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If I find it, I'll lock you in your cabin, and burn your vessel with every man on board." After this threat he walked up and down the deck, and said more quietly, turning to me: "You must remain with us, for there is no one among my men who thoroughly understands a helmsman's duty, and I must give myself more rest, I am not well." One can imagine my sensations.
Tonight, I understand, that the helmsman is to set sail for Australia in a small boat, and take the boy with him. That will never do. As you know the Captain and Redbeard are the helmsman's enemies and have conspired against his life. He will not come back to save them he would be a fool if he did but he loves the boy.
As soon as he had prayed he began to sing to cheer himself all through the lonely night. But first he prayed, praying the helmsman's prayer. And this is what I remember of it, rendered into English with a very feeble equivalent of the rhythm that seemed so resonant in those tropic nights To whatever god may hear.
He knew, better than any one on board, how nearly the Good Hope had gone bodily down below their feet; and he could tell, by the laziness with which she met the sea, that the peril was by no means over. Dick, who had been thrown down by the concussion and half drowned, rose wading to his knees in the swamped well of the stern, and crept to the old helmsman's side.
But don't be skeered, ladies; no harm will come to the good ship Kosciusko." "I declare our pilot is quite chivalrous, as far as you are concerned, for I marked his glance, Miss Harz," said Miss Lamarque, archly, as we turned our faces cabin-ward, under the protection of our helmsman's promised vigilance.
A man with a white shirt front came out, looked round, pulled his hat down farther over his forehead, and took the road down to Sirilund. Edwarda's good-night was still in my ears. A man can be drunk with joy. I fire off my gun, and an unforgettable echo answers from hill to hill, floats out over the sea and rings in some sleepy helmsman's ears. And what have I to be joyful about?
And I thought of the danger that had menaced us all alike outside Perdondaris, a danger that, as things have happened, was very real. And I thought too of the helmsman's cheery song in the cold and lonely night, and how he had held our lives in his careful hands.
It was perhaps only a natural consequence of Ned's assiduous "coaching" of Miss Stanhope in the helmsman's art that the formal relations usually subsisting between passengers and officer should to a certain extent have given place to a kind of companionship, almost amounting to camaraderie, between these two young people.
Colombo saw that he could not force them to sail farther, so, with what grace he could, he gave his consent to alter the course. The men left the cabin, and after a few minutes' thought the captain spoke to the boy. "Christopher," said he, "bring me the great compass from its box near the helmsman's stand. Bring it secretly. The men should all be on the lower deck making ready to sail.
Now, while they were all leaping and struggling for their lives, the men had not appeared to observe the rough shoves and cutting stabs with which Lawless had held his post in the confusion. But perhaps they had already begun to understand somewhat more clearly, or perhaps another ear had overheard, the helmsman's speech.
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