TALES OF THE SEA: 12 Maritime Adventure Novels in One Volume (Illustrated). Джеймс Фенимор Купер

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      “Avast!” burst out of the chest of Fid, with an awfulness and depth that stayed even the daring; movements of that lawless moment. “Who dare to cast a seaman into the brine, with the dying look standing in his lights, and his last words still in his messmate’s ears? Ha! would ye stopper the fins of a man as ye would pin a lobster’s claw! That for your fastenings and your lubberly knots together!” The excited topman snapped the lines by which his elbows had been imperfectly secured, while speaking and immediately lashed the body of the black to his own, though his words received no interruption from a process that was executed with all a seaman’s dexterity. “Where was the man in your lubberly crew that could lay upon a yard with this here black, or haul upon a lee-earing, while he held the weather-line? Could any one of ye all give up his rations, in order that a sick messmate might fare the better? or work a double tide, to spare the weak arm of a friend? Show me one who had as little dodge under fire, as a sound mainmast, and I will show you all that is left of his better. And now sway upon your whip, and thank God that the honest end goes up, while the rogues are suffered to keep their footing for a time.”

      “Sway away!” echoed Nightingale, seconding the hoarse sounds of his voice by the winding of his call; “away with them to heaven.”

      “Hold!” exclaimed the chaplain, happily arresting the cord before it had yet done its fatal office. “For His sake, whose mercy may one day be needed by the most hardened of ye all, give but another moment of time! What mean these words! read I aright? ‘Ark, of Lynnhaven!’”

      “Ay, ay,” said Richard, loosening the rope a little, in order to speak with greater freedom, and transferring the last morsel of the weed from his box to his mouth, as he answered; “seeing you are an apt scholar, no wonder you make it out so easily, though written by a hand that was always better with a marling-spike than a quill.”

      “But whence came the words? and why do you bear those names, thus written indelibly in the skin? Patience, men! monsters! demons! Would ye deprive the dying man of even a minute of that precious time which becomes so dear to all, as life is leaving us?”

      “Give yet another minute!” said a deep voice from behind.

      “Whence come the words, I ask?” again the chaplain demanded.

      “They are neither more nor less than the manner in which a circumstance was logged, which is now of no consequence, seeing that the cruise is nearly up with all who are chiefly concerned. The black spoke of the collar; but, then, he thought I might be staying in port, while he was drifting between heaven and earth, in search of his last moorings.”

      “Is there aught, here, that I should know?” interrupted the eager, tremulous voice of Mrs Wyllys. “O Merton! why these questions? Has my yearning been prophetic? Does nature give so mysterious a warning of its claim!”

      “Hush, dearest Madam! your thoughts wander from probabilities, and my faculties become confused.—‘Ark, of Lynnhaven,’ was the name of an estate in the islands, belonging to a near and dear friend, and it was the place where I received, and whence I sent to the main, the precious trust you confided to my care. But”——

      “Say on!” exclaimed the lady, rushing madly in front of Wilder, and seizing the cord which, a moment before, had been tightened nearly to his destruction stripping it from his throat, with a sort of supernatural dexterity: “It was not, then, the name of a ship?”

      “A ship! surely not. But what mean these hopes?—these fears?”

      “The collar? the collar? speak; what of that collar?”

      “It means no great things, now, my Lady,” returned Fid, very coolly placing himself in the same condition as Wilder, by profiting by the liberty of his arms, and loosening his own neck from the halter, notwithstanding a movement made by some of the people to prevent it, which was, however, staid by a look from their leader’s eyes. “I will first cast loose this here rope; seeing that it is neither decent, nor safe, for an ignorant man, like me, to enter into such unknown navigation, a-head of his officer. The collar was just the necklace of the dog, which is here to be seen on the arm of poor Guinea, who was, in most respects, a man for whose equal one might long look in vain.”

      “Read it,” said the governess, a film passing before her own eyes; “read it,” she added, motioning, with a quivering hand, to the divine to peruse the inscription, that was distinctly legible on the plate of brass.

      “Holy Dispenser of good! what is this I see? ‘Neptune, the property of Paul de Lacey!’”

      A loud cry burst from the lips of the governess; her hands were clasped one single instant upward, in that thanksgiving which oppressed her soul, and then, as recollection returned, Wilder was pressed fondly, frantickly to her bosom, while her voice was neard to say, in the piercing tones of all-powerful nature,—

      “My child! my child!—You will not—cannot—dare not, rob a long-stricken and bereaved mother of her offspring. Give me back my son, my noble son! and I will weary Heaven with prayers in your behalf. Ye are brave, and cannot be deaf to mercy. Ye are men, who have lived in constant view of God’s majesty, and will not refuse to listen to this evidence of his pleasure. Give me my child, and I yield all else. He is of a race long honoured upon the seas, and no mariner will be deaf to his claims. The widow of de Lacey, the daughter of ——— cries for mercy. Their united blood is in his veins, and it will not be spilt by you! A mother bows herself to the dust before you, to ask mercy for her offspring. Oh! give me my child! my child!”

      As the words of the petitioner died upon the ear a stillness settled on the place, that might have been likened to the holy calm which the entrance of better feelings leaves upon the soul of the sinner. The grim freebooters regarded each other in doubt; the workings of nature manifesting themselves in the gleamings of even their stern and hardened visages. Still, the desire for vengeance had got too firm a hold of their minds to be dispossessed at a word. The result would vet have been doubtful, had not one suddenly re-appeared in their midst who never ordered in vain; and who knew how to guide, to quell, or to mount and trample on their humours, as his own pleasure dictated. For half a minute, he looked around him, his eye still following the circle, which receded as he gazed, until even those longest accustomed to yield to his will began to wonder at the extraordinary aspect in which it was now exhibited. The gaze was wild and bewildered; and the face pallid as that of the petitioning mother. Three times did the lips sever, before sound issued from the caverns of his chest; then arose, on the attentive ears of the breathless and listening crowd, a voice that seemed equally charged with inward emotion and high authority. With a haughty gesture of the hand, and a manner that was too well understood to be mistaken, he said,—

      “Disperse! Ye know my justice; but ye know I will be obeyed. My pleasure shall be known tomorrow.”

      Chapter XXXII

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      “This is he;

       Who hath upon him still that natural stamp:

       It was wise Nature’s end in the donation,

       To be his evidence now.”

      —Shakespeare

      That morrow came; and, with it, an entire change, in the scene and character of our tale. The “Dolphin” and the “Dart” were sailing in amity, side by side; the latter again bearing the ensign of England, and the former СКАЧАТЬ