Afloat and Ashore: A Sea Tale. James Fenimore Cooper
patient and unobtrusive qualities could obtain, was a reluctant acknowledgment that he had “no sa'ce.” His quickness and courage saved the John, nevertheless; and I have always said it, and ever shall.
A day after the affair of the proas, all hands of us began to brag. Even the captain was a little seized with this mania; and as for Marble, he was taken so badly, that, had I not known he behaved well in the emergency, I certainly should have set him down as a Bobadil. Rupert manifested this feeling, too, though I heard he did his duty that night. The result of all the talk was to convert the affair into a very heroic exploit; and it subsequently figured in the journals as one of the deeds that illustrate the American name.
From the time we were rid of the proas, the ship got along famously until we were as far west as about 52°, when the wind came light from the southward and westward, with thick weather. The captain had been two or three times caught in here, and he took it into his head that the currents would prove more favourable, could he stand in closer to the coast of Madagascar than common. Accordingly, we brought the ship on a bowline, and headed up well to the northward and westward. We were a week on this tack, making from fifty to a hundred miles a day, expecting hourly to see the land. At length we made it, enormously high mountains, apparently a long distance from us, though, as we afterwards ascertained, a long distance inland; and we continued to near it. The captain had a theory of his own about the currents of this part of the ocean, and, having set one of the peaks by compass, at the time the land was seen, he soon convinced himself, and everybody else whom he tried to persuade, Marble excepted, that we were setting to windward with visible speed. Captain Robbins was a well-meaning, but somewhat dull man; and, when dull men, become theorists, they usually make sad work with the practice.
All that night we stood on to the northward and westward, though Mr. Marble had ventured a remonstrance concerning a certain head-land that was just visible, a little on our weather-bow. The captain snapped his fingers at this, however; laying down a course of reasoning, which, if it were worth anything, ought to have convinced the mate that the weatherly set of the current would carry us ten leagues to the southward and westward of that cape, before morning. On this assurance, we prepared to pass a quiet and comfortable night.
I had the morning watch, and when I came on deck, at four, there was no change in the weather. Mr. Marble soon appeared, and he walked into the waist, where I was leaning on the weather-rail, and fell into discourse. This he often did, sometimes so far forgetting the difference in our stations afloat—not ashore; there I had considerably the advantage of him—as occasionally to call me “sir.” I always paid for this inadvertency, however, it usually putting a stop to the communications for the time being. In one instance, he took such prompt revenge for this implied admission of equality, as literally to break off short in the discourse, and to order me, in his sharpest key, to go aloft and send some studding-sails on deck, though they all had to be sent aloft again, and set, in the course of the same watch. But offended dignity is seldom considerate, and not always consistent.
“A quiet night, Master Miles”—this the mate could call me, as it implied superiority on his part—“A quiet night, Master Miles,” commenced Mr. Marble, “and a strong westerly current, accordin' to Captain Robbins. Well, to my taste gooseberries are better than currents, and I'd go about. That's my manner of generalizing.”
“The captain, I suppose, sir, from that, is of a different opinion?”
“Why, yes, somewhatish—though I don't think he knows himself exactly what his own opinion is. This is the third v'y'ge I've sailed with the old gentleman, and he is half his time in a fog or a current. Now, it's his idee the ocean is full of Mississippi rivers, and if one could only find the head of a stream, he might go round the world in it. More particularly does he hold that there is no fear of the land when in a current, as a stream never sets on shore. For my part, I never want any better hand-lead than my nose.”
“Nose, Mr. Marble?”
“Yes, nose, Master Miles. Haven't you remarked how far we smelt the Injees, as we went through the islands?”
“It is true, sir, the Spice Islands, and all land, they say—”
“What the devil's that?” asked the mate, evidently startled at something he heard, though he appeared to smell nothing, unless indeed it might be a rat.
“It sounds like water washing on rocks, sir, as much as anything I ever heard in my life!”
“Ready about!” shouted the mate. “Run down and call the captain, Miles—hard a-lee—start everybody up, forward.”
A scene of confusion followed, in the midst of which the captain, second-mate, and the watch below, appeared on deck. Captain Robbins took command, of course, and was in time to haul the after-yards, the ship coming round slowly in so light a wind. Come round she did, however, and, when her head was fairly to the southward and eastward, the captain demanded an explanation. Mr. Marble did not feel disposed to trust his nose any longer, but he invited the captain to use his ears. This all hands did, and, if sounds could be trusted, we had a pretty lot of breakers seemingly all around us.
“We surely can go out the way we came in, Mr. Marble?” said the captain, anxiously.
“Yes, sir, if there were no current; but one never knows where a bloody current will carry him in the dark.”
“Stand by to let go the anchor!” cried the captain. “Let run and clew up, forward and aft. Let go as soon as you're ready, Mr. Kite.”
Luckily, we had kept a cable bent as we came through the Straits, and, not knowing but we might touch at the Isle of France, it was still bent, with the anchor fished. We had talked of stowing the latter in-board, but, having land in sight, it was not done. In two minutes it was a-cock-bill, and, in two more, let go. None knew whether we should find a bottom; but Kite soon sang out to “snub,” the anchor being down, with only six fathoms out. The lead corroborated this, and we had the comfortable assurance of being not only among breakers, but just near the coast. The holding-ground, however, was reported good, and we went to work and rolled up all our rags. In half an hour the ship was snug, riding by the stream, with a strong current, or tide, setting exactly north-east, or directly opposite to the captain's theory. As soon as Mr. Marble had ascertained this fact, I overheard him grumbling about something, of which I could distinctly understand nothing but the words “Bloody cape—bloody current.”
CHAPTER V.
“They hurried us aboard a bark;
Bore us some leagues to sea; where they prepared
A rotten carcass of a boat, not rigg'd,
Nor tackle, sail, nor mast: the very rats
Instinctively had girt us—”
Tempest.
The hour that succeeded in the calm of expectation, was one of the most disquieting of my life. As soon as the ship was secured, and there no longer remained anything to do, the stillness of death reigned among us; the faculties of every man and boy appearing to be absorbed in the single sense of hearing—the best, and indeed the only, means we then possessed of judging of our situation. It was now apparent that we were near some place or places where the surf was breaking on land; and the hollow, not-to-be-mistaken bellowings of the element, too plainly indicated that cavities in rocks frequently received, and as often rejected, the washing waters. Nor did these portentous sounds come from one quarter only, but they seemed to surround us; now reaching our ears from the known direction of the land, now from the south, the north-east, and, in fact, from every direction. There were instances when these moanings of the ocean sounded as if close under our stern, and then again they came from some point within a fearful proximity to the bows.
Happily the wind was light, and the ship rode with a moderate strain on