Public-domain ebook
by Various
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Public-domain ebook sourced from Project Gutenberg #12872.
The opening · free to read
We were in mid-ocean. Over the vast expanses of the oily sea no ripple was to be seen although Captain BABBIJAM kept his binoculars levelled at the silent horizon for three-quarters of an hour by the saloon clock. Far away in the murky distance of the mysterious empyrean, a single star flashed with a weird brilliance down upon the death-like stillness of the immemorial ocean. Yet the good old Marlinspike was rolling from side to side and rising and falling as if the liquid expanse were stirred by the rush of a tempest instead of lying as motionless as a country congregation during the rector's sermon. Suddenly Captain BABBIJAM closed his binoculars with an angry snap, and turned to me. His face showed of a dark purple under his white cotton night-cap.
"The silly old ship," he muttered, half to himself and half to me, "is trying to make heavy weather of it; but I'll be even with her. I'll be even with her."
"You'll find it a very odd thing to do," I said to him, jocosely.
He sprang at me like a seahorse, and reared himself to his full height before me.
"Come, Mr. TUGLEY," he continued, speaking in a low, meaning voice, "can you take a star?"
"Sometimes," I answered, humouring his strange fancy; "but there's only one about, and it seems a deuce of a long way off--however, I'll try;" and, with that, I reached my arm up in the direction of the solitary planet, which lay in the vast obscure like a small silver candlestick, with a greenish tinge in its icy sparkling, mirrored far below in the indigo flood of the abysmal sea, while a grey scud came sweeping up, no one quite knew whence, and hung about the glossy face of the silent luminary like the shreds of a wedding veil, scattered by a honey-moon quarrel across the deep spaces far beyond the hairy coamings of the booby-hatch.
"Fool!" said the Captain, softly, "I don't mean that. If you can't take a star, can you keep a watch?"
"Well, as to that, Captain," said I, half shocked and half amused at his strange questionings, "I never take my own out in a crowd. It's one of DENT's best, given me by my aunt, and I've had it for nigh upon--"
But the Captain had left me, and was at that moment engaged on his after-supper occupation of jockeying a lee yard-arm, while the first mate, Mr. SOWSTER, was doing his best to keep up with his rough commanding officer by dangling to windward on the flemish horse, which, as it was touched in the wind and gone in the forelegs, stumbled violently over the buttery hatchway and hurled its venturesome rider into the hold.
On the following morning we were all sitting in the palatial saloon of the Marlinspike. We were all there, all the characters, that is to say, necessary for the completion of a first class three-volume ocean novel. On my right sat the cayenne-peppery Indian Colonel, a small man with a fierce face and a tight collar, who roars like a bull and says, "Zounds, Sir," on the slightest provocation. Opposite to him was his wife, a Roman-nosed lady, with an imperious manner, and a Colonel-subduing way of curling her lip. On my left was the funny man. As usual he was of a sea-green colour, and might be expected at any moment to stagger to a porthole and call faintly for the steward. Further down the table sat two young nincompoops, brought on board specially in order that they might fulfil their destiny, and fill out my story, by falling in love with the fluffy-haired English girl who was sitting between them, and pouting equally and simultaneously at both. There was also the stout German who talks about "de sturm und der vafes." And beside him was the statuesque English beauty, whose eyes are of the rich blackness of the tropic sky, whose voice has a large assortment of sudden notes of haughtiness, while the studied insolence of her manner first freezes her victims and then incontinently and inconsistently scorches them. Eventually her proud spirit will be tamed, probably by a storm, or a ship-wreck, or by ten days in an open boat. I shall then secure your love, my peerless ARAMINTA, and you will marry me and turn out as soft and gentle as the moss-rose which now nestles in your raven tresses. The Colonel was speaking.
"Zounds, Sir!" he was saying. "I don't know what you mean by effects. All mine are on board. What do you say, Mr. TUGLEY?" he went on, looking at me with a look full of corkscrews and broken glass, while his choleric face showed of a purple hue under the effort of utterance.
"Well, Colonel," I replied, in an off-hand way, so as not to irritate him, "I keep my best effects here;" and, so saying, I produced my note-book, and tapped it significantly. "What, for instance, do you say to this?"
But, what follows, needs another chapter.
"I know that scud," said a hateful voice. But, before I could annihilate its owner, the pale face of Mr. SPILKINGS, with his dead-eyes turned in, dashed breathlessly into the saloon. "By all that's holy," he shouted, "the Captain's gone mad, and the crew have thrown off all disguise. We are manned by ourang-outangs!"
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