.

Again was heard the silver chirping of the boatswain's whistle ; a pinnace was lowered, into which' tumbled a number of armed seamen, and the blades of eight oars flashed like gold as they rose feathering from the first spontaneous dip

" They are coming ! " cried Imogene in a faint voice.

" Let us keep where we are," I exclaimed. " Vanderdecken does not heed us. If we move his thoughts will fly to you, and he may give me trouble. Dear girl, keep a stout heart. They will be sure to carry us to the ship — proud to rescue you, at least ; then, what follows must come — you will be safe ! "

She put her hand under my arm. Tall as were the bulwarks of the Braave, there was swell enough so to roll the ship as to enable me with every windward sway to see clear to the water where the boat was pulling. With beating hearts we watched. On a sudden the oars ceased to rise and fall; the seamen hung upon them, all to a man staving at our ship wab heads twisted as if they would wring their necks ; then, as if impelled by one mind, they let fall their oars to stop the boat's way, all of them gazing with straining eyeballs.

The officer who steered stood erect, peering at us under his hand*. Thy ship, Go.l knows, was plain to their view now — t.he age and rottenness of her timbers, her patchwork sails, tho sickliness of, such ghastly and dismal hue as her sides discovered, the ancientness of her guns and swivels ; above all, the

looks of her crew watching the boat's approach — an array of figures more shocking than were they truly dead, newly unfrocked of their winding sheets, and propped up against the rail to horribly counterfeit living seamen.

"Why have they ceased rowing?" cried Imogene, in a voice of bitter distress, and withdrawing her hand from my arm to press it upon her heart.

As sho spoke a sudden commotion was perceptible among the men in the boat ; the officer shrilly crying out some order, flung himself, as one in a frenzy, in the sternsheets ; the larboard oars sparkled, and the desperate strokes of the men made the foam fly in smoke, whilst the starboard hands furiously backed- water to get the boat's head round swiftly, and before you could have counted ten she was being pulled, in a smother of froth, back to the frigate.

I was about to leap to the side and shout to them, but at the instant Vanderdecken turned and looked at me. Then it flashed across my mind, " If I hail the boat, he and Van Vogelaar, all of them, may imagine I design to inform the frigate of the treasure 1" — and the apprehension of what- might follow such a suspicion held my feet glued to the deck.

"They have guessed what this ship is I" said Imogene, in a voice full of tears.

I could not speak for the crushing disappointment that caused the heart in me to weigh down, heavy as lead. I had made sure of the officer stepping on board, and of his delivering the girl and me from this accursed ship on hearing my story, aud acting as a British naval officer should when his duty as a sailor, or his chivalry as a man, is challenged; in conformity with that noble saying of one of our most valiant admirals, who, on being asked whither he intended t© carry his ship — "To Hell!" he answered, " If duty commands !"

Yet one hope lingered, though faintly indeed : the captain of the frigate had imperiously commanded the boat to be manned, ' as I gathered by his manner of waving away the officer, who had addressed him in a remonstrant manner ; would he suffer the return of the boat's crew until they had , obeyed his orders? '

I watched. Headlong went the boat, smoking through the billows which arched down upon her from the windwaid, and her oars sparkled like sheet lightning with the panic-terror that plied them ; the excitement ■ in the ship was visible enough, discipline had given way to sup-.rstitious fear. I could see the captain flourishing his arm with threatening gestures, lieutenants aud midshipmen running here and there, but to no purpose. The whole ship's company, about. 300 sailors and marines as I supposed, knew what ship we were, and the very frigate herself as she' rolled without way looked like some startled |; beast mad for flight, the foam draining from her bows to the slow pitching, as a terrified steed champs his bit into froth, and shudder' after shudder going up out of her heart of oak into her sails, as you would have said to watch the tremble, and filling, and backing of them to the wind.

{To be contbmed.')