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"Make him lie down," muttered the mate; and he strode across to the captain's cabin, but came back shaking his head, and went to the cabin-window, where he leaned out and was trying to see whether the boat was all right when a faint noise overhead made him instinctively draw in his head.
"Gentlemen," he said; and then he stopped while every one turned to him, and I thought how handsome, manly, and yet how stern he looked as he stood gazing straight before him and through the cabin-window at the glittering sea, while I could hardly hear a breath.
It was a narrow escape, for as the mate drew back there was a dark line seen to dart across the cabin-window and return. "Well, I'm not a spiteful man," said the mate, rubbing his ear, "but I should certainly like to give that fellow a pill that would lay him up for six months. Now, what pleasure would it have afforded him, Mark, my lad, if he had run that spear through my neck?"
"Oh, my captain, my captain! noble heart go not go not! see, it's a brave man that weeps; how great the agony of the persuasion then!" "Lower away!" cried Ahab, tossing the mate's arm from him. "Stand by the crew!" In an instant the boat was pulling round close under the stern. "The sharks! the sharks!" cried a voice from the low cabin-window there; "O master, my master, come back!"
A lamp hung from the ceiling, there was spirit in a flask, and the remains of some food upon the table; but what most delighted me was the sight of three guns lying on a locker near to the cabin-window, which was wide open, and I felt that I should only have to show myself for the boat to be rowed beneath.
We saw the enemy, as he was called by all, pacing up and down the poop-deck hastily, and scanning the offing with a spy-glass, as if in search of approaching vessels or of clouds that promised wind, but neither came, dark night fell once more, and Mr Brymer ordered the oars out and we were rowed round to the other side of the ship, from which position we could see a light faintly shining from the little round cabin-window where we knew Miss Denning to be.
At present, as I look from my large cabin-window, I see a belt of feathery grass, and then the blue sky. A flight of white herons rise, and the sand throws yellow reflected light under their wings; a long, dug-out canoe passes down with a load of colour, red earthenware pots forward, a copper-faced man amidship, in white jacket and indian-red kilt.
"Oh, my captain, my captain! noble heart go not go not! see, it's a brave man that weeps; how great the agony of the persuasion then!" "Lower away!" cried Ahab, tossing the mate's arm from him. "Stand by the crew!" In an instant the boat was pulling round close under the stern. "The sharks! the sharks!" cried a voice from the low cabin-window there; "O master, my master, come back!"
Bang! went the pistol. "I told you so," said Mr Brymer coolly, and at that moment I heard a sharp gasp behind me, and saw that a white face was at the little round cabin-window we were nearing. "When we are passing," said Mr Brymer, "that is, when I say `now, and begin to run off, tell Miss Denning to be of good cheer, for she and her brother shall not be forsaken.
"Not the least of it, sir, and that it is which makes him so great a favourite. The chaplain of the Warspite is of some use; but one might as well have a bowsprit rigged out of a cabin-window, as have our chap." "Why, we never bury a man, Greenly, without putting him into the water as a Christian should be," returned Sir Gervaise, with the simplicity of a true believer of the decency school.
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