CHAPTER XV
A LIGHT FROM THE PAST
Four seamen only left untouched by blindness now, and two officers, to work a ship of six hundred tons! How was it to be, how could it ever be, done? The task was hopeless, and so all recognised on board that unhappy, ill-omened ship, even as now the wind freshened and the bosom of the ocean became flecked with little white spits of foam, while the breeze, hot as the breath of a panting wolf, swept up from the south. A breeze hot now, though once it had been cool-glacial-as it left the icebergs of the Antarctic Circle.
What was to be done? they muttered now, as, together, the six unstricken men took counsel while they stood in the shade of the foredeck awning, and forgot, in their excitement, that one was the master and owner, the other the first officer, and the four remaining ones only poor, ignorant sailors. What! what! what!
'I,' exclaimed Pooley, at last, after much discussion, 'can at least steer her. Some one must do it if she is to move at all; otherwise, in spite of my seventeen stone, I would be up those ratlins like a boy. But, even then, of what use are five to fist all the canvas she can carry?'
'We can fist some of it, at any rate,' said Charke, strong, determined as ever. 'By Heaven!' he cried, 'Lieutenant Bampfyld shall never go back to any of Her Majesty's ships and say that half-a-dozen men under the red ensign couldn't do something; couldn't make one stroke to save themselves!' Then, in an instant, he asked the captain to go to the wheel, while he sent the man, whose trick it was, forward, and, a second later, he was issuing orders to his subordinates.
Somehow, these orders were obeyed, and in about an hour, during which time all worked with a will and as if their lives depended on it, the Emperor of the Moon was under close-reefed topsails, foresail and fore-topmast staysail, when, if she had only had her full complement of able-bodied men to do the necessary work, she might well have been under full sail before the still increasing wind, and making a good nine or ten knots an hour. But, now, that was impossible; even if those five could have got all her canvas on her the thing would have been madness. A little further increase of force in the wind, and they would at once have to shorten sail again-which, in the circumstances, it would be almost impossible for them to do-or to stand by and see the masts jumped out or blown overboard. As it was, the Emperor, under the combined power of the current and what wind they could avail themselves of, was making something like five knots an hour.
During all this time Bella had been below with Gilbert and a prey to terrible anguish, yet endeavouring in every way to cheer and solace him and to thrust her own fears and forebodings into the background. Fears and forebodings of she scarcely knew what, yet fears that were, all the same, assuming by degrees a more or less tangible shape. For of late-indeed, long since-there had been intensifying more and more in her mind that feeling of dislike and mistrust of Stephen Charke which she had experienced from the first moment that she had discovered him to be the second in command of the vessel in which she was to make so long a voyage; for, over and over again, she had remembered, had recalled, how he had said that he was never baulked in the end of what he desired to obtain, and that if he wanted a thing he generally managed to get it. And she knew that he had meant it as a warning, if not a threat; though, certainly, since that miracle had happened which had brought her lover into the very ship which was taking her to India and to him, she had laughed at, had inwardly despised, the threat, if it was one.
But now-now! With Gilbert stricken down by her side, helpless, crippled by blindness, unable to do aught for himself or her, and with her uncle broken down and worn almost to equal helplessness with his enforced labour and his despair at the ruin which threatened him through the probable destruction of his ship, what-what might not Charke do? He was not blind yet, nor-
Then, as her meditations reached this point, and while Gilbert sat by her side on the pretty plush-covered locker with his head on her shoulder, he broke in on those meditations, and what he said could not by any possibility be construed by her as helping to dispel them, but, rather, indeed, to aggravate them. 'At the rate we have been going on,' he said, 'since I came aboard, there will not be a living soul left with their eyesight by the end of the next two or three days. Oh, my God! Bella, what will it be like when this ship is at the mercy of the ocean, with every person on board blind.'
'Don't let us think about it, darling. Don't, don't! And even now some may retain their sight. Uncle, I, Mr. Charke, the men-'
'Ah,' he said, 'Charke; yes, Charke. Excepting you, dearest, I would sooner Charke kept his sight than almost any one else.'
'Why?' she asked, thinking that of all who were in the ship she, perhaps, cared less whether Charke preserved his sight or not.
'Think what a strong, self-confident man he is. Even if all the others were blinded and he was not, he would devise something for keeping the vessel afloat, though, of course, he could not work her. He would manage to get us all taken off somehow.'
This, the girl acknowledged, not only to him but herself, was true enough. As regarded Charke's sailor-like self-confidence, courage and determination, as well as how to do everything best that was necessary in the most sudden emergency, there was nobody on board the ship, nor ever had been, who was superior, or even equal, to him. Yet-in sole command and possession of that ship, supposing the other inhabitants of her should also be attacked with blindness and helplessness-what might he not do, if his dogged resolution never to be baulked of anything he had set his mind upon was allowed full sway? Her imagination was not a tragic one, nor more romantic than that of most young women who had been brought up as she had been, yet-yet-she shuddered at fears which were almost without actual shape in her thoughts. With all the others blind, herself included; with none to observe what Charke did; with the opportunity of removing for ever from his path any who had crossed it-of removing the one whom she felt sure, whom she divined, he was anxious to remove; with an open sea around him-'Oh, God!' she broke off, while exclaiming to herself, even as her reflections shaped themselves thus, 'never-never will I believe it. Never will I think so basely of any man, especially since he has given me no cause to do so. And, as yet, there are plenty left with their eyesight; plenty to see what is going on.'
Her uncle and aunt came into the saloon now, full of a distress that was visibly marked upon both their faces as well as their demeanour, yet both as kindly as ever in their manner, and uttering expressions of sympathy with Gilbert in his affliction. But, all the same, Bella could not but observe the look of absolute illness and grief on Captain Pooley's countenance, nor help trembling inwardly at the fear that he might be the next one attacked.
Nevertheless, he said cheerfully enough, after he had exhausted his condolences with the young man: 'We are doing some good now, at any rate. The "cherub" is marking about six knots; if the wind keeps where and as it is we may yet fetch Mahe, or one of the other Seychelles. In fact, we must reach them, or some other place, or-'
'Or what?' asked Bella, looking at him with tear-laden eyes.
'Or,' her uncle said, not, however, concluding his speech as he had originally meant to do, 'or drift about until we fall in with another vessel. We ought to do that, too,' he continued, 'for we are almost in the direct track from the Red Sea to Australia; we are in the track of the big liners.'
'How,' asked Gilbert now, while forcing a smile to his face as he spoke, although it was but a poor, wan substitute for the bright, joyous one that generally lit up his countenance-and, indeed, it was only assumed with the hope of cheering his sweetheart by his side, wherefore, like all other substitutes for the real thing, it was but a wretched copy-'how are my brother-sufferers? It would be cheering news to hear that some of them were regaining their sight.'
'At present,' Pooley replied, 'only one of your "fellow-sufferers" seems to be doing so, and that's not a human being but no other than Bella's protégé the tiger-cub. That creature is, we all believe, coming round. It is rambling about the deck by itself, but it undoubtedly can see now to avoid hitting its head against the raffle lying there. However,' he went on, 'here's a little information which you may both be glad of, upon which he dropped his hand into his nankeen jacket and produced from it an old, dirty, and much-thumbed book, on which, in addition to many other unclean marks and stains, were added droppings from candles.' It was evidently, as Bella at once divined, one which had been pored over at night; while, had she been well acquainted with the habits of those who dwelt in the forecastle, she would have also understood that mercantile Jack is often in the habit of sticking lighted bits of candle about whenever he wants to read, and even to the sides of his bunk in which he lies, when he sleeps in one instead of in a hammock.
'Millett,' her uncle went on, naming one of the men who had still retained his eyesight, 'showed me this an hour ago. It belongs to poor Wilks, and is a book entitled Calamities of Sailors, it being a collection of odds and ends accumulated from various writers by an unknown hand. Now, here,' he went on, 'is a strange account of blindness attacking a vessel in much the same way as those in my poor old Emperor have been attacked, and-'
'Did they regain their sight?' exclaimed his listeners together; all three, namely, Mrs. Pooley, Gilbert, and Bella, asking the same question in almost the same words.
'They did,' the master went on, 'in this case. It happened on board the James Simpson, in 1803. But in another, I am sorry to say, they did not; and also, I am sorry to say, this is a very circumstantial account, given by M. Benjamin Constant to the French Chamber of Deputies, in 1820, when he was speaking on the horrors of the West African slave trade. He tells how a French ship, Le Rôdeur, having a crew of twenty-two men and a hundred and sixty slaves, left Bonny in 1819, and was attacked with almost precisely the same blindness which has now fallen on most of us. Things were worse with them than in this ship, however. They had scarcely any water, the air below was horribly impure, and, when the poor wretched slaves were allowed on deck, they locked themselves in each other's arms and leaped overboard in their agony, so that the French captain ordered some of them to be shot as a warning.'
'Yet,' exclaimed Gilbert, 'Le Rôdeur must have got safely into harbour at last, or M. Constant would not have given his information.'
'Yes,' said Pooley, 'that of course is so. Pray God we do, too'; whereon he closed the book and dropped it into his pocket.
It was well he should do so. Well, too, that Bella did not ask to be allowed to read it for herself, for it contained a good deal more than her uncle had thought fit to read out, and described further horrors which it was not advisable that any in that saloon should be made acquainted with.1
CHAPTER XVI
MAN OVERBOARD
Another day had passed and the south wind still blew gently, neither increasing nor decreasing in force, so that the log showed that the Emperor of the Moon had progressed between a hundred and fifty and two hundred miles farther north. Farther north, as all said now, but not to Bombay, since they had abandoned all hope of reaching that port in their present short-handed condition, and without obtaining fresh assistance-but towards the Seychelles. That was the harbour of refuge to which their thoughts and aspirations pointed at this time; the spot where, even though they should obtain nothing else, they would at least be in safety, and the one from which they could be taken off by some other ship if they were not able to find the means of working their own.
But, even as this day was drawing towards its conclusion-a day hotter, it seemed to all on board, than any they had previously experienced, and when neither the awnings nor the breeze that came aft protected them sufficiently to allow of their being on deck, unless duty demanded that they should be there-a change was perceived to have taken place in the condition of one or two who had been attacked by blindness. Mr. Fagg had declared that he was regaining his sight, and that, although he could not distinguish small objects with any amount of clearness, he was nevertheless able to see large things, such as the form of a man or woman, in a blurred, indistinct manner if he or she happened to enter his cabin; while Wilks averred that his sight was also returning rapidly to him.
'For, see here, sir,' he said to Charke, who, learning what was happening, or said to be happening, had gone forward to question him on the subject, 'I can walk aft to the break of the poop without stumbling against anything or over anything either. May I show you, sir?'
'Ay,' replied Charke. 'Show me. Let's see what you can really do,' while at the same time he motioned to a sailor, who happened to be by the mizzen-mast, to throw down gently a coil of rope he held in his hand so that, when Wilks neared the spot where it was, they would be able to observe whether he could see clearly enough to avoid it or not.
Meanwhile, Wilks, having received the necessary permission, had started from close by the fife-rail, where the conversation had been going on, and was making it perfectly clear that what he had stated was undoubtedly the truth. For, independently of the coil which the sailor had deposited abreast of the mizzen-mast, there was at this moment a good deal of raffle lying about the deck, as well as a bucket or so, and also a squeegee alongside the saloon skylight. But Wilks saw them all and steered himself along, avoiding each and every object both great and small, while, when he approached the coil of cable, he passed round it in almost precisely the same manner that a man in possession of his ordinary eyesight would have done. Then he looked back-at least he turned his face back-towards where he had started from, and, with a gratified grin on his countenance, asked Charke if he was not all right.
'Yes,' replied Charke, 'or getting so. If one or two more of your mates would only recover in the same way, we might bend another sail and, so, make a few more knots. Yet, curse it!' he muttered to himself, 'as one gets well another gets ill.'
This was unhappily only too true, for not an hour before he had been called to observe that Wilks seemed to be on a fair way towards recovery, he had learnt that Pooley was, although not stricken with the blindness, yet rapidly becoming blind. He had himself discovered such to be the case when, after lying down for an hour, he had been unable to perceive anything clearly on awakening. And, in another hour after this had been found by him to be the case, he was obliged to acknowledge his darkness of vision was becoming more intense, and that he feared his sight would be entirely gone by nightfall.
This was, perhaps, the greatest blow of all to several on board the unfortunate ship; on Bella it fell with overwhelming force. For now she recognised that, of all others, the very man she most feared and dreaded-though she could not have explained why that dread should have taken possession of her-was in absolute control over the ship, and could indeed do what he liked with it. Her uncle, she understood, could of course still issue orders, but-how was it to be known that those orders were being obeyed?
Then, strong-minded as she was, and feeling more so, as well as more self-possessed because of the presence of her lover in the ship, she again forced herself to discard such miserable and-as she termed them in her own mind-ridiculous fears, and set herself about the task which had now for some time developed on her of attending to the catering of the ship and looking after the sufferers generally. For, from Mrs. Pooley, Bella had not at any time received much assistance, owing to the fact of the poor lady having been quite ill since the calamities on board began to follow each other in such frequent succession, while, now that her husband was struck down, she appeared to have collapsed altogether. Indeed, at this present time, she was doing nothing except lying on the plush-covered sofa of the saloon, while moaning feebly that they were all doomed, and that, even if the ship was not utterly cast away and lost, there would soon not be a living soul on board who would be able to see.
'And then,' she sobbed, 'what can happen to a vessel-in the night, especially-full of men and women who are all blind and cannot find their way from one end of the deck to another?'
'Nonsense, aunty, dear, nonsense!' Bella replied, while endeavouring bravely to dispel her aunt's forebodings, which, in solemn truth, she shared to the full with her, though not for worlds would she acknowledge that she did so. 'Are not some already getting well-Mr. Fagg, and the sailor, Wilks, and Bengalee-'
'While at the same time others succumb to the blindness,' Mrs. Pooley interjected, still with a moan. 'And now your poor uncle, of all others.'
'Well,' said Bella, still stout of heart, 'we have this comfort: it soon passes away. Let me see. Bengalee has been blind about a fortnight, Wilks and Mr. Fagg about twelve days-whatever is that noise!' she exclaimed, breaking off suddenly.
As she uttered that exclamation there had come a sudden racket above their heads, the noise descending through the wide-open skylight. A noise which seemed first like the yelp of a dog in pain; then another which resembled somewhat the spitting of a cat, followed by a shrieking kind of growl, and then the voice of Charke exclaiming angrily: 'I'll have the infernal thing thrown overboard. Here you, catch hold of it-make a loop and fling it over its neck. Catch it, one of you!'
'Oh!' cried Bella, forgetting everything else for the moment, and rushing towards the companion, 'it's Bengalee!' Then she swiftly ran up to the deck, and saw the tiger-cub standing close up by the frame of the skylight and growling at Charke, whom it regarded with terribly vicious eyes. And she noticed, too, that it held up one of its hind legs as though it were injured.
'What are you doing to the creature?' she cried. 'You have been kicking it again, you-' she was going to say 'brute,' but restrained herself. 'And you shall not have it thrown overboard, as I heard you order the men to do!' she continued. Then she went towards the creature perfectly fearlessly, and spoke to it, and eventually stroked its back, so that at last its growls subsided altogether.
The chief mate's face had presented an appearance of scowling rage as she reached the deck, while it had on it an expression that boded ill for any extended existence being accorded to Bengalee had she not appeared at the moment she did. Yet, by the time she had ceased petting the animal he had managed to control himself considerably, and to smooth out the look of temper from his countenance. And now he said:
'Oh, of course I did not really mean to do that, Miss Waldron. Though it will have to be got rid of eventually. It is impossible that it can be kept much longer. And, you know, we have enough work to do without attending to such an animal as this. Just think! I am the only officer fit for duty, and I have only four able men to work with-since Wilks cannot be called well yet.'
Honestly, Bella felt sorry that she had spoken as hotly as she had done, since she did indeed recognise the almost superhuman amount of work that had fallen on Charke's shoulders just now. He seemed never to sleep but was on deck night and day, sometimes steering, sometimes even going aloft alone, and hardly ever snatching a quarter of an hour for his hasty meals. She murmured, therefore, some words of regret, and was going on to say how sorry she was for having been excited, when he stopped her.
'No, no, Miss Waldron. It was nothing-nothing. The thing did spring at me angrily as I passed where it was sleeping, and I kicked it. I am sorry, too. And you know I would not injure anything you liked,' while, as he spoke, he bent his dark, handsome eyes on her.
Perhaps it was a pity he uttered these last words, since in her own heart she did not believe that they were true. She had seen his glances more than once directed at Gilbert when he had not known that she was observing him, and she thoroughly believed that, in them, there was a malignant look, a look of hatred, which belied his words. And she had seen-she thought she had seen-something else in those glances when Gilbert was first attacked with blindness which, if not gloating, was very like it. She said, therefore, now, as she turned towards the ladder: 'Then you won't punish it, Mr. Charke, will you? You won't let it be thrown overboard in any circumstances, will you?'
'It shall be as sacred to me as you are,' he replied. 'Its life as sacred as yours.'
But all the same, she told herself as she went back to the saloon, that, if there was anything Charke hated in that ship, or rather, any two things he hated more than all else, those things were her lover and Bengalee.
Presently, not ten minutes later, she again heard his voice, calling out loudly to one of the men this time: 'If we could only get another on her we could make two more knots, I believe. If only some of those who are blind but not otherwise incapacitated would help on the braces and get the yards round, we could do it.'
She was not the only person who heard these words. Not a moment had they left his lips before the curtains in front of Gilbert's and Mr. Fagg's cabins were pushed swiftly back with a metallic jangle, as the rings ran along the rod, and each of the young men appeared in the saloon and began making his way guided by his hands, towards the stairs leading up to the deck.
'Oh!' cried Bella, not quite understanding what it was Charke wanted done, or what assistance could be rendered by persons who were blind, 'what are you going to do? Gilbert, don't do anything rash! Nor you, Mr. Fagg!' though she saw by their faces and the smile that came to each that she had overrated any harm that was possible.
'We'll get that sail on,' exclaimed Gilbert, as he felt his way up the stairs, and Fagg said: 'We will so,' as he followed him after they had each jostled the other at the foot in a slight collision which their sightlessness had caused, and, a moment afterwards, Bella and Mrs. Pooley were left alone in the cabin. Yet they could hear, plainly enough, the words of approval bestowed on Gilbert and Fagg for their promptness, when the meaning of it was recognised by those on deck; and they caught, too, the orders bawled with great rapidity by Charke the instant he had received this extra assistance. Also, they heard him ordering one man to the starboard main braces and another to go forward and loose the jib.
A moment later they heard something else as well.
The cry of two or three voices together, the roar of Charke, and then his trumpet-tones, exclaiming:
'My God! he's overboard!'
And Bella, with the image of one man alone in her mind, reeled backwards towards the sofa where Mrs. Pooley lay, and gradually slid, fainting, on to the cabin floor by her side.