The Red Rover & Other Sea Adventures – 3 Novels in One Volume. Джеймс Фенимор Купер

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      The young manner ceased laughing in his turn, as though he were suddenly convinced of the glaring impropriety of making so near a relative of the fair vision he had seen the subject of his merriment. Whatever might have been his secret thoughts, he was content with replying,—

      “She so declared herself.”

      “Tell me,” said the barrister, walking close to the other, like one who communicated an important secret in the question, “was there not something remarkable searching, extraordinary, heart-touching, in the voice of her they called Wyllys?”

      “Did you note it?”

      “It sounded to me like the tones of an oracle—the whisperings of fancy—the very words of truth! It was a strange and persuasive voice!”

      “I confess I felt its influence, and in a way for which I cannot account!”

      “It amounts to infatuation!” returned the barrister pacing up and down the little apartment, every trace of humour and irony having disappeared in a look of settled and abstracted care. His companion appeared little disposed to interrupt his meditations, but stood leaning against the naked walls, himself the subject of deep and sorrowful reflection. At length the former shook off his air of thought, with that startling quickness which seemed common to his manner; he approached a window, and, directing the attention of Wilder to the ship in the outer harbour, abruptly demanded,—

      “Has all your interest in yon vessel ceased?”

      “Far from it; it is just such a boat as a seaman’s eye most loves to study!”

      “Will you venture to board her?”

      “At this hour? alone? I know not her commander, or her people.”

      “There are other hours beside this, and a sailor is certain of a frank reception from his messmates.”

      “These slavers are not always willing to be boarded; they carry arms, and know how to keep strangers at a distance.”

      “Are there no watch-words, in the masonry of your trade, by which a brother is known? Such terms as ‘stemming the waves with the taffrail,’ for instance, or some of those knowing phrases we have lately heard?”

      Wilder kept his own keen look on the countenance of the other, as he thus questioned him, and seemed to ponder long before he ventured on a reply.

      “Why do you demand all this of me?” he coldly asked.

      “Because, as I believe that ‘faint heart never won fair lady,’ so do I believe that indecision never won a ship. You wish a situation, you say; and, if I were an Admiral, I would make you my flag-captain. At the assizes, when we wish a brief, we have our manner of letting the thing be known. But perhaps I am talking too much at random for an utter stranger. You will however remember, that, though it is the advice of a lawyer, it is given gratuitously.”

      “And is it the more to be relied on for such extraordinary liberality?”

      “Of that you must judge for yourself,” said the stranger in green, very deliberately putting his foot on the ladder, and descending, until no part of his person but his head was seen. “Here I go, literally cutting the waves with my taffrail,” he added, as he descended backwards, and seeming to take great pleasure in laying particular emphasis on the words. “Adieu, my friend; if we do not meet again, I enjoin you never to forget the rats in the Newport ruin.”

      He disappeared as he concluded, and in another instant his light form was on the ground. Turning with the most admirable coolness, he gave the bottom of the ladder a trip with one of his feet, and laid the only means of descent prostrate on the earth. Then, looking up at the wondering Wilder, he nodded his head familiarly, repeated his adieu, and passed with a swift step from beneath the arches.

      “This is extraordinary conduct,” muttered Wilder who was by the process left a prisoner in the ruin. After ascertaining that a fall from the trap might endanger his legs, the young sailor ran to one of the windows of the place, in order to reproach his treacherous comrade, or indeed to assure himself that he was serious in thus deserting him. The barrister was already out of hailing distance, and, before Wilder had time to decide on what course to take, his active footsteps had led him into the skirts of the town, among the buildings of which his person became immediately lost to the eye.

      During all the time occupied by the foregoing scenes and dialogue, Fid and the negro had been diligently discussing the contents of the bag, under the fence where they were last seen. As the appetite of the former became appeased, his didactic disposition returned, and, at the precise moment when Wilder was left alone in the tower, he was intently engaged in admonishing the black on the delicate subject, of behaviour in mixed society.

      “And so you see, Guinea,” he concluded, “in or der to keep a weather-helm in company, you are never to throw all aback, and go stern foremost out of a dispute, as you have this day seen fit to do According to my l’arning, that Master Nightingale is better in a bar-room than in a squall; and if you had just luffed-up on his quarter, when you saw me laying myself athwart his hawse in the argument, you see we should have given him a regular jam in the discourse, and then the fellow would have been shamed in the eyes of all the by-standers. Who hails? what cook is sticking his neighbour’s pig now?”

      “Lor’! Misser Fid,” cried the black, “here masser Harry, wid a head out of port-hole, up dereaway in a light-house, singing-out like a marine in a boat wid a plug out!”

      “Ay, ay, let him alone for hailing a top-gallant yard, or a flying-jib-boom! The lad has a voice like a French horn, when he has a mind to tune it! And what the devil is he manning the guns of that weather-beaten wreck for? At all events, if he has to fight his craft alone, there is no one to blame but himself, since he has gone to quarters without beat of drum, or without, in any other manner, seeing fit to muster his people.”

      As Dick and the negro had both been making the best of their way towards the ruin, from the moment they discovered the situation of their friend, by this time they were within speaking distance of the spot itself. Wilder, in those brief, pithy tones that distinguish the manner in which a sea officer issues his orders, directed them to raise the ladder. When he was liberated, he demanded, with a sufficiently significant air, if they had observed the direction in which the stranger in green had made his retreat?

      “Do you mean the chap in boots, who was for shoving his oar into another man’s rullock, a bit ago, on the small matter of wharf, hereaway, in a range, over yonder house, bringing the north-east chimney to hear in a line, with the mizen-top-gallant-mast-head of that ship they are warping into the stream?”

      “The very same.”

      “He made a slant on the wind until he had weathered yonder bit of a barn, and then he tacked and stretched away off here to the east-and-by-south, going large, and with studding sails alow and aloft, as I think, for he made a devil of a head-way.”

      “Follow,” cried Wilder, starting forward in the direction indicated by Fid, without waiting to hear any more of the other’s characteristic explanations.

      The search, however, was vain. Although they continued their inquiries until long after the sun had set, no one could give them the smallest tidings of what had become of the stranger in green. Some had seen him, and marvelled at his singular costume, and bold and wandering look; but, by all accounts, he had disappeared from the town as strangely and mysteriously СКАЧАТЬ