A Yacht Voyage to Norway, Denmark, and Sweden Part 31

After administering the calomel to King, D---- returned in an hour.

"My Lord," he said, "King is worse. With his hands clasped on his stomach, he sits writhing with anguish. Listen, my Lord--hear, how he groans!"

R---- spoke not in answer; but walking to the fore-hatch, descended into the forecastle, and we followed.

"Where is your princ.i.p.al pain?" asked R----.

"Here,--my Lord,--here," and without altering his position, King pressed his right hand closer to the pit of his stomach.

"Do you fancy a little brandy?--do you think it will relieve you?"

observed R----.

"No,--my Lord," he replied in a faint voice.

"Keep heart, my man," said R----, placing his hand kindly on King's shoulder. "He ought to go to bed," he then observed to us; and giving instructions to the steward, ordered the large berth occupied by P----, should be prepared. P---- had made the proposal of vacating his cabin; and in a quarter of an hour, King was put to bed. Striving by every means in his power to alleviate the pain an honest and faithful servant was suffering, R---- suggested and tried a variety of remedies, both by external and internal applications; but in vain. The virulence of the disease, whatever it was, increased, and its painful intensity exceeding all endurance, King, with every contortion of body, groaned aloud.

An hour had pa.s.sed, and the confusion on deck appeared to grow greater the nearer midnight came. The wind had been rising gradually and determinedly since we first left the deck, and now had arrived at the force and recklessness of a strong breeze. Rare, but great drops of rain struck the deck like lumps of molten lead, and flashes of lightning, yet without the sound of thunder, brought intelligence of an advancing storm. From mouth to mouth ran the order of,

"All hands on deck!" and the shuffling feet of men moving up the fore hatch intimated the prompt.i.tude with which the command was treated.

R---- and P---- had already returned to the deck; but I remained below doing what little offices I could to a.s.suage the anguish of King; and he seemed to desire my presence for no other service than to give him water; for during the paroxysms of his complaint, he ceased not saying,

"Water! Sir; water!" and would s.n.a.t.c.h the gla.s.s from me, and drink with avidity.

I crept on deck to see our situation and that of the vessel. Thick clouds, black and rolling one over the other in their headlong flight, overcast the sky, and the stars no longer shone in the firmament. The mountains that had been so distinctly defined when I looked on them two hours before, seemed now shapeless mounds of earth swelling towards Heaven, and adding to the obscurity of night; and when the lightning gleamed in broad sheets, their great forms hanging over us, had, from the motion of the vessel, the appearance of falling on us. Every instant the strength of the wind became mightier, the thunder roared louder, and before the echo had made response from the nearest mountain-top, the lightning leaped downward from the zenith into the valleys, and darted, while it hissed, from tree to tree. The sea began to rise, and the cutter, that had hitherto lain so placidly on the smooth water, heaved, and her larger spars creaked to the growing scud.

We had now opened the North Sea, and the pilots were desirous of getting under an island that lay about two miles from the mouth of the Fiord, before the gale reached its utmost fury; for by doing so, the vessel would then be perfectly secure in the quiet waters of another Fiord that flowed thence to the walls of Bergen. In the effort to accomplish this, the vessel was exposed to the whole drift of the Northern Ocean; and the wind having settled down to S.W. by W., blew directly in our faces, and placed a fearful sh.o.r.e on our lee. Having looked around me, as well as the pitchy darkness would allow, and ascertaining from the King's Pilot, as he was called, a seaman as courageous as he was skilful, the dangerous bearing of the land, and the object he desired to gain, I took my leave of the deck, and made more room for those who could be serviceable in the governance of the vessel. A deafening peal of thunder shook down a second deluge, and driven to seek shelter, R---- and P---- came to the cabin immediately after me.

Taking each a seat on the sofas, we spoke not; and no sounds but the loud words of command, the noise of men running to and fro over head, and the cries of King, interfered with the sovereignty of the thunder, and whistling of the impetuous wind.

Dripping with rain, and out of breath, anxious care sitting on his whitened lips to watch and thwart each word he would speak with firmness, D---- hastened down the main companion and addressed himself to R----.

"My Lord," he said, "the pilots begin to differ: one prays the other to put back, who persists in beating to windward. The gale increases, and the land is not two miles from our lee. What had better be done, my Lord?"

"It is impossible for me to interpose my authority. The safety of the vessel is in the hands of the two pilots; and what they say must be obeyed," replied R----.

"But, my Lord, they are at variance," said D----, impressively. "I do not know the coast, and cannot judge for myself which one is in the right."

R---- made no answer, but, calling for a glazed coat and cap, went, accompanied by P----, on deck. Knowing that on all such occasions as the present, the less crowded the decks are, the more effectually all orders can be carried out, I lay down on the sofa, and noted all that was going forward. Worn in nerve and wearied by the distracting uproar of the elements, and flapping sails, I fell at last into a pleasant mood of thought, and, lost to everything around me, did not perceive that King, by some means or the other, had risen from his berth and was in the cabin, until I heard him groan. Kneeling on the floor, and with his face buried on the sofa opposite to the one on which I was reclining, the poor fellow had placed one of the pillows on the side of the sofa, and was pressing his stomach against it.

"Why, King!" I exclaimed, starting from my lethargy, "What has brought you here? You should not have left your bed;" but he did not appear to understand, or hear me. Knowing that he had taken calomel, I took a blanket and threw it over him lest he should catch cold, for the wind pa.s.sed in draughts through the cabin, as it would rush through a funnel.

He looked up, and said,

"Oh! Sir--is it you? Do I disturb you, Sir?"

"No," I replied, "it only disturbs me to see you so ill."

"Thank you, Sir, thank you," he said, and strove to smile; but his complaint, which appeared to attack him with great anguish at intervals of a few minutes, altered the expression of his countenance, and with the most horrible distortions, he shrieked like a maniac. When the pain abated he was alive to everything; and hearing the thunder, the fury of the wind and rain, he observed to me,

"What a night, Sir! If I don't die one way, I shall another."

"Don't despond," I answered as cheerfully as I could, "and you will die neither way."

At this moment R---- and P---- tumbling down the staircase as softly as the pitching and rolling of the cutter permitted, inquired how King felt. I told them what I really thought, that the man was dying of some internal disease of which we were not aware.

"The pilots," said R----, out of King's hearing, "wish now to run back into the Fiord; but if King is not rallying, I think we had better go on. We _may_ get through it somehow."

"I am willing," I replied, "to do anything you propose; but I am sure if we be not at Bergen to-morrow, King will be dead."

"I agree with you," answered P----.

"Very well, then," said R----, "as far as we three are concerned, it's a bargain."

"It is," we both replied.

"I will now hear what the men say," R---- continued, smiling with his wonted lively air, "for I can't drown them all without giving them a little time to pipe to prayers."

Approaching King, he observed, as light-heartedly as the occasion would give cause,

"Keep up your courage, King; we shall be at Bergen to-morrow morning by daylight."

"Shall we, my Lord? Thank G.o.d!" said the poor fellow solemnly. "But, my Lord," he went on saying, with a forced smile, "though I am sick, I am a sailor. I know this channel well, my Lord--it is narrow, full of blinders, and,--"

"Never mind the blinders," replied R----, with gaiety; "if your messmates will thrash through them, I will."

"G.o.d bless you! my Lord--thank you;" and the sick man took R----'s hand, and clasped it firmly as the weakness of his condition granted.

Hurrying to the deck, R---- ascertained the feeling of his crew, for I heard above the loudness of the storm, D---- call to the men,

"What will you do, my sons? Will you go on, or put back? There is danger a-head; but if we run back, King must die. Which will you do? my Lord gives you the choice, since your souls are at stake. Will you risk your lives to save your messmate; or put the helm up, and throw him overboard at daylight?"

As with one voice, they all shouted,

"We will go on."

I heard the acclamation, and did not think King was well enough to pay attention to the observations of D----, or the reply of the sailors; but he must have also heard the shout for he said to me,

"What is that they say, Sir?"

"Only," I replied, "that the men are determined to brave the gale, and mean to beat round under the lee of the island into the Bergen Fiord."

"It is very good of my Lord," said King in a low voice. "If I live, I will never forget my Lord's goodness."

I thought I saw him lift his hand to his face and brush away a tear; but I had persuaded him to lie down on the sofa, and the table, swinging up and down as the vessel pitched and rolled in the trough of the sea, obstructed sometimes my view completely. I rose to trim the dull lamp that burned on the table; and seeing that the blanket had fallen to the floor I approached King to spread it over him again. Poor fellow! he lay on his back with his mouth wide open, gasping for breath, and his sunken closed lids, his ruddy complexion and round face changed to the yellow hue and emaciation of sickness, made me think that he was dying; and I placed my hand on his wrist. At my cold touch he opened his eyes, and groaned. Just then the vessel gave a very heavy lurch, and its violence forced the door that communicated with the pantry back upon its hinges.

Scarcely had this accident come to pa.s.s, than Jacko, whom I had not seen for some days, taking advantage of it, ran into the main cabin and, with the curious chirp of the ring-tail monkey, jumped on the restless table. Perceiving with the quickness of a man, that all was not right, the little animal looked into my face for inquiry, and then scratched his side, not from any particular reason, but from habit; and walking on all fours to the edge of the table nearest to me, stopped, and looked again as if to probe my humour, and leaped gently on my arm. I was still standing over King. The monkey peered first at me, and then gaped at King, wondering why he should be so inert, when activity was so paramount; and putting his head on one side, chirped, and appeared to be deliberating about something. Stretching out his neck to have a closer view, he satisfied himself that he was not in error, but knew the face before him, however much illness might have changed it; and being a singular favorite of King, the affectionate creature seemed to understand the miserable condition of his kind friend, and descending with the aid of his tail, which he twisted round my arm, he stepped softly on King's chest. The sick man again opened his heavy eyes, and seeing what had disturbed him, raised his hand, and feebly stroked the monkey's glossy back. As long as I live I shall not forget the expressive despair and love of that little creature. With a low, piteous chirp, it wormed its small, round head under King's chin, and folded its left arm as far round his throat as it would go.

"Jacko," said the sailor, so faintly that I could just distinguish the words he uttered, "I shall--die. Yes!--I must!--yes,--Jacko."

The monkey moved not; but continued chirping, fondling closer to King's neck, and doubling up his body almost into a ball.