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.
