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Captain Burke was afraid to trust any of his clerical crew to row a ship's boat on such a heavy sea, and although he would be perfectly willing to go himself as one of the oarsmen, he would not leave the yacht so long as Mrs. Cliff was on board; but Mr. Burdette, the sailing-master, and the assistant engineer volunteered as crew of the boat, while Shirley himself pulled an oar.
The sultan's caïque was a magnificent barge white, profusely ornamented with gilt, and rowed by twenty-four oarsmen dressed in white, who rose to their feet with each stroke, bowed low, and settled back in their seats as the stroke was expended.
Solomon had had much curiosity about that ship. He wished to see the man who had gone into the bush and then to Smith's with Arnold. "Sart'n," Solomon answered. They got into a small barge with the General in the cushioned rear seat, his flag in hand. "Make what speed you can," said the General. The oarsmen bent to their task and the barge swept on by the forts.
Nothing was forgotten, neither the masts, nor the rudder formed of one long sweep, nor the pilot, nor the oarsmen, nor the mummy surrounded by mourners and lying under the shrine on a bed with feet formed of lion's claws, nor the allegorical figures of the funeral divinities fulfilling their sacred functions.
In the old times she would have found four oarsmen waiting with a cushioned boat at the ferry; she would have found a saddle-horse or a carriage ready for her on Ladies' Island for the five miles' journey, but the carriage had not come. The poor gray-headed old man recognized her displeasure. He was her only slave left, if she did but know it. "Fo' Gord's sake, git me some kin' of a cart.
Watching for a "smooth chance," we determined to show the other boats the way it should be done; and, as soon as ours floated, ran out with her, keeping her head on, with all our strength, and the help of the captain's oar, and the two after oarsmen giving way regularly and strongly, until our feet were off the ground, we tumbled into the bows, keeping perfectly still, from fear of hindering the others.
Right, had the rowers been rowing Englishwise: but the water at the boat's head shows its motion forwards, the way the oarsmen look. I cannot make out the action of the figure at the stern; it ought to be steering with the stern oar. The water seems quite unfinished. Meant, I suppose, for surface and section of sea, with slimy rock at the bottom; but all stupid and inefficient.
Horses besides he brings, and grooms . . . fills up the tale of our oarsmen, and equips my crews with arms. 'Meanwhile Anchises bade the fleet set their sails, that the fair wind might meet no delay.
The vast swells of the omnipotent sea; the surging, hollow roar they made, as they rolled along the eight gunwales, like gigantic bowls in a boundless bowling-green; the brief suspended agony of the boat, as it would tip for an instant on the knife-like edge of the sharper waves, that almost seemed threatening to cut it in two; the sudden profound dip into the watery glens and hollows; the keen spurrings and goadings to gain the top of the opposite hill; the headlong, sled-like slide down its other side; all these, with the cries of the headsmen and harpooneers, and the shuddering gasps of the oarsmen, with the wondrous sight of the ivory Pequod bearing down upon her boats with outstretched sails, like a wild hen after her screaming brood; all this was thrilling.
And there is a current that might almost sweep a tea-chest out to sea! But the Rover's steady eye takes in the whole view, and his very nautical mind enables him to lay plans with wisdom. He looks sternly at his gig with the four stout oarsmen; his simple carpets are all right; his cushions, his pillows, his cigar-box, his silken rudder-lines are all as they should be.
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