“This is a sad accident, Don Esteban,”
observed the Mexican, as he and Spike paced the quarter-deck
together, just before the last turned in; “a
sad accident! My miserable schooner seems to be
deserted by its patron saint. Then your poor carpenter!”
“Yes, he was a good fellow enough with a saw,
or an adze,” answered Spike, yawning. “But
we get used to such things at sea. It’s
neither more nor less than a carpenter expended.
Good night, Senor Don Wan; in the morning we’ll
be at that gold ag’in.”
She’s in a scene of nature’s
war,
The winds and waters are at strife;
And both with her contending for
The brittle thread of human life.
Miss Gould.
Spike was sleeping hard in his berth, quite early
on the following morning, before the return of light,
indeed, when he suddenly started up, rubbed his eyes,
and sprang upon deck like a man alarmed. He had
heard, or fancied he had heard, a cry. A voice
once well known and listened to, seemed to call him
in the very portals of his ear. At first he had
listened to its words in wonder, entranced like the
bird by the snake, the tones recalling scenes and
persons that had once possessed a strong control over
his rude feelings. Presently the voice became
harsher in its utterance, and it said.
“Stephen Spike, awake! The hour is getting
late, and you have enemies nearer to you than you
imagine. Awake, Stephen, awake!”
When the captain was on his feet, and had plunged
his head into a basin of water that stood ready for
him in the state-room, he could not have told, for
his life, whether he had been dreaming or waking,
whether what he had heard was the result of a feverish
imagination, or of the laws of nature. The call
haunted him all that morning, or until events of importance
so pressed upon him as to draw his undivided attention
to them alone.
It was not yet day. The men were still in heavy
sleep, lying about the decks, for they avoided the
small and crowded forecastle in that warm climate,
and the night was apparently at its deepest hour.
Spike walked forward to look for the man charged with
the anchor-watch. It proved to be Jack Tier,
who was standing near the galley, his arms folded
as usual, apparently watching the few signs of approaching
day that were beginning to be apparent in the western
sky. The captain was in none of the best humours
with the steward’s assistant; but Jack had unaccountably
got an ascendency over his commander, which it was
certainly very unusual for any subordinate in the
Swash to obtain. Spike had deferred more to Mulford
than to any mate he had ever before employed; but
this was the deference due to superior information,
manners, and origin. It was common-place, if
not vulgar; whereas, the ascendency obtained by little
Jack Tier was, even to its subject, entirely inexplicable.
He was unwilling to admit it to himself in the most
secret manner, though he had begun to feel it on all
occasions which brought them in contact, and to submit
to it as a thing not to be averted.
