Читать книгу Idylls of the Sea, and Other Marine Sketches - Frank Thomas Bullen - Страница 12

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Swinging through the clear sky, one hundred feet above the little stretch of white deck that looks so strangely narrow and circumscribed, the period of two hours assigned for a spell is often spent in strange meditations. For all the circumstances are favourable to absolute detachment from ordinary affairs. A man feels there cut off from the world, a temporary visitor to a higher sphere, from whose serene altitude the petty environment of daily life appears separated by a vast gulf. Rising to that calm plane in the shimmering pearly twilight of a tropical dawn, he is enabled to view, as from no other standpoint, the daily mystery and miracle of the sunrise. For he forgets the tiny microcosm below, involuntarily looking upward into the infinite azure until his mind becomes consciously akin to eternal verities, and sheds for a brief space the gross hamperings of fleshly needs and longings. At such a time, especially if the heavens be one stainless concave of blue, the advent of the new day is so overwhelming in its glory that the soul is flooded with a sense of celestial beauty unutterable. Beautiful and glorious indeed are the changing tints and varying hues of early dawn upon the fleecy fields of cloud, but the very changeableness of the wondrous scene is unfavourable to the simple settlement of wondering, worshipping thought induced by the birth of unclouded light. At first there appears upon the eastern edge of the vast, sharply-defined circle of the horizon, that by a familiar optical illusion seems to bound a sapphire concavity of which the spectator is the centre, a tremulous, silky paling of the tender blue belonging to the tropical night. The glowing stars grow fainter, dimmer, ceasing to coruscate like celestial jewels studding the soft, dark canopy of the sky. Unlingering, the palpitating sheen spreads zenithwards, presently sending before it as heralds wide bars of radiance tinted with blends of colour not to be reproduced by the utmost skill of the painter. Before their triumphal advent the great cone of the zodiacal light, which, like a stupendous obelisk rising from the mere shadow of some ineffable central glow, to which the gigantic sun itself is but a pale star, has dominated the moonless hours, fades and vanishes. Far reaching, these heavenly messengers gild the western horizon, but when the eye returns to their source it has become “a sea of glass mingled with fire,”—a fire which consumes not, and, while glowing with unfathomable splendour, has yet a mildness that permits the eye to search its innermost glories unfalteringly and with inexpressible delight.

But while the satisfied sight dwells upon this transcendent scene, forgetting that it is not the only morning in earth’s history when it is to be lavished upon a favoured world, there is a sudden quickening of the throbbing light, along the sharp blue edge of the ocean runs a blazing rim of molten gold, and in a perfect silence, beneath which may be felt the majestic music of the spheres, the sun has come. Turn away the head; the trembling eyes cannot for an instant dwell upon that flaming fervent globe that at one mighty stride is already far above the horizon. The sweet face of the sea wears a million sparkling smiles of welcome—everywhere the advent of the Day-bringer has decked it with countless flashing gems. As if ecstatic in their appreciation of the banishment of night, a school of porpoises five thousand strong indulge in riotous gambols. Leaping high into the bright air, their shining, lithe bodies all a-quiver with pure joy of abundant life, they churn the kindly sea into foam, leaving in their mad, frolicsome rush a wide track of white on the smoothness behind them. So flawless is the calm that even the tiny argosy of the nautilus is tempted to rise and spread its silken sail, a lovely gauzy curve just a shade or so lighter in hue than the sapphire of the sea, and so discernible from that height to the practised eye. In quick succession more and more appear, until a fairy fleet of hundreds is sailing as if bearing Titania and her train to some enchanted isles, where never wind blows loudly. But lo! as if at a signal from a pigmy Admiral, the squadron has vanished bubble-wise. From where they lately rode in mimic pageant rises, ghost-like, a vast flock of flying-fish, the hum of whose vibrant wing-fins ascends to the ear. Many thousands in number, glistening in the sunblaze like burnished silver, they glide through the air with incredible speed, the whole shoal rising and falling in wave-like undulations as if in the performance of preconcerted evolutions. They have been flying upon a plane of perhaps twenty feet above the sea for some five hundred yards, and are just about to re-enter the water, when beneath them appear the iridescent beauties of a school of dolphin (not the dull-hued mammal, but the poet-beloved fish). At that dread sight the solid phalanx breaks up, hurled back upon itself in the disorder of deadly panic. In little groups, in single fugitives, they scatter to every point of the compass, a hopelessly disorganised mob, whereof the weaker fall to swift oblivion in the gaping jaws of their brilliant, vigorous foes beneath. The main body sheer off, sadly thinned, in a fresh direction, long quivering raiders launching themselves in hot pursuit upon their rear, devouring as they rush, until eaters and eaten disappear, and the battlefield lies in placid beauty as if never disturbed. One hovering bird, a “bo’sun,” with long slender tail and feathers of purest white, circles around on unmoving, outspread pinions, slowly turning his pretty head, with dark incurious eyes, upon the strange biped so awkwardly perched in his dominions of upper air. Whence and when did he come? A moment since and he was not. Did the vacant ether produce him? Yet another moment and he is gone as he came, leaving behind him a palpable sense of loss.

But now all attention is concentrated upon the horizon, where the trained eye has caught a glimpse of something of greater interest than either bird or fish. A series of tiny puffs, apparently of steam, rises from the shining surface, but so evanescent that nothing but long-practised vision would discern them at so great a distance. Irregularly, both as to time and position, they appear, a shadowy procession of faintest indefinite outlines, a band of brief shadows. Yet upon them eager eyes are bent in keenest attention, for they represent possibilities of substantial gain, and bring the mind back from the realms of pure romance with the swiftness of a diving sea-bird down to the hard necessities of everyday life. They are the breathings of marine mammalia, mightiest of ocean’s citizens, and strangest of links between the inhabitants of land and sea. A little keen scrutiny, however, reveals the disappointing fact that those feathery phantoms mark the presence of that special species of whales who enjoy complete immunity from attack either from above or below. Their marvellous agility, no less than the exiguous covering of fat to which they have reduced the usually massive blubber borne by their congeners, gives abundant reason why they should be thus unmolested. So they roam the teeming seas in the enviable, as well as almost unique, position among the marine fauna of exemption from death, except by sickness or old age, as much as any sedate, law-abiding citizen of London. They seem to be well aware of their privileges, for they draw near the ship with perfect confidence, heeding her huge shadow no more than if she were a mass of rock rising sheer from the ocean-bed, and incapable of harm to any of the sea-folk. From our lofty eyrie we watch with keenest interest the antics of these great creatures, their amatory gambols, parental care, elegant ease, and keen sportiveness. Yonder piebald monster, who seems the patriarch of the school, after basking placidly in the scorching rays of the sun, now high in the heavens, gravely turns a semi-somersault, elevating the rear half of his body (some forty feet or so) out of the water. Then with steady, tremendous strokes he beats the water, the hundred square feet of his tail falling flatly with a reverberation like the sound of a distant bombardment. The others leap out of water, sedately as becomes their bulk, or roll over and over each other upon the surface, occasionally settling down until they look like fish of a foot or so in length. They even dare to chafe their barnacle-studded sides against the vessel’s keel, sending a strange tremor through her from stem to stern, which is even felt in the “crow’s nest.” But no one molests them in any way; in fact, it must be placed to the whaler’s credit that he rarely takes life for “sport,” though callous as iron where profit of any kind may be secured.

Oh, the heat; as if one’s head were a focus for the sun himself, since there is little else for many leagues exposed for him to assail except the mirror-like ocean. Thence, too, the heat rises as if to place us between two fires, until we feel like the fakirs of India undergoing their self-imposed penance of the swing. How fervently thankful we are when at last the glorious orb descends so low that his slanting rays lose their power in great measure, and permit us again to take a reviving interest in our surroundings. Yon floating tree, for instance; we have long been wondering in a vague sort of dream what it might be. And indeed its appearance is strange enough to warrant considerable speculation. It has been adrift for months, and except upon the side which floats uppermost, is covered with barnacles, whose adhering feet have extended in some instances to a fathom in length, the tiny shells being almost invisible at the free ends. This wealth of living covering, waving gently as the log is rocked by the unseen swell, gives the whole thing an uncanny look, as of some strange unclassified monster “begotten of the elder slime.” Around it are playing in shoals fish of many kinds seen only in deep waters—fish of every luminous tint that can be imagined, and ranging in size from the lordly albacore, weighing a quarter of a ton, to the tiny caranx of a couple of inches long. But hush! there is a priceless freshness in the air. The weary day is shaking off the fervent embrace of her exhaustless bridegroom. Gentle, lovely shades of colour are replacing the intense glow. A little, little breeze creeps cautiously along, ruffling the grateful sea in patches of purple shadow. A more subdued glory gathers in the west than heralded the sun’s ascending—a tenderer range of tints, like the afterglow of autumn as compared with the flaming blossoms of spring. For a few brief moments the gorgeous golden disc swims upon the edge of the lambent sea, and he is gone. Swiftly following him, the brilliant hues fade from the sky, shyly the stars peep out, and it is night.