Produced by Peter O'Connell
By
EDWARD DYSON1906
THE night was bright and cool, and the old East Indiaman moved slowly onthe heaving bosom of the ocean, under a strong full moon, like awind-blown ghost to whose wanderings there had been no beginning andcould be no end—so small, so helpless she seemed between the twoinfinities of sea and sky. There was no cloud to break the blueprofundity of heaven, no line of horizon, no diversity in the long lazyroll of the green waters to dispel the illusion of an interminable ocean.The great crestless waves rose and fell with pulsing monotony, round,smooth and intolerably silent. It was as if the undulating sea had beenstricken motionless, and the ship was damned to the Sisyphean task ofsurmounting one mysterious hill that eternally reappeared under her prow,and beyond which she might never pass. Suddenly the ghost faltered on thecrest of a wave, fluttering her rags in the moonlight, possessed with avague indecision. Shouting and the noise of hurrying feet broke thesilence. There was a startling upheaval of men; they swarmed in therigging, and faces were piled above the larboard bulwarks. A boat droppedfrom the ship's side, striking the sea with a muffled sound, and wasinstantly caught into the quaint lifting and falling motion of theFrancis Cadman, as the oily-backed waves slid under. Four men in the boatbent smartly to the oars, a fifth stood erect in the prow, peering underhis hand over the waste of waters; another at the tiller encouraged therowers with cordial and well-meant abuse. A hundred people shouted futiledirections from the ship. The gravity of the Indian Ocean was disturbedby the babble of dialects. One voice rose above all the rest, sonorous,masterful, cursing the ship into order with a deliberate flow ofinvective that had the dignity and force of a judgment.
The boat drew off rapidly. The men, squarely and firmly seated, benttheir heavy shoulders with machine-like movements, and when they threwback their faces the rays of the moon glittered and flashed in theirdilated eyes and on their bared teeth. The sailor at the tiller swayed inunison, and grunted encouragement, breaking every now and then intobitter speech, spoken as if in reverent accord with the night and theirmission, in a low, pleading tone, much as a patient mother might addressa wayward child.
'Lift her, lads—lift her, blast you! Oh, my blighted soul, Ellis! I'dget more square-pullin' out of a starved cat with ten kittens—I would,by thunder! Now, men, all together! Huh! Huh! hub!'
The boatswain strained as if tugging a stubborn oar. In the interval ofsilence that followed all bent attentive ears, but no call came from thesea. The sleek oars dipped into the waves without a sound, and swungnoiselessly in the worn rowlocks. The man at the prow remained rigid as astatue, and Coleman resumed his whispered invocation.
'Bend to it, you devils! One! two! three! Morton, don't go to sleep, youswine! Ryan! Tadvers, you herrin'-gutted, boss-eyed son of a barber'sape, are you rowin' or spoonin' up hot soup? Pull, men! Huh! That's aclinker! Huh! Shift her! Huh! May the fiend singe you for a drowsy packo' sea-cows! Pull!'
The men threw every ounce of power into each stroke, the voice of theboatswain blending with their efforts like an intoned benediction, andthe treacly sea foamed under the prow into drifted snow which ran merrilyin their wake. For a tense moment the boat hung poised upon a highroller, as if about to be projected into the air, and the man in theprow, electrified, threw out an arm with a dramatic gesture. Theinstincts of the