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- Round about the king’s house,
And the small laughter?
The small, merry laughter it is
Of the sons and daughters of the tattooed.”
CHAPTER IX.
WE STEER TO THE WESTWARD—STATE OF AFFAIRS
The night we left Hannamanoo was bright and starry, and so warm that,
when the watches were relieved, most of the men, instead of going
below, flung themselves around the foremast.
Toward morning, finding the heat of the forecastle unpleasant, I
ascended to the deck where everything was noiseless. The Trades were
blowing with a mild, steady strain upon the canvas, and the ship
heading right out into the immense blank of the Western Pacific. The
watch were asleep. With one foot resting on the rudder, even the man at
the helm nodded, and the mate himself, with arms folded, was leaning
against the capstan.
On such a night, and all alone, reverie was inevitable. I leaned over
the side, and could not help thinking of the strange objects we might
be sailing over.
But my meditations were soon interrupted by a gray, spectral shadow
cast over the heaving billows. It was the dawn, soon followed by the
first rays of the morning. They flashed into view at one end of the
arched night, like—to compare great things with small—the gleamings of
Guy Fawkes’s lantern in the vaults of the Parliament House. Before
long, what seemed a live ember rested for a moment on the rim of the
ocean, and at last the blood-red sun stood full and round in the level
East, and the long sea-day began.
Breakfast over, the first thing attended to was the formal baptism of
Wymontoo, who, after thinking over his affairs during the night, looked
dismal enough.
There were various opinions as to a suitable appellation. Some
maintained that we ought to call him “Sunday,” that being the day we
caught him; others, “Eighteen Forty-two,” the then year of our Lord;
while Doctor Long Ghost remarked that he ought, by all means, to retain
his original name,—Wymontoo-Hee, meaning (as he maintained), in the
figurative language of the island, something analogous to one who had
got himself into a scrape. The mate put an end to the discussion by
sousing the poor fellow with a bucket of salt water, and bestowing upon
him the nautical appellation of “Luff.”
Though a certain mirthfulness succeeded his first pangs at leaving
home, Wymontoo—we will call him thus—gradually relapsed into his former
mood, and became very melancholy. Often I noticed him crouching apart
in the forecastle, his strange eyes gleaming restlessly, and watching
the slightest movement of the men. Many a time he must have been
thinking of his bamboo hut, when they were talking of Sydney and its
dance-houses.
We were now fairly at sea, though to what particular cruising-ground we
were going, no one knew; and, to all appearances, few cared. The men,
after a fashion of their own, began to settle down into the routine of
sea-life, as if everything was going on prosperously. Blown along over
a smooth sea, there was nothing to do but steer the ship, and relieve
the “look-outs” at the mast-heads. As for the sick, they had two or
three more added to their number—the air of the island having disagreed
with the constitutions of several of the runaways. To crown all, the
captain again relapsed, and became quite ill.
The men fit for duty were divided into two small watches, headed
respectively by the mate and the Mowree; the latter by virtue of his
being a harpooner, succeeding to the place of the second mate, who had
absconded.
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