My Danish Sweetheart, Volume 3 of 3

had risen till ten o'clock, and then, indeed, it was beginning to run high. All this while there had been no sound of human voices, but at this hour a command was delivered above our heads

ons of the barque that she had been

ous was her skill in the art of tumbling. She soared and sank as an empty cask might. She took every hollow with a shock that threatened to rend her bones into fragments, as though she had been hurled through the air from a mighty height; and when she swun

Helga, 'is worse

in expression. 'I have a greater dread of Captain Bunting's smile,' she continued, 'than of any hurricane that can blow across the ocean.' She looked at the clock. 'H

and then some voice bawled from over the rail of the deck above, 'What's wrong down there?' Who it was I could not tell; it was impossible to distinguish voices amid the hellish clamour of the wind roaring in the rigging with the sound of a tempest-swept forest. I took no notice, and bawled again for Punmeamootty, and, after a little, the poor coloured wretch c

ed below with amazing dexterity, and I handed the light down to her, requesting that she would hang it up and leave it burning, as I was in no mood to 'turn

half drown

down, sah. Is de

to picking up that mess?' and I pointed to

he had not heard my question, he exclaimed, 'We all say dis storm come tro' Capt'n bei

ntern, I slided and clawed my way round to Captain Bunting's locker for a bottle of rum that lay within. As I did this, the companion door opened, and down came the skipper. The wind and the wet had twisted his whiskers into lines like lengths of rope. I co

e, pointing with a fat for

could manage into my voice, which I had to raise into a shout, 'An accident. This

at upon it, poising the bottle of rum,

ss Nielsen?'

. 'Punmeamootty, reach me

er, reeled to a violent heel

done?' His sudden passion made his fixed smile extraordinarily grotesque. 'Get a bas

ered. 'I have

l-she may let th

knows how to keep her feet. Punmeamootty! a tumbler, i

; and he was coming forward as though to pass through the cuddy do

ielsen's sleeping quarters while

im glance at the bottle of rum that I held by the neck, and that I was just in the temper to let him h

of his regular and familiar blandness, 'that Miss Nielsen's privacy is as sacred to me as to you. Will yo

the excitement under which I laboured-for I had been prepared for a hand-to-hand struggle with him, and my heart beat fa

found the lantern burning bravely and swinging fiercely under the beam, and extinguished it, and lay down compl

r at the base, heeling over as she fell, till you would have believed the line of her masts parallel with the horizon, and strike herself such a mighty blow when she got to the bottom, that you listened, with a thumping heart, for a crackling and a rending noise of timbers to tell you that s

dim and weeping glass of the scuttle. I immediately pulled on my boots and made for the hatch, but the cover was on and the darkness was as deep as ever it had been at midnight. I considered for a minute how I should make myself heard, and groping my way back to my berth, I took a loose plank, or bunk-board as it is called, from out of the sea-bedste

! But ye'd have had to hammer much louder and much longer before escaping from tha

w looking to rear to the height of the maintop, where it was shattered and blown into a snowstorm-a heaven of whirling soot: this, in brief, was the picture. The vessel, however, was undamaged aloft. She was lying hove-to under a b

aying horrible, arter their fashion. Lucky for the ship that she was snugged afore the storm busted

the watch

e,' he a

t any light at all should have had power to sift through that storm-laden sky. Helga at this moment showed in the hatch. I took her hand. She looked

a bad ship for bad weather. Hour after hour I

le, spite of the parallel on which we reeled, the weight of the wind carried an edge as of a Channel January blast in it. In the

said she, 'can signify w

for the ship to live. Our leaving her is ma

ss, and returned to my side with a look

ur dream of Sant

dream at the b

added, with a little passion, as she looked through the cuddy window

e hull soun

teful vessel for a whole fortnight, if I could be sure of being taken off at t

salt water hung at the end of his nose, like a gem worn after the Eastern fashion. He struggled along to where we sat, and extended his hand to Helga. In his most unctuous manner, that contrasted ludicrously with his streaming oilskins, he expressed the hope that she had slept well, lamented

ies of the gale-the loss of a foretopmast-staysail-the ruined crockery on the deck-a bottle of my valuable cordial-brandy wasted-Punmeamootty's somewhat insolent stupidity: the most pious mind might b

re in my assumption of contemptuous dislike, which I also desired he shoul

had spent the whole of the night on deck in looking after the vessel, 'whose safety,' he exclaimed, w

incident-how our oily friend had whippe

anized himself to you

of sincerity I have obse

this. Indeed, Helga and I sat like mutes at that table; but the Captain talked abundantly, almost wholly addressing himself to the girl. In truth, it was now easy to see that the unfortunate man was head over ears in love with her. His gaze was a prolonged stare of admiration, and he seemed to find nothing in her behaviour to chill or repel him. On the contrary, the more she kept her eyes downwards bent, the colder and harder grew her face, the more taciturn she was-again and again not vouchsafing even a monosyllabic answer to him-the more he warmed towards her, the more he encroached in his behaviou

d; but it still blew too hard to make sail on the ship, and she lay hove-to in the trough, sickening me to the inmost recesses of my soul with her extravagant somersaults and prodigious falls and upheavals. Somewhere about half-past four that afternoon, on looking through

ssing and hooting of the rigging. But it was fairly calm in the recess, and we conversed very easily. I asked Jacob, while I pointed over the lee-rail at the hu

oing as well as this here

think that you are not half grate

t the likes of him afloat for politeness; but his crew ben't of Abey

resh happen

ether it be pork or beef. But it's the principle of it what's a-sticking in their gizzards. Nakier says to me, "It would be allee de same if de water boil," says he, "for it is eider pork or no meat," by which he sin

th a glance along the deserted decks, dark with sobbing wet,

began to sing out together in a sort of screeching voice like the row made by a crowd of women a-quarrelling and a-pulling the hair out of each other's heads up a halley. Some skipped about in their rage as though there was a fiddle going. One chap, him with a face like a decayed lemon, he outs with his knife and falls a-stabbing of the atmosphere; and Oi tell

s said?'

What do monkeys say when they start a-

was the serving out of pork ag

e Nakier told me

g did they go on shrieking, as you

ed but flatness. They just stood and listened whilst Nakier spouted, and ye should ha' seen 'em a-nodding and a-grimacing, and brandishing their arms and slapping their legs; but they nev

Abraham thi

would call a orficer, and though he sleeps forrard his feelings is aft. 'Tis mere growling, he thinks, with the fellows. But there's more 'n that,' sa

is not for me to point it out. In fact, I heartily wish the Malays would seize the barque and sail her to Madeira or the Canaries. Is it not abominable that Miss Nielsen

ipper's gone and fallen in love with the young lady, ain't

by keeping her aboard to

-looking young gal, is Miss Nielsen, and, I allow, just

retend that this Captain is not acting outrageously in detaining the young la

ew expression to the flat-faced fellow

a-courting, and always too pore to git spliced. I know what the passion of jealousy is. She took up with a corporal of Marines, and, I tell ye, I suffered. It came roight, then

loom to the whirl of stooping, sooty heaven, under which every head of surge broke like a flash of ghastly light. The vessel was a strangely desolate picture-not a living creature to be seen forward, the decks half drowned, water sluicing white off the forecastle rim, or blowing up into the wind from off that raised deck in bursts of crystalline smoke, like corkscrew leapings of fine snow to the hurl of a blast roaring across a wintry moor. The black gear cu

ked her way from his side while they sat; but he had followed, and was now close, and her next and only step to get rid of him must be to rise. He was addressing her very earnestly when I entered; his whiskers floated from his cheeks as he bent towards her. Though the cuddy

n instantly broke off,

are things lo

to the little wind

the air and tone of sullenness I had resolved on. '

wered. 'She will be afloat when scores of wha

owards Helga, and wondering what

ling into it, 'that the necessity for your remaining here will not last very much

, as I hope and believe, punishable. But there is no good in discussing that matter with you here and now. I h

no malevolence in his regard; indeed, I may say, no trace of temper. His enduring

icable, and nothing that you can say or do, my young friend, shall dissuade me from cultivating it. That we shall be long together I do not believe,' he added, with a significance that astoni

e nod, or bow, and, with a half-pause in his manner as though he w

e been sayi

cheeks as she let fall her eyes from mine. I had never before thought her so sweet as she showed at that moment. She was without a hat, and her short fair hair glimmered on her

s of new hay

drawing inno

thine

been saying t

ow fixing her artless, tender gaze

a gale of wind to propose to a girl?' I exclaimed, with a sudden irritation

daughter-he did not talk through his nose-he did not cant at all. Is "cant" the right word? I felt sorry; I had not

ort to disengage my

ere would be no necessity to keep me long. He is a clever man-a shrewd

d in a startled voice, letting f

do you

sorry for the ma

ry long you will soo

s if to clasp my arm afresh, and then shrinking. 'I

is t

re you

er wistful, tender, tearful face, must have transformed my temper into impassioned pity, into self-reproach, in

d your father's dying words make me think of you as mine un

ootty entered to prepare the table for supper, and Helga again went to the cabin window and stood looking out, lightly, with un