Strange Adventures of Eric Blackburn. Harry Collingwood

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СКАЧАТЬ sir; you’re our new skipper, and if the Dagoes gets obstropolous we’ll just shove ’em ashore, even if we has to maroon ’em.”

      “I scarcely think it will be necessary to adopt any such extremely drastic step as that,” said I. “If the foreigners are made to understand that the rest of you will stand no nonsense from them they will probably settle down quietly enough. If they do not — if they manifest the least inclination to be troublesome — I will put them ashore at Port Louis, Mauritius, at which port I intend to call in any case, that I may report the loss of the Saturn, and send certain letters home. It will take us very little out of our way, and if the Dagoes learn that we are going to call in at a British port on our way, it may steady them a bit and help them to see that their wisest plan will be to settle down and behave themselves. Now I am going to shift the helm. Haul up to Nor’-Nor’-East, and take a pull upon the lee braces.”

      During the ensuing six days we made excellent progress, the brigantine revealing a quite unexpected and most welcome turn of speed, which carried us to Port Louis exactly a week after I had boarded her. We remained there four days, to enable me to dispatch a cablegram home and receive a reply; after which, having meanwhile laid in a good supply of fruit and a little fresh meat, we sailed again, shaping a course for Maurissa Strait.

      For the four days following our departure from Port Louis we did well; then the breeze lessened in strength, became baffling, and finally died away altogether, leaving us helplessly becalmed, except when for a few minutes at a time some vagrant draught of air would come stealing along the glassy surface of the sea, imparting to it an evanescent tint of delicate blue; and then there would be a call upon the watch to man the braces and trim the yards to meet the transient breathing, to the muttered disgust of the men, who could see no advantage in labour that resulted, in many cases, in moving the ship only to the extent of a few fathoms. But it had to be done, for we were on the border-line between the prevailing westerly winds of the Southern Ocean and the south-east Trades, and to get into the latter the ship had to be jockeyed across the intervening belt of calms. A curious fact in connection with this time of trial to our patience — and it was a fact that caused me some anxious speculation — was that the two men, Svorenssen and Van Ryn, who, at the outset of my connection with them, seemed most likely to be a source of trouble, were the two who grumbled least at the continual calls to the braces.

      It was on the afternoon of the fourth of these trying days that, as we lay becalmed in the middle of a glass-smooth sea, the polished surface became touched here and there with faint, evanescent patches of softest turquoise-blue, appearing for a moment and then vanishing again. They were the “cats-paws” that indicated a momentary stir in the stagnant air, and the appearances of which were always greeted by the foremast hands with execrations, for they meant “box-hauling” the yards — work for what they regarded as a ludicrously inadequate result. But on this occasion the cats-paws, instead of enduring for a few seconds and then being no more seen for hours at a time, lingered for as long, perhaps, as two or three minutes, then passing away only to be succeeded by others coming from the same quarter and enduring a little longer than their predecessors, so continuing until at length we not only got way upon the ship but were able to maintain it during the lessening intervals between one puff and another. Finally a moment arrived when the cats-paws began to merge one into another, while the whole surface of the sea down in the south-eastern quarter lost its hateful mirror-like appearance and donned a tint of faintest, most delicate blue that deepened, even as we watched, creeping steadily down toward us until it reached the ship and, with a last gentle rustle of canvas, she yielded to the impulse of the first breathing of the south-east Trades.

      When at length the true breeze reached us it came away out from about South-East by South, enabling us still to lay our course, on the starboard tack, with the braces the merest trifle checked. Once fairly set in, the wind rapidly freshened until, when we of the afterguard went down to supper at seven o’clock that evening, a fiery breeze was humming through our tautened rigging, and the hooker was reeling off her seven knots, with the royal stowed, and a rapidly rising sea foaming under her lee bow.

      Chapter Five. We find the Treasure.

      It was a grand evening when, after supper, I went on deck for my usual “constitutional”. The salt, ozone-laden breeze was just cool enough to set one’s blood coursing freely through one’s veins and to fill one with the joy of living; the ship was making good headway; and the sky over our lee quarter was a gorgeous blaze of gold and colour where the sun was sinking in the midst of a galaxy of clouds of the most wonderful forms. It was like a yachting experience.

      In those latitudes the glories of the sunset very quickly fade, and with their disappearance night falls upon the scene like the drawing of a curtain. So was it on the evening in question; but I had grown accustomed to those rapid nightfalls, and for a few minutes I, immersed in my own thoughts, was quite unaware of anything unusual in our surroundings. As the darkness deepened around us, however, it suddenly occurred to me that there was something strange in the appearance of the water; instead of its colour deepening under the shadow of night, as usual, it seemed to be becoming lighter, as though it was being diluted with increasing quantities of milk, until, as I stood and watched it, wondering, it became, first of all, snow-white, and then, as the darkness continued to deepen and the stars appeared, the entire ocean, from horizon to horizon, became a sea of luminous, molten silver, the weird, unearthly beauty of which there are no words to describe. Yet, beautiful as it was, the unusual, almost unique character of the phenomenon invested it with an awe-inspiring element that was not very far removed from terror, especially for the men on the forecastle, whose anxious glances aft, and restless, agitated movements sufficiently proclaimed their apprehension.

      Presently Chips, who was in charge of the watch and who had been padding fore and aft on the lee side of the after-deck, crossed over and remarked:

      “What’s the matter with the water to-night, Mr Blackburn? Boy and man I’ve used the sea a good twenty year and more, and never have I seen a sight like this. Do it signify anything particular, think ye?”

      “Nothing beyond a most unusual and exceedingly beautiful state of phosphorescence,” I replied. “I have not used the sea for anything like so long a time as yourself, but I have seen something of the same kind once before, though nothing like so brilliant and beautiful as this. And it was not so very far from this spot that I saw it, while making the run from Cape Town to Melbourne. It is due to the presence, in quite unusual numbers, of the animalculae which produce the appearance of phosphorescence in the water; but while under ordinary circumstances those animalculae are only present in sufficient numbers to cause the usual appearance of stars and luminous clouds in agitated water, they are present here to-night in such incalculable myriads that the light they emit, instead of being more or less detached, is merged into one uniform blaze of the beautiful silvery radiance which we see. It may last for several hours yet, but sooner or later it will become normal again.”

      My explanation seemed to afford Chips considerable relief, and he presently sauntered away for’ard, with the evident intention of allaying the apprehensions of the forecastle hands; while my prognostication as to the ending of the phenomenon was verified about an hour later.

      There now ensued a full month and more during which we steadily plodded our way across the Indian Ocean, close-hauled day after day, with nothing more eventful than the occasional capture of a shark, or a capful of wind, to break the somewhat wearisome monotony of the voyage, during which I devoted an hour or two every day to the improvement of Master Billy Stenson’s education; also giving a considerable amount of study to the late skipper’s diary, in the endeavour to arrive at some sort of conclusion as to the whereabouts of the spot where Barber’s alleged treasure was to be looked for. Taking Barber’s determination of the latitude of the place, 3 degrees 50 minutes South, as being approximately correct, I ruled a pencil line representing that parallel right across the chart and noted the various islands that it crossed. Then, marking the spot where the man had been turned adrift by the Dutch skipper, I strove to СКАЧАТЬ