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Wacousta (Volume II)

J >> John Richardson >> Wacousta (Volume II)




Another deep and exulting "Ugh!" was now heaved from the
chest of the Indian, who stood calmly on the spot on
which he had first rested, while Fuller prepared a coil
of rope to throw to the active steersman.

"Avast there, Jack!" growled the boatswain, addressing
the sailor; "how can the stranger keep the bow of his
craft on, and grapple at the same time? Just pass one
end of the coil round your waist, and swing yourself
gently into her."

The head of the canoe was now near enough for the purpose.
The sailor did as he was desired, having previously
divested himself of his shoes, and leaping forward,
alighted on what appeared to be a bundle of blankets
stowed away in her bows. No sooner, however, had he
secured his footing, when with another desperate leap,
and greatly to the astonishment of all around, he bounded
once more to the deck of the schooner, his countenance
exhibiting every mark of superstitious alarm. In the act
of quitting the canoe he had spurned her violently several
feet from the vessel, which the silent steersman was
again making every effort to reach.

"Why what the devil's the matter with you now?" exclaimed
the rough boatswain, who, as well as Captain de Haldimar
and the rest of the crew, had quitted the gangway to
learn the cause of this extraordinary conduct. "Damn my
eyes, if you ar'n't worse scared than when the Ingian
stood over you in the jolly boat."

"Scared, ay, to be sure I am; and so would you be scared
too, if you'd a see'd what I did. May I never touch the
point at Portsmouth, if I a'n't seen her ghost."

"Where?--whose ghost?--what ghost?--what do you mean,
Jack?" exclaimed several of the startled men in the same
breath, while the superstitious dread so common to mariners
drew them still closer in the group that encircled their
companion.

"Well, then, as I am a miserable sinner," returned the
man, impressively, and in a low tone, "I see'd in the
bows of the canoe,--and the hand that steered it was not
made of flesh and blood like ours,--what do you think?--
the ghost of---"

Captain de Haldimar heard no more. At a single bound he
had gained the ship's side. He strained his eyes anxiously
over the gangway in search of the canoe, but it was gone.
A death-like silence throughout the deck followed the
communication of the sailor, and in that pause the sound
of the receding boat could be heard, not urged, as it
had approached, by one paddle, but by two. The heart of
the officer throbbed almost to suffocation; and his
firmness, hitherto supported by the manly energies of
his nature, now failed him quite. Heedless of appearances,
regardless of being overlooked, he tottered like a drunken
man for support against the mainmast. For a moment or
two he leant his head upon his hand, with the air of one
immersed in the most profound abstraction; while the
crew, at once alarmed and touched by the deep distress
into which this mysterious circumstance had plunged him,
stood silently and respectfully watching his emotion.
Suddenly he started from his attitude of painful repose,
like one awaking from a dream, and demanded what had
become of the Indian.

Every one looked around, but the captive was nowhere to
be seen. Search was made below, both in the cabin and in
the fore decks, and men were sent up aloft to see if he
had secreted himself in the rigging; but all returned,
stating he was nowhere to be found. He had disappeared
from the vessel altogether, yet no one knew how; for he
had not been observed to stir from the spot on which he
had first planted himself. It was plain, however, he had
joined the mysterious party in the canoe, from the fact
of the second paddle having been detected; and all attempts
at pursuit, without endangering the vessel on the shallows,
whither the course of the fugitives was now directed,
was declared by the boatswain utterly impracticable.

The announcement of the Indian's disappearance seemed to
put the climax to the despair of the unfortunate officer.
--"Then is our every hope lost!" he groaned aloud, as,
quitting the centre of the vessel, he slowly traversed
the deck, and once more stood at the side of his no less
unhappy and excited sister. For a moment or two he remained
with his arms folded across his chest, gazing on the dark
outline of her form; and then, in a wild paroxysm of
silent tearless grief, threw himself suddenly on the edge
of the couch, and clasping her in a long close embrace
to his audibly beating heart, lay like one bereft of all
sense and consciousness of surrounding objects.




END OF THE SECOND VOLUME.

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