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

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СКАЧАТЬ a half-pike. Thus accoutred, the God of the Ocean, who was no less a personage than the captain of the forecastle, advanced with a suitable air of dignity, along the deck attended by a train of bearded water-nymphs and naïades, in a costume no less grotesque than his own. Arrived on the quarter-deck, in front of the position occupied by the officers, the principal personage saluted the groupe with a wave of his sceptre, and resumed the discourse as follows; Wilder, from the continued abstraction of his Commander, finding himself under the necessity of maintaining one portion of the dialogue.

      “A wholesome and prettily-rigged boat have you come out in this time, my son; and one well tilled with a noble set of my children. How long might it be since you left the land?”

      “Some eight days ago.”

      “Hardly time enough to give the green ones the use of their sea legs. I shall be able to find them, by the manner in which they hold on in a calm.” (Here the General, who was standing with a scornful and averted eye, let go his hold of a mizzen-shroud, which he had grasped for no other visible reason than to render his person utterly immoveable; Neptune smiled, and continued.) “I sha’n’t ask concerning the port you are last from, seeing that the Newport soundings are still hanging about the flukes of your anchors. I hope you haven’t brought out many fresh hands with you, for I smell the stock-fish aboard a Baltic-man, who is coming down with the trades, and who can’t be more than a hundred leagues from this; I shall therefore have but little time to overhaul your people, in order to give them their papers.”

      “You see them all before you. So skilful a mariner as Neptune needs no advice when or how to tell a seaman.”

      “I shall then begin with this gentleman,” continued the waggish head of the forecastle, turning towards the still motionless chief of the marines. “There is a strong look of the land about him; and I should like to know how many hours it is since he first floated over blue water.”

      “I believe he has made many voyages; and I dare say has long since paid the proper tribute to your Majesty.”

      “Well, well; the thing is like enough, tho’f I will say I have known scholars make better use of their time, if he has been so long on the water as you pretend. How is it with these ladies?”

      “Both have been at sea before, and have a right to pass without a question,” resumed Wilder, a little hastily.

      “The youngest is comely enough to have been born in my dominions,” said the gallant Sovereign of the Sea; “but no one can refuse to answer a hail that comes straight from the mouth of Old Neptune; so, if it makes no great difference in your Honour’s reckoning, I will just beg the young woman to do her own talking.” Then, without paying the least attention to the angry glance that shot from the eye of Wilder, the sturdy representative of the God addressed himself directly to Gertrude. “If, as report goes of you, my pretty damsel, you have seen blue water before this passage, you may be able to recollect the name of the vessel, and some other small particulars of the run?”

      The face of our heroine changed its colour from red to pale, as rapidly, and as glowingly, as the evening sky flushes, and returns to its pearl-like loveliness; but she kept down her feelings sufficiently to answer, with an air of entire self-possession,—

      “Were I to enter into all these little particulars, it would detain you from more worthy subjects. Perhaps this certificate will convince you that I am no novice on the sea.” As she spoke, a guinea fell from her white hand into the broad and extended palm of her interrogator.

      “I can only account for my not remembering your Ladyship, by the great extent and heavy nature of my business,” returned the audacious freebooter bowing with an air of rude politeness as he pocketed the offering. “Had I looked into my books before I came aboard this here ship, I should have seen through the mistake at once; for I now remember that I ordered one of my limners to take your pretty face, in order that I might show it to my wife at home. The fellow did it well enough, in the shell of an East-India oyster; I will have a copy set in coral, and sent to your husband, whenever you may see fit to choose one.”

      Then, repeating his bow, with a scrape of the foot, he turned to the governess, in order to continue his examination.

      “And you, Madam.” he said, “is this the first time you have ever come into my dominions, or not?”

      “Neither the first, nor the twentieth; I have often seen your Majesty before.”

      “An old acquaintance! In what latitude might it be that we first fell in with each other?”

      “I believe I first enjoyed that honour, quite thirty years since, under the Equator.”

      “Ay, ay, I’m often there, looking out for India-men and your homeward-bound Brazil traders. I boarded a particularly great number that very season but can’t say I remember your countenance.”

      “I fear that thirty years have made some changes in it,” returned the governess, with a smile, which, though mournful, was far too dignified in its melancholy to induce the suspicion that she regretted a loss so vain as that of her personal charms. “I was in a vessel of the King, and one that was a little remarkable by its size, since it was of three decks.”

      The God received the guinea, which was now secretly offered, but it would seem that success had quickened his covetousness; for, instead of returning thanks, he rather appeared to manifest a disposition to increase the amount of the bribe.

      “All this may be just as your Ladyship says,” he rejoined; “but the interest of my kingdom, and a large family at home, make it necessary that I should look sharp to my rights. Was there a flag in the vessel?”

      “There was.”

      “Then, it is likely they hoisted it, as usual, at the end of the jib-boom?”

      “It was hoisted, as is usual with a Vice-Admiral, at the fore.”

      “Well answered, for petticoats!” muttered the Deity, a little baffled in his artifice. “It is d——d queer, saving your Ladyship’s presence, that I should have forgotten such a ship: Was there any thing of the extraordinary sort, that one would be likely to remember?”

      The features of the governess had already lost their forced pleasantry, in a shade of grave reflection and her eye was evidently fastened on vacancy us she answered, to all appearance like one who thought aloud.—

      “I can, at this moment, see the arch and roguish manner with which that wayward boy, who then had but eight years, over-reached the cunning of the mimic Neptune, and retaliated for his devices, by turning the laugh of all on board on his own head!”

      “Was he but eight?” demanded a deep voice at her elbow.

      “Eight in years, but maturer in artifice,” returned Mrs Wyllys, seeming to awake from a trance, as she turned her eyes full upon the face of the Rover.

      “Well, well,” interrupted the captain of the forecastle who cared not to continue ‘an inquiry in which his dreaded Commander saw fit to take a part, “I dare say it is all right. I will look into my journal if I find it so, well—if not, why, it’s only giving the ship a head-wind, until I’ve overhauled the Dane, and then it will be all in good time to receive the balance of the fee.”

      So saying, the God hurried past the officers, and turned his attention to the marine guard, who had grouped themselves in a body, secretly aware of the necessity each man might be under of receiving support from his fellows, in so searching СКАЧАТЬ