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

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      “Heaven bless you, master Wilder! Is it for a poor publican, like me, to tell the Master of this noble ship which way the wind will blow next? There is the worthy and notable Commander Nichols, lying in his state-room below, he could do any thing with the vessel; and why am I to expect that a gentleman so well recommended as yourself will do less? I expect to hear that you have made a famous run, and have done credit to the good word I have had occasion to say in your favour.”

      Wilder execrated, in his heart, the wary cunning of the rogue with whom he was compelled, for the moment, to be in league; for he saw plainly that a determination not to commit himself a tittle further than he might conceive to be absolutely necessary, was likely to render Joram too circumspect, to answer his own immediate wishes. After hesitating a moment, in order to reflect, he continued hastily,—

      “You see that the ship is gathering way too fast to admit of trifling. You know of the letter I received this morning?”

      “Bless me, Captain Wilder! Do you take me for a postmaster? How should I know what letters arrive at Newport, and what stop on the main?”

      “As timid a villain as he is thorough!” muttered the young mariner. “But this much you may surely say, Am I to be followed immediately? or is it expected that I should detain the ship in the offing, under any pretence that I can devise?”

      “Heaven keep you, young gentleman! These are strange questions, to come from one who is fresh off the sea, to a man that has done no more than look at it from the land, these five-and-twenty years. According to my memory, sir, you will keep the ship about south until you are clear of the islands; and then you must make your calculations according to the wind, in order not to get into the Gulf, where, you know, the stream will be setting you one way, while your orders say, ‘Go another.’”

      “Luff! mind your luff, sir!” cried the pilot, in a stern voice, to the man at the helm; “luff you can; on no account go to leeward of the slaver!”

      Both Wilder and the publican started, as if they found something alarming in the name of the vessel just alluded to; and the former pointed to the skiff, as he said,—

      “Unless you wish to go to sea with us, Mr Joram, it is time your boat held its master.”

      “Ay, ay, I see you are fairly under way, and I must leave you, however much I like your company,” returned the landlord of the ‘Foul Anchor,’ bustling over the side, and getting into his skiff in the best manner he could. “Well, boys, a good time to ye; a plenty of wind, and of the right sort; a safe passage out, and a quick return. Cast off.”

      His order was obeyed; the light skiff, no longer impelled by the ship, immediately deviated from its course; and, after making a little circuit, it became stationary, while the mass of the vessel passed on, with the steadiness of an elephant from whose back a butterfly had just taken its flight. Wilder followed the boat with his eyes, for a moment; but his thoughts were recalled by the voice of the pilot, who again called, from the forward part of the ship,—

      “Let the light sails lift a little, boy; let her lift keep every inch you can, or you’ll not weather the slaver. Luff, I say, sir; luff.”

      “The slaver!” muttered our adventurer, hastening to a part of the ship whence he could command a view of that important, and to him doubly interesting ship; “ay, the slaver! it may be difficult, indeed to weather upon the slaver!”

      He had unconsciously placed himself near Mrs Wyllys and Gertrude; the latter of whom was leaning on the rail of the quarter-deck, regarding the strange vessel at anchor, with a pleasure far from unnatural to her years and sex.

      “You may laugh at me, and call me fickle, and perhaps credulous, dear Mrs Wyllys,” the unsuspecting girl cried, just as Wilder had taken the foregoing position, “but I wish we were well out of this ‘Royal Caroline,’ and that our passage was to be made in yonder beautiful ship!”

      “It is indeed a beautiful ship!” returned Wyllys; “but I know not that it would be safer, or more comfortable, than the one we are in.”

      “With what symmetry and order the ropes are arranged! and how like a bird it floats upon the water!”

      “Had you particularized the duck, the comparison would have been exactly nautical,” said the governess, smiling mournfully; “you show capabilities my love, to be one day a seaman’s wife.”

      Gertrude blushed a little; and, turning back her head to answer in the playful vein of her governess, her eye met the riveted look of Wilder, fastened on herself. The colour on her cheek deepened to a carnation, and she was mute; the large gipsy hat she wore serving to conceal both her face and the confusion which so deeply suffused it.

      “You make no answer, child, as if you reflected seriously on the chances,” continued Mrs Wyllys, whose thoughtful and abstracted mien, however, sufficiently proved she scarcely knew what she uttered.

      “The sea is too unstable an element for my taste,” Gertrude coldly answered. “Pray tell me, Mrs Wyllys, is the vessel we are approaching a King’s ship? She has a warlike, not to say a threatening exterior.”

      “The pilot has twice called her a slaver.”

      “A slaver! How deceitful then is all her beauty and symmetry! I will never trust to appearances again, since so lovely an object can be devoted to so vile a purpose.”

      “Deceitful indeed!” exclaimed Wilder aloud, under an impulse that he found as irresistible as it was involuntary. “I will take upon myself to say, that a more treacherous vessel does not float the ocean than yonder finely proportioned and admirably equipped”——

      “Slaver,” added Mrs Wyllys, who had time to turn, and to look all her astonishment, before the young man appeared disposed to finish his own sentence.

      “Slaver;” he said with emphasis, bowing at the same time, as if he would thank her for the word.

      After this interruption, a profound silence occurred Mrs Wyllys studied the disturbed features of the young man, for a moment, with a countenance that denoted a singular, though a complicated, interest; and then she gravely bent her eyes on the water, deeply occupied with intense, if not painful reflection The light symmetrical form of Gertrude continued leaning on the rail, it is true, but Wilder was unable to catch another glimpse of her averted and shadowed lineaments. In the mean while, events, that were of a character to withdraw his attention entirely from even so pleasing a study, were hastening to their accomplishment.

      The ship had, by this time, passed between the little island and the point whence Homespun had embarked, and might now be said to have fairly left the inner harbour. The slaver lay directly in her track, and every man in the vessel was gazing with deep interest, in order to see whether they might yet hope to pass on her weather-beam. The measure was desirable; because a seaman has a pride in keeping on the honourable side of every thing he encounters but chiefly because, from the position of the stranger, it would be the means of preventing the necessity of tacking before the “Caroline” should reach a point more advantageous for such a manoeuvre. The reader will, however, readily understand that the interest of her new Commander took its rise in far different feelings from those of professional pride, or momentary convenience.

      Wilder felt, in every nerve, the probability that a crisis was at hand. It will be remembered that he was profoundly ignorant of the immediate intentions of the Rover. As the СКАЧАТЬ