20. CHAPTER XX.
I longed for day. For however now inclined to believe
that the brigantine was untenanted, I desired the light of
the sun to place that fact beyond a misgiving.
Now, having observed, previous to boarding the vessel,
that she lay rather low in the water, I thought proper to
sound the well. But there being no line-and-sinker at
hand, I sent Jarl to hunt them up in the arm-chest on the
quarter-deck, where doubtless they must be kept. Meanwhile
I searched for the “breaks,” or pump-handles, which,
as it turned out, could not have been very recently used;
for they were found lashed up and down to the main-mast.
Suddenly Jarl came running toward me, whispering that
all doubt was dispelled;—there were spirits on board, to a
dead certainty. He had overheard a supernatural sneeze.
But by this time I was all but convinced, that we were
alone in the brigantine. Since, if otherwise, I could assign
no earthly reason for the crew's hiding away from a couple
of sailors, whom, were they so minded, they might easily
have mastered. And furthermore, this alleged disturbance
of the atmosphere aloft by a sneeze, Jarl averred to have
taken place in the main-top; directly underneath which I
was all this time standing, and had heard nothing. So complimenting
my good Viking upon the exceeding delicacy of
his auriculars, I bade him trouble himself no more with his
piratical ghosts and goblins, which existed nowhere but in
his own imagination.
Not finding the line-and-sinker, with the spare end of a
bowline we rigged a substitute; and sounding the well,
found nothing to excite our alarm. Under certain circumstances,
however, this sounding a ship's well is a nervous
sort of business enough. 'Tis like feeling your own pulse
in the last stage of a fever.
At the Skyeman's suggestion, we now proceeded to throw
round the brigantine's head on the other tack. For until
daylight we desired to alter the vessel's position as little as
possible, fearful of coming unawares upon reefs.
And here be it said, that for all his superstitious misgivings
about the brigantine; his imputing to her something
equivalent to a purely phantom-like nature, honest Jarl was
nevertheless exceedingly downright and practical in all hints
and proceedings concerning her. Wherein, he resembled
my Right Reverend friend, Bishop Berkeley—truly, one of
your lords spiritual—who, metaphysically speaking, holding
all objects to be mere optical delusions, was, notwithstanding,
extremely matter-of-fact in all matters touching matter
itself. Besides being pervious to the points of pins, and
possessing a palate capable of appreciating plum-puddings:—
which sentence reads off like a pattering of hailstones.
Now, while we were employed bracing round the yards,
whispering Jarl must needs pester me again with his confounded
suspicions of goblins on board. He swore by the
main-mast, that when the fore-yard swung round, he had
heard a half-stifled groan from that quarter; as if one of
his bugbears had been getting its aerial legs jammed. I
laughed:—hinting that goblins were incorporeal. Whereupon
he besought me to ascend the fore-rigging and test the
matter for myself. But here my mature judgment got the
better of my first crude opinion. I civilly declined. For
assuredly, there was still a possibility, that the fore-top
might be tenanted, and that too by living miscreants; and
a pretty hap would be mine, if, with hands full of rigging,
and legs dangling in air, while surmounting the oblique
futtock-shrouds, some unseen arm should all at once tumble
me overboard. Therefore I held my peace; while Jarl
went on to declare, that with regard to the character of the
brigantine, his mind was now pretty fully made up;—she
was an arrant impostor, a shade of a ship, full of sailors'
ghosts, and before we knew where we were, would dissolve
in a supernatural squall, and leave us twain in the water. In
short, Jarl, the descendant of the superstitious old Norsemen,
was full of old Norse conceits, and all manner of Valhalla
marvels concerning the land of goblins and goblets. No
wonder then, that with this catastrophe in prospect, he
again entreated me to quit the ill-starred craft, carrying off
nothing from her ghostly hull. But I refused.
One can not relate every thing at once. While in the
cabin, we came across a “barge” of biscuit, and finding its
contents of a quality much superior to our own, we had
filled our pockets and occasionally regaled ourselves in the
intervals of rummaging. Now this sea cake-basket we had
brought on deck. And for the first time since bidding
adieu to the Arcturion having fully quenched our thirst,
our appetite returned with a rush; and having nothing
better to do till day dawned, we planted the bread-barge
in the middle of the quarter-deck; and crossing our legs
before it, laid close seige thereto, like the Grand Turk and
his Vizier Mustapha sitting down before Vienna.
Our castle, the Bread-Barge was of the common sort; an
oblong oaken box, much battered and bruised, and like the
Elgin Marbles, all over inscriptions and carving:—foul
anchors, skewered hearts, almanacs, Burton-blocks, love
verses, links of cable, Kings of Clubs; and divers mystic
diagrams in chalk, drawn by old Finnish mariners, in
casting horoscopes and prophecies. Your old tars are all
Daniels. There was a round hole in one side, through
which, in getting at the bread, invited guests thrust their
hands.
And mighty was the thrusting of hands that night; also,
many and earnest the glances of Mustapha at every sudden
creaking of the spars or rigging. Like Belshazzar, my
royal Viking ate with great fear and trembling; ever and
anon pausing to watch the wild shadows flitting along
the bulwarks.
