he seemed waiting, still bowing his head, waving his fiery plumes, and mopping and mowing, and showing his treble row of teeth, as before. At the sight of the frightful demon, the captain seemed more dead than alive, and ready to fall from the gun-carriage, on which I was obliged to support him; he, however, plucked up courage to shriek out, in a voice that trembled with agitation, 'Whoever, or whatever you are, take what you want, and begone;' and having said so, he sank powerless into my arms; upon which the creature uttered one of its strange, thrilling shrieks as of a drowning man, but which seemed mingled with a sort of shrill, demoniac laughter, and disappeared below the waves – the waving plumes of his singular head-gear flashing up half-mast high as he sank out of sight. At the same moment, my eyes were somehow mysteriously directed from it, and I saw Jacob Fell, the forecastle-man, fall dead into the arms of one of his watch-mates, he, whom we call Cadaverous Jack, and whom you christened the Ancient Mariner, because you said he went about his duty looking so miserable, holding his head down on one side, as if he always felt the weight of the murdered albatross hanging about his neck. Immediately a heavy squall threw the ship on her beam-ends, and I awoke" – which was the singular dream related to me by my quondam friend and shipmate, with a gravity quite unusual with him, except when he wanted to play upon the credulity of some of us youngsters, when he used to assume the gravest possible countenance, though I could always, in these cases, discern the lurking devil in his eyes. In this case, however, I could discover no such appearance of fun and frolic; his looks were, on the contrary, perfectly serious, and even allied to sadness, in spite of the bravado with which he had assumed his usual careless levity of manner in certain parts of his narration. I determined, however, not to let him have the laugh against me, and therefore said, "Come, come, Jemmy, you should tell that dream to the marines; the sailors can't bolt it; it's rather too tough. We all of us know that you are always dreaming, but you can't catch old birds with such chaff. I am too old a sea-dog, and have sailed over too many leagues of blue water to bite at such gammon." I prided myself much on being Ralph's senior in the service by a couple of years or so, and felt indignant that he should think of treating me as a youngster, because he had about the same advantage of me in age. He, however, affirmed, in the most solemn manner, that it was an actual bonâ-fide dream, and that it had been reiterated on his falling asleep again, though in broken and disjointed patches, sometimes one part, sometimes another, of the previous vision being presented to his sleepy fancy; but there was always this horrible merman, with his shark's jaws and his flaming tiara, and poor Jacob Fell lying dead in his messmate's arms. But methinks I hear some nautical reader exclaim, "All stuff!" who ever heard of two reefers telling their dreams, and chattering on the sacred precincts of the quarter-deck of one of her Majesty's frigates, like a guinea-pig and an embryo cadet on the quarter-deck of a Bengal trader? Pardon, my noble sea-hossifer, but you must remember that the Old Lucifer was not the crack frigate – not the Eos, six-and-thirty, but only a small frigate; and that, although she was blessed with a real martinet of a first-lieutenant, yet, in point of discipline, she was like most jackass frigates and sloops of war, et hoc genus omne, little better than a privateer; besides, our Portuguese supernumerary lieutenant was the officer of the watch, and Ralph had completely got the weather-gage of him, and could do what he liked with the "pavior." However, the dream was told me by Ralph nearly in the very words in which I have given it, though, perhaps, not all on deck, for the subject was renewed over our allowance of grog in the midshipmen's berth after dinner, for nothing could drive it out of Rattlin's head, and he was all that day singularly silent and distrait on all other subjects. That evening I had the first dog-watch; and when Rattlin came on deck at six o'clock to relieve me, the sun was setting in a red and angry-looking sky, and there was every symptom of a squally night.
"Well, Percy," he said, "this sunset reminds me of my dream. I really think old Davy will be among us before my watch is out."
"Very well, Jemmy, I'll come on deck at seven bells and see," I replied, as I ran down the companion for an hour's snooze, for, as my nautical readers will be aware, I had the middle watch. Mindful of my promise, as soon as I heard seven bells struck, I roused myself from the locker on which I had stretched myself, and went on deck, and I was immediately struck with the perfect coincidence of the weather, and all the accessories to those described by Rattlin in his dream. The ship had just been put about, and was now close hauled on the starboard tack; the night pitch dark, the breeze freshening from the northeast, and the sea beginning to assume that luminous appearance so frequently observable under a dark sky and with a fresh breeze, but which, though generally attributed to myriads of luminous animalculæ, has never yet been fully and satisfactorily accounted for. I joined my friend Rattlin, and said to him, in a low tone, "This looks, indeed, like your dream."
"Yes," he answered, looking very pale and nervous; "it does, indeed. I don't know what to make of it. Davy Jones will certainly lay hold of some of us to-night."
At this moment the first-lieutenant came on deck, followed by the captain, whose sallow countenance, as he stood abaft the binnacle, and the light fell on his face, looked rather more ghastly than usual.
"I think, Mr. Silva," said the former, addressing the officer of the watch, "we had better take another reef in the topsails; it looks very squally to windward; it's drawing near to eight bells, so we'll turn the hands up at once."
"Mr. Rattlin," said Silva, "all hands reef topsails."
"Boatswain's-mate," bawled out Rattlin, going forward on to the weather gangway, "turn the hands up to reef topsails."
"Ay, ay, sir;" and immediately his silver call was between his lips, and after blowing a shrill prelude, his hoarse voice was heard proclaiming, "All hands reef topsails, ahoy," which was re-echoed from the main-deck by the call and voice of the boatswain's-mate of the watch below, and, finally, by those of the boatswain himself, as the men came tumbling up the fore and main hatchways, and were soon seen scampering up the rigging, or making the best of their way to their various stations. In less than five minutes the topsails were double-reefed, and the ship again dashing the spray from her bows. It being now so near the time for relieving the watch, the crew, with the exception of the idlers, all remained on deck, and the topmen scattered in groups about the gangways and forecastle.
All at once the sky grew blacker than before, the breeze freshened, and the surface of the sea became like one sheet of pale blue and white flame.
"Now, Careless," whispered Rattlin, actually trembling with excitement, "my dream to the life!"
The words had scarcely passed his lips, when such a shriek as I never heard before or since, seemed to come out of the very depths of the ocean, close under the ship's counter on the lee quarter. Every one rushed to the lee gangway, or jumped on the quarter-deck guns, to look in the direction from whence the sound came; but nothing could be seen. Once more that doleful cry arose, and it seemed now rather more distant from the ship, and then it ceased forever.
"A man overboard!" cried the first lieutenant, who seemed the first to recover his senses, seizing a grating of the companion-hatchway, and flinging it over the lee bulwark, while the lieutenant of the watch did the same with its fellow. "Down with helm, and heave her all aback – let go the lee braces – lay the main-topsail to the mast – square away the after-yards, my boys – lower the jolly-boat – jump into her, some of ye, and cast off her fastenings."
This latter command had, however, been obeyed ere it was issued, for the captain of the mizen-top and myself had jumped into the boat, where we were soon joined by three other mizen-top-men, and had her all clear for lowering. Two other seamen stood with the boat's tackle-falls in their hands.
"Lower away," cried I; and down we went.
During her descent, I had shipped the rudder, and we were soon pulling away to leeward. In vain we pulled about for more than an hour in the short, tumbling sea, which scintillated as it broke around us, and shed a ghastly hue on our anxious countenances, while the from the blades of our oars at every dip as they rose again from the water. At length the stentorian voice of the first-lieutenant hailed us to come on board,
