A Simpleton

C >> Charles Reade >> A Simpleton


One lovely night that the ship clove the dark sea into a blaze of
phosphorescence, and her wake streamed like a comet's tail, a waggish
middy got a bucketful hoisted on deck, and asked the doctor to analyze
that. He did not much like it, but yielded to the general request; and
by dividing it into smaller vessels, and dropping in various chemicals,
made rainbows and silvery flames and what not. But he declined to repeat
the experiment: "No, no; once is philosophy; twice is cruelty. I've
slain more than Samson already."

As for Tadcaster, science had no charms for him; but fiction had; and
he got it galore; for he cruised about the forecastle, and there the
quartermasters and old seamen spun him yarns that held him breathless.

But one day my lord had a fit on the quarter-deck, and a bad one; and
Staines found him smelling strong of rum. He represented this to Captain
Hamilton. The captain caused strict inquiries to be made, and it came
out that my lord had gone among the men, with money in both pockets, and
bought a little of one man's grog, and a little of another, and had been
sipping the furtive but transient joys of solitary intoxication.

Captain Hamilton talked to him seriously; told him it was suicide.

"Never mind, old boy," said the young monkey; "a short life and a merry
one."

Then Hamilton represented that it was very ungentleman-like to go and
tempt poor Jack with his money, to offend discipline, and get flogged.
"How will you feel, Tadcaster, when you see their backs bleeding under
the cat?"

"Oh, d--n it all, George, don't do that," says the young gentleman, all
in a hurry.

Then the commander saw he had touched the right chord. So he played on
it, till he got Lord Tadcaster to pledge his honor not to do it again.

The little fellow gave the pledge, but relieved his mind as follows:
"But it is a cursed tyrannical hole, this tiresome old ship. You can't
do what you like in it."

"Well, but no more you can in the grave: and that is the agreeable
residence you were hurrying to but for this tiresome old ship."

"Lord! no more you can," said Tadcaster, with sudden candor. "I FORGOT
THAT."

The airs were very light; the ship hardly moved. It was beginning to get
dull, when one day a sail was sighted on the weather-bow, standing to
the eastward: on nearing her, she was seen, by the cut of her sails, to
be a man-of-war, evidently homeward bound: so Captain Hamilton ordered
the main-royal to be lowered (to render signal more visible) and the
"demand" hoisted. No notice being taken of this, a gun was fired to draw
her attention to the signal. This had the desired effect; down went her
main-royal, up went her "number." On referring to the signal book, she
proved to be the Vindictive from the Pacific Station.

This being ascertained, Captain Hamilton, being that captain's senior,
signalled "Close and prepare to receive letters." In obedience to this
she bore up, ran down, and rounded to; the sail in the Amphitrite was
also shortened, the maintopsail laid to the mast, and a boat lowered.
The captain having finished his despatches, they, with the letter-bags,
were handed into the boat, which shoved off, pulled to the lee side
of the Vindictive, and left the despatches, with Captain Hamilton's
compliments. On its return, both ships made sail on their respective
course, exchanging "bon voyage" by signal, and soon the upper sails of
the homeward-bounder were seen dipping below the horizon: longing eyes
followed her on board the Amphitrite.

How many hurried missives had been written and despatched in that
half-hour. But as for Staines, he was a man of forethought, and had a
volume ready for his dear wife.

Lord Tadcaster wrote to Lady Cicely Treherne. His epistle, though brief,
contained a plum or two.

He wrote: "What with sailing, and fishing, and eating nothing but roast
meat, I'm quite another man."

This amused her ladyship a little, but not so much as the postscript,
which was indeed the neatest thing in its way she had met with, and she
had some experience, too.

"P.S.--I say, Cicely, I think I should like to marry you. Would you
mind?"

Let us defy time and space to give you Lady Cicely's reply: "I should
enjoy it of all things, Taddy. But, alas! I am too young."

N.B.--She was twenty-seven, and Tad sixteen. To be sure, Tad was four
feet eleven, and she was only five feet six and a half.

To return to my narrative (with apologies), this meeting of the vessels
caused a very agreeable excitement that day; but a greater was in store.
In the afternoon, Tadcaster, Staines, and the principal officers of the
ship, being at dinner in the captain's cabin, in came the officer of the
watch, and reported a large spar on the weather-bow.

"Well, close it, if you can; and let me know if it looks worth picking
up."

He then explained to Lord Tadcaster that, on a cruise, he never liked
to pass a spar, or anything that might possibly reveal the fate of some
vessel or other.

In the middle of his discourse the officer came in again, but not in
the same cool business way: he ran in excitedly, and said, "Captain, the
signalman reports it ALIVE!"

"Alive?--a spar! What do you mean? Something alive ON it, eh?"

"No, sir; alive itself."

"How can that be? Hail him again. Ask him what it is."

The officer went out, and hailed the signalman at the mast-head. "What
is it?"

"Sea-sarpint, I think."

This hail reached the captain's ears faintly. However, he waited quietly
till the officer came in and reported it; then he burst out, "Absurd!
there is no such creature in the universe. What do you say, Dr.
Staines?--It is in your department."

"The universe in my department, captain?"

"Haw! haw! haw!" went Fitzroy and two more.

"No, you rogue, the serpent."

Dr. Staines, thus appealed to, asked the captain if he had ever seen
small snakes out at sea.

"Why, of course. Sailed through a mile of them once, in the
archipelago."

"Sure they were snakes?"

"Quite sure; and the biggest was not eight feet long."

"Very well, captain; then sea-serpents exist, and it becomes a mere
question of size. Now which produces the larger animals in every
kind,--land or sea? The grown elephant weighs, I believe, about five
tons. The very smallest of the whale tribe weighs ten; and they go as
high as forty tons. There are smaller fish than the whale, that are four
times as heavy as the elephant. Why doubt, then, that the sea can breed
a snake to eclipse the boa-constrictor? Even if the creature had never
been seen, I should, by mere reasoning from analogy, expect the sea to
produce a serpent excelling the boa-constrictor, as the lobster excels
a crayfish of our rivers: see how large things grow at sea! the salmon
born in our rivers weighs in six months a quarter of a pound, or less;
it goes out to sea, and comes back in one year weighing seven pounds.
So far from doubting the large sea-serpents, I believe they exist by the
million. The only thing that puzzles me is, why they should ever show a
nose above water; they must be very numerous, I think."

Captain Hamilton laughed, and said, "Well, this IS new. Doctor, in
compliment to your opinion, we will go on deck, and inspect the reptile
you think so common." He stopped at the door, and said, "Doctor, the
saltcellar is by you. Would you mind bringing it on deck? We shall want
a little to secure the animal."

So they all went on deck right merrily.

The captain went up a few ratlines in the mizzen rigging, and looked to
windward, laughing all the time: but, all of a sudden, there was a great
change in his manner. "Good heavens, it is alive--LUFF!"

The helmsman obeyed; the news spread like wildfire. Mess kids, grog
kids, pipes, were all let fall, and some three hundred sailors clustered
on the rigging like bees, to view the long-talked-of monster.

It was soon discovered to be moving lazily along, the propelling part
being under water, and about twenty-five feet visible. It had a small
head for so large a body, and, as they got nearer, rough scales were
seen, ending in smaller ones further down the body. It had a mane, but
not like a lion's, as some have pretended. If you have ever seen a pony
with a hog-mane, that was more the character of this creature's mane, if
mane it was.

They got within a hundred yards of it, and all saw it plainly, scarce
believing their senses.

When they could get no nearer for the wind, the captain yielded to that
instinct which urges man always to kill a curiosity, "to encourage the
rest," as saith the witty Voltaire. "Get ready a gun--best shot in the
ship lay and fire it."

This was soon done. Bang went the gun. The shot struck the water close
to the brute, and may have struck him under water, for aught I know.
Any way, it sorely disturbed him; for he reared into the air a column
of serpent's flesh that looked as thick as the maintopmast of a
seventy-four, opened a mouth that looked capacious enough to swallow
the largest buoy anchor in the ship, and, with a strange grating noise
between a bark and a hiss, dived, and was seen no more.

When he was gone, they all looked at one another like men awaking from a
dream.

Staines alone took it quite coolly. It did not surprise him in the
least. He had always thought it incredible that the boa-constrictor
should be larger than any sea-snake. That idea struck him as monstrous
and absurd. He noted the sea-serpent in his journal, but with this
doubt, "Semble--more like a very large eel."

Next day they crossed the line. Just before noon a young gentleman
burst into Staines's cabin, apologizing for want of ceremony; but if
Dr. Staines would like to see the line, it was now in sight from the
mizzentop.

"Glad of it, sir," said Staines; "collect it for me in the ship's
buckets, if you please. I want to send A LINE to friends at home."

Young gentleman buried his hands in his pockets, walked out in solemn
silence, and resumed his position on the lee-side of the quarter-deck.

Nevertheless, this opening, coupled with what he had heard and read,
made Staines a little uneasy, and he went to his friend Fitzroy, and
said, "Now, look here: I am at the service of you experienced and
humorous mariners. I plead guilty at once to the crime of never having
passed the line; so, make ready your swabs, and lather me; your ship's
scraper, and shave me; and let us get it over. But Lord Tadcaster is
nervous, sensitive, prouder than he seems, and I'm not going to have him
driven into a fit for all the Neptunes and Amphitrites in creation."

Fitzroy heard him out, then burst out laughing. "Why, there is none of
that game in the Royal Navy," said he. "Hasn't been this twenty years."

"I'm so sorry," said Dr. Staines. "If there's a form of wit I revere, it
is practical joking."

"Doctor, you are a satirical beggar."

Staines told Tadcaster, and he went forward and chaffed his friend the
quartermaster, who was one of the forecastle wits.

"I say, quartermaster, why doesn't Neptune come on board?"

Dead silence.

"I wonder what has become of poor old Nep?"

"Gone ashore!" growled the seaman. "Last seen in Rateliff Highway. Got a
shop there--lends a shilling in the pound on seamen's advance tickets."

"Oh! and Amphitrite?"

"Married the sexton at Wapping."

"And the Nereids?"

"Neruds!" (scratching his head.) "I harn't kept my eye on them small
craft. But I BELIEVE they are selling oysters in the port of Leith."

A light breeze carried them across the equator; but soon after they
got becalmed, and it was dreary work, and the ship rolled gently, but
continuously, and upset Lord Tadcaster's stomach again, and quenched his
manly spirit.

At last they were fortunate enough to catch the southeast trade, but it
was so languid at first that the ship barely moved through the water,
though they set every stitch, and studding sails alow and aloft, till
really she was acres of canvas.

While she was so creeping along, a man in the mizzentop noticed an
enormous shark gliding steadily in her wake. This may seem a small
incident, yet it ran through the ship like wildfire, and caused more or
less uneasiness in three hundred stout hearts; so near is every seaman
to death, and so strong the persuasion in their superstitious minds,
that a shark does not follow a ship pertinaciously without a prophetic
instinct of calamity.

Unfortunately, the quartermaster conveyed this idea to Lord Tadcaster,
and confirmed it by numerous examples to prove that there was always
death at hand when a shark followed the ship.

Thereupon Tadcaster took it into his head that he was under a relapse,
and the shark was waiting for his dead body: he got quite low-spirited.

Staines told Fitzroy. Fitzroy said, "Shark be hanged! I'll have him on
deck in half an hour." He got leave from the captain: a hook was
baited with a large piece of pork, and towed astern by a stout line,
experienced old hands attending to it by turns.

The shark came up leisurely, surveyed the bait, and, I apprehend,
ascertained the position of the hook. At all events, he turned quietly
on his back, sucked the bait off, and retired to enjoy it.

Every officer in the ship tried him in turn, but without success; for,
if they got ready for him, and, the moment he took the bait, jerked the
rope hard, in that case he opened his enormous mouth so wide that the
bait and hook came out clear. But, sooner or later, he always got the
bait, and left his captors the hook.

This went on for days, and his huge dorsal fin always in the ship's
wake.

Then Tadcaster, who had watched these experiments with hope, lost his
spirit and appetite.

Staines reasoned with him, but in vain. Somebody was to die; and,
although there were three hundred and more in the ship, he must be the
one. At last he actually made his will, and threw himself into Staines's
arms, and gave him messages to his mother and Lady Cicely; and ended by
frightening himself into a fit.

This roused Staines's pity, and also put him on his mettle. What,
science be beaten by a shark!

He pondered the matter with all his might; and at last an idea came to
him.

He asked the captain's permission to try his hand. This was accorded
immediately, and the ship's stores placed at his disposal very politely,
but with a sly, comical grin.

Dr. Staines got from the carpenter some sheets of zinc and spare copper,
and some flannel: these he cut into three-inch squares, and soaked the
flannel in acidulated water. He then procured a quantity of bell-wire,
the greater part of which he insulated by wrapping it round with hot
gutta percha. So eager was he, that he did not turn in all night.

In the morning he prepared what he called an electric fuse--he filled
a soda-water bottle with gunpowder, attaching some cork to make it
buoyant, put in the fuse and bung, made it water-tight, connected and
insulated his main wires--enveloped the bottle in pork--tied a line to
it, and let the bottle overboard.

The captain and officers shook their heads mysteriously. The tars peeped
and grinned from every rope to see a doctor try and catch a shark with
a soda-water bottle and no hook; but somehow the doctor seemed to
know what he was about, so they hovered round, and awaited the result,
mystified, but curious, and showing their teeth from ear to ear.

"The only thing I fear," said Staines, "is that, the moment he takes the
bait, he will cut the wire before I can complete the circuit, and fire
the fuse."

Nevertheless, there was another objection to the success of the
experiment. The shark had disappeared.

"Well," said the captain, "at all events, you have frightened him away."

"No," said little Tadcaster, white as a ghost; "he is only under water,
I know; waiting--waiting."

"There he is," cried one in the ratlines.

There was a rush to the taffrail--great excitement.

"Keep clear of me," said Staines quietly but firmly. "It can only be
done at the moment before he cuts the wire."

The old shark swam slowly round the bait.

He saw it was something new.

He swam round and round it.

"He won't take it," said one.

"He suspects something."

"Oh, yes, he will take the meat somehow, and leave the pepper. Sly old
fox!"

"He has eaten many a poor Jack, that one."

The shark turned slowly on his back, and, instead of grabbing at the
bait, seemed to draw it by gentle suction into that capacious throat,
ready to blow it out in a moment if it was not all right.

The moment the bait was drawn out of sight, Staines completed the
circuit; the bottle exploded with a fury that surprised him and
everybody who saw it; a ton of water flew into the air, and came down in
spray, and a gory carcass floated, belly uppermost, visibly staining the
blue water.

There was a roar of amazement and applause.

The carcass was towed alongside, at Tadcaster's urgent request, and then
the power of the explosion was seen. Confined, first by the bottle, then
by the meat, then by the fish, and lastly by the water, it had exploded
with tenfold power, had blown the brute's head into a million atoms, and
had even torn a great furrow in its carcass, exposing three feet of the
backbone.

Taddy gloated on his enemy, and began to pick up again from that hour.

The wind improved, and, as usual in that latitude, scarcely varied
a point. They had a pleasant time,--private theatricals and other
amusements till they got to latitude 26 deg. S. and longitude 27 deg. W.
Then the trade wind deserted them. Light and variable winds succeeded.

The master complained of the chronometers, and the captain thought it
his duty to verify or correct them; and so shaped his course for the
island of Tristan d'Acunha, then lying a little way out of his course. I
ought, perhaps, to explain to the general reader that the exact position
of this island being long ago established and recorded, it was an
infallible guide to go by in verifying a ship's chronometers.

Next day the glass fell all day, and the captain said he should
double-reef topsails at nightfall, for something was brewing.

The weather, however, was fine, and the ship was sailing very fast,
when, about half an hour before sunset, the mast-head man hailed that
there was a bulk of timber in sight, broad on the weather-bow.

The signalman was sent up, and said it looked like a raft.

The captain, who was on deck, levelled his glass at it, and made it out
a raft, with a sort of rail to it, and the stump of a mast.

He ordered the officer of the watch to keep the ship as close to the
wind as possible. He should like to examine it if he could.

The master represented, respectfully, that it would be unadvisable to
beat to windward for that. "I have no faith in our chronometers, sir,
and it is important to make the island before dark; fogs rise here so
suddenly."

"Very well, Mr. Bolt; then I suppose we must let the raft go."

"MAN ON THE RAFT TO WINDWARD!" hailed the signalman.

This electrified the ship. The captain ran up the mizzen rigging, and
scanned the raft, now nearly abeam.

"It IS a man!" he cried, and was about to alter the ship's course when,
at that moment, the signalman hailed again,--

"IT IS A CORPSE."

"How d'ye know?"

"By the gulls."

Then succeeded an exciting dialogue between the captain and the master,
who, being in his department, was very firm; and went so far as to say
he would not answer for the safety of the ship, if they did not sight
the land before dark.

The captain said, "Very well," and took a turn or two. But at last he
said, "No. Her Majesty's ship must not pass a raft with a man on it,
dead or alive."

He then began to give the necessary orders; but before they were all out
of his mouth, a fatal interruption occurred.

Tadcaster ran into Dr. Staines's cabin, crying, "A raft with a corpse
close by!"

Staines sprang to the quarter port to see, and craning eagerly out, the
lower port chain, which had not been well secured, slipped, the port
gave way, and as his whole weight rested on it, canted him headlong into
the sea.

A smart seaman in the forechains saw the accident, and instantly roared
out, "MAN OVERBOARD!" a cry that sends a thrill through a ship's very
ribs.

Another smart fellow cut the life-buoy adrift so quickly that it struck
the water within ten yards of Staines.

The officer of the watch, without the interval of half a moment, gave
the right orders, in the voice of a stentor;

"Let go life-buoy.

"Life-boat's crew away.

"Hands shorten sail.

"Mainsel up.

"Main topsel to mast."

These orders were executed with admirable swiftness. Meantime there was
a mighty rush of feet throughout the frigate, every hatchway was crammed
with men eager to force their way on deck.

In five seconds the middy of the watch and half her crew were in the lee
cutter, fitted with Clifford's apparatus.

"Lower away!" cried the excited officer; "the others will come down by
the pendants."

The man stationed, sitting on the bottom boards, eased away roundly,
when suddenly there was a hitch--the boat would go no farther.

"Lower away there in the cutter! Why don't you lower?" screamed the
captain, who had come over to leeward expecting to see the boat in the
water.

"The rope has swollen, sir, and the pendants won't unreeve," cried the
middy in agony.

"Volunteers for the weather-boat!" shouted the first lieutenant; but
the order was unnecessary, for more than the proper number were in her
already.

"Plug in--lower away."

But mishaps never come singly. Scarcely had this boat gone a foot from
the davit, than the volunteer who was acting as coxswain, in reaching
out for something, inadvertently let go the line, which, in Kynaston's
apparatus, keeps the tackles hooked; consequently, down went the boat
and crew twenty feet, with a terrific crash; the men were struggling for
their lives, and the boat was stove.

But, meantime, more men having been sent into the lee cutter, their
weight caused the pendants to render, and the boat got afloat, and was
soon employed picking up the struggling crew.

Seeing this, Lieutenant Fitzroy collected some hands, and lowered the
life-boat gig, which was fitted with common tackles, got down into her
himself by the falls, and pulling round to windward, shouted to the
signalman for directions.

The signalman was at his post, and had fixed his eye on the man
overboard, as his duty was; but his mess-mate was in the stove boat, and
he had cast one anxious look down to see if he was saved, and, sad to
relate, in that one moment he had lost sight of Staines; the sudden
darkness--there was no twilight--confused him more, and the ship had
increased her drift.

Fitzroy, however, made a rapid calculation, and pulled to windward with
all his might. He was followed in about a minute by the other sound boat
powerfully manned, and both boats melted away into the night.

There was a long and anxious suspense, during which it became pitch
dark, and the ship burned blue lights to mark her position more plainly
to the crews that were groping the sea for that beloved passenger.

Captain Hamilton had no doubt that the fate of Staines was decided, one
way or other, long before this; but he kept quiet until he saw the plain
signs of a squall at hand. Then, as he was responsible for the safety of
boats and ship, he sent up rockets to recall them.

The cutter came alongside first. Lights were poured on her, and
quavering voices asked, "Have you got him?"

The answer was dead silence, and sorrowful, drooping heads.

Sadly and reluctantly was the order given to hoist the boat in.

Then the gig came alongside. Fitzroy seated in her, with his hands
before his face; the men gloomy and sad.

"GONE! GONE!"

Soon the ship was battling a heavy squall.

At midnight all quiet again, and hove to. Then, at the request of many,
the bell was tolled, and the ship's company mustered bareheaded,
and many a stout seaman in tears, as the last service was read for
Christopher Staines.




CHAPTER XIV.


Rosa fell ill with grief at the hotel, and could not move for some days;
but the moment she was strong enough, she insisted on leaving Plymouth:
like all wounded things, she must drag herself home.

But what a home! How empty it struck, and she heart-sick and desolate.
Now all the familiar places wore a new aspect: the little yard, where he
had so walked and waited, became a temple to her, and she came out
and sat in it, and now first felt to the full how much he had suffered
there--with what fortitude. She crept about the house, and kissed
the chair he had sat in, and every much-used place and thing of the
departed.

Her shallow nature deepened and deepened under this bereavement, of
which, she said to herself, with a shudder, she was the cause. And this
is the course of nature; there is nothing like suffering to enlighten
the giddy brain, widen the narrow mind, improve the trivial heart.

As her regrets were tender and deep, so her vows of repentance
were sincere. Oh, what a wife she would make when he came back! how
thoughtful! how prudent! how loyal! and never have a secret. She who had
once said, "What is the use of your writing? nobody will publish it,"
now collected and perused every written scrap. With simple affection
she even locked up his very waste-paper basket, full of fragments he had
torn, or useless papers he had thrown there, before he went to Plymouth.