 | CHAPTER VII. Ringwood the rover |  |
7. CHAPTER VII.
It was already afternoon when Ringwood left
he cabin; so far had the recital of his tale,
broken by violent fits of wrathful indignation,
and bursts of fiery passion, trespassed upon the
day. When he reached the deck, he found he
had conjectured, justly, the cause of the bustle
overhead, which had excited his attention, while
in the very heat and tumult of his remembered
wrongs and meditated vengeance.
The vessel was now heading to the northward,
having already rounded the extremity of Florida,
and, with the wind on her larboard beam, blowing
strong and warm directly from the Gulf, was
running close in shore along the western coast of
that forest-mantled promontory. The alteration
in the course of the felucca, and corresponding
changes of her trim and tackling, had, therefore,
deck—confusion tending unto order. The wide-spread
studding sails which had protruded many
feet beyond her ordinary yard-arms, wooing the
favorable breeze, while previous to their doubling
the cape, it had fallen full upon her starboard
quarter, were now reduced, her topsails reefed,
and her topgallant yards sent down, as if in preparation
for a storm, although no cloud or speck
of vapor was visible on the bright clear horizon.
Her consorts, close behind her, were gliding
along gently under the same easy sail, in obedience,
as it seemed, to a set of signals floating at
Ringwood's fore, and thence repeated by each following
barque of the squadron, which came on
singly, in long file, the leading vessel being a
mile, at least, in advance of the last. The waves,
or wavelets rather—for though the breeze blew
steadily and strong, the surface of the Gulf was,
notwithstanding, singularly calm and level—were
as bright, and almost as transparent as a sheet of
crystal; every rock, every coral reef that rose
sheer from the white and sandy bottom—nay,
every green variety of ocean-grass and weed,
every bright shell and gorgeous sea-flower that
studded, as with a thousand living gems, the glistening
pavement of the deep, was visible as
clearly as though no denser medium than the air
were interposed between them and the eye that
gazed in rapture on their wonders. Scores of
bright flying fish, their white scales glancing silvery
to the sunshine, their wing-like fins fast flashing,
leaped up from the small ripples, momently, and
vanished beneath them; the blue shark shot along,
suspended, as it were, in the transparent waters,
leaving behind him a long streak of flashing lustre;
the albatross soared high upon his snow-white
pinion, while gulls and sea-swallows, and
petals of every size and color skimmed the calm
deep in the pursuit of prey or pleasure. To the
right, meanwhile, lay the low shores of Florida,
glowing with mingled tints of almost magical verdure.
Tall palms, with their soft, feathery tops,
towering far, far up into the blue serene, above
the denser foliage of the oaks and locusts, which
blent with giant cedars; and the funereal cypress,
hung with long wreaths of pale and ghostly moss,
composed the eternal forest—the forest which,
in its turn, overbowering thousands of flowering
shrubs: magnolias, with their vast chalices of
odoriferous snow; and dogwood, bright with unnumbered
star-like blossoms: roses of every hue;
calmias, and rhododendrons, and azalias, with
manyfold and clustered bloom, varying from pure
white, through all the shades of blush, and pink,
and violet, to gorgeous kingly purple. And above
all, the orange, that young bride of the vegetable
world, enriching all the atmosphere with powerful
and almost oppressive perfume. Bushes of
manchineal and mangrove fringed the low banks,
growing far out into the shallow waters, which
actually laved their roots, and floated the long
wreaths of massive greenery that garlanded their
pendulous branches.
Hard by the outer verge of this sea-cradled
coppice, with little room to spare between her
tall topgallant masts and the wide-reaching limbs
of the huge forest trees which, here and there,
protruding from the brow of some bluff eminence,
or island knoll, overhung the navigable channel,
the gallant picaroon shot onward, her bellying
sails shimmering white in the meridian sunbeams
and the glad waters foaming before her sharp,
lean bows, rippling with a hoarse laughter along
her beautifully moulded sides, and forming in her
wake a broad and frothy furrow, where, parted
for a moment by her fleet transit, they foamed
and frolicked as if they joyed in their reunion.
Fair blew the western breeze, and fresh; and, as
the sun turned westward in his path of glory, it
freshened more and more: and as the shades of
evening grew less distant, fleeter it waxed, and
stronger, till it became a stiff, though not unfavorable
gale.
Long before this, had the topgallant masts of
the felucca been housed; and now her topsails
were close reefed, and still with undiminished
speed—now lying over as the gale fell full and
steady on her distended canvas, till her long
yards seemed on the point of dipping into the
waves to leeward; now surging up again with
graceful elasticity in every temporary lull—the
rapid barque flew through the gurgling waters.
Fast flew she, nor less fast did her gay consorts
follow: nor did the winged hours flag more than
they in their career across the firmament.
The day was nigh spent, and the dim presage
of approaching night was stealing fast over the
azure vault, on the last western verge of which,
his lower limit already merged in its ocean bed,
glowing like a red furnace with his borrowed
lustre—half the sun's disk of gold hung on the
very point of disappearing. A thousand purple
tints were creeping over the bright pure sky; a
thousand rosy gleams were flickering upon the
glassy waves, most like the varying hues seen on
the changeful scales of the expiring dolphin; and
now he plunged into the deep. For a few seconds,
long, radiant streams of many-colored light,
ruby, and pink, and violet, checkered the darkening
arch: these passed away, and a deep purple
shadow swept slowly, as projected from a
curtain interposed, across the firmanent of heavean—across
the laughing waters. Scarcely,
whole visible universe, before another change
succeeded. Myriads of stars, planets, and stationary
orbs, and confused milky constellations,
burst out at once, like eyes unclouded from sleep,
beaming, or twinkling with quick diamond rays,
from every quarter of the deep blue, viewless
ether, which stretched away, contrasted to their
sudden brilliancy, far, far—a vast abyss of lustrous
blackness. Still fair and freshly blew the
breeze—still the bark bounded onward, eager as
the worn steed, which all forgets his weariness
as he draws nigh his stall.
“Ho! Cunninghame,” exclaimed the Rover,
pausing in his walk to and fro on his brief quarterdeck.
“Ho! we be here at last—bid them
beat instantly to quarters.”
The order had been anticipated by the crew
before the words were spoken—the drummer had
assumed his instrument, and the men were already
mustered in divisions, expectant of the call to
quarters; for they had made the last well-remembered
headland, a short league to the southward of
their harbor. Taking his cue then from the
Rover's words, almost before his officer had issued
the command, the long roll of the drum
might be heard mingling with the sweet sigh of
the sea breeze; and with the first rattle the strong-handed
crew flew to their proper stations.
“Down with the helm, haul on your starboard
braces!” The rattling of the blocks succeeded,
and the harsh straining of the cordage, mixed with
a rumbling creak, as the huge yards obeyed their
impulse; and instantly the graceful ship swung
up almost into the wind's eye, and stood with
scarce diminished speed directly from the shore,
which she had hugged all day; going, although
close-handed, at a rate not inferior to seven knots
the hour. It needed, therefore, but a little while
to gain an offing of a mile; when she again went
right about; and, with her head pointing straight
on shore, dashed onward with the wind dead
astern.
“Away there, topmen!” and with the word,
the nimble hands were hurrying up the rigging,
and ready for the next command.
“In with your fore and mizen topsails,” and
ere five minutes had elapsed, the sails were clued
up in festoons, and the ponderous yards upon the
caps. “Strike the foretopmast” followed; and
instantly the heel of that huge spar ran half way
down the lower mast—“Strike the mizen topmast.
In with the main topsail.” These orders
were immediately obeyed; and in less than ten
minutes from the time when she had gone about,
the felucca was dashing, as it seemed, dead ashore,
with her three topmasts struck, her yards a cock
bill,and not one stitch of canvas, save the fore-topsail,
set.
Before her lay the shore, low as it has been
described and level—bordered with a deep fringe
of floating verdure—among and over which the
surf, set in by the strong western gale, broke high
and stormy, and covered far aloft with the impenetrable
and eternal foliage of the tropical
forest! Behind her whistled the driving breeze,
and swelled the rolling billows! on she came fast
and fearless! and now her bows were almost battered
in the upflashing surf! yet was there visible
no opening in the low-growing mangroves—no
gap in the vast mass of leafy blackness, which
stood out like a wall in clear and palpable relief
against the starry sky! one thing, however, might
have been marked by a sailor's eye, although a
landsman would scarce have discerned the sign, or
known its meaning, if he had discovered it. Right
under the light vessel's bowsprit there showed
one narrow spot where the surf broke not, where
undisturbed the floating mangroves reposed upon a
streak, for it was nothing more, of dark blue
water, scarcely ten yards in width, where for a little
space the giant timber that overhung them receded
from the margin of the billows. Right upon
this the felucca steered, the practiced hand of no
less a mariner than Ringwood wielding the obe
dient tiller! Right up this she steered, as though
she followed a well known and easy channel into
a secure harbor.
“Ready there forward with the long starboard
falconet!” demanded the clear accents of the Rover.
“Ready, sir;” was the quick response.
“Then fire!” a stream of vivid flame burst
from a bow port of the picaroon, driving a cloud
of snow white smoke before it, and the loud
booming voice of the heavy gun succeeded. Immediately
a quick thin flash was seen ashore followed
by the report of a carbine—and then, right
in the centre of the little day formed by the recess
of the forest trees, directly over the space of
dark blue water, a blaze of red light burst forth
sharp and dazzling, a dusky crimson glare, in
which the bright green foliage of the underwood,
and the rugged stems of the huge timber trees,
the purple billows, and the dark sky, glowed with
a deep and lurid tinge. “Stand by there, with
the grapnels!”
On! on! she darted—the thick embowered
manchineels were pierced by her long tapering
bowsprit—her cut-water plunged into their dense
greenery—the parted branches rattled and scouped
against her lean bows as they severed them—the
leaves, entangled in her rigging, were torn violently
from their parent branches; a moment, and
of her previous motion, was rushing up a
deep but narrow river—so narrow, that there
were scarcely six clear feet of space between her
bulwarks and the shore on either hand. “Heave”
—and the iron graplings, whirled by strong hands
and with a will, rattled among the tangled coppice—“On
shore there!”
“Ay! ay!”
“Haul taunt, and belay!” and instantly, from
either bow, a strong rope was dragged forcibly
ashore by unseen hands, and made fast to the
giant trunks, which swelled both banks of that
dark stream with an unbroken barrier,—the vessel
was checked from her way, and after lying for a
few seconds motionless, yielded to the strong tide
which was setting like a mill-race outward, and
fell aft to the full swing of her cables.
“Get hands enough ashore now, Master Cunninghame;
carry out warps, and swing her round
the point—look alive! look alive! Godslife—the
Albicore is close in shore even now; heave at the
capstan ho!—round with it, men—round with it!
—or she'll be into us stern on!”
Scarce forty yards from the embouchure of the
river, the channel turned at a sharp angle round a
low point into a small round basin; whence with
a tortuous route the stream might be traced—turbid
and black and swift, but singularly narrow;
for miles into the heart of the forest, to the far
source where it boiled up at once, from the bowels
of the earth into a large broad pool,—so deep
that never lead had found its bottom, even at its
birth a river. Upon this point a little knot of
men was gathered: and here the light had been
displayed at the felucca's signal, which had now
quite expired. The men wrought eagerly and
well; and many minutes had not passed before
the picaroon swung round the point into the
little landlocked basin; just as a gun from the
Albicore announced her close proximity, and was
replied to, as before, by a brief exhibition of the
same crimson light.
Meanwhile the Rover had got all his boats out,
and strongly manned; so that before the second
barque rounded the inner point, he was already
under way—towing, and sweeping, where the
stream occasionally widened, and warping through
its frequent windings toward its sequestered source
—hearing, each after each, the signal guns of his
consorts as they made the cove, and confident that,
for a time at least, all were secure from peril,
whether of wind or warfare. Through all that
livelong night the crews toiled faithfully by gangs,
plying the oars in the light whale-boats, or laboring
with more severe exertions at the huge sweeps of
the felucca! All night they toiled!—but not all
night did Ringwood, wearied with past labor and
yet more overdone by struggling with his own
furious passions, watch on the guarded deck. At
midnight, or a little after, descending the companion
stairs, he sought the privacy of his own
cabin. Erect and stern the negro sentry stood at
his wonted post, presenting arms as his proud
leader passed.
“Let Charon call my steward,” he said, “bid
him bring food and wine.”
“Even now it waits you, noble sir,” answered
the black attendant, “this hour or more it hath
been prepared.”
Without more words the Rover entered his
apartment, and blithely did it show, and cheerfully
by the bright radiance of the large crystal
lamps, suspended from the gilded beams, and
throwing into every angle and recess a flood of
clear illumination. The large square board, still
cumbered with its accustomed load of books and
charts, papers serawled over with problems of
singular and abstruse calculation, quadrant, and
astrolabe, and compass, and other instruments of
singular device, and, as in those days it was
deemed, rare virtue—had been wheeled aside;
in its stead a small round table, covered with a
cloth of brilliant whiteness, and bearing all provocatives
to tempt a languid appetite, now occupied
the centre of the cabin. A single cover of
richly chased and burnished gold, with spoons and
forks of the same precious metal; a goblet rough
with the work of Benvenuto's graver; several
tall rummers of thin Venice glass, flanked by
two flasks of wine, were appropriate decorations
to a cold larded capon, a salted neat's tongue, caviar,
and other delicacies of a like thirsty nature
Yet did the pirate chief manifest little inclination
to taste the dainties, which—till he saw them
set before him—he fancied he had needed. He
threw himself into a velvet-cushioned chair, which
stood beside the board, stretched out his legs, and
covering his face with his broad hand, remained
for many minutes silent, absorbed in deep and
gloomy meditation. At length he started up and
sat erect, gazing about him with a strange bewildered
glance, as if he had expected to discover
some one whose voice had roused him from his
lethargy—within a second's space, however, he
was calm and collected as before.
“Marvelous, marvelous, indeed!” he said,
thinking aloud as it were, and probably unconscious
that his thoughts had found utterance,
“marvelous tricks our truant fancy plays us,—
but—tush!—I am outdone with weariness and
watching, and my mind wanders.”
He stood up, and drew his hand across his forehead,
as if to pluck aside some cloud which veiled
champagne, he untwisted the wire which secured
the cork, decanted one half of its generous and
foamy liquor into a mighty glass of Venice crystal,
quaffed it off at a single draught, and replaced
the goblet. Then, as if conquering his
deeply seated loathing, he applied himself to carve
the capon, placed a few morsels on his platter,
and forced himself to swallow a mere mouthful.
But it was all in vain! Again he had recourse to
the rich wine; and after drinking it, fell back into
his chair, and as before mused deeply; dark frowning
shadows stealing across his broad fair brow,
and strange emotions curling his lip at times with
a fierce sneering spasm—anon these gloomy signs
passed over, and were succeeded by a severe
though sad expression: as if some tender melancholy
recollection had swept over the unfolded
tablets of his soul, and erased for the moment
thence each darker stain of sin or worldly sorrow.
“ 'Tis strange,” he said, again, after a long
deep pause, “ 'tis passing strange, how at this
time the images of by-gone scenes, aye, to the
very verdure of the trees, and shadows thrown by
the yellow sunbeams athwart the laughing landscape,
array themselves before mine eyes, in palpable
distinctness. Yet was there no link—no
chain in the tenor of my thought to join these
visions of the past, with the utility of the stern
present. Strange, they are very strange indeed,
these pranks of the imagination! Those boyish
reminiseences were clear upon my spirit, as the
events of yesterday—every word that I spoke
myself, every tone that I marked of others—and
thou, thou too, my sister! The ancient village
church—the quiet and sequestered pew in the
shadowy corner—the sunbeams full of clusty
notes streaming in through the oriel window—the
humble devout congregation—the old gray-headed
curate—aye! I could hear the very accents of his
sonorous voice, could mark the hum of the responses,
could hear the lisping trill of thy small
girlish treble—my sister—my lost sister!—as we
did kneel together on the bright Sabbath mornings
—as we did kneel—and pray!—pray—pray,” he
muttered, as though the sense of the word had
escaped his understanding; then struck his fore-head
heavily with his expanded palm, “and now!”
he said, “and now! Well—well it is no matter!”
and, rallying by a violent effort his scattered
senses, he quaffed off a third goblet of champagne,
and moving with a rapid and firm step toward the
starboard state room of his cabin, seemed as
though on the point of opening the door; but just
as his hand touched the latch he paused, for the
low sound of regular calm breathing fell on his
ear. “Ay!—ay!” he said, “ay—I had forgotten!”
He turned away, and entering the alcove between
the two small chambers, looked long and
with a fervent and excited gaze upon the lovely
picture which hung there, with that serene and
innocent smile which, like a seraph's voice, seemed
to pour something of consolatory hope into the
bosom—worn as it was and blighted, and filled at
that very instant by turbulent and fiery conflict
between good thoughts and evil, of him who gazed
on it so fixedly.
His eye, as he withdrew it from the picture,
fell on the crucifix of gold, which stood upon the
little table under it—and, moved as he was by a
strange and long unfelt revulsion, he knelt down
before it, and burying his head in his clasped
hands, burst at once into a flood of wild hysterical
weeping.
“I know not,” he said thoughtfully, as he arose,
“I know not—would God that I did! Cunninghame,
now, would term this nought but a heated
mind working upon a wearied body—but no! no!
I know it not—it is not so! Why do I doubt? I
who have never doubted, or pity, whose revenge
has had no check or stay of mercy! Whence,
whence these retrospections to the long, long-forgotten
past?—these journeyings backward of the
soul to pure and innocent days? Whence this insatiable
and longing wish for rest—for rest—for
something stiller than mere repose—sounder than
earthly sleep—more peaceful than tranquillity itself?
Wherefore this loathing of hot action, for
which till now I have alone existed? Is it that
coming death is even now spreading above me the
shadow—the prophetic gloom of his approach? Is
it, that now but one deed more rests to be done,
until my great revenge shall be completed, and I
may lay me down, my last toil ended, and sleep—
sleep dreamlessly—soundly—and forever!—and
yet that one deed?—that one deed?—no! no! no!
Great God, it cannot be—and still—my oath!—
why—why—doth she look like my sister? Well!
well!—to-morrow will be time enough! to-morrow!”
Still gazing thoughtfully about him, and walking
to and fro with his right hand firmly pressed upon
his forehead, and his left hanging down by his side
tightly clenched and quivering, he mused a little
longer—then locking the outer door of his cabin,
he turned into his state-room; and without altering
his dress, or drawing off his buskins, wrapped
his watch-cloak about him, and threw himself on
his cot; where motionless and seeming in tranquil
sleep he lay, till the morning sun shone broad and
bright into the stern windows, pouring a flood of
golden light upon the cold stern features which
felt not, nor acknowledged the genial warmth of
its young lustre.
| CHAPTER VII. Ringwood the rover | |