Chapter 5: Music in the Moonlight

Several days passed and from the standpoint of the schooner, the voyage was successful. The wind continued fresh and strong, and it came out of the right quarter. The days were clear, and the sea was a dazzling color, shifting as the sky over it shifted. The slaver was in high good humor. His crew seemed to be under perfect control and went about their work mostly in silence. They rarely sang as sailors sing, but Robert, watching them on spar or mast, although he knew little about ships, knew that they were good sailors. He realized, too, that the crew was very large for a vessel of its size, and he believed that he understood the reason.

As for himself, he felt a vast loneliness. It was incredible, but he was there on the schooner far from all he had known. The forest, in which he had lived and the war that had concerned the whole world had sunk out of sight beyond the horizon. And on the schooner, he had made no acquaintance save the slaver. He knew that the mate was called Carlos, but he had not yet spoken to him. He tried his best to be cheerful, but there were times when despair assailed him despite all his courage and natural buoyancy.

“Better reconsider,” said the slaver one day, catching the look on his face. “As I’ve told you, Peter, life on the plantations is hard and they don’t last long, no matter how strong they are. There’s peril in the life I lead, I’ll admit, but at least there’s freedom also. There are Sports to be found among the islands, and along the Spanish Main.”

“I couldn’t think of it,” said Robert.

“Well, it’s the second time I’ve made you the offer, and the last. I perceive you’re bent on life in the sugar cane, and you’ll have your wish.”

Robert, seeing no chance of escape from the ship now, began to hope for rescue from without. It was a time of war and all vessels were more than commonly wary, but one might come at last, and, in some way, he would give a signal for help. How he did not know, but the character of the schooner was more than doubtful, and he might be able, in some way, yet unsuggested, to say so to any new ship that came.

But the surface of the sea, so far as their particular circle of it was concerned, was untroubled by any keel save their own. It was as lone and desolate as if they were the first vessel to come there. They fell into a calm and the schooner rocked in low swells but made no progress. The sun shone down, brassy and hot, and Robert, standing upon the deck, looked at the sails flapping idly above. Although it carried him farther and farther away from all for which he cared, he wished that the wind would rise. Nothing was more tedious than to hang there upon the surface of the languid ocean. The slaver read his face.

“You want us to go on,” he said, “and so do I. For once we are in agreement. I’d like to make a port that I know of much sooner than I shall. The war has brought privateersmen into these seas, and there are other craft that any ship can give a wide berth.”

“If the privateer should be British, or out of one of our American ports why should you fear her?” asked Robert.

“I’m answering no such questions except to say that in some parts of the world, you’re safer alone, and this is one of the parts.”

The dead calm lasted two days and two nights, and it was like forever to Robert. When the breeze came at last, and the sails began to fill, new life flowed into his veins, and hope came back. Better any kind of action than none at all, and he drew long breaths of relief when the schooner once more left her trailing wake in the blue sea. The wind blew straight and strong for a day and night, then shifted and a long period of tacking followed. It was very wearisome, but Robert, clinging to his resolution, made the best of it. He even joined in some of the labor, helping to polish the metal work, especially the eighteen-pounder in the stern, a fine bronze gun. The men tolerated him, but when he tried to talk with them he found that most of them had little or no English, and he made scant progress with them in that particular. The big first mate, Carlos rebuffed him repeatedly, but he persisted, and in time the rebuffs became less brusque. He also noticed a certain softening of the sailors toward him. His charm of manner was so great that it was hard to resist it when it was continuously exerted, and sailors, like other men, appreciate help when it is given to them continuously. The number of frowns for him decreased visibly.

He still ate at the captain’s table, why he knew not, but the man seemed to fancy his company; perhaps there was no other on the schooner who was on a similar intellectual level, and he made the most of the opportunity to talk.

“Peter,” he said, “you seem to have ingratiated yourself to a certain extent with my crew. I’m bound to admit that you’re a personable young rascal, with the best manners I’ve met in a long time, but I warn you that you can’t go far. You’ll never win ‘em over to your side, and be able to lead a mutiny that will dethrone me, and put you in command.”

“I’ve no such plan in my mind,” said Robert laughing. “I don’t know enough about sailing to take command of the ship, and I’d have to leave everything to Carlos, whom I’d trust, on the whole, less than I do you.”

“You’re justified in that. Carlos is a Spaniard out of Malaga, where he was too handy with the knife, just as he has been elsewhere. Whatever I am, you’re safer with me than you would be with Carlos, although he’s a fine sailor and loyal to me.”

“How long will it be before we make any of the islands?”

“It’s all with the wind, but in any event, it will be quite a while yet. It’s a long run from New York down to the West Indies. Moreover, we may be blown out of our course at any time.”

“Are we in the stormy latitudes?”

“We are. Hurricanes appear here with great suddenness. You noticed how hot it was today. We’re to have another calm, and the still, intense heat is a great breeder of storms. I think one will come soon, but don’t put any faith in its helping you, Peter. To be saved that way once is all the luck you can expect. If we were wrecked here you’d surely go down; it’s too far from land.”

“I’m not expecting another wreck, nor am I hoping for it,” said Robert. “I’m thinking the land will be better for me. I’ll make good my escape there. I’ve been uncommonly favored in that way. Once I escaped from you and twice from the French and Indians, so I think my future will hold good.”

“Maybe it will, Peter. As resolute an optimist as you ought to succeed. If you escape after I deliver you to the plantation ‘twill be no concern to me at all. On the whole, I’m inclined to hope you will, for I’m rather beginning to like you, spite of all the trouble you’ve caused me and that time you beat me with the swords before my own men.”

Robert’s heart leaped up. Could the man be induced to relent in his plan, whatever it was? But his hope fell the next moment when the slaver said:

“Though I tell you, Peter, I’m going to stick to my task. You’ll be handed over to the plantation, whatever comes. After that, it’s for others to watch you, and I rather hope you’ll get the better of ‘em.”

The storm predicted by the slaver arrived within six hours, and it was a fearful thing. It came roaring down upon them, and the wind blew with such frightful violence that Robert did not see how they could live through it, but live they did. Both the captain and mate revealed great seamanship, and the schooner was handled so well and behaved so handsomely that she drove through it without losing a stick.

When the hurricane passed on the sea resumed its usual blue color, and, the dead, heavy heat gone, the air was keen and fresh. Robert, although he did not suffer from seasickness, had been made dizzy by the storm, and he felt intense relief when it was over.

“You’ll observe, Peter,” said the slaver, “that we’re coming into regions of violence both on land and sea. You’ve heard many a tale of the West Indies. Well, they’re all true, whatever they are, earthquakes, hurricanes, smugglers, pirates, wild Englishmen, Frenchmen, Americans, Spaniards, Portuguese, deeds by night that the day won’t own, and the prize for the strongest. It’s a great life, Peter, for those that can live it.”

The close-set eyes flashed, and the nostrils dilated. Despite the apparent liking that the slaver had shown for him, Robert never doubted his character. Here was a man to whom the violent contrasts and violent life of the West Indian seas appealed. He wondered what was the present mission of the schooner, and he thought of the bronze eighteen-pounder, and of the dirks and pistols in the belts of the crew.

“I prefer the north,” he said. “It’s cooler there and people are more nearly even, in temper and life.”

“Your life there has been in peril many times from the Indians.”

“That’s true, but I understand the Indians. Those who are my friends are my friends, and those who are my enemies are my enemies. I take it that in the West Indies, you never know what change is coming.”

“Correct, Peter, but it’s all a matter of temperament. You like what you like, because you’re made that way, and you can’t alter it, but the West Indies have seen rare deeds. Did you ever hear of Morgan, the great buccaneer?”

“Who hasn’t?”

“There was a man for you! No law but his own! Willing to sack the biggest and strongest cities on the Spanish Main and did it, too! Ah, Peter, ‘twould have been a fine thing to have lived in his day and to have done what he did.”

“I shouldn’t care to be a pirate, no matter how powerful, and no matter how great the reward.”

“Again it’s just a matter of temperament. I’m not trying to change you, and you couldn’t change me.”

Came another calm, longer than the first. They hung about for days and nights on a hot sea, and captain and crew alike showed anxiety and impatience. The captain was continually watching the horizon with his glasses, and he talked to Robert less than usual. It was obvious that he felt anxiety.

The calm was broken just before nightfall. Dark had come with the suddenness of the tropic seas. There was a puff of wind, followed by a steady breeze, and the schooner once more sped southward. Robert, anxious to breathe the invigorating air, came upon deck, and standing near the mainmast watched the sea rushing by. The captain paused near him and said to Robert in a satisfied tone:

“It won’t be long now, Peter, until we’re among the islands, and it may be, too, that we’ll see another ship before long. We’ve been on a lone sea all the way down, but you’ll find craft among the islands.”

“It might be a hostile vessel, a privateer,” said Robert.

“It’s not privateers of which I’m thinking.”

The light was dim, but Robert plainly saw the questing look in his eyes, the look of a hunter, and he drew back a pace. This man was no mere smuggler. He would not content himself with such a trade. But he said in his best manner:

“I should think, captain, it was a time to avoid company, and that you would be better pleased with a lone sea.”

“One never knows what is coming in these waters,” said the slaver. “It may be that we shall have to run away, and I must not be caught off my guard.”

But the look in the man’s eyes did not seem to Robert to be that of one who wished to run away. It was far more the look of the hunter, and when the hulking mate, Carlos, passed near him his face bore a kindred expression. The sailors, too, were eager, and attentive, watching the horizon, as if they expected something to appear there.

No attention was paid to Robert, and he remained on the deck, feeling a strong premonition that they were at the edge of a striking event, one that had a great bearing upon his own fate, no matter what its character might be.

The wind rose again, but it did not become a gale. It was merely what a swift vessel would wish, to show her utmost grace and best speed. The moon came out and made a silver sea. The long white wake showed clearly across the waters. The captain never left the deck but continued to examine the horizon with his powerful glasses.

Robert, quick to deduce, believed that they were in some part of the sea frequented by ships in ordinary times and that the captain must be reckoning on the probability of seeing a vessel in the course of the night. His whole manner showed it, and the lad’s own interest became so great that he lost all thought of going down to his cabin. Unless force intervened he would stay there and see what was going to happen, because he felt in every fiber that something would surely occur.

An hour, and two hours passed. The schooner went swiftly on toward the south, the wind singing merrily through the ropes and among the sails. The captain walked back and forth in a narrow space, circling the entire horizon with his glasses at intervals seldom more than five minutes apart. It was about ten o’clock at night when he made a sharp, decisive movement, and a look of satisfaction came over his face. He had been gazing into the west and the lad felt sure that he had seen there that for which he was seeking, but his own eyes, without artificial help, were not yet able to tell him what it was.

The captain called the mate, speaking to him briefly and rapidly, and the sullen face of the Spaniard became alive. An order to the steersman and the course of the schooner was shifted more toward the west. It was evident to Robert that they were not running away from whatever was out there. The slaver for the first time in a long while took notice of Robert.

“There’s another craft in the west, Peter,” he said, “and we must have a look at her. Curiosity is a good thing at sea, whatever it may be on shore. When you know what is near you you may be able to protect yourself from danger.”

His cynical, indifferent air had disappeared. He was gay, anticipatory as if he were going to something that he liked very much. The close-set eyes were full of light, and the thin lips curved into a smile.

“You don’t seem to expect danger,” said Robert. “It appears to me that you’re thinking of just the opposite.”

“It’s because I’ve so much confidence in the schooner. If it’s a wicked ship over there we’ll just show her the fastest pair of heels in the West Indies.”

He did not speak again for a full quarter of an hour, but he used the glasses often, always looking at the same spot on the western horizon. Robert was, at last, able to see a black dot there with his unassisted eyes, and he knew that it must be a ship.

“She’s going almost due south,” said the captain, “and in two hours we should overhaul her.”

“Why do you wish to overhaul her?” asked Robert.

“She may be a privateer, a Frenchman, or even a pirate, and if so we must give the alarm to other peaceful crafts like ourselves in these waters.”

He raised the glasses again and did not take them down for a full five minutes. Meantime the strange ship came nearer. It was evident to Robert that the two vessels were going down the sides of a triangle, and if each continued on its course they would meet at the point.

The night was steadily growing brighter. The moon was at its fullest, and troops of new stars were coming out. Robert saw almost as well as by day. He was soon able to distinguish the masts and sails of the stranger, and to turn what had been a black blur into the shape and parts of a ship. He was able, too, to tell that the stranger was keeping steadily on her course, but the schooner, obeying her tiller, was drawing toward her more and more.