‘She – is – remarkably – dry.’
Stephen frowned impatiently: this was no time for trifling.
–
But the rising sun swallowed up the wind, and by half-past seven the next morning all that was left of the storm was the swell and a line of clouds low over the distant Gulf of Lions in the north-west; the sky was of an unbelievable purity and the air was washed so clean that Stephen could see the colour Of the petrel’s dangling feet as it pattered across the Sophie’s wake some twenty yards behind. ‘I remember the fact of extreme, prostrating
terror,’ he said, keeping his eye on the tiny bird, ‘but the inward nature of the emotion now escapes me.’
The man at the wheel and the quartermaster at the con exchanged a shocked glance.
‘It is not unlike the case of a woman in childbirth,’
went on Stephen, moving to the taffrail to keep the petrel in view and speaking rather more loudly. The man at the wheel and the quartermaster looked hastily away from one another: this was terrible – anybody might hear. The Sophie’s surgeon, the opener (in broad daylight and upon the entranced maindeck) of the gunner’s brainpan – Lazarus Day, as he was called now – was much prized, but there was no telling how far he might go in impropriety. ‘I remember an instance. .
‘Sail ho!’ cried the masthead, to the relief of all upon the Sophie’s quarter-deck.
‘Where away?’
‘To leeward. Two points, three points on the beam. A felucca. In distress – her sheets a-flying.’
The Sophie turned, and presently those on deck could see the distant felucca as it rose and fell on the long troubled sea. It made no attempt to fly, none to alter course nor yet to heave to, but stood on with its shreds of sail streaming out on the irregular breaths of the dying wind. Nor did it show any answering colours or reply to the Sophie’s hail. There was no one at the tiller, and when they came nearer those with glasses could see the bar move from side to side as the felucca yawed.
‘That’s a body on deck,’ said Babbington, full of glee.
‘It will be awkward lowering a boat in this,’ remarked Jack, more or less to himself.
‘Williams, lay her along, will
you? Mr Watt, let some men stand by to boom her off. What do you make of her, Mr Marshall?’
Why, sir, I take it she’s from Tangiers or maybe Tetuan
– the west end of the coast, at all events. .
‘That man in the square hole died of plague,’ said Stephen Maturin, clapping his telescope to.
A hush followed this statement and the wind sighed through the weather-shrouds. The distance between the vessels narrowed fast, and now everyone could see a shape wedged in the after-hatchway, with perhaps two more beneath it; an almost naked body among the tangle of gear
near the tiller.
‘Keep her full,’ said Jack. ‘Doctor, are you quite sure of what you say? Take my glass.’
Stephen looked through it for a moment and handed it back. ‘There is no possible doubt,’
he said. ‘I will just make up a bag and then I will go across. There may be some survivors.’
The felucca was almost touching now, and a tame genet
– a usual creature in Barbary craft, on account of the rats
– stood on the rail, looking eagerly up, ready to spring.
An elderly Swede named Volgardson, the kindliest of men,
threw a swab that knocked it off its balance, and all the men
along the side hooted and shrieked to frighten it away.
‘Mr Dillon,’ said Jack, ‘we’ll get the starboard tacks aboard.’
At once the Sophie sprang to life – bosun’s calls shrilling, hands running to their places, general uproar – and in the din Stephen cried, ‘I insist upon a boat – I protest. .
Jack took him by the elbow and propelled him with affectionate violence into the cabin. ‘My dear sir,’ he said, ‘I am afraid you must not insist, or protest: it is mutiny, you know, and you would be obliged to be hanged. Was you to set foot in that felucca, even if you did not bring back the contagion, we should have to fly the yellow flag at Mahon: and you know what that means. Forty mortal bloody days on the quarantine island and shot if you stray outside the pallisado, that is what. And whether you brought it back or not, half the hands would die of fright.’
‘You mean to sail directly away from that ship, giving it no assistance?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Upon your own head, then.’
‘Certainly.’
The log took little notice of this incident; it scarcely could have found any appropriate official language for saying that the Sophie’s surgeon shook his fist at the Sophie’s captain, in any case; and it shuffled the whole thing off with the disingenuous spoke felucca: and 1/4 past 11 tacked, for it was eager to come to the happiest entry it had made for years (Captain Allen had been an unlucky commander: not only had the Sophie been almost entirely confined to convoy-duty in his time, but whenever he did have a cruise the sea had emptied before him – never a prize did he take) . . . PM moderate and clear, up topgallantmasts, opened pork cask no. 113, partially spoiled. 7 saw strange sail to westward, made sail in chase.
Westward in this case meant almost directly to the Sophie’s lee; and making sail meant spreading virtually everything she possessed – lower, topsail and topgallant studdingsails, royals of course, and even bonnets – for the chase had been made out to be a fair-sized polacre with lateens on her fore and mizen and square sails on her mainmast, and therefore French or Spanish – almost certainly a good prize if only she could be caught.
This was the polacre’s view, without a doubt, for she had been lying-to, apparently fishing her storm-damaged mainmast, when they first came in sight of one another; but the Sophie had scarcely sheeted home her topgallants before the polacre’s head was before the wind and she fleeing with all she could spread in that short notice – a very suspicious polacre, unwilling to be surprised.
The Sophie, with her abundance of hands trained in setting sail briskly, ran two miles to the polacre’s one in the first quarter of an hour; but once the chase had spread all the canvas it could, their speeds became more nearly even. With the wind two points on her quarter and her big square mainsail at its best advantage, the Sophie was still the faster, however, and when they had reached their greatest speed she was running well over seven knots to the polacre’s six. But they were still four miles apart, and in three hours’
time it would be pitch dark – no moon until half-past two. There was the hope, the very reasonable hope, that the chase would carry something away, for she had certainly had a rough night of it; and many a glass was trained upon her from
the Sophie’s fo’c’sle.
Jack stood there by the starboard knighthead, willing the sloop on with all his might, and feeling that his right arm might not be too great a price for an effective bow-chaser. He stared back at the sails and how they drew, he looked searchingly at the water rising in her bow-wave and sliding fast along her smooth black side; and it appeared to him that with her present trim the after sails were pressing her forefoot down a trifle much – that the extreme press of canvas might be hindering her progress – and he bade them take in the main royal. Rarely had he given an order more reluctantly obeyed, but the log-line proved that he was right: the Sophie ran a little easier, a very little faster, with the wind’s thrust more forward.
The sun set over the starboard bow, the wind began to back into the north, blowing in gusts, and darkness swept up the sky from behind them: the polacre was still three-quarters of a mile ahead, holding on to her westward course. As the wind came round on to the beam they set staysails and the fore-and-aft mainsail: looking up at the set of the fore-royal and having it braced round more sharply, Jack could see it perfectly well; but when he looked down it was twilight on deck.
Now, with the studdingsails in, the chase – or the ghost of the chase, a pale blur showing now and then on the lifting swell – could be seen from the quarter-deck, and there he took up his stand with his night-glass, staring through the rapidly gathering darkness, giving a low, conversational order from time to time.
Dimmer, dimmer, and then she was gone: suddenly she was quite gone. The quadrant of horizon that had shown that faint but most interesting bobbing paleness was bare heaving sea, with Regulus setting into it.