The Red Rover & Other Sea Adventures – 3 Novels in One Volume. Джеймс Фенимор Купер

rest; but neither could conceal the imminent risk they ran, from that jealous watchfulness of love of life which was common to them all. In this manner, minutes, hours, and the day itself, rolled by, and the darkness was seen stealing along the deep, gradually narrowing the boundary of their view towards the east, until the whole of the empty scene was limited to a little dusky circle around the spot on which they lay. To this change succeeded another fearful hour, during which it appeared that death was about to visit them, environed by its most revolting horrors. The heavy plunge of the wallowing whale, as he cast his huge form upon the surface of the sea, was heard, accompanied by the mimic blowings of a hundred imitators, that followed in the train of the monarch of the ocean. It appeared to the alarmed and feverish imagination of Gertrude, that the brine was giving up all its monsters; and, notwithstanding the calm assurances of Wilder, that these accustomed sounds were rather the harbingers of peace than signs of any new danger, they filled her mind with images of the secret recesses over which they seemed suspended by a thread, and painted them replete with the disgusting inhabitants of the caverns of the great deep. The intelligent seaman himself was startled, when he saw, on the surface of the water, the dark fins of the voracious shark stealing around the wreck, apprised, by his instinct, that the contents of the devoted vessel were shortly to become the prey of his tribe. Then came the moon, with its mild and deceptive light, to throw the delusion of its glow on the varying but ever frightful scene.

      “See,” said Wilder, as the luminary lifted its pale and melancholy orb out of the bed of the ocean; “we shall have light for our hazardous launch!”

      “Is it at hand?” demanded Mrs Wyllys, with all the resolution of manner she could assume in so trying a situation.

      “It is—the ship has already brought her scuppers to the water. Sometimes a vessel will float until saturated with the brine. If ours sink at all, it will be soon.”

      “If at all! Is there then hope that she can float?”

      “None!” said Wilder, pausing to listen to the hollow and threatening sounds which issued from the depths of the vessel, as the water broke through her divisions, in passing from side to side, and which sounded like the groaning of some heavy monster in the last agony of nature. “None; she is already losing her level!”

      His companions saw the change; but, not for the empire of the world, could either of them have uttered a syllable. Another low, threatening, rumbling sound was heard, and then the pent air beneath blew up the forward part of the deck, with an explosion like that of a gun.

      “Now grasp the ropes I have given you!” cried Wilder, breathless with his eagerness to speak.

      His words were smothered by the rushing and gurgling of waters. The vessel made a plunge like a dying whale; and, raising its stern high into the air, glided into the depths of the sea, like the leviathan seeking his secret places. The motionless boat was lifted with the ship, until it stood in an attitude fearfully approaching to the perpendicular. As the wreck descended, the bows of the launch met the element, burying themselves nearly to filling; but, buoyant and light, it rose again, and, struck powerfully on the stern by the settling mass, the little ark shot ahead, as though it had been driven by the hand of man. Still, as the water rushed into the vortex, every thing within its influence yielded to the suction; and, at the next instant, the launch was seen darting down the declivity, as if eager to follow the vast machine, of which it had so long formed a dependant, through the same gaping whirlpool, to the bottom. Then it rose, rocking, to the surface; and, for a moment, was tossed and whirled like a bubble circling in the eddies of a pool. After which, the ocean moaned, and slept again; the moon-beams playing across its treacherous bosom, sweetly and calm, as the rays are seen to quiver on a lake that is embedded in sheltering mountains.

      Chapter XVIII

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      “Every day, some sailor’s wife,

       The masters of some merchant, and the merchant,

       Have just our theme of woe.”

      —Tempest

      “We are safe!” said Wilder, who had stood, amid the violence of the struggle, with his person firmly braced against a mast, steadily watching the manner of their escape. “Thus far, at least, are we safe; for which may Heaven alone be praised, since no art of mine could avail us a feather.”

      The females had buried their faces in the folds of the vestments and clothes on which they were sitting; nor did even the governess raise her countenance until twice assured by her companion that the imminency of the risk was past. Another minute went by, during which Mrs Wyllys and Gertrude were rendering their thanksgivings, in a manner and in words less equivocal than the expression which had just broken from the lips of the young seaman. When this grateful duty was performed, they stood erect, as if emboldened, by the offering, to look their situation more steadily in the face.

      On every side lay the seemingly illimitable waste of waters. To them, their small and frail tenement was the world. So long as the ship, sinking and dangerous as she was, remained beneath them, there had appeared to be a barrier between their existence and the ocean. But one minute had deprived them of even this failing support, and they now found themselves cast upon the sea in a vessel that might be likened to one of the bubbles of the element. Gertrude felt, at that instant, as though she would have given half her hopes in life for the mere sight of that vast and nearly untenanted Continent which stretched for so many thousands of miles along the west, and kept the world of waters to their limits.

      But the rush of emotions that so properly belonged to their forlorn condition soon subsided, and their thoughts returned to the study of the means necessary to their further safety. Wilder had, however anticipated these feelings; and, even before Mrs Wyllys and Gertrude had recovered their recollections, he was occupied, aided by the ready hands of the terrified but loquacious Cassandra, in arranging the contents of the boat in such a manner as would enable her to move through the element with the least possible resistance.

      “With a well-trimmed ship, and a fair breeze,” cried our adventurer, cheerfully, so soon as his little job was ended, “we may yet hope to reach the land in one day and another night. I have seen the hour when, in this good launch, I would not have hesitated to run the length of the American coast, provided”—

      “You have forgotten your provided,” said Gertrude observing that he hesitated, probably from a reluctance to express any exception to the opinion, which might increase the fears of his companions.

      “Provided it were two months earlier in the year,” he added, in a tone of less confidence.

      “The season is, then, against us: It only requires the greater resolution in ourselves!”

      Wilder turned his head to regard the fair speaker, whose pale and placid countenance, as the moon silvered her fine features, expressed any thing but the courage to endure the hardships he so well knew she was liable to encounter, before they might hope to gain the Continent. After musing a moment, he lifted his open hand towards the south-west, and held its palm some little time to the air of the night.

      “Any thing is better than idleness, for people in our condition,” he said. “There are some symptoms of the breeze coming in this quarter; I will be ready to meet it.”

      He then spread his two lug-sails; and, trimming aft the sheets, placed himself at the helm, like one who expected his services there might be shortly needed. The result did not disappoint his expectations. Ere Long, the light canvas of the boat began to flutter; and then, as he brought the bows in the proper direction, the little vessel commenced moving slowly along its blind and watery path.

      The wind soon came fresher upon the sails, heavily charged with the dampness of the hour. Wilder urged the latter reason as a motive for the females to seek their rest beneath a little canopy of tarpaulings, which his foresight had also provided, and on mattresses he had brought from the ship Perceiving that their protector wished to be alone, Mrs Wyllys and her pupil did as desired; and, in a few minutes, if not asleep, no one could have