The Pilot: A Tale of the Sea by James Fenimore Cooper (best ereader under 100 TXT) 📕

she was driving in, bodily, towards the shore.

During these few minutes of gloomy doubt, Griffith, by one of those sudden revulsions of the mind that connect the opposite extremes of feeling, lost his animated anxiety, and elapsed into the listless apathy that so often came over him, even in the most critical moments of trial and danger. He was standing with one elbow resting on his capstan, shading his eyes from the light of the battle-lantern that stood near him with one hand, when he felt a gentle pressure of the other, that recalled his recollection. Looking affectionately, though still recklessly, at the boy who stood at his side, he said:

“Dull music, Mr. Merry.”

“So dull, sir, that I can't dance to it,” returned the midshipman. “Nor do I believe there is a man in the ship who would not rather hear 'The girl I left behind me,' than those execrable sounds.”

“What sounds, boy? The ship is as quiet as the Quaker meeting in the Jerseys, before your good old grandfather used to break the charm of silence with his sonorous voice.”

“Ah! laugh at my peaceable blood, if thou wilt, Mr. Griffith,” said the arch youngster, “but remember, there is a mixture of it in all sorts of veins. I wish I could hear one of the old gentleman's chants now, sir; I could always sleep to them, like a gull in the surf. But he that sleeps to-night, with that lullaby, will make a nap of it.”

“Sounds! I hear no sounds, boy, but the flapping aloft; even that pilot, who struts the quarter-deck like an admiral, has nothing to say.”

“Is not that a sound to open a seaman's ear?”

“It is in truth a heavy roll of the surf, lad, but the night air carries it heavily to our ears. Know you not the sounds of the surf yet, younker?”

“I know it too well, Mr. Griffith, and do not wish to know it better. How fast are we tumbling in towards that surf, sir?”

“I think we hold our own,” said Griffith, rousing again; “though we had better anchor. Luff, fellow, luff—you are broadside to the sea!”

The man at the wheel repeated his former intelligence, adding a suggestion, that he thought the ship “was gathering stern way.”

“Haul up your courses, Mr. Griffith,” said Captain Munson, “and let us feel the wind.”

The rattling of the blocks was soon heard, and the enormous sheets of canvas that hung from the lower yards were instantly suspended “in the brails.” When this change was effected, all on board stood silent and breathless, as if expecting to learn their fate by the result. Several contradictory opinions were, at length, hazarded among the officers, when Griffith seized the candle from the lantern, and springing on one of the guns, held it on high, exposed to the action of the air. The little flame waved, with uncertain glimmering, for a moment, and then burned steadily, in a line with the masts. Griffith was about to lower his extended arm, when, feeling a slight sensation of coolness on his hand, he paused, and the light turned slowly toward the land, flared, flickered, and finally deserted the wick.

“Lose not a moment, Mr. Griffith,” cried the pilot aloud; “clew up and furl everything but your three topsails, and let them be double-reefed. Now is the time to fulfill your promise.”

The young man paused one moment, in astonishment, as the clear, distinct tones of the stranger struck his ears so unexpectedly; but turning his eyes to seaward, he sprang on the deck, and proceeded to obey the order, as if life and death depended on his dispatch.