The Pilot and his Wife

Chapter 12

It was some months after. The Juno lay ready to sail in the roads of

Monte Video, where she had taken in hides as part of her home cargo. The

remainder, of coffee, she was to load at Rio, and in the meantime she

had filled up with coals for that port. She was lying in tropical

costume, with awnings over the fore and after deck as a protection

against the fierce rays of the sun; and the crew were going about in

correspondingly airy clothing, with open shirts and tucked-up canvas

trousers, brown and shiny with perspiration, and gasping after every

breath. It was the hottest season of the year. The pitch was melting in

the c****s between the planking of the decks, and the tar running down

her sides.

They had lain thus for a couple of days, hoping to receive before

starting the post, which they had been disappointed in not finding on

their arrival. And what a disappointment this can be, only those who

have been in one of these ships that go on long voyages can understand.

In foreign ports there may be many a wild pleasure to be enjoyed, but

the longing to hear from home is the strongest feeling among sailors

after all.

The mate had gone ashore to make one last inquiry before they sailed;

and as the jolly-boat came alongside again, it was seen that he had the

precious packet in his hand. He sprang up the accommodation-ladder and

disappeared aft without a word to where the captain was sitting by a

small table with a carafe and glass before him, mopping his bald head in

the heat.

"You've got them at last, then," he said, as the mate laid the packet on

the table before him, and retired a few paces while he opened it.

Almost the first letter that caught his eye was one to himself from his

son, and his face brightened. He ran rapidly over the others, making a

comment here and there according as he was acquainted with the

circumstances of the men to whom they were addressed, and gathering them

up in a bundle, handed them over then to the mate, with a cheery "Here

you are, Mr. Johnson--letters for every one, from wives and sweethearts,

and I don't know whom besides."

The news that the post had come had spread like wildfire over the ship,

and by the time the mate began to call out the addresses by the main

hatch, the whole crew were assembled, with the exception of a straggler

or two who had happened to be aloft, and who were now to be seen

hurrying down the ratlines.

The only one who neither expected news, nor cared apparently whether he

received a letter or not, was Salv Kristiansen. While the parcel was

being distributed, he remained standing by the wheel, intent apparently

upon watching the movements of the two men who were hoisting up and

making fast the jolly-boat. His lips were compressed; and when he gave

the men a hand now and then, it was not a very willing one, and was

generally accompanied by some bitter or sarcastic remark. His nature

since they last sailed from Arendal seemed to have turned to gall; and

when the captain had casually mentioned in his letter home that he was

not so well satisfied with him, he had had good reason for saying so.

There had been all sorts of unpleasantness between them; and if any

discontent or difference between himself and the crew prevailed, Salv

was sure to be at the bottom of it. He had found a rancid salt-herring,

set up on four legs with a tail, as he was walking on the poop one

evening in the moonlight; and as complaints had been recently made about

the food, a good deal of which had become worse than bad from the

effects of the hot climate, he had at once attributed to Salv this

pointed method of drawing his attention to the subject again. It seemed

almost as if he had some cause for bitterness against himself

personally; and as he had always treated him with marked favour, he was

at a loss to comprehend the reason for it.

With the exception of the captain, who had retained his seat at the

after-end of the poop, Salv was soon the only human being to be seen on

deck. The whole crew had disappeared, and might have been found poring

over their letters two and two, or singly, in the most out-of-the-way

places, from the main and fore top even to the bowsprit end, where one

had erected a pavilion for himself out of a fold of the hauled-down jib.

Captain Beck's letter, to judge from his gestures and half-audible

exclamations, was not giving him the pleasure which he had anticipated.

His whole face, up to the top of his head, had become red as a lobster,

and he sat now drumming with one hand on his knee, and casting an

occasional fierce look over at Salv, in the attitude of a man beside

himself with anger. At last he brought the hand in which he held the

letter down upon the table with a force that sent the decanter and glass

flying, and thrusting the fragments aside with his foot, he strode up

and down the deck for a couple of minutes and then came towards Salv as

if he meant to say something; and as the latter could very well perceive

that it was not going to be anything pleasant, his countenance assumed

an expression of defiance accordingly. He changed his mind, though,

before he reached him, and turning short round shouted instead--

"Where is the second mate? Where is the whole watch?" and he looked

furiously about him, as if surprised, although he knew very well how

they were occupied, and that it had been decided not to weigh anchor

until later in the day, when they would have the evening breeze.

"Ay, ay, sir!" was heard from the mate in the long-boat; and he raised

himself and came forward with the letter he had been reading in his

hand.

"Stand by to man the windlass! Pipe all hands!" ordered the captain, and

roared the command again gratuitously through the trumpet.

The crew turned out from their several retreats with sour looks. They

had expected to be left alone until after tea-time, when there would

have been a general interchange of news on the forecastle; and now there

came instead a hail of orders from the speaking-trumpet, as if the

captain had all of a sudden become possessed.

There was already a good deal of discontent prevailing among the crew,

both on account of the bad food which they had to put up with, and on

account of their leave ashore at Monte Video having been, as they

thought, capriciously refused; and it was therefore something more

nearly approaching to a howl than a song that was now heard from the

capstan and from the party who were hoisting the heavy mainsail. The

customary English chorus--

"Haul the bowline,

The captain he is growling;

Haul the bowline,

The bowline haul"--

was sung with offensive significance; and though, at the last heavy

heave with which the enormous anchor was catted up to the bows, the mate

tried to create a diversion in the feeling by a cheery "Saat

'kjelimen--hal' paa," the concluding words of the song--

"Aa hal i--aa--iaa--

Cheerily, men!"--

were delivered in a scornful shout.

"You'll have a chance of cooling yourselves presently, my lads," said

Salv, coming up at the moment from his own heavy work with the

cross-jack; "when we weather the point, all the lee-sails have to be

set"--and the remark had the effect which he desired of intensifying the

prevailing irritation.

In spite of the vertical heat, the hail of orders from the captain's

trumpet continued, accompanied by reprimands and fault-finding all

round, until the crew were nearly in a state of mutiny, and it was not

until late in the evening that he showed any signs of exhaustion.

His temper had not improved next day. He looked as if he had a

determination of blood to the head; and every time he came near Salv,

he glared at him as if it was all he could do to control himself from an

outburst of some kind or another. He knew that Salv had made love to

Elizabeth, and had wished to make her presents since she had come into

his house; and that the same girl was now to be his son's wife--the idea

was absolutely intolerable!

At last he could contain himself no longer. Salv had just deposited a

coil of rope aft, and the captain, after watching his movements with

evidently suppressed irritation, broke out suddenly, without preface of

any kind--

"You, I believe, had some acquaintance with that--that Elizabeth Raklev

I took into my house."

Salv felt the blood rush to his heart. He seemed to know what was

coming.

"The post," the captain continued, in a bitterly contemptuous tone, "has

brought me the delightful intelligence that my son has engaged himself

to her."

"Congratulate you, captain," said Salv. His voice almost failed him,

and he was deadly pale, but his eyes flashed with a wild defiance.

He went forward, and the captain growled after him to himself, "He can

have that to fret over now instead of the food;" and as the mate was

coming up the cabin stairs at the moment polishing the sextant, he

turned away with a look of grim satisfaction to take the altitude.

When the Juno last sailed from Arendal she had changed two of her crew.

One of the new hands was a square-built, coarse-featured,

uncouth-looking creature, from the fjord region north of Stavanger, who

called himself Nils Buvaagen, but whose name had been changed by the

others to Uvaagen (not-awake), on account of his evident predisposition

to sleep. He was incredibly _nave_ and communicative, especially on the

subject of his wife and children (of which latter he apparently had his

nest full), and had soon become the butt of the ship. Salv was the only

one who ever took his part, and that only because he saw all the others

against him; and having also been the means of saving his life when he

had been washed overboard one dark night in the English Channel, he had

inspired the simple fellow with a perfectly devoted attachment to him.

They were up on the mainyard together that evening, where they had been

helping to carry out an order with the mainsail. The rest had gone down

again, but Salv, who felt a longing to be alone, had remained aloft,

and was standing on the foot-rope, with his elbows resting on the yard.

Nils's sympathetic eyes had perceived from his behaviour and whole

appearance that day that there was something unusual the matter with

him; and when he saw that Salv remained behind, he remained too,

observing that it would be pleasant to cool for a while before going to

their hammocks in the close air between decks.

The sky above them blazed like a cupola "inlaid with patines of bright

gold;" obliquely from the horizon the Southern Cross was rising, and the

evening star shone in the warm night, before the moon had yet risen,

with a silver gleam that threw clear light and shadow upon the deck

below; while the vessel seemed to plough through a sea of

phosphorescence, leaving in her wake a long trail of bluish glittering

light.

From the forecastle below came wafted up a sentimental sailor's song,

the burden of which was pretty well summed up in the two concluding

lines:--

"But never more her name I'll utter till I die,

For rosy though her lips were, her heart it was a lie."

It sounded melancholy at that hour, and Nils, to judge from the

occasional sighs with which he had accompanied it, was moved. When it

came to an end, Salv turned suddenly to him.

"You are distressing yourself for another's sweetheart now, Nils. What

would you have done if it had been your own?"

"My wife!" He had evidently not for the moment taken in the idea, and

looked with all his heavy countenance at Salv.

"Yes. Wouldn't you have liked to see her sunk to the bottom of the sea?"

"My Karen to the bottom of the sea! I'd go there myself first."

"Yes; but if she had been unfaithful to you?" persisted Salv, seeming

to take a fiendish delight in bringing home the idea to the poor fellow.

"But she is not," was the rejoinder.

Nils had no genius for the abstract, and no more satisfaction was to be

got out of him. But at the same time he had been shocked, and went down

shortly after without saying a word.

Salv still remained aloft, the dull consciousness of Elizabeth's

engagement with the captain's son alternating with a more active desire

for revenge upon the captain himself for the manner in which he had

conveyed the information; and the result of his brooding up there upon

the yard was a determination to desert as soon as the Juno arrived at

Rio. He would never go back to Arendal; and he would no longer tread the

same deck with the father of Carl Beck.

Later on in the night, when the moon had risen, Nils, who had not been

able to sleep in his hammock, came up to Salv again, and drew him aside

behind the round-house, as if for a private conversation.

"What would I have done? you asked. I'll tell you," he said, after a

short pause, and his honest face seemed to express a vivid realisation

of the whole misery of the situation. "I would have died upon the

doorstep!"

Salv stood and looked at him for a moment. There came a strange pallor

over his face in the moonlight.

"Look you," he said, ironically, laying his hand upon the other's

shoulder, "I have never a wife; but all the same, I am dead upon the

doorstep--" Then, in the next breath, and with a sudden change of tone,

he said, "Of course I am only joking, you know," and left him, with a

hard, forced laugh.

Nils remained where he was, and pondered, not knowing exactly how to

take it. It was possible Salv had only been making fun of him. But

another feeling eventually predominated. It told him that he had had a

glimpse into a despairing soul; and he was profoundly moved.