Westward Ho! by Charles Kingsley (christmas read aloud .txt) 📕

Man, and then put into Castleton (where the Manx-men slew a whole boat’s-crew with their arrows), and then put out again, when Amyas fought with her a whole day, and shot away her mainyard; how the Spaniard blundered down the coast of Wales, not knowing whither he went; how they were both nearly lost on Holyhead, and again on Bardsey Island; how they got on a lee shore in Cardigan Bay, before a heavy westerly gale, and the Sta. Catharina ran aground on Sarn David, one of those strange subaqueous pebble-dykes which are said to be the remnants of the lost land of Gwalior, destroyed by the carelessness of Prince Seithenin the drunkard, at whose name each loyal Welshman spits; how she got off again at the rising of the tide, and fought with Amyas a fourth time; how the wind changed, and she got round St. David’s Head;—these, and many more moving incidents of this eventful voyage, I must pass over without details, and go on to the end; for it is time that the end should come.

It was now the sixteenth day of the chase. They had seen, the evening before, St. David’s Head, and then the Welsh coast round Milford Haven, looming out black and sharp before the blaze of the inland thunderstorm; and it had lightened all round them during the fore part of the night, upon a light south-western breeze.

In vain they had strained their eyes through the darkness, to catch, by the fitful glare of the flashes, the tall masts of the Spaniard. Of one thing at least they were certain, that with the wind as it was, she could not have gone far to the westward; and to attempt to pass them again, and go northward, was more than she dare do. She was probably lying-to ahead of them, perhaps between them and the land; and when, a little after midnight, the wind chopped up to the west, and blew stiffly till day break, they felt sure that, unless she had attempted the desperate expedient of running past them, they had her safe in the mouth of the Bristol Channel. Slowly and wearily broke the dawn, on such a day as often follows heavy thunder; a sunless, drizzly day, roofed with low dingy cloud, barred and netted, and festooned with black, a sign that the storm is only taking breath awhile before it bursts again; while all the narrow horizon is dim and spongy with vapor drifting before a chilly breeze. As the day went on, the breeze died down, and the sea fell to a long glassy foam-flecked roll, while overhead brooded the inky sky, and round them the leaden mist shut out alike the shore and the chase.

Amyas paced the sloppy deck fretfully and fiercely. He knew that the Spaniard could not escape; but he cursed every moment which lingered between him and that one great revenge which blackened all his soul. The men sate sulkily about the deck, and whistled for a wind; the sails flapped idly against the masts; and the ship rolled in the long troughs of the sea, till her yardarms almost dipped right and left.

“Take care of those guns. You will have something loose next,” growled Amyas.

“We will take care of the guns, if the Lord will take care of the wind,” said Yeo.

“We shall have plenty before night,” said Cary, “and thunder too.”

“So much the better,” said Amyas. “It may roar till it splits the heavens, if it does but let me get my work done.”

“He’s not far off, I warrant,” said Cary. “One lift of the cloud, and we should see him.”

“To windward of us, as likely as not,” said Amyas. “The devil fights for him, I believe. To have been on his heels sixteen days, and not sent this through him yet!” And he shook his sword impatiently.

So the morning wore away, without a sign of living thing, not even a passing gull; and the black melancholy of the heaven reflected itself in the black melancholy of Amyas. Was he to lose his prey after all? The thought made him shudder with rage and disappointment. It was intolerable. Anything but that.

“No, God!” he cried, “let me but once feel this in his accursed heart, and then—strike me dead, if Thou wilt!”

“The Lord have mercy on us,” cried John Brimblecombe. “What have you said?”

“What is that to you, sir? There, they are piping to dinner. Go down. I shall not come.”

And Jack went down, and talked in a half-terrified whisper of Amyas’s ominous words.

All thought that they portended some bad luck, except old Yeo.

“Well, Sir John,” said he, “and why not? What better can the Lord do for a man, than take him home when he has done his work? Our captain is wilful and spiteful, and must needs kill his man himself; while for me, I don’t care how the Don goes, provided he does go. I owe him no grudge, nor any man. May the Lord give him repentance, and forgive him all his sins: but if I could but see him once safe ashore, as he may be ere nightfall, on the Mortestone or the back of Lundy, I would say, ‘Lord, now lettest Thou Thy servant depart in peace,’ even if it were the lightning which was sent to fetch me.”

“But, master Yeo, a sudden death?”

“And why not a sudden death, Sir John? Even fools long for a short life and a merry one, and shall not the Lord’s people pray for a short death and a merry one? Let it come as it will to old Yeo. Hark! there’s the captain’s voice!”

“Here she is!” thundered Amyas from the deck; and in an instant all were scrambling up the hatchway as fast as the frantic rolling of the ship would let them.

Yes. There she was. The cloud had lifted suddenly, and to the south a ragged bore of blue sky let a long stream of sunshine down on her tall masts and stately hull, as she lay rolling some four or five miles to the eastward: but as for land, none was to be seen.

“There she is; and here we are,” said Cary; “but where is here? and where is there? How is the tide, master?”

“Running up Channel by this time, sir.”

“What matters the tide?” said Amyas, devouring the ship with terrible and cold blue eyes. “Can’t we get at her?”

“Not unless some one jumps out and shoves behind,” said Cary. “I shall down again and finish that mackerel, if this roll has not chucked it to the cockroaches under the table.”

“Don’t jest, Will! I can’t stand it,” said Amyas, in a voice which quivered so much that Cary looked at him. His whole frame was trembling like an aspen. Cary took his arm, and drew him aside.

“Dear old lad,” said he, as they leaned over the bulwarks, “what is this? You are not yourself, and have not been these four days.”

“No. I am not Amyas Leigh. I am my brother’s avenger. Do not reason with me, Will: when it is over I shall be merry old Amyas again,” and he passed his hand over his brow.

“Do you believe,” said he, after a moment, “that men can be possessed by devils?”

“The Bible says so.”

“If my cause were not a just one, I should fancy I had a devil in me. My throat and heart are as hot as the pit. Would to God it were done, for done it must be! Now go.”

Cary went away with a shudder. As he passed down the hatchway he looked back. Amyas had got the hone out of his pocket, and was whetting away again at his sword-edge, as if there was some dreadful doom on him, to whet, and whet forever.

The weary day wore on. The strip of blue sky was curtained over again, and all was dismal as before, though it grew sultrier every moment; and now and then a distant mutter shook the air to westward. Nothing could be done to lessen the distance between the ships, for the Vengeance had had all her boats carried away but one, and that was much too small to tow her: and while the men went down again to finish dinner, Amyas worked on at his sword, looking up every now and then suddenly at the Spaniard, as if to satisfy himself that it was not a vision which had vanished.

About two Yeo came up to him.

“He is ours safely now, sir. The tide has been running to the eastward for this two hours.”

“Safe as a fox in a trap. Satan himself cannot take him from us!”

“But God may,” said Brimblecombe, simply.

“Who spoke to you, sir? If I thought that He— There comes the thunder at last!”

And as he spoke an angry growl from the westward heavens seemed to answer his wild words, and rolled and loudened nearer and nearer, till right over their heads it crashed against some cloud-cliff far above, and all was still.

Each man looked in the other’s face: but Amyas was unmoved.

“The storm is coming,” said he, “and the wind in it. It will be Eastward-ho now, for once, my merry men all!”

“Eastward-ho never brought us luck,” said Jack in an undertone to Cary. But by this time all eyes were turned to the northwest, where a black line along the horizon began to define the boundary of sea and air, till now all dim in mist.

“There comes the breeze.”

“And there the storm, too.”

And with that strangely accelerating pace which some storms seem to possess, the thunder, which had been growling slow and seldom far away, now rang peal on peal along the cloudy floor above their heads.

“Here comes the breeze. Round with the yards, or we shall be taken aback.”

The yards creaked round; the sea grew crisp around them; the hot air swept their cheeks, tightened every rope, filled every sail, bent her over. A cheer burst from the men as the helm went up, and they staggered away before the wind, right down upon the Spaniard, who lay still becalmed.

“There is more behind, Amyas,” said Cary. “Shall we not shorten sail a little?”

“No. Hold on every stitch,” said Amyas. “Give me the helm, man. Boatswain, pipe away to clear for fight.”

It was done, and in ten minutes the men were all at quarters, while the thunder rolled louder and louder overhead, and the breeze freshened fast.

“The dog has it now. There he goes!” said Cary.

“Right before the wind. He has no liking to face us.”

“He is running into the jaws of destruction,” said Yeo. “An hour more will send him either right up the Channel, or smack on shore somewhere.”

“There! he has put his helm down. I wonder if he sees land?”

“He is like a March hare beat out of his country,” said Cary, “and don’t know whither to run next.”

Cary was right. In ten minutes more the Spaniard fell off again, and went away dead down wind, while the Vengeance gained on him fast. After two hours more, the four miles had diminished to one, while the lightning flashed nearer and nearer as the storm came up; and from the vast mouth of a black cloud-arch poured so fierce a breeze that Amyas yielded unwillingly to hints which were growing into open murmurs, and bade shorten sail.

On they rushed with scarcely lessened speed, the black arch following fast, curtained by the flat gray sheet of pouring rain, before which the water was boiling in a long white line; while every moment behind the watery veil, a keen blue spark leapt down into the sea, or darted zigzag through the rain.

“We