Part 28

"Keep your courage," he said. "You must not lose it because of the fears of a man whose wits are amiss. Hold to your first thoughts of good fortune, for a look like you wore brings luck to a ship."

She was smiling now; and there was that brightness in her eyes that tears make.

"I will be brave," she said. "Indeed, I will be more than that," her chin going out much as Anthony's own did on occasions. "I will be helpful."

He looked at her with his heart quickening.

"There is no one who could be more so than you, if you willed it so. Let your soul warm to what's ahead, for only strength of soul can conquer this stark place and bring our journey to a fortunate end."

The sun burned its way across the sky, and the day began to wane; the mists rose once more from the great fields of decaying matter and sent their fanciful plumes into the air.

"We do not seem any nearer to the hulks than we were this morning," said Corkery.

"We approach them slowly," said Tom Horn. "But we are nearer, nevertheless. I was weeks in coming abreast of them. The current is slow here, but it is strong and does not give up. We must not struggle against it. Be warned by me. Flow with it peacefully. Let us give our minds to finding the ship we are in search of; let the current take us deep into the core of the circle; it will take us out again, as it took me after I had learned its secret."

Corkery pointed to the mass of broken ships ahead.

"It has not taken those out," he said.

"They are dead," said Tom Horn. "And they are over-borne by other dead; they have no minds to call on God; they have no sails to hold aloft to the winds; and so they remain here, and will remain until they sink, as many have sunk before them, into the thick depths and to horrors that no one has seen."

The sun grew red as it went behind the climbing mist; it grew huge and fiery and shot long, threatening darts across the silent sea; the hideous birds came croaking out of the air and settled heavily upon the broken spars and green, fungus-grown bits of wreckage. Thicker and thicker grew the mist, and things magnified marvelously; it shook and waved like banners; it arose and floated like clouds.

"It is a wall," said Tom Horn. "It is a vast thing come between heaven and men who are lost. What does it seek to hide?" he asked of Anthony, as the sun's rim dipped below the sea and the shadows suddenly thickened. "What is there in the air above that the malevolence of this dying sea tries to keep from its victims? I once thought," and his voice was now a whisper, "that it might be hope, a something which told of release. I'd hold that in my mind through whole long nights; and comfort came from it for then I'd not seem so completely forsaken and alone."

After this it grew dark; the ship's lights glowed feebly; heavy flights of birds stirred the air; from distant places came queer, deep movements of the water, then long silences. Anthony wrapped mademoiselle in a great cloak to protect her from the damp, and side by side they walked the deck. The binnacle-light threw a glow over the man at the wheel; outside the lamp's radius the mist banked steep and white. Then a wind crept up; in the lantern-light the mist became agitated; it rolled and mounted and sunk; and then it began to drift away. A dim glow showed itself out over the drift. Suddenly mademoiselle said, in a voice of fear:

"Look! The wrecked ships! Some one is aboard them!"

Through the seams and ports of the distant hulks, pale lights were glimmering, illuminating the sea with a ghastly radiance.

"They are 'witch' lights such as one sees in a marsh; a place like the Sargasso would have many of them," said Anthony.

For some time they stood together, watching the silent hulks, and the corpse lights on their decks and rails; then the moon came up, clear, cold, and almost at its full; its rays, glancing upon the shreds of mist, sparkled wanly. The wind grew more active; it rustled in the sails, as though calling attention to its presence, and Anthony, with the help of the watch, trimmed the canvas to get what good there was in it.

"By morning," said one of the men, "we'll be in that press of wreckage ahead there."

"What wind there is," said Anthony, "will not give us head against this grass and litter; if we move at all it must be forward."

"I've heard tales of this sea," said the other man, putting his weight on the line willingly enough. "It's no place for a human with a heart in his body."

"We'll come safe out of it," said Anthony. "We have sound planks under us, upstanding masts, and a dress of sails. There's wind here, as in other places, and where there's wind and water there a ship can go without a deal a hazard."

The moon's white light bleached the thick top of the sea to a silver; the brittle stars flickered raggedly in their settings of violet; from the topmasts of the _Roebuck_ and from her bowsprit leaped little glowing spots of light.

"Mark that!" said one of the hands. "Did you see it?"

"It's a visitation," said the other. "A hand of fire touches our spars; it may be bidding us to go back!"

Anthony laughed.

"If it is a fiery hand," said he, "it is the hand of St. Elmo. And no honest person has anything to fear from him, for, from the sound of him, he was a fine old hero and well intentioned. As for the fire that carries his name it is nothing at all; for it has shown itself on more than one ship I've sailed in, and no harm came to any of them."

It was some time later that mademoiselle went below; Anthony walked the deck through his watch, with the moon sailing high and free in the sky; the strange sea held his eye; bleached white by the light, it lay flat, motionless; the corpse candles glowed in the hulks; the strange, deep movements of water came now and then from a long way off. About the third hour of his watch, Anthony heard a step at his side. It was Tom Horn.

"I thought you were abed this long time," said the young man.

"No," said the clerk, "I cannot sleep. I must watch."

"Watch?" said Anthony. As he looked at the man, the pale, luminous something which he'd always noticed in him seemed magnified. The white, still moonlight seemed kin to him; he was as strange, as quiet, and as cold.

"There are memories," said Tom Horn, "memories of nights like this; they were nights in which my soul was troubled. In the quiet I heard stirrings that had no place in the world; in the light I saw things God had not sanctioned. It is ill for a man to be alone; and I was alone for a long, long time. At first odd things pass before him--things he has not known; then they become strange; then monstrous. For there is death within life; there is evil within good. Surrounded by other souls, a man is safe; but when he is abandoned, as I was abandoned, when there is no spirit to touch his own in kindness, he is naked to evil things, and God's world is far away."

"God's world is here," said Anthony. "Where sea and sky meet, there He is; no matter how remote the place, or how desolate, God stands there, armed against evil."

The wan moon lighted the clerk's face, and Anthony saw him smile.

"That saying is good; it is the touch of a friendly spirit," he said. "Let two souls be together, and they make each other strong. But let one be alone, as I was alone, let there be no warmth, no kindliness, and hope dies. Horrors creep in; the nether world comes close, and the corporal eye, grown keen by the soul's suffering, is witness to things it should not see."

Just then there came one of the deep movements which Anthony had noted more than once; the ocean's scum seemed to heave under the moon. Tom Horn's hand touched Anthony's arm and held there; his voice fell to a whisper.

"It is very deep," he said. "Oh, quite deep! I never sounded it. The life below is monstrous. Ask God that the sight of His work be kept from your eyes."

Then the man went quietly back to his post in the bow; and Anthony continued to pace and watch until Corkery came on deck to relieve him. The wind held all through the night, languid, hot, and of not a deal of weight; but it bellied the sails and added its urge to the drift of the current, and the schooner slowly approached the group of broken ships.

It was past daylight when Anthony appeared once more; despite the mist that enveloped the vessel, he became aware of a vast loom to his larboard; it was huge, dark, rearing; he hastily stepped across the deck, and there found mademoiselle.

"It is a ship," she said; "we must have come alongside it in the night. Mr. Corkery thinks it's one of the wrecks we were watching yesterday."

Corkery, hearing Anthony's voice, approached.

"I have made fast to her," he said. "It's a large vessel of a kind I do not know, and she seems to lie quite still."

"We have reached one of the outer vessels of the group we saw yesterday," said mademoiselle. "I do not think we have gone among them, for we have collided with none."

"True enough, mademoiselle," said Corkery; "with sun-up I think we'll see your word made good."

But it was still early; the mist clung to the ship, to the surface of the sea, poisonous, thick; through it the lanterns burned a feeble yellow. The vast timbers of the vessel at whose side they lay were rotted and dripped with slime; they could feel open seams, gaping like mouths; when they spoke their voices came back from its hollows as though from a cavern. They felt chilled, and their spirits ran low.

Tom Horn, much to the surprise of mademoiselle and Anthony, appeared at breakfast: it was the first time he had sat down with them since the _Roebuck_ entered the Sargasso; he had kept the deck night and day, and what little food he'd eaten had been taken to him by the cook. He had one of his charts with him and unrolled it upon the table.

"In an hour the mist will lift, and we shall be able to see," said he. "And this," his finger pointing to a spot among the figures and signs upon the sheet, "is _what_ we shall see."

The girl and the young man leaned forward and studied the chart; but the figures told them nothing.

"The vessel alongside can be none other than the _San Josef_," said Tom Horn, "and next her should be the Dutch ship of the line; then comes the Salem merchantman whose goods served me so well while I was captive here, and then the ancient galley whose deck was so rotted that I never ventured to stand on it. Then there follow others, ship on ship," the pointing finger moving slowly across the chart; "I know them all, and could number them as one numbers the shops and houses in a street."

"Except the new ones," said Anthony.

"Hah!" said Tom Horn. "The new ones to be sure. Here and there you find a new ship--and wedged in where you would never expect her. It's as though the fear of the place came upon them; they dread being outside, alone, and force their way among the others for companionship and protection. The Salem ship was a new one while I was here; and yet she had gotten herself between the Dutchman and the galley--two very old vessels, indeed."

"But where," asked mademoiselle, "is the _Rufus Stevens_? In what part of this sea are we to look for her?"

"We do not know what winds hastened or hindered her," said the clerk. "Hulks pitch slowly along through the sea and may be many months going a short way, or their movements may be quickened by steady winds. I have considered all that is possible, and I have put the possibilities into figures; the _Rufus Stevens_ is surely here, but she has been here no great while," and the man's eyes kindled with their strange glow. "No, she has but lately arrived; we shall find her somewhere on the edge of this concourse, and at no great distance from where we are now lying. My calculations are close, and I have held in mind, not only the winds, but the power of the great circle; she must have drifted much as we have sailed, and this day should show us many things."

They ate their breakfasts and studied the chart, while Tom Horn expounded it; and while they were so engaged the sun worked its uncertain way through the mist; with banners fluttering and deep banks whirling, the fog broke before the lances of light; and strange things appeared upon the face of the sea. The broken ships were seen huddled in the still waters, some on level keel, others stern down and bowsprit pointed at the sky, others with stern high and down by the head. Green slime streaked their rotting planks; pale, horrible-looking fungus grew thickly upon rails and housing; flocks of vulture-like birds rested upon them; the sea all about was massed with decaying weed and timbers.

"It is as I thought; it is the _San Josef_," said Tom Horn, when they reached the deck. He pointed to the vast wooden wall which arose, sheer, alongside them; up and up it went, and Anthony counted three great decks; the stern towered like a castle, and had been pierced by a dozen windows; the huge sides grinned with ports where brass cannon had once threatened the stout English sea-thieves. Traces of fire were about her timbers; the fungus growth seemed all that held her together.

"Taken, looted, and burned," said Anthony. "A treasure-galleon, like as not, and the prey of a Cumberland, a Drake, or a Morgan, years ago."

Next the _San Josef_ was a great Dutch ship; she was almost as tall in the stern as the Spaniard; her timbers had been splintered by the shot of some ancient battle, but the strength of her great dowels and cunningly wrought frame had kept her corpse whole. Beside the Dutchman floated the Salem merchantman, a sturdy ship and a swift one before fate overtook her, but small compared to the lumbering fighting craft of an older day. The galley spoken of by Tom Horn lay almost submerged; the green slippery planks of her bow stuck tragically out of the scum.

"If I could convince myself that it were possible," said Anthony, his eyes upon this craft, "I'd say she was of the Mediterranean, for there's been no galleys in the Atlantic these many years."

"She once wore a great beak on her stem," said Corkery. "See where it's been sawn away."

"Don John of Austria fought the battle of Lepanto with just such craft," said Anthony, "and before the fight he ordered the ram to be cut from every ship in his fleet, so that they might run close alongside the enemy. But that was two hundred years ago."

"I would not take one day of it from this vessel's age," said Corkery, shaking his head. "Like as not she's one of the stove-in hulks that drifted out of that old fight. But how did she make her way through all the seas and get lodgment here at last?"

"God knows," said Anthony. "And that's an answer that must be made to many a question asked of this strange place."

"Look!" cried Tom Horn.

"Look, oh, look!" cried mademoiselle.

Their voices arose almost together; Anthony and the mate turned, and there, freely riding the scum in an open space, the stumps of her masts showing above the bulwarks, they saw the fine, sound hull of the _Rufus Stevens_!

XLII

Yes, there she rode, as calmly as though at anchor in the river; the very paint looked new upon her; she was clean and whole and undismayed.

At once Anthony ordered out a boat and put three of the seamen in it; then, with mademoiselle, he also got in and headed through the mass of litter toward the ship. It was laborious pulling, but stout sweeps and strong bodies accomplished it, and within an hour they stood upon the vessel's deck.

[Illustration: "... HEADED THROUGH THE MASS OF LITTER TOWARD THE SHIP."]

Some six feet remained of her mainmast; the others had broken shorter; her hatches were fast, with tarpaulins and battens on each; here and there the bulwarks were broken, but the deck was as tight as on the day she was launched.

"Get the hatches open," said Anthony. And, while the three seamen employed themselves in ripping off the battens, he got a lantern and kindled a light. And while mademoiselle lowered it, at the end of a line, into the throat of the mainhatch, Anthony went down another line, after it.

Dry! He took the lamp in his hands and looked about. By God, it was so dry there was dust on things! Here were some bales of silk, now. Oh, yes, dry! They couldn't be more so. And, God save us, how perfect the scantlings were! they were like bones they were that free of wet. And how tightly the cargo was wedged; there was not the least sign of shifting anywhere that he could see. He called the news up the hatch, and mademoiselle cried out her joy. The other hatches were now off, and the light poured in. It was wonderful the way things were! Amazing! He went climbing over the cargo and down into its timbered crevices. As tight as a drum! Quite the tightest shipful of stuff he'd ever seen. The man who stowed this had his wits about him. He was an excellent workman, and knew how to prepare for the long pitch of the Indian Ocean; he had taken time in hand, and set himself to guard against the Atlantic's storms. Oh, yes, a tight cargo; wedged like a cork in the neck of a bottle. Not a cask, not a bale had budged since they had been swung into the hold at Calcutta.

Of all good things, so Anthony thought, as he sat on a mound of goods and looked about, the touch of a skilful hand is best. The cunning turns, the clever artifices! Here was work that had been done to admiration. The man who could stow a ship like this could write a great song; for he had music in him, bold music, of a kind you could sit and listen to, and that would put you to wondering about fine things.

The hold was a great, wide belly filled with rich food; and it was deep as a mine. Woven silks and raw! swathed in strong wrappings and bound by cords. Opium in chests, with delights and curses written on their lids; dyes, gums, spices, rare fabrics. Shawls! fine cashmere shawls, soft and warm and beautiful, woven in that far-off valley, of the fine under-hair of goats. A pair of them would bring five hundred Farakhabad rupees at Amritsar, and four times as much in any Western port. And carpets: soft, thick, rich! with the markings on the bundles telling tales of far-off peoples and places; skins; made leather; indigo; shell-lac. Wondrous stores of these. Then more silks; piece silks in patterns, a commodity swift to sell, and holding profits that had made many a trader rich.

Anthony climbed out of the hold, his head heavy with wonder. He saw now why Charles Stevens had dreamed and talked of this shipful; for it was a cargo that would be counted rich by a mercantile house made up of princes.

The captain's cabin was fast; they forced it. Here were certain weighty chests, locked and sealed; there were empty brandy-bottles on the floor and full ones in a cupboard; the place was foul of drunkenness; and rage arose in Anthony as he looked about.

"What serves it to build sound ships if beasts are to master them?" he said. "No storm that ever blew would have disabled this vessel in the waters she was in if a sober, clever man had managed her."

He tried to imagine what had happened. But he was sure of one thing only: the great storm had come between the pirates and their loot.

"The ship was abandoned," Anthony told himself, "but not at the time set down in their plans. They quit her at some lull in the storm, thinking they'd be safer in the boats. The brig I saw poking among the bars and shoals off the Jerseys was the vessel which they had elected to salvage the _Rufus Stevens_, if all had gone as they wished; her business along the coast was in the hope that the ship's wreckage had been driven ashore at some lonely point and that they might at least profit by that."

He took the vessel's papers and the log-book from a metal box; then he and mademoiselle sat at an open window in the main cabin and searched them carefully. The sealed chests were declared to contain vessels of wrought gold, jewels set, unset, and matched, and inlaid wares of crafty make. And while they sat there a breeze began stirring and gave a gentle motion to the ship. About two hours had passed and they were deep in talk, when they heard Corkery's voice, and, going on deck, they saw the schooner, lowering mainsail and jibs, and close alongside. Corkery and Tom Horn came aboard, and Anthony went over the ship with them.

"As sound as a nut," said the mate, late in the afternoon, when they had done. "If her masts were in her I'd not hesitate to ship as her mate for a voyage round the world."

"A mast is needful," said Tom Horn. "A tall mast that will reach the high drifts of air. She'll be quick then, and this sea will slacken in power over her. She'll have life of her own, and, well guided, she'll escape."

Next day they came back to the matter. In all that sea they'd come through, said Anthony, he had not seen a sound spar, and he feared one would be hard to come by. To this Corkery agreed; vessels that found their way into the Sargasso were not likely to carry such matters as masts. But, if it must be done, there was the _Roebuck's_ mainmast, a stout stick of timber, over-small for a ship of the tonnage of the _Rufus Stevens_, but one that would give service. Anthony shook his head over this; he had no fancy for two crippled ships. Said Tom Horn:

"The great drift of water is to the east and then to the south. Sound spars are apt to be found only on ships newly come into this sea; and all those come as the _Rufus Stevens_ came, from the northeast."