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

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СКАЧАТЬ material advantages, and aided by an exquisite ear, he rolled out the following stanzas in a manner that was singularly divided between that of the reveller and the man of sentiment. The words were probably original; for they both smacked strongly of his own profession, and were not entirely without a touch of the peculiar taste of the individual

      All hands, unmoor! unmoor

       Hark to the hoarse, but welcome sound,

       Startling the seaman’s sweetest slumbers.

       The groaning capstan’s labouring round,

       The cheerful fife’s enliv’ning numbers;.

       And ling’ring idlers join the brawl,

       And merry ship-boys swell the call,

       All hands, unmoor! unmoor!

      The cry is, “A sail! a sail!”

       Brace high each nerve to dare the fight,

       And boldly steer to seek the foeman;

       One secret prayer to aid the right,

       And many a secret thought to woman

       Now spread the flutt’ring canvas wide,

       And dash the foaming sea aside;

       The cry’s, “A sail! a sail!”

      Three cheers for victory!

       Hush’d be each plaint o’er fallen brave;

       Still ev’ry sigh to messmate given;

       The seaman’s tomb is in the wave;

       The hero’s latest hope is heaven!

       High lift the voice in revelry!

       Gay raise the song, the shout, the glee;

       Three cheers for victory!

      So soon as he had ended this song, and without waiting to listen if any words of compliment were to succeed an effort that might lay claim to great excellence both in tones and execution, he arose; and, desiring his guests to command the services of his band at pleasure, he wished them “soft repose and pleasant dreams,” and then coolly descended into the lower apartments, apparently for the night. Mrs Wyllys and Gertrude, notwithstanding both had been amused, or rather seduced, by the interest thrown around a manner that was so wayward, while it was never gross, felt a sensation, as he disappeared, like that produced by breathing a freer air, after having been too long compelled to respire the pent atmosphere of a dungeon. The former regarded her pupil with eyes in which open affection struggled with deep inward solicitude; but neither spoke, since a slight movement near the door of the cabin reminded them they were not alone.

      “Would you have further music, Madam?” asked Roderick, in a smothered voice, stealing timidly out of the shadow as he spoke; “I will sing you to sleep if you will; but I am choaked when he bids me thus be merry against my feelings.”

      The brow of the governess had already contracted, and she was evidently preparing herself to give a stern and repulsive answer; but, as the plaintive tones, and shrinking, submissive form of the other, pleaded strongly to her heart, the frown passed away, leaving in its place a mild reproving look, like that which chastens the frown of maternal concern.

      “Roderick,” she said, “I thought we should have seen you no more to-night!”

      “You heard the gong. Although he can be so gay, and can raise such thrilling sounds in his pleasanter moments, you have never yet listened to him in anger.”

      “And is his anger, then, so very fearful?”

      “Perhaps to me it is more frightful than to others, but I find nothing so terrible as a word of his, when his mind is moody.”

      “He is then harsh to you?”

      “Never.”

      “You contradict yourself, Roderick. He is, and he is not. Have you not said how terrible you find his moody language?”

      “Yes; for I find it changed. Once he was never thoughtful, or out of humour, but latterly he is not himself.”

      Mrs Wyllys did not answer. The language of the boy was certainly much more intelligible to herself than to her young and attentive, but unsuspecting, companion; for, while she motioned to the lad to retire, Gertrude manifested a desire to gratify the curious interest she felt in the life and manners of the freebooter. The signal, however, was authoritatively repeated, and the lad slowly, and quite evidently with reluctance, withdrew.

      The governess and her pupil then retired into their own state-room; and, after devoting many minutes to those nightly offerings and petitions which neither ever suffered any circumstances to cause them to neglect, they slept in the consciousness of innocence and in the hope of an all-powerful protection. Though the bell of the ship regularly sounded the hours throughout the watches of the night, scarcely another sound arose, during the darkness, to disturb the calm which seemed to have settled equally on the ocean and all that floated on its bosom.

      Chapter XXIV

       Table of Contents

      “But, for the miracle,

       I mean our preservation, few in millions

       Can speak like us.”

      —Tempest

      The “Dolphin” might well have been likened to a slumbering beast of prey, during those moments of treacherous calm. But as nature limits the period of repose to the creatures of the animal world, so it would seem that the inactivity of the freebooters was not doomed to any long continuance. With the morning sun a breeze came over the water, breathing the flavour of the land, to set the sluggish ship again in motion. Throughout all that day, with a wide reach of canvas spreading along her booms, her course was held towards the south. Watch succeeded watch, and night came after day, and still no change was made in her direction. Then the blue islands were seen heaving up, one after another, out of the sea. The prisoners of the Rover, for thus the females were now constrained to consider themselves, silently watched each hillock of green that the vessel glided past, each naked and sandy key, or each mountain side, until, by the calculations of the governess, they were already steering amid the western Archipelago.

      During all this time no question was asked which in the smallest manner betrayed to the Rover the consciousness of his guests that he was not conducting them towards the promised port of the Continent. Gertrude wept over the sorrow her father would feel, when he should believe her fate involved in that of the unfortunate Bristol trader; but her tears flowed in private, or were freely poured upon the sympathizing bosom of her governess. Wilder she avoided, with an intuitive consciousness that he was no longer the character she had wished to believe, but to all in the ship she struggled to maintain an equal air and a serene eye. In this deportment, far safer than any impotent entreaties might have proved, she was strongly supported by her governess, whose knowledge of mankind had early taught her that virtue was never so imposing, in the moments of trial, as when it knew best how to maintain its equanimity. On the other hand, both the Commander of the ship and his lieutenant sought no СКАЧАТЬ