Midnight Webs Part 16

"He was crossed in love when he was a young un, sir," says Bill Spragg with a grin.

"Women's right enough ash.o.r.e," says Sam Brown, and he squinted towards where the sick patient was along with the petticoat, till both his eyes went out of sight behind his nose, which was rather long in the bridge, and then he sighed, and we sprinkled the sea with a little baccy-juice before coming back to the job we were at--sc.r.a.ping the chain-cable.

"One of our protectors wants to pay his regards to you, Miss Bell," says Mr Ward, the young doctor, you know, for just then she was pa.s.sing close with the poor thin sick chap, who was her husband, and I saw her just bend her head as the doctor and Tomt.i.t took off their hats to her.

"Sarvant, miss," I says gruffly, getting my legs straight too, for there was something about her that seemed to compel one to be civil like, being such a bright-eyed girl, with red and white in her face and a set o' teeth as couldn't have known what it was to want to be pulled out in their lives. "Sarvant, Miss," I says, making a sc.r.a.pe, and not a bit took aback. "I was only a-saying as worn--ladies ain't no business aboard s.h.i.+ps."

"And why not?" she said quietly.

"'Cause all's rough and ready, and folk's tongues gets running too free afore them," I says. And then to myself: "That's one for you, Mr Jalap;" and then I turned towards the sick young man, whose sunken eyes looked brighter, and angry, and jealous like, as he held tight by his sister's arm, and he says: "Come, lady, let's go below. The sailor is right. Drink my health, my man;" and he threw me a s.h.i.+lling.

"That I will, sir," I says, as he turned away, though I thought to myself it would want drinking a many times before I could do him any good.

The doctor looked rather black at me; but I wouldn't see it, and got down cross-legged at my work, while Tomt.i.t and he lit their cigars, and began walking up and down the deck.

STORY TWO, CHAPTER THREE.

What a wonderful deal a sailor can get to know if he only keeps his eyes and ears open! Of course, I mean aboard s.h.i.+p, where everything is, as you may say, close to your hand. Now, acting after this way, and being a rough, blunt sort of an old fellow--for I always looked old from the time I was forty--people would come and make friends with me, in a fas.h.i.+on, so that I got to know a deal. The doctor would have his chat on things in general, and give me cigars, and by degrees work round to the sick pa.s.senger and his case; and I soon could see that though he didn't care a damp about the sick pa.s.senger, he took a deal of interest in his case, and I could guess pretty well why. Then Tomt.i.t would come and fold his back, so that he could lean his elbers on the bulwarks, and he'd chatter about his birds, all the while smoothing his hair, and arranging his tie and collar, and brus.h.i.+ng specks off his coat, as he kept looking towards the cabin-stairs, to see if some one was coming up; and when--being a thoroughly good-hearted, weak, soft-Tommy sort of a chap--he'd heave a great sigh, I used to shake my head at him, and say as I could see what was the matter with he, it was wonderful how friendly he'd get.

"I wouldn't care if I had a few canaries on board," he'd say. "They are such nice birds if you want to make a present to a lady."

"Why not try a couple o' doves?" I says.

He looked at me as if he meant to do it through and through, but I don't think he got far below the outside rind--mine being rather a thick skin, and I didn't let a single wrinkle squeeze up to look like a smile; so he says, after a minute's thought: "You're right, Roberts," he says; and that night, hang me, if he didn't send me to the cabin with a note, and a cage with a couple of turtle-doves in. He gave me half-a-crown for taking it, and he'd been busy all the afternoon touching up the cage with a bit of s.h.i.+p's paint, that wasn't half dry when I took it; but I brought it back again with me, with Mr and Miss Bell's compliments and thanks, but Mr Bell's health would not bear the noise of the birds.

The poor chap--b.u.t.terwell, his name was--looked awfully down when he saw me come back, but he wouldn't show it more than he could help; he only said something about wis.h.i.+ng he'd had canaries, and turning his back to me, began to whistle, and feed his other birds, of which he'd got quite five hundred in a place fitted up on purpose, though there was nearly always one or two dead of a morning, specially if the night had been rough.

Well, somehow, I got to see that Miss Bell was not without her admirers; while her brother, poor chap, clinging to her as the only being he had to love on earth, seemed to hate for a soul to speak to her, and whenever I saw him, he used to watch her every look. Not that he had any need, for she seemed almost to wors.h.i.+p him; leading him about; reading to him for hours, till I've heard her husky and hoa.r.s.e, and have gone and fetched a gla.s.s of lime-juice and water from the steward, to get a pleasant smile from her, and a nod from the sick man for what I had done.

"You're a lucky man, Roberts," Mr Ward says to me one day when he had seen me fetch it, and the pay I got for my trouble.

"What for?" I says gruffly, for it wasn't no business of his. "P'raps you'd like to change places, sir, eh?" But he only laughed, and the more rough I was, the better friends we kept.

There were many more pa.s.sengers, of course, but I never saw that they were any different to other cargoes of emigrants as I had helped to take over: there was two or three of those young chaps that always go out to make fortunes, packed off by their friends because they don't know what to do with them at home; some young farmers, and labourers, and mechanics--some with wife and children, some without; children there was plenty of--always is where there's women; and one way and another there was enough to make the s.h.i.+p uncomfortable, without a skipper who was a brute, and a mate a cowardly sneak. The crew were as bad a lot as ever ran round a capstan, but that was no reason why they were to be treated like dogs. If they'd been as good men as ever stepped, it would have been the same, for Bill Smith and Sam were A1 foremast-men; and while there was a sheet to haul taut, a sail to furl, or a bit of deck to holy-stone, I was ready to take my turn; but it was all the same, and I've seen the men bullied till they've gone scowling down below, and more than once I've said to Sam: "There'll be foul weather yet, my lad, afore we get this voyage to an end."

STORY TWO, CHAPTER FOUR.

Now, as to ordinary weather, that was all as a sailor could wish for-- bright skies, fine starn winds, and the s.h.i.+p bowling along her nine or ten knots an hour. We got into the warm belts, shoved up the awnings, and had our bits of fis.h.i.+ng as chances come up; but for all that, I wasn't easy in my mind. I'd been so long at sea, and knocked about amongst so many sorts of people, and in such different weather, that appearances that would not have been noticed by some folks made a bit of an impression on me, and not without reason, as you'll say by and by.

For instance, it didn't look well, so I thought, for a chap to out knife and threaten the captain for hitting him on the head with a speaking-trumpet, though it might be only in a bit of a pa.s.sion, still it didn't seem right; nor yet for the skipper to be always hara.s.sing the men when there was no need--piping all hands up to make or shorten sail, when the watch could have done it very well themselves, and then making the men do it again and again, because it wasn't what he called smart enough. You see, men don't take much notice of that sort of thing once, nor yet twice, but if it's kept up, they grumble, 'specially when they know they've been doing their best. Then the provisions were horrible, and enough to make any man discontented; water wasn't served out in sufficient quant.i.ty, and things got so bad at last that the men had meetings, right forward of a night, about the way they were served.

I knew a good deal and heard a good deal, but it didn't seem to be my place to go and tell tales, and besides, I never thought there'd be much the matter, more than a row, and perhaps a man or two put in irons, to be kept there till we got into port. I said so, in fact, to my mates Bill and Sam, "and what's more," I says, "irons won't do for me, my lads, so let's make the best of things, and get a better s.h.i.+p as soon as we can." Sam grunts, and Bill Smith said it was all right; so we went on with what was set us to do, and made as little trouble of it as we could.

But there was one chap aboard as the captain seemed quite to hate, and used to put upon him shameful. He was a thin wiry fellow, as yellow as a guinea, and looked as if he'd black blood in his veins; but he always swore as he had not. He'd got a Dutch sort of name, Van Haigh, but hailed somewhere out of one of the West Indy Islands, and had knocked about almost everywhere. Curious-looking chap he was, looked as if he'd always got his parlour window-blinds half pulled down, and he'd peep at you sideways from underneath them in a queer catlike sort of way. He was quite a swell fellow in his way, only dirty as dirty, and that didn't do nothing towards setting off the big silver rings he had in his ears, and was uncommon proud of. We mostly used to call him "Van" for short; and against this chap the skipper always seemed to have a spite, bullying him about more than all the rest put together, till you might have thought his life would have been miserable--but not it; he always showed his white teeth and grinned, pocketing all that the skipper and the mate gave him, till them pockets of his must have been full and nigh unto bursting. Once the captain knocked him down with a marlinespike, but he never drew no knives, not even when the mate kicked him, and told him to get up. He only grinned, but it was a queer sort of grin, and I didn't like the look of it.

These sort of rows used generally to take place when the pa.s.sengers had gone down of a night, or before they came on deck of a morning. While before the cabin lot, Captain Harness was quite the gentleman, and it seemed to me that he had a sort of hankering after Miss Bell, like some more of them, or else he wouldn't have been so wonderfully civil about having Mr Bell's chair moved here and there, and wanting him to take wine, and things that Mr Ward said he was better without.

As to the fore-cabin pa.s.sengers, they went on just about the same as fore-pa.s.sengers mostly do: asked every day whether we were nearly there, played s.h.i.+p's billiards, and a bit or two of music; smoked a deal, and slept a deal more, and only did just so much work as they was obliged to. No doubt there was their little bits of squabbling, and courting, and so on, going on; but my eyes were turned in another direction; and, soon after we'd crossed the line, I couldn't help thinking how very sixy-and-seveny matters had growed. Instead of being friendly, there was quite an unpleasantness between Mr Ward and the Bells, for the sick man was as jealous as could be, and it was plain enough that he downright hated the doctor. As for Miss Bell, as far as I could see, she never even bowed to him, and he and Tomt.i.t used to walk up and down the deck together, as if they were the fastest of friends. "And why don't they bow to one another as they used?" I says to myself, as I lay in my hammock. "Why don't you mind your own business and go to sleep?"

says Common-sense; and as I was too tired to argufy, I made no answer, but went off sound.

STORY TWO, CHAPTER FIVE.

Now, if what I'm going to tell you had happened a week sooner, I should have been on the look-out for it, or if it had come off a week later; but, like many more such things, it came when it wasn't expected, and my sails were took aback as much as anybody's.

Things had been going on more peaceably than usual--weather having been hot, with light steady wind, which just took us easily through the water with stunsails set alow and aloft. The heat had made the captain sleepy, and he showed precious little on deck, while the mate, who always took his tone from the skipper, used just to give an order or two, and then make himself as comfortable as he could.

It was my watch one night with Sam Brown, Bill Smith, and a couple more.

Hot! it was one of the hottest nights I ever knew, and we were lolling about over the sides, looking at the golden green water as it gently washed by the bows as we just parted it, making only way enough for the s.h.i.+p to answer her helm. Bill Smith had gone to take his trick at the wheel, and, looking along the deck, you could just make out his face by the binnacle-light s.h.i.+ning up and around him. There was a faint glow, too, up from the cabin skylights, and from where the s.h.i.+p's lanterns flashed on the water, else it was a thick darkness everywhere, and us sailing through it, and seeming to get nearer and nearer to some great black heat, that made the perspiration stream out of you at every pore.

"'Nuff to bake 'em down below, Sam," I says, after we'd been quiet for a good hour. "I fancy if I was there, I should be for coming up and lying on the deck, where it's cooler."

"Cooler!" says one of them with us, "why, the planks are hot yet."

"But you can breathe," I says.

"Well, yes," says the other; "you _can_ get your breath."

Then we were quite still again for a piece, when Sam gives me a shove, to call my attention to something.

"Well, what now?" I says.

"They're a-coming on deck," says Sam.

"They're in the right of it," I says; "and if--"

I got no more out, for there was a hand clapped over my mouth, and the next moment I was at it in an up-and-down struggle with some one, but not so hard but that I heard Sam Brown go down like a bullock upon the deck; and then I shook myself free, ran to the mizen-shrouds, and sprang up them like a cat; and, as soon as I was out of reach, leaned down and listened.

There was no mistake about it: the s.h.i.+p had been taken with hardly so much as a scuffle, and though I could not see more than a figure trot quickly by one of the skylights, I could hear that the hatches were being secured, and men posted there; and for a minute I felt sure that we had been boarded in the darkness, and that I, one of the princ.i.p.al men in the watch, had kept a bad lookout. Directly after, though, there came a bit more scuffling and an oath or two, and I heard a voice that I knew for Bill Smith's, and another that I could tell was Van's; and then, like a light, it all came upon me that while we had been watching out-board, there was an enemy in the s.h.i.+p, and the men had risen.

I wouldn't have it for a bit, feeling sure that I must have known of it; but I was obliged to give in, for I heard next in the darkness a hammering at the cabin doors, and the skipper's voice shouting to be let out; and then came the mate's backing him up; then a pistol-shot or two, and the s.h.i.+vering of gla.s.s, like as if the cabin skylight had been broken; and then came Van's shrill voice, giving orders, and threatening; and from the way the man spoke, I knew in a minute that there had been a chained devil amongst us, and that he had broken loose.

As soon as I could pull myself together a bit, and get to think, I got out my box, opens it and my knife, cuts a fresh bit of baccy, and then, taking a good hold of the stay I was on, began to wonder what I'd better do next. Staying where I was did very well for the present; but it would not be such a great while before daybreak, and then I knew they would see me, and, if I didn't come down, shoot me like a dog. I felt sure that they had done for my two poor mates, for I could not hear a sound of them; and seeing that joining the enemy below was out of the question, what I had to do was to get to them in the cabin. But how?

There I was, perched up close to the top, with the yard swinging gently to and fro; and between me and those I wanted to join, there was the enemy. I felt puzzled; and in the midst of my thought, listening the while as I was to the muttering of voices I heard below, I snapped-to the lid of the steel box I had in my hand, and in the still night it sounded quite sharp and clear.

"What a fool!" I said to myself, and crept in closer to the mast, for the voices below ceased, and two pistol-bullets came whistling through the rigging. Then there was a sharp whispering, and a couple more shots were fired; but I did not move, for it would have been like directing them where to aim. Then came Van's voice, as he shouted: "Fetch him down!" And I knew from the way in which the rigging trembled, that some of the enemy were coming up the shrouds to leeward and windward too.

"Hunt him overboard, if he won't give in," shouted Van, and I set my teeth as I heard him; but there was no time to spare, and feeling about for a sheet, I got hold of it, meaning to swing myself out clear, and hang quite still, while they pa.s.sed aloft, and then try for some hiding-place where I could gain the deck. I held on tight for a moment, and listened; and then in the darkness I could hear some one coming nearer and nearer, when, letting go with my feet, I swung gently off, and the next instant brushed up against something, when my heart gave a great bound, for I had found the way to get down to them in the cabin.