Читать книгу The Golden Rock - Glanville Ernest - Страница 13

“Well, shipmate,” said Webster, coming out of the chart house, “have you been promoted from the saloon to the bridge, passing over the cook on the way, just after the old style when a lord-in-waiting, who did not know a brig from a bumboat, was appointed admiral? No apprenticeship, no navigation, no examination, but an order from the Commodore: ‘Mr Hume, sir, please take the third watch.’”

“No,” was the gloomy response; “I could not accept.”

“You swab! You mean to tell me you’ve declined to help the Commodore?”

“I presume you refer to the young lady?”

“Presume be damned. Have you no eyes, man, no gallantry; can you stand by and see a girl like that eat her heart out with sorrow and anxiety? Not that I care a brass button whether you help or not, for double work doesn’t hurt me; but just think what she’ll be like after a fortnight in this crazy roundabout.”

“You forget I know nothing about the lady, nor this ship, nor its mission.”

“And what’s that got to do with your keeping an eye on the binnacle, or a cheerful face that will do something to keep her spirits up? As for the matter of that, I know precious little about the object of this voyage, but it’s enough for me to know that she wants my help, and that Captain Pardoe is in command.”

“It is not enough for me. My knowledge of Captain Pardoe does not inspire me with much confidence in his designs, and you forget the circumstances under which I was trapped.”

“Well, well, you’re just like the rest. You landsmen don’t mind what you do ashore, but no sooner do you come aboard than you’re as nice with your conscience as a lady’s-maid with her mistress’s borrowed gown. I warrant you’d not trouble your head about the policy of a merchant’s business if you entered his service, not though he was selling bad pork to sailors or robbing the widows.”

“You’re going rather wide of the mark, Mr Webster,” said Frank sternly.

“There, now, you’ve taken offence, and that’s what makes me sad to think of you tossing like a log in your cabin—like that cold-blooded creature of a Commins who’s drinking champagne in his bunk, the swab.”

“Mr Webster!” hailed the Captain.

“Yes, sir!”

“Take the remainder of my watch, please, and keep a sharp look-out on the starboard quarter.”

Webster swung quickly to the bridge, where he touched his hat to the lady, and then braced himself fast to sweep the channel with the glass.

Captain Pardee came down slowly, and reeled a little on the deck, as though he had taken too much grog, thought Frank, as he caught him by the arm.

“Thank ’ee,” said he. “I’ve not quitted the bridge before since we left the Pool, and my legs are rather stiff.”

He staggered on to the small gangway and descended, leaving Frank to his own reflections, which were not very pleasant. If a man so tough and strong, and inured to hardship, as Captain Pardoe evidently was, felt the strain of the long watch on board, it was clearly beyond the power of a girl to undertake any part of work so trying.

She was still standing on the bridge, her face wet with the driving spray, and a tense look about the mouth which told of nerves high-strung. She was looking fixedly before her, and did not, as she had on her first coming on deck, bend her head to the flying spume in playful defiance. As he watched her, hesitating between his wish to help and his stubborn regard for his own rights, he saw her lips tremble, and that settled the matter.

“Madam,” he said, reaching her side in a moment, “I am ready to help.”

She withdrew her face from the sea, and he saw that her thoughts had been far from him or the ship, and in some confusion he repeated his words. A faint flush came to her cheek, and a brighter look in her eye.

“I’m so glad,” she whispered, and Frank, feeling something coquettish in this, flushed himself. With the faintest smile, she continued: “I come of a superstitious race, and your refusal, so brusquely given, too, had shaken my faith in my own power, and what is of more importance, in the success of my undertaking. I was reading ‘failure’ out there in the tumbling waters—But now you have reassured me. That is why I am glad.”

He flushed more deeply yet to think how easily she read his thoughts.

“You must forgive me,” he said, with a frank smile, “but I only wanted an excuse to satisfy my reasonable suspicions.”

“And you have found it?” she said, with an answering smile.

“Yes; I think I have.”

“Then you do not think that I am likely to menace the security of England with this craft?”

“I am in ignorance of your intentions still, but I am willing to believe that you are bent upon no desperate or unjust enterprise.”

“Desperate it may prove,” she said proudly, “but unjust it is not. No, no, believe me, sir, if there is any cause which would claim the sympathy of a brave man it is this upon which I am set.”

She rested her fingers on his arm, and looked at him earnestly with eyes dewed with unshed tears.

What emotion could it be, he thought, so powerful as to move one by nature so proud and self-reliant? He felt that further suspicion on his part would be contemptible.

“I am no seaman, madam,” he said, “but I may be of some service.”

“Mr Webster, will you tell Mr Hume in what way he may best assist us?”

“Ay, ay, madam.”

“Then I leave the ship in your hands, gentlemen, until Captain Pardoe has rested.” She bowed her head and left the bridge.

“So, after all, you’ve taken up arms against your lawful sovereign, and all for the smile of a woman, with not so much to show as the Queen’s shilling. Shake, my son!”

“Don’t talk rot, and tell me what I’m to do.”

“Is that the way to address your superior officer? Harkee, sir, for less than that I’ve clapped a man in irons. But I forgive you. Put your eye to the business end of this glass and tell me what craft is steaming up on the weather bows. My eyes are dim for the want of sleep.”

What with the swing and plunging of the “catcher,” it was some time before Frank could get the object within view, and when he did it was but a fleeting glimpse he had.

“It’s a Cape mail-boat,” he said; “I can make that out from her red funnels and grey hull.”

“Good. Now, would you know a warship if she showed at that distance?”

“Possibly, from her unusual breadth of beam—not to speak of her guns.”

“Well, my lad, keep a keen lookout, for there’ll be a lookout kept for us off the Isle of Wight, and be most particular in noting small craft. Set a thief to catch a thief, and as likely as not they’ll send a ‘catcher’ out from Portsmouth, and a cruiser from Plymouth. If you see anything strange in the movements of a steamer, blow down this pipe, and I’ll be up in a brace of shakes. I must have a wink before to-night;” and Webster, fetching a terrific yawn, went off down below.

Hume was left alone on the bridge, and, as far as he could see, there were only two other men on deck—the steersman inside the wheelhouse, and a seaman in a look-out shelter forward. It was a strange turn of the wheel which had placed him there in temporary charge of a torpedo-catcher, bound on he knew not what mad mission, and he shook his head once or twice in grave doubts of his own action, and of the conduct of those who so lightly trusted him—conduct which seemed to him to smack of the reckless. However, he entered upon his task without further thought of the consequences, letting his eyes sweep from right to left over the grey waters, and lingering here and there on a sail or a streamer of smoke. At first he eyed every ship with suspicion and fidgeted when a fishing lugger drove by before the wind, the crew peering under the boom at the long, low, swift craft; but after a time he reasoned he need fear no Craft which sailed on a parallel course up or down channel, and looked out only for sign of a ship making across. The sun mounted higher in the heavens, the wind fell away, and the Swift grew gradually steadier, and he could walk up and down the bridge without having to hold on at each step.

Close on noon Captain Pardoe came up to take a “sight,” retiring to the chart house to work out his bearings. The man at the wheel was relieved, and Mr Webster reappeared, looking as jolly as before, with a merry twinkle in his eye.

“Anything in view, Mr Hume?”

“Nothing but a couple of sailers and an ocean tramp, as I judge that steamer to be.”

Webster took a look round to satisfy himself.

“Now,” he said, “you go below for a snack and a snooze. You’ll find some tack on the table. Tumble into my cabin, as yours is too wet.”

Frank, nothing loath, went down, and was soon in a sound sleep, out of which he was aroused well on in the afternoon by a rough shaking, to find Webster bending over him with a sparkle in his eyes.

“There’s some fun afoot, my lad, with the prospect of sudden death and damp burial, so hurry up,” and the breezy first officer went like a tornado down the narrow alley.

Frank was quickly on deck, and found Webster talking to the look-out man, while Captain Pardoe and Miss Laura were on the bridge anxiously watching some object on the starboard bows. Looking in that direction, he could see nothing but a heavy streamer of smoke tailing away to the north, plainly showing that the steamer was on a course that would intercept the “destroyer.” Mounting to the bridge, he sighted the double funnels and heavy top hamper of a large vessel with the unmistakable cut of an ironclad.

“What do you make her?” said the Captain gloomily, more to break the silence than to ask for information.

Frank took the proffered glass, and bringing it to bear, it revealed two barbette towers, with long guns projecting, sharp bows heavily scrolled with gilt, and a mass of tumbled waters pouring before her rush.

“She is coming along at a tremendous pace, Captain.”

“Ay, eighteen knots, and she’ll be across our bows in a quarter of an hour, if she doesn’t ram us to gain a little experience.”

“I am sure she cannot be in pursuit of us,” said Miss Laura, stamping her foot. “How could she hit off our position so exactly, when we have made little smoke and stood well away from the English coast? She may be a French cruiser.”

The Captain shook his head.

“They’d log our course as soon as they received all particulars by wire, and from the crow’s-nest on the masts they’d see us sooner than we could find them.”

“Well, then, we must run away; and if she is only doing eighteen knots we should have no difficulty in escaping.”

“True, ma’am, if it was a stern chase; but she’ll have us right under her bows.”

“And what will you do if she orders us to stop?” and the young lady fixed a burning glance upon the dark and troubled face of the Captain.

“I’ll take my orders from you, Miss Laura,” he said gravely; “even though she turns her big guns on us.”

“Well, then, signal to the engineer to cram on all steam. We won’t get under her guns, at any rate.”

The Captain smiled, then touched the bell, and the sharp summons below was answered by prompt stoking.

Frank stood back, an amazed and silent witness of this scene on the little bridge. It seemed a thing incredible and unreal that a girl should have control in a matter fraught with such a responsibility and such peril. He glanced keenly at the Captain to see whether or no he were humouring the young lady; but there was no sign in that dark and gloomy face except an air of grim resignation, while, though Miss Laura showed, in the imperious lift of her head and in her flashing eyes, visible tokens of intense feeling, she gave no trace of a mind unhinged.

“Heave the log, Mr Webster.”

Webster’s voice rang out cheerily; and soon the long line was paying out in the foaming track. A bare-legged and brawny-armed tar, taking the line over his shoulder, staggered forward with it when its swift race had been checked by the minute hand, and Webster himself put his weight into the work, seeing which, Frank went down to help, for it’s no child’s play towing in the line from the grasp of the rushing waters.

“Twenty-three, sir,” sang out Webster; “and no bad speed, too, in the open,” he added to Frank.

In a few minutes the space between the two ships had greatly lessened, and the name of the cruiser could be picked out on her bows.

“Do you see that, Miss Laura? there’s no doubt she’s after us.”

“I see no change in her, Captain.”

“She has shifted her course in answer to our increased speed, and instead of being stem on, you can now see almost the length of her broadside.”

“She’s got her bow chaser cleared, sir,” said Webster, in a tone of pleasurable excitement.

A grand and formidable object the warship appeared now, sending before her terrible bows a white avalanche of water, her white decks lined with men, and the dark muzzles of her guns threatening destruction. And no less deadly in aspect, though on a lesser scale, was the low and swifter craft sullenly plunging on like some stealthy panther retreating, snarling and half reluctant, before the advance of a royal tiger.

“It is strange she does not signal,” muttered the Captain, “unless she means to speak us.”

The cruiser was so near now that every man on board the port side could be distinctly seen, and it was clear that where the two lines met the ships would be within less than a cable’s length.

“She made another point to starboard,” said Webster. “If she doesn’t give way she’ll be on top of us.”

“She won’t give way an inch,” said the Captain bitterly; “and she’s in her rights as a Queen’s ship. Stand by, below!” he shouted.

The two ships tore along, the cruiser terrible and silent, except for the foaming of the waves, and every soul on the smaller vessel held his breath.

“Reverse the starboard screw!” shouted Captain Pardoe; “bring her round two points on the starboard!”

The long craft trembled as the one screw revolved in opposition to the other, then she bore away and darted under the stern of the great ship, heeling over from the waves that swelled up in the wake.

The cruiser came round with a stately sweep, bringing up on the port side on a parallel course; and they all waited for the summons from the commander. It came, ringing, sharp and peremptory:

“Lay-to, there!”

Miss Laura looked at Captain Pardoe, with her hand to her heart, and he signalled to the engineer for more speed. The little vessel darted forward, her stem settling down like the tail of a duck taking to flight, a huge wave rising up right above the rails.

The cruiser sank astern; but from her bows there leapt a great ball of smoke, followed by a deafening report.

“We know what that means,” said Webster, with a smile, “and she’ll play skittles with us presently.”

But the cruiser held on without further notice, sinking further astern with each minute.

The distance between widened to a mile, and still she gave no other sign, and those on the bridge looked at each other in wonder.

“You see, Captain,” said Miss Laura, betwixt a sob and a laugh, “I was right. She did not know us, and we are safe.”

“Steamers ahead!” came the hoarse cry from the look-out, like a croak of ill-omen.

Glasses were quickly raised for a long scrutiny of two small steamers low down in the water.

“Well?” said the Captain, with a look at Webster.

“Pilot boats mayhap,” said that officer, with a queer grimace and a swift glance at the young lady, whose face had paled again to the lips at this new anxiety.

“Oh, are they?” she asked, with a troubled look at the Captain.

“No, Miss Laura,” he said sadly; “they’re torpedo boats. That’s why the cruiser let us slip. They mean to take this boat without injury to her or us, and they’ve got us in a trap.”