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

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СКАЧАТЬ that the fellow should be there!” he replied, shaking his head, but meaning no more than that it was entirely out of the order of nautical propriety; “I see the philosophy of what you say, Captain Wilder; and little do I know how to explain it. It is a ship, to a mortal certainty!”

      “Of that there is no doubt. But a ship most strangely placed!”

      “I doubled the Good-Hope in the year ‘46,” continued the other, “and saw a vessel lying, as it might be, here, on our weather-bow—which is just opposite to this fellow, since he is on our lee-quarter—but there I saw a ship standing for an hour across our fore-foot, and yet, though we set the azimuth, not a degree did he budge, starboard or larboard, during all that time, which, as it was heavy weather, was, to say the least, something out of the common order.”

      “It was remarkable!” returned Wilder, with an air so vacant, as to prove that he rather communed with himself than attended to his companion.

      “There are mariners who say that the flying Dutchman cruises off that Cape, and that he often gets on the weather side of a stranger, and bears down upon him, like a ship about to lay him aboard. Many is the King’s cruiser, as they say, that has turned her hands up from a sweet sleep, when the look-outs have seen a double decker coming down in the night, with ports up, and batteries lighted but then this can’t be any such craft as the Dutchman, since she is, at the most, no more than a large sloop of war, if a cruiser at all.”

      “No, no,” said Wilder, “this can never be the Dutchman.”

      “Yon vessel shows no lights; and, for that matter, she has such a misty look, that one might well question its being a ship at all. Then, again, the Dutchman is always seen to windward, and the strange sail we have here lies broad upon our lee-quarter!”

      “It is no Dutchman,” said Wilder, drawing a long breath, like a man awaking from a trance. “Main topmast-cross-trees, there!”

      The man who was stationed aloft answered to this hail in the customary manner, the short conversation that succeeded being necessarily maintained in shouts, rather than in speeches.

      “How long have you seen the stranger?” was the first demand of Wilder.

      “I have just come aloft, sir; but the man I relieved tells me more than an hour.”

      “And has the man you relieved come down? or what is that I see sitting on the lee side of the mast-head?”

      “‘Tis Bob Brace, sir; who says he cannot sleep, and so he stays upon the yard to keep me company.”

      “Send the man down. I would speak to him.”

      While the wakeful seaman was descending the rigging, the two officers continued silent, each seeming to find sufficient occupation in musing on what had already passed.

      “And why are you not in your hammock?” said Wilder, a little sternly, to the man who, in obedience to his order, had descended to the quarter-deck.

      “I am not sleep-bound, your Honour, and therefore I had the mind to pass another hour aloft.”

      “And why are you, who have two night-watches to keep already, so willing to enlist in a third?”

      “To own the truth, sir, my mind has been a little misgiving about this passage, since the moment we lifted our anchor.”

      Mrs Wyllys and Gertrude, who were auditors, insensibly drew nigher, to listen, with a species of interest which betrayed itself by the thrilling of nerves, and an accelerated movement of the pulse.

      “And you have your doubts, sir!” exclaimed the Captain, in a tone of slight contempt. “Pray, may I ask what you have seen, on board here, to make you distrust the ship.”

      “No harm in asking, your Honour,” returned the seaman, crushing the hat he held between two hands that had a gripe like a couple of vices, “and so I hope there is none in answering. I pulled an oar in the boat after the old man this morning, and I cannot say I like the manner in which he got from the chase. Then, there is something in the ship to leeward that comes athwart my fancy like a drag, and I confess, your Honour, that I should make but little head-way in a nap, though I should try the swing of a hammock.”

      “How long is it since you made the ship to leeward?” gravely demanded Wilder.

      “I will not swear that a real living ship has been made out at all, sir. Something I did see, just before the bell struck seven, and there it is, just as clear and just as dim, to be seen now by them that have good eyes.”

      “And how did she bear when you first saw her?”

      “Two or three points more toward the beam than it is now.”

      “Then we are passing her!” exclaimed Wilder, with a pleasure too evident to be concealed.

      “No, your Honour, no. You forget, sir, the ship has come closer to the wind since the middle watch was set.”

      “True,” returned his young Commander, in a tone of disappointment; “true, very true. And her bearing has not changed since you first made her?”

      “Not by compass, sir. It is a quick boat that, or would never hold such way with the ‘Royal Caroline,’ and that too upon a stiffened bow-line, which every body knows is the real play of this ship.”

      “Go, get you to your hammock. In the morning we may have a better look at the fellow.”

      “And—you hear me, sir,” added the attentive mate, “do not keep the men’s eyes open below, with a tale as long as the short cable, but take your own natural rest, and leave all others, that have clear consciences, to do the same.”

      “Mr Earing,” said Wilder, as the seaman reluctantly proceeded towards his place of rest, “we will bring the ship upon the other tack, and get more easting, while the land is so far from us. This course will be setting us upon Hatteras. Besides”——

      “Yes, sir,” the mate replied, observing his superior to hesitate, “as you were saying,—besides, no one can foretel the length of a gale, nor the real quarter it may come from.”

      “Precisely. No one can answer for the weather. The men are scarcely in their hammocks; turn them up at once, sir, before their eyes are heavy, and we will bring the ship’s head the other way.”

      The mate instantly sounded the well-known cry, which summoned the watch below to the assistance of their shipmates on the deck. Little delay occurred, and not a word was uttered, but the short, authoritative mandates which Wilder saw fit to deliver from his own lips. No longer pressed up against the wind, the ship, obedient to her helm, gracefully began to incline her head from the waves, and to bring the wind abeam. Then, instead of breasting and mounting the endless hillocks, like a being that toiled heavily along its path, she fell into the trough of the sea, from which she issued like a courser, who, have conquered an ascent, shoots along the track with redoubled velocity. For an instant the wind appear ed to have lulled, though the wide ridge of foam which rolled along on each side the vessel’s bows, sufficiently proclaimed that she was skimming lightly before it. In another moment, the tall spars began to incline again to the west, and the vessel came swooping up to the wind, until her plunges and shocks against the seas were renewed as violently as before. When every yard and sheet were properly trimmed to meet the new position of the vessel, Wilder turned anxiously to get a glimpse of the stranger. СКАЧАТЬ