CHAPTER IV
AND LIKE A DREAM DISSOLVED
Before the woman had time to speak a thunderous step was heard on thecompanion stairs, and Le Farge broke into the saloon. The man’s facewas injected with blood, his eyes were fixed and glassy like the eyesof a drunkard, and the veins stood on his temples like twisted cords.
“Get those children ready!” he shouted, as he rushed into his owncabin. “Get you all ready—boats are being swung out and victualled.H--l! where are those papers?”
They heard him furiously searching and collecting things in hiscabin—the ship’s papers, accounts, things the master mariner clings toas he clings to his life; and as he searched, and found, and packed, hekept bellowing orders for the children to be got on deck. Half mad heseemed, and half mad he was with the knowledge of the terrible thingthat was stowed amidst the cargo.
Up on deck the crew, under the direction of the first mate, wereworking in an orderly manner, and with a will, utterly unconscious ofthere being anything beneath their feet but an ordinary cargo on fire.The covers had been stripped from the boats, kegs of water and bags ofbiscuit placed in them. The dinghy, smallest of the boats and mosteasily got away, was hanging at the port quarter-boat davits flush withthe bulwarks; and Paddy Button was in the act of stowing a keg of waterin her, when Le Farge broke on to the deck, followed by the stewardesscarrying Emmeline, and Mr Lestrange leading Dick. The dinghy was rathera larger boat than the ordinary ships’ dinghy, and possessed a smallmast and long sail. Two sailors stood ready to man the falls, and PaddyButton was just turning to trundle forward again when the captainseized him.
“Into the dinghy with you,” he cried, “and row these children and thepassenger out a mile from the ship—two miles—three miles—make anoffing.”
“Sure, Captain dear, I’ve left me fiddle in the——”
Le Farge dropped the bundle of things he was holding under his leftarm, seized the old sailor and rushed him against the bulwarks, as ifhe meant to fling him into the sea _through_ the bulwarks.
Next moment Mr Button was in the boat. Emmeline was handed to him, paleof face and wide-eyed, and clasping something wrapped in a littleshawl; then Dick, and then Mr Lestrange was helped over.
“No room for more!” cried Le Farge. “Your place will be in thelong-boat, Mrs Stannard, if we have to leave the ship. Lower away,lower away!”
The boat sank towards the smooth blue sea, kissed it and was afloat.
Now Mr Button, before joining the ship at Boston, had spent a goodwhile lingering by the quay, having no money wherewith to enjoy himselfin a tavern. He had seen something of the lading of the _Northumberland_,and heard more from a stevedore. No sooner had he cast off the fallsand seized the oars, than his knowledge awoke in his mind, living andlurid. He gave a whoop that brought the two sailors leaning over theside.
“Bullies!”
“Ay, ay!”
“Run for your lives—I’ve just rimimbered—there’s two bar’ls ofblastin’ powther in the hould!”
Then he bent to his oars, as no man ever bent before.
Lestrange, sitting in the stern-sheets clasping Emmeline and Dick,saw nothing for a moment after hearing these words. The children,who knew nothing of blasting powder or its effects, though halffrightened by all the bustle and excitement, were still amusedand pleased at finding themselves in the little boat so close tothe blue pretty sea.
Dick put his finger over the side, so that it made a ripple in thewater (the most delightful experience of childhood). Emmeline, with onehand clasped in her uncle’s, watched Mr Button with a grave sort ofhalf pleasure.
He certainly was a sight worth watching. His soul was filled withtragedy and terror. His Celtic imagination heard the ship blowing up,saw himself and the little dinghy blown to pieces—nay, saw himself inhell, being toasted by “divils.”
But tragedy and terror could find no room for expression on hisfortunate or unfortunate face. He puffed and he blew, bulging hischeeks out at the sky as he tugged at the oars, making a hundred andone grimaces—all the outcome of agony of mind, but none expressing it.Behind lay the ship, a picture not without its lighter side. Thelong-boat and the quarter-boat, lowered with a rush and seaborne by themercy of Providence, were floating by the side of the _Northumberland_.
From the ship men were casting themselves overboard like water-rats,swimming in the water like ducks, scrambling on board the boats anyhow.
From the half-opened main-hatch the black smoke, mixed now with sparks,rose steadily and swiftly and spitefully, as if driven through thehalf-closed teeth of a dragon.
A mile away beyond the _Northumberland_ stood the fog bank. It lookedsolid, like a vast country that had suddenly and strangely built itselfon the sea—a country where no birds sang and no trees grew. A countrywith white, precipitous cliffs, solid to look at as the cliffs of Dover.
“I’m spint!” suddenly gasped the oarsman, resting the oar handles underthe crook of his knees, and bending down as if he was preparing to buttat the passengers in the stern-sheets. “Blow up or blow down, I’mspint—don’t ax me, I’m spint!”
Mr Lestrange, white as a ghost, but recovered somewhat from his firsthorror, gave the Spent One time to recover himself and turned to lookat the ship. She seemed a great distance off, and the boats, well awayfrom her, were making at a furious pace towards the dinghy. Dick wasstill playing with the water, but Emmeline’s eyes were entirelyoccupied with Paddy Button. New things were always of vast interest toher contemplative mind, and these evolutions of her old friend wereeminently new.
She had seen him swilling the decks, she had seen him dancing a jig,she had seen him going round the main deck on all fours with Dick onhis back, but she had never seen him going on like this before.
She perceived now that he was exhausted, and in trouble aboutsomething, and, putting her hand in the pocket of her dress, shesearched for something that she knew was there. She produced aTangerine orange, and leaning forward she touched the Spent One’s headwith it.
Mr Button raised his head, stared vacantly for a second, saw theproffered orange, and at the sight of it the thought of “the childer”and their innocence, himself and the blasting powder, cleared hisdazzled wits, and he took to the sculls again.
“Daddy,” said Dick, who had been looking astern, “there’s clouds nearthe ship.”
In an incredibly short space of time the solid cliffs of fog hadbroken. The faint wind that had banked it had pierced it, and was nowmaking pictures and devices of it, most wonderful and weird to see.Horsemen of the mist rode on the water, and were dissolved; billowsrolled on the sea, yet were not of the sea; blankets and spirals ofvapour ascended to high heaven. And all with a terrible languor ofmovement. Vast and lazy and sinister, yet steadfast of purpose as Fateor Death, the fog advanced, taking the world for its own.
Against this grey and indescribably sombre background stood thesmouldering ship with the breeze already shivering in her sails, andthe smoke from her main-hatch blowing and beckoning as if to theretreating boats.
“Why’s the ship smoking like that?” asked Dick. “And look at thoseboats coming—when are we going back, daddy?”
“Uncle,” said Emmeline, putting her hand in his, as she gazed towardsthe ship and beyond it, “I’m ’fraid.”
“What frightens you, Emmy?” he asked, drawing her to him.
“Shapes,” replied Emmeline, nestling up to his side.
“Oh, Glory be to God!” gasped the old sailor, suddenly resting on hisoars. “Will yiz look at the fog that’s comin’—”
“I think we had better wait here for the boats,” said Mr Lestrange; “weare far enough now to be safe if—anything happens.”
“Ay, ay,” replied the oarsman, whose wits had returned. “Blow up orblow down, she won’t hit us from here.”
“Daddy,” said Dick, “when are we going back? I want my tea.”
“We aren’t going back, my child,” replied his father. “The ship’s onfire; we are waiti
ng for another ship.”
“Where’s the other ship?” asked the child, looking round at the horizonthat was clear.
“We can’t see it yet,” replied the unhappy man, “but it will come.”
The long-boat and the quarter-boat were slowly approaching. They lookedlike beetles crawling over the water, and after them across theglittering surface came a dullness that took the sparkle from thesea—a dullness that swept and spread like an eclipse shadow.
Now the wind struck the dinghy. It was like a wind from fairyland,almost imperceptible, chill, and dimming the sun. A wind from Lilliput.As it struck the dinghy, the fog took the distant ship.
It was a most extraordinary sight, for in less than thirty seconds theship of wood became a ship of gauze, a tracery—flickered, and was goneforever from the sight of man.