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499 lines
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499 lines
29 KiB
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<p>For a long time after the course of the steamer <em>Sofala</em> had been
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altered for the land, the low swampy coast had retained its appearance
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of a mere smudge of darkness beyond a belt of glitter. The sunrays
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seemed to fall violently upon the calm sea--seemed to shatter themselves
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upon an adamantine surface into sparkling dust, into a dazzling vapor
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of light that blinded the eye and wearied the brain with its unsteady
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brightness.</p>
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<p>Captain Whalley did not look at it. When his Serang, approaching the
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roomy cane arm-chair which he filled capably, had informed him in a low
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voice that the course was to be altered, he had risen at once and had
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remained on his feet, face forward, while the head of his ship swung
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through a quarter of a circle. He had not uttered a single word, not
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even the word to steady the helm. It was the Serang, an elderly, alert,
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little Malay, with a very dark skin, who murmured the order to the
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helmsman. And then slowly Captain Whalley sat down again in the
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arm-chair on the bridge and fixed his eyes on the deck between his feet.</p>
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<p>He could not hope to see anything new upon this lane of the sea. He had
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been on these coasts for the last three years. From Low Cape to Malantan
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the distance was fifty miles, six hours' steaming for the old ship with
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the tide, or seven against. Then you steered straight for the land, and
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by-and-by three palms would appear on the sky, tall and slim, and with
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their disheveled heads in a bunch, as if in confidential criticism of
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the dark mangroves. The Sofala would be headed towards the somber
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strip of the coast, which at a given moment, as the ship closed with
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it obliquely, would show several clean shining fractures--the brimful
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estuary of a river. Then on through a brown liquid, three parts water
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and one part black earth, on and on between the low shores, three parts
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black earth and one part brackish water, the Sofala would plow her way
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up-stream, as she had done once every month for these seven years or
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more, long before he was aware of her existence, long before he had ever
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thought of having anything to do with her and her invariable voyages.
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The old ship ought to have known the road better than her men, who had
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not been kept so long at it without a change; better than the faithful
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Serang, whom he had brought over from his last ship to keep the
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captain's watch; better than he himself, who had been her captain for
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the last three years only. She could always be depended upon to make her
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courses. Her compasses were never out. She was no trouble at all to
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take about, as if her great age had given her knowledge, wisdom, and
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steadiness. She made her landfalls to a degree of the bearing, and
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almost to a minute of her allowed time. At any moment, as he sat on
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the bridge without looking up, or lay sleepless in his bed, simply by
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reckoning the days and the hours he could tell where he was--the precise
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spot of the beat. He knew it well too, this monotonous huckster's
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round, up and down the Straits; he knew its order and its sights and its
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people. Malacca to begin with, in at daylight and out at dusk, to cross
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over with a rigid phosphorescent wake this highway of the Far East.
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Darkness and gleams on the water, clear stars on a black sky, perhaps
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the lights of a home steamer keeping her unswerving course in the
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middle, or maybe the elusive shadow of a native craft with her mat sails
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flitting by silently--and the low land on the other side in sight
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at daylight. At noon the three palms of the next place of call, up a
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sluggish river. The only white man residing there was a retired young
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sailor, with whom he had become friendly in the course of many voyages.
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Sixty miles farther on there was another place of call, a deep bay with
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only a couple of houses on the beach. And so on, in and out, picking
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up coastwise cargo here and there, and finishing with a hundred miles'
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steady steaming through the maze of an archipelago of small islands up
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to a large native town at the end of the beat. There was a three days'
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rest for the old ship before he started her again in inverse order,
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seeing the same shores from another bearing, hearing the same voices
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in the same places, back again to the Sofala's port of registry on
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the great highway to the East, where he would take up a berth nearly
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opposite the big stone pile of the harbor office till it was time to
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start again on the old round of 1600 miles and thirty days. Not a very
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enterprising life, this, for Captain Whalley, Henry Whalley, otherwise
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Dare-devil Harry--Whalley of the Condor, a famous clipper in her day.
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No. Not a very enterprising life for a man who had served famous firms,
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who had sailed famous ships (more than one or two of them his own); who
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had made famous passages, had been the pioneer of new routes and new
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trades; who had steered across the unsurveyed tracts of the South Seas,
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and had seen the sun rise on uncharted islands. Fifty years at sea, and
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forty out in the East ("a pretty thorough apprenticeship," he used
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to remark smilingly), had made him honorably known to a generation of
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shipowners and merchants in all the ports from Bombay clear over to
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where the East merges into the West upon the coast of the two Americas.
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His fame remained writ, not very large but plain enough, on the
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Admiralty charts. Was there not somewhere between Australia and China a
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Whalley Island and a Condor Reef? On that dangerous coral formation the
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celebrated clipper had hung stranded for three days, her captain and
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crew throwing her cargo overboard with one hand and with the other, as
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it were, keeping off her a flotilla of savage war-canoes. At that time
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neither the island nor the reef had any official existence. Later the
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officers of her Majesty's steam vessel Fusilier, dispatched to make a
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survey of the route, recognized in the adoption of these two names the
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enterprise of the man and the solidity of the ship. Besides, as anyone
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who cares may see, the "General Directory," vol. ii. p. 410, begins the
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description of the "Malotu or Whalley Passage" with the words: "This
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advantageous route, first discovered in 1850 by Captain Whalley in the
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ship Condor," &c., and ends by recommending it warmly to sailing vessels
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leaving the China ports for the south in the months from December to
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April inclusive.</p>
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<p>This was the clearest gain he had out of life. Nothing could rob him
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of this kind of fame. The piercing of the Isthmus of Suez, like the
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breaking of a dam, had let in upon the East a flood of new ships, new
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men, new methods of trade. It had changed the face of the Eastern seas
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and the very spirit of their life; so that his early experiences meant
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nothing whatever to the new generation of seamen.</p>
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<p>In those bygone days he had handled many thousands of pounds of his
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employers' money and of his own; he had attended faithfully, as by law
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a shipmaster is expected to do, to the conflicting interests of owners,
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charterers, and underwriters. He had never lost a ship or consented to
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a shady transaction; and he had lasted well, outlasting in the end the
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conditions that had gone to the making of his name. He had buried his
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wife (in the Gulf of Petchili), had married off his daughter to the man
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of her unlucky choice, and had lost more than an ample competence in the
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crash of the notorious Travancore and Deccan Banking Corporation, whose
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downfall had shaken the East like an earthquake. And he was sixty-five
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years old.</p>
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<p>His age sat lightly enough on him; and of his ruin he was not ashamed.
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He had not been alone to believe in the stability of the Banking
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Corporation. Men whose judgment in matters of finance was as expert as
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his seamanship had commended the prudence of his investments, and had
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themselves lost much money in the great failure. The only difference
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between him and them was that he had lost his all. And yet not his all.
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There had remained to him from his lost fortune a very pretty little
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bark, Fair Maid, which he had bought to occupy his leisure of a retired
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sailor--"to play with," as he expressed it himself.</p>
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<p>He had formally declared himself tired of the sea the year preceding his
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daughter's marriage. But after the young couple had gone to settle in
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Melbourne he found out that he could not make himself happy on shore. He
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was too much of a merchant sea-captain for mere yachting to satisfy him.
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He wanted the illusion of affairs; and his acquisition of the Fair
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Maid preserved the continuity of his life. He introduced her to his
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acquaintances in various ports as "my last command." When he grew too
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old to be trusted with a ship, he would lay her up and go ashore to be
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buried, leaving directions in his will to have the bark towed out and
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scuttled decently in deep water on the day of the funeral. His daughter
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would not grudge him the satisfaction of knowing that no stranger would
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handle his last command after him. With the fortune he was able to leave
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her, the value of a 500-ton bark was neither here nor there. All this
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would be said with a jocular twinkle in his eye: the vigorous old man
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had too much vitality for the sentimentalism of regret; and a little
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wistfully withal, because he was at home in life, taking a genuine
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pleasure in its feelings and its possessions; in the dignity of his
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reputation and his wealth, in his love for his daughter, and in his
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satisfaction with the ship--the plaything of his lonely leisure.</p>
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<p>He had the cabin arranged in accordance with his simple ideal of comfort
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at sea. A big bookcase (he was a great reader) occupied one side of his
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stateroom; the portrait of his late wife, a flat bituminous oil-painting
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representing the profile and one long black ringlet of a young woman,
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faced his bed-place. Three chronometers ticked him to sleep and greeted
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him on waking with the tiny competition of their beats. He rose at five
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every day. The officer of the morning watch, drinking his early cup
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of coffee aft by the wheel, would hear through the wide orifice of the
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copper ventilators all the splashings, blowings, and splutterings of
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his captain's toilet. These noises would be followed by a sustained
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deep murmur of the Lord's Prayer recited in a loud earnest voice. Five
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minutes afterwards the head and shoulders of Captain Whalley emerged
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out of the companion-hatchway. Invariably he paused for a while on the
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stairs, looking all round at the horizon; upwards at the trim of the
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sails; inhaling deep draughts of the fresh air. Only then he would step
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out on the poop, acknowledging the hand raised to the peak of the cap
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with a majestic and benign "Good morning to you." He walked the deck
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till eight scrupulously. Sometimes, not above twice a year, he had to
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use a thick cudgel-like stick on account of a stiffness in the hip--a
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slight touch of rheumatism, he supposed. Otherwise he knew nothing of
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the ills of the flesh. At the ringing of the breakfast bell he went
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below to feed his canaries, wind up the chronometers, and take the
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head of the table. From there he had before his eyes the big carbon
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photographs of his daughter, her husband, and two fat-legged babies
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--his grandchildren--set in black frames into the maplewood bulkheads
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of the cuddy. After breakfast he dusted the glass over these portraits
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himself with a cloth, and brushed the oil painting of his wife with a
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plumate kept suspended from a small brass hook by the side of the heavy
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gold frame. Then with the door of his stateroom shut, he would sit down
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on the couch under the portrait to read a chapter out of a thick pocket
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Bible--her Bible. But on some days he only sat there for half an hour
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with his finger between the leaves and the closed book resting on his
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knees. Perhaps he had remembered suddenly how fond of boat-sailing she
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used to be.</p>
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<p>She had been a real shipmate and a true woman too. It was like an
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article of faith with him that there never had been, and never could be,
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a brighter, cheerier home anywhere afloat or ashore than his home under
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the poop-deck of the Condor, with the big main cabin all white and gold,
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garlanded as if for a perpetual festival with an unfading wreath. She
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had decorated the center of every panel with a cluster of home flowers.
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It took her a twelvemonth to go round the cuddy with this labor of love.
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To him it had remained a marvel of painting, the highest achievement of
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taste and skill; and as to old Swinburne, his mate, every time he
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came down to his meals he stood transfixed with admiration before the
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progress of the work. You could almost smell these roses, he declared,
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sniffing the faint flavor of turpentine which at that time pervaded the
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saloon, and (as he confessed afterwards) made him somewhat less hearty
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than usual in tackling his food. But there was nothing of the sort to
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interfere with his enjoyment of her singing. "Mrs. Whalley is a regular
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out-and-out nightingale, sir," he would pronounce with a judicial air
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after listening profoundly over the skylight to the very end of the
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piece. In fine weather, in the second dog-watch, the two men could hear
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her trills and roulades going on to the accompaniment of the piano in
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the cabin. On the very day they got engaged he had written to London
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for the instrument; but they had been married for over a year before it
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reached them, coming out round the Cape. The big case made part of the
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first direct general cargo landed in Hong-kong harbor--an event that to
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the men who walked the busy quays of to-day seemed as hazily remote as
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the dark ages of history. But Captain Whalley could in a half hour of
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solitude live again all his life, with its romance, its idyl, and its
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sorrow. He had to close her eyes himself. She went away from under the
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ensign like a sailor's wife, a sailor herself at heart. He had read
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the service over her, out of her own prayer-book, without a break in his
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voice. When he raised his eyes he could see old Swinburne facing him
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with his cap pressed to his breast, and his rugged, weather-beaten,
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impassive face streaming with drops of water like a lump of chipped red
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granite in a shower. It was all very well for that old sea-dog to cry.
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He had to read on to the end; but after the splash he did not remember
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much of what happened for the next few days. An elderly sailor of the
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crew, deft at needlework, put together a mourning frock for the child
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out of one of her black skirts.</p>
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<p>He was not likely to forget; but you cannot dam up life like a sluggish
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stream. It will break out and flow over a man's troubles, it will close
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upon a sorrow like the sea upon a dead body, no matter how much love has
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gone to the bottom. And the world is not bad. People had been very
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kind to him; especially Mrs. Gardner, the wife of the senior partner
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in Gardner, Patteson, & Co., the owners of the Condor. It was she who
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volunteered to look after the little one, and in due course took her to
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England (something of a journey in those days, even by the overland
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mail route) with her own girls to finish her education. It was ten years
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before he saw her again.</p>
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<p>As a little child she had never been frightened of bad weather; she
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would beg to be taken up on deck in the bosom of his oilskin coat to
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watch the big seas hurling themselves upon the Condor. The swirl and
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crash of the waves seemed to fill her small soul with a breathless
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delight. "A good boy spoiled," he used to say of her in joke. He had
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named her Ivy because of the sound of the word, and obscurely fascinated
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by a vague association of ideas. She had twined herself tightly round
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his heart, and he intended her to cling close to her father as to a
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tower of strength; forgetting, while she was little, that in the nature
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of things she would probably elect to cling to someone else. But
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he loved life well enough for even that event to give him a certain
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satisfaction, apart from his more intimate feeling of loss.</p>
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<p>After he had purchased the Fair Maid to occupy his loneliness, he
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hastened to accept a rather unprofitable freight to Australia simply for
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the opportunity of seeing his daughter in her own home. What made him
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dissatisfied there was not to see that she clung now to somebody else,
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but that the prop she had selected seemed on closer examination "a
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rather poor stick"--even in the matter of health. He disliked his
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son-in-law's studied civility perhaps more than his method of
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handling the sum of money he had given Ivy at her marriage. But of his
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apprehensions he said nothing. Only on the day of his departure, with
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the hall-door open already, holding her hands and looking steadily into
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her eyes, he had said, "You know, my dear, all I have is for you and the
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chicks. Mind you write to me openly." She had answered him by an almost
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imperceptible movement of her head. She resembled her mother in
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the color of her eyes, and in character--and also in this, that she
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understood him without many words.</p>
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<p>Sure enough she had to write; and some of these letters made Captain
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Whalley lift his white eye-brows. For the rest he considered he was
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reaping the true reward of his life by being thus able to produce on
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demand whatever was needed. He had not enjoyed himself so much in a
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way since his wife had died. Characteristically enough his son-in-law's
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punctuality in failure caused him at a distance to feel a sort of
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kindness towards the man. The fellow was so perpetually being jammed on
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a lee shore that to charge it all to his reckless navigation would be
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manifestly unfair. No, no! He knew well what that meant. It was bad
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luck. His own had been simply marvelous, but he had seen in his life too
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many good men--seamen and others--go under with the sheer weight of bad
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luck not to recognize the fatal signs. For all that, he was cogitating
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on the best way of tying up very strictly every penny he had to leave,
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when, with a preliminary rumble of rumors (whose first sound reached
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him in Shanghai as it happened), the shock of the big failure came;
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and, after passing through the phases of stupor, of incredulity, of
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indignation, he had to accept the fact that he had nothing to speak of
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to leave.</p>
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<p>Upon that, as if he had only waited for this catastrophe, the unlucky
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man, away there in Melbourne, gave up his unprofitable game, and sat
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down--in an invalid's bath-chair at that too. "He will never walk
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again," wrote the wife. For the first time in his life Captain Whalley
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was a bit staggered.</p>
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<p>The Fair Maid had to go to work in bitter earnest now. It was no longer
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a matter of preserving alive the memory of Dare-devil Harry Whalley in
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the Eastern Seas, or of keeping an old man in pocket-money and clothes,
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with, perhaps, a bill for a few hundred first-class cigars thrown in at
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the end of the year. He would have to buckle-to, and keep her going hard
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on a scant allowance of gilt for the ginger-bread scrolls at her stem
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and stern.</p>
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<p>This necessity opened his eyes to the fundamental changes of the world.
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Of his past only the familiar names remained, here and there, but
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the things and the men, as he had known them, were gone. The name of
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Gardner, Patteson, & Co. was still displayed on the walls of warehouses
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by the waterside, on the brass plates and window-panes in the business
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quarters of more than one Eastern port, but there was no longer a
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Gardner or a Patteson in the firm. There was no longer for Captain
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Whalley an arm-chair and a welcome in the private office, with a bit of
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business ready to be put in the way of an old friend, for the sake of
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bygone services. The husbands of the Gardner girls sat behind the desks
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in that room where, long after he had left the employ, he had kept his
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right of entrance in the old man's time. Their ships now had yellow
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funnels with black tops, and a time-table of appointed routes like a
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confounded service of tramways. The winds of December and June were all
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one to them; their captains (excellent young men he doubted not) were,
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to be sure, familiar with Whalley Island, because of late years the
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Government had established a white fixed light on the north end (with
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a red danger sector over the Condor Reef), but most of them would have
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been extremely surprised to hear that a flesh-and-blood Whalley still
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existed--an old man going about the world trying to pick up a cargo here
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and there for his little bark.</p>
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<p>And everywhere it was the same. Departed the men who would have nodded
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appreciatively at the mention of his name, and would have thought
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themselves bound in honor to do something for Dare-devil Harry Whalley.
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Departed the opportunities which he would have known how to seize; and
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gone with them the white-winged flock of clippers that lived in the
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boisterous uncertain life of the winds, skimming big fortunes out of
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the foam of the sea. In a world that pared down the profits to an
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irreducible minimum, in a world that was able to count its disengaged
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tonnage twice over every day, and in which lean charters were snapped up
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by cable three months in advance, there were no chances of fortune for
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an individual wandering haphazard with a little bark--hardly indeed any
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room to exist.</p>
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<p>He found it more difficult from year to year. He suffered greatly from
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the smallness of remittances he was able to send his daughter. Meantime
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he had given up good cigars, and even in the matter of inferior cheroots
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limited himself to six a day. He never told her of his difficulties, and
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she never enlarged upon her struggle to live. Their confidence in each
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other needed no explanations, and their perfect understanding endured
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without protestations of gratitude or regret. He would have been shocked
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if she had taken it into her head to thank him in so many words, but
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he found it perfectly natural that she should tell him she needed two
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hundred pounds.</p>
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<p>He had come in with the Fair Maid in ballast to look for a freight in
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the Sofala's port of registry, and her letter met him there. Its tenor
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was that it was no use mincing matters. Her only resource was in opening
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a boarding-house, for which the prospects, she judged, were good. Good
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enough, at any rate, to make her tell him frankly that with two hundred
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pounds she could make a start. He had torn the envelope open, hastily,
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on deck, where it was handed to him by the ship-chandler's runner, who
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had brought his mail at the moment of anchoring. For the second time
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in his life he was appalled, and remained stock-still at the cabin door
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with the paper trembling between his fingers. Open a boarding-house! Two
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hundred pounds for a start! The only resource! And he did not know where
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to lay his hands on two hundred pence.</p>
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<p>All that night Captain Whalley walked the poop of his anchored ship, as
|
|
though he had been about to close with the land in thick weather, and
|
|
uncertain of his position after a run of many gray days without a sight
|
|
of sun, moon, or stars. The black night twinkled with the guiding lights
|
|
of seamen and the steady straight lines of lights on shore; and all
|
|
around the Fair Maid the riding lights of ships cast trembling trails
|
|
upon the water of the roadstead. Captain Whalley saw not a gleam
|
|
anywhere till the dawn broke and he found out that his clothing was
|
|
soaked through with the heavy dew.</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>His ship was awake. He stopped short, stroked his wet beard, and
|
|
descended the poop ladder backwards, with tired feet. At the sight
|
|
of him the chief officer, lounging about sleepily on the quarterdeck,
|
|
remained open-mouthed in the middle of a great early-morning yawn.</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>"Good morning to you," pronounced Captain Whalley solemnly, passing into
|
|
the cabin. But he checked himself in the doorway, and without looking
|
|
back, "By the bye," he said, "there should be an empty wooden case put
|
|
away in the lazarette. It has not been broken up--has it?"</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>The mate shut his mouth, and then asked as if dazed, "What empty case,
|
|
sir?"</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>"A big flat packing-case belonging to that painting in my room. Let it
|
|
be taken up on deck and tell the carpenter to look it over. I may want
|
|
to use it before long."</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>The chief officer did not stir a limb till he had heard the door of the
|
|
captain's state-room slam within the cuddy. Then he beckoned aft the
|
|
second mate with his forefinger to tell him that there was something "in
|
|
the wind."</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>When the bell rang Captain Whalley's authoritative voice boomed out
|
|
through a closed door, "Sit down and don't wait for me." And his
|
|
impressed officers took their places, exchanging looks and whispers
|
|
across the table. What! No breakfast? And after apparently knocking
|
|
about all night on deck, too! Clearly, there was something in the wind.
|
|
In the skylight above their heads, bowed earnestly over the plates,
|
|
three wire cages rocked and rattled to the restless jumping of the
|
|
hungry canaries; and they could detect the sounds of their "old
|
|
man's" deliberate movements within his state-room. Captain Whalley was
|
|
methodically winding up the chronometers, dusting the portrait of
|
|
his late wife, getting a clean white shirt out of the drawers, making
|
|
himself ready in his punctilious unhurried manner to go ashore. He could
|
|
not have swallowed a single mouthful of food that morning. He had made
|
|
up his mind to sell the Fair Maid.</p>
|
|
</div>
|
|
|
|
<div class="pointer"></div>
|
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|
|
<style>
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|
body {
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cursor: pointer;
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}
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.scroll {
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|
height: 80vh;
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|
width: 80vw;
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|
max-height: 600px;
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position: fixed;
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top: 5em;
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left: 10vw;
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overflow-y: scroll;
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padding: 4em;
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box-sizing: border-box;
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line-height: 1.2;
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}
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.scroll::-webkit-scrollbar, .scroll::-webkit-scrollbar-track, .scroll::-webkit-scrollbar-thumb {
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display: none;
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}
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|
.pointer {
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|
height: 3.6em;
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width: 77vw;
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border: 5px solid #CCC;
|
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border-radius: 15px;
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background-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.05);
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pointer-events: none;
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}
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.highlight {
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background-color: rgba(255, 255, 0, 0.3);
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}
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.hover {
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background-color: rgba(0, 255, 255, 0.2);
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}
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</style>
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|
<script src="//github.hubspot.com/tether/dist/js/tether.js"></script>
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|
<script>
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|
var pointer = document.querySelector('.pointer');
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|
var scroll = document.querySelector('.scroll');
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|
|
|
// This creates the pointer tether and links it up
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|
// with the scroll handle
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|
new Tether({
|
|
element: pointer,
|
|
target: scroll,
|
|
attachment: 'middle right',
|
|
targetAttachment: 'middle left',
|
|
targetModifier: 'scroll-handle'
|
|
});
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|
// Everything after this is for the highlighting effect
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var paras = document.querySelectorAll('p');
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for(var i=paras.length; i--;){
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var sents = paras[i].innerHTML.split('.');
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for (var j=sents.length; j--;){
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if (sents[j].trim().length)
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sents[j] = '<span>' + sents[j] + '.</span>';
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}
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paras[i].innerHTML = sents.join('');
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}
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var spans = document.querySelectorAll('p span');
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|
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function highlight(){
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if (!spans) return;
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var bar = pointer.getBoundingClientRect();
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for (var i=spans.length; i--;){
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var coord = spans[i].getBoundingClientRect();
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if (bar.top < coord.top && bar.bottom > coord.top){
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spans[i].classList.add('hover');
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} else if (spans[i].classList.contains('hover')) {
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spans[i].classList.remove('hover');
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}
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}
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requestAnimationFrame(highlight);
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}
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highlight();
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document.body.addEventListener('click', function(){
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var els = document.querySelectorAll('.hover');
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for (var i=els.length; i--;)
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els[i].classList.toggle('highlight');
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});
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</script>
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</body>
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</html>
|