The Firm of Girdlestone Part 64

"Where's the captain?" asked the head of the firm.

"He's below, sir. He's no very salubrious." The mate's love of long words rose superior to any personal emotion.

"You can square the yard," said Ezra. "We are going with you."

"Ay, ay, sir. Square away that yard there!" It swung round into position, and the _Black Eagle_ resumed her voyage.

"There is some business to be looked after in Spain," Girdlestone remarked to McPherson. "It came up suddenly or we should have given you notice. It was absolutely necessary that we should be there personally.

It was more convenient to go in our own vessel than to wait for a pa.s.senger s.h.i.+p."

"Where will you sleep, sir?" asked the mate. "I doubt the accommodation's no very munificent."

"There are two settees in the cabin. We can do on them very well.

I think we can't do better than go down there at once, for we have had a long and tiring journey."

After they had disappeared into the cabin, McPherson trod the deck for the remainder of his watch with a grave and a thoughtful face. Like most of his countrymen he was shrewd and long-headed. It struck him that it was a very strange thing for the two partners to be absent at the same time from their business. Again, where was their luggage?

Grave misgivings arose in his mind as to the reason of it all. He kept them to himself, however, and contented himself with remarking to the carpenter that in all his experience he had never met with a more "monumentous episode."

CHAPTER XLIX.

A VOYAGE IN A COFFIN s.h.i.+P.

The early part of the voyage of the _Black Eagle_ was extremely fortunate. The wind came round to the eastward, and wafted them steadily down Channel, until on the third day they saw the Isle of Ushant lying low upon the sky-line. No inquisitive gunboat or lurking police launch came within sight of them, though whenever any vessel's course brought her in their direction the heart of Ezra Girdlestone sank within him. On one occasion a small brig signalled to them, and the wretched fugitives, when they saw the flags run up, thought that all was lost. It proved, however, to be merely some trivial message, and the two owners breathed again.

The wind fell away on the day that they cleared the Channel, and the whole surface of the sea was like a great expanse of quicksilver, which s.h.i.+mmered in the rays of the wintry sun. There was still a considerable swell after the recent gale, and the _Black Eagle_ lay rolling about as though she had learned habits of inebriation from her skipper. The sky was very clear above, but all round the horizon a low haze lay upon the water. So silent was it that the creaking of the boats as they swung at the davits, and the straining of the shrouds as the s.h.i.+p rolled, sounded loud and clear, as did the raucous cries of a couple of gulls which hovered round the p.o.o.p. Every now and then a rumbling noise ending in a thud down below showed that the swing of the s.h.i.+p had caused something to come down with a run. Underlying all other sounds, however, was a m.u.f.fled clank, clank, which might almost make one forget that this was a sailing s.h.i.+p, it sounded so like the chipping of a propeller.

"What is that noise, Captain Miggs?" asked John Girdlestone as he stood leaning over the quarter rail, while the old sea-dog, s.e.xtant in hand, was taking his midday observations. The captain had been on his good behaviour since the unexpected advent of his employers, and he was now in a wonderful and unprecedented state of sobriety.

"Them's the pumps a-goin'," Miggs answered, packing his s.e.xtant away in its case.

"The pumps! I thought they were only used when a s.h.i.+p was in danger?"

Ezra came along the deck at this moment, and listened with interest to the conversation.

"This s.h.i.+p is in danger," Miggs remarked calmly.

"In danger!" cried Ezra, looking round the clear sky and placid sea.

"Where is the danger? I did not think you were such an old woman, Miggs."

"We will see about that," the seaman answered angrily. "If a s.h.i.+p's got no bottom in her she's bound to be in danger, be the weather fair or foul."

"Do you mean to tell me this s.h.i.+p has no bottom?"

"I mean to tell you that there are places where you could put your fingers through her seams. It's only the pumpin' that keeps her afloat."

"This is a pretty state of things," said Girdlestone. "How is it that I have not been informed of it before! It is most dangerous."

"Informed!" cried Miggs. "Informed of it! Has there been a v'yage yet that I haven't come to ye, Muster Girdlestone, and told ye I was surprised ever to find myself back in Lunnon? A year agone I told ye how this s.h.i.+p was, and ye laughed at me, ye did. It's only when ye find yourselves on her in the middle o' the broad sea that ye understan' what it is that sailor folk have to put up wi'."

Girdlestone was about to make some angry reply to this address, but his son put his hand on his arm to restrain him. It would never do to quarrel with Hamilton Miggs before they reached their port of refuge.

They were too completely in his power.

"What the captain says has a great deal of truth in it," he remarked, with a laugh. "You don't realize a thing until you've had to experience it. The _Black Eagle_ shall certainly have an overhauling next time, and we'll see if we can't give her captain an increase at the same time."

Miggs gave a grunt which, might be taken as expressing thanks or as signifying doubt. Perhaps there was a mixture of both in his mind.

"I presume," Girdlestone said, in a conciliatory voice, "that there would be no real danger as long as the weather was fine?"

"It won't be fine long," the captain answered gruffly. "The gla.s.s was well under thirty when I come up, and it is fallin' fast. I've been about here before at this time o' year in a calm, with a ground swell and a sinkin' gla.s.s. No good ever came of it. Look there at the norrard. What d'ye make o' that, Sandy?"

"In conjunction wi' the descending gla.s.s, it has an ominous appairance,"

the Scotchman answered, with much stress on the first syllable of the adjective.

The phenomenon which had attracted their professional attention did not appear to either of the Girdlestones to be a very important one.

The haze on the horizon to the north was rather thicker than elsewhere, and a few thin streaky clouds straggled upwards across the clear cold heaven, like the feelers of some giant octopus which lay behind the fog bank. At the same time the sea changed in places from the appearance of quicksilver to that of grained gla.s.s.

"There's the wind," Miggs said confidently. "I'd furl the top-gallant sails and get her stay-sails down, Mr. McPherson." Whenever he gave an order he was careful to give the mate his full t.i.tle, though at other times he called him indiscriminately Sandy or Mac.

The mate gave the necessary commands, while Miggs dived down into the cabin. He came up again looking even graver than when he left the deck.

"The gla.s.s is nearly down to twenty-eight," he said. "I never seed it as low since I've been at sea. Take in the mains'l, Mr. McPherson, and have the topsails reefed down!"

"Ay, ay, sir."

There was no lack of noise now as the men hauled at the halliards with their shrill strange cries, which sounded like the piping of innumerable sea-birds. Half a dozen lay out on the yard above, tucking away the great sail and making all snug.

"Take a reef in the fores'l!" the mate roared, "and look alive about it!"

"Hurry up, ye swabs!" Miggs bellowed. "You'll be blown away, every mother's son of ye, if you don't stir yourselves!"

Even the two landsmen could see now that the danger was no imaginary one, and that a storm was about to burst over them. The long black lines of vapour had lengthened and coalesced, until now the whole northern heaven was one great rolling black cloud, with an angry, ragged fringe which bespoke the violence of the wind that drove it. Here and there against the deep black background a small whitish or sulphur-coloured wreath stood clearly out, looking livid and dangerous.

The whole great ma.s.s was sweeping onwards with prodigious and majestic rapidity, darkening the ocean beneath it, and emitting a dull, moaning, muttering sound, which was indescribably menacing and mournful.

"This may be the same gale as was on some days ago," Miggs remarked.

"They travel in circles very often, and come back to where they start from."

"We are all snug aloft, but this s.h.i.+p won't stand much knocking about, an' that's a fact," observed the mate gloomily.

It was blowing now in short frequent puffs, which ruffled the surface of the water, and caused the _Black Eagle_ to surge slowly forward over the rollers. A few drops of rain came pattering down upon the deck.

The great bank of cloud was above the s.h.i.+p, still hurrying wildly across the heavens.

"Look out!" cried an old quartermaster. "Here she comes!"

As he spoke the storm burst with a shriek, as though all the demons of the air had been suddenly unchained and were rejoicing in their freedom.

The force of the blast was so great that Girdlestone could almost have believed that he had been struck by some solid object. The barque heeled over until her lee rail touched the water, and lay so for a minute or more in a smother of foam. Her deck was at such an angle that it seemed as though she never could right herself. Gradually, however, she rose a little, staggered and trembled like a living thing, and then plunged away through the storm, as a piece of paper is whirled before the wind.