Homeward Bound - James Fenimore Cooper (free e books to read .txt) 📗

Comme ce jeune homme parle bien Français!"

Eve hesitated, and she changed colour slightly, before she answered.

"I am not certain that the opinion of Mr. Blunt ought to be mentioned in opposition to those of my father and cousin Jack, on such a subject," she said. "He is very young, and it is, now, quite questionable whether he is even an American at all."

"Tant mieux, ma chère. He has been much in the country, and it is not the native that make the best judge, when the stranger has many opportunities of seeing."

"On this principle, mademoiselle, you are, then, to give up your own judgment about France, on all those points in which I have the misfortune to differ from you," said Eve, laughing.

" Pas tout à fait ," returned the governess goodhumouredly. "Age and experience must pass pour quelque chose. Et Monsieur Blunt ?--"

"Monsieur Blunt leans nearer to the side of cousin Jack, I fear, than to that of my dear, dear father. He says men of Mr. Dodge's character, propensities, malignancy, intolerance, ignorance, vulgarity, and peculiar vices abound in and about the American press. He even insists that they do an incalculable amount of harm, by influencing those who have no better sources of information; by setting up low jealousies and envy in the place of principles and the right; by substituting--I use his own words, mademoiselle," said Eve, blushing with the consciousness of the fidelity of her memory--"by substituting uninstructed provincial notions for true taste and liberality; by confounding the real principles of liberty with personal envies, and the jealousies of station; and by losing sight entirely of their duties to the public, in the effort to advance their own interests. He says that the government is in truth a press-ocracy , and a press-ocracy, too, that has not the redeeming merit of either principles, tastes, talents or knowledge."

"Ce Monsieur Blunt has been very explicit, and suffisamment eloquent ," returned Mademoiselle Viefville, gravely; for the prudent governess did not fail to observe that Eve used language so very different from that which was habitual to her, as to make her suspect she quoted literally. For the first time the suspicion was painfully awakened, that it was her duty to be more vigilant in relation to the intercourse between her charge and the two agreeable young men whom accident had given them as fellow-passengers. After a short but musing pause, she again adverted to the subject of their previous conversation.

"Ce Monsieur Dodge, est il ridicule!"

"On that point at least, my dear mademoiselle, there can be no mistake. And yet cousin Jack insists that this stuff will be given to his readers, as views of Europe worthy of their attention."

"Ce conte du roi!--mais, c'est trop fort!"

"With the coat laced at the seams, and the cocked hat!"

"Et l'honorable Louis Philippe d'Orleans!"

"Orleans, mademoiselle; d'Orleans would be anti-republican."

Then the two ladies sat looking at each other a few moments in silence, when both, although of a proper retenue of manner in general, burst into a hearty and long-continued fit of laughter. Indeed, so long did Eve, in the buoyancy of her young spirits, and her keen perception of the ludicrous, indulge herself, that her fair hair fell about her rosy cheeks, and her bright eyes fairly danced with delight.


Chapter XVI.


And there he went ashore without delay,
Having no custom-house or quarantine,--
To ask him awkward questions on the way
About the time and place where he had been.

BYRON.


Captain Truck was in a sound sleep as soon as his head touched the pillow. With the exception of the ladies, the others soon followed his example; and as the people were excessively wearied, and the night was so tranquil, ere long only a single pair of eyes were open on deck: those of the man at the wheel. The wind died away, and even this worthy was not innocent of nodding at his post.

Under such circumstances, it will occasion no great surprise that the cabin was aroused next morning with the sudden and startling information that the land was close aboard the ship. Every one hurried on deck, where, sure enough, the dreaded coast of Africa was seen, with a palpable distinctness, within two miles of the vessel. It presented a long broken line of sand-hills, unrelieved by a tree, or by so few as almost to merit this description, and with a hazy background of remote mountains to the north-east. The margin of the actual coast nearest to the ship was indented with bays; and even rocks appeared in places; but the general character of the scene was that of a fierce and burning sterility. On this picture of desolation all stood gazing in awe and admiration for some minutes, as the day gradually brightened, until a cry arose from forward, of "a ship!"

"Whereaway?" sternly demanded Captain Truck; for the sudden and unexpected appearance of this dangerous coast had awakened all that was forbidding and severe in the temperament of the old master; "whereaway, sir?"

"On the larboard quarter, sir, and at anchor."

"She is ashore!" exclaimed half-a-dozen voices at the same instant, just as the words came from the last speaker. The glass soon settled this important point. At the distance of about a league astern of them were, indeed, to be seen the spars of a ship, with the hull looming on the sands, in a way to leave no doubt of her being a wreck. It was the first impression of all, that this, at last, was the Foam; but Captain Truck soon announced the contrary.

"It is a Swede, or a Dane," he said, "by his rig and his model. A stout, solid, compact sea-boat, that is high and dry on the sands, looking as if he had been built there. He does not appear even to have bilged, and most of his sails, and all of his yards, are in their places. Not a living soul is to be seen about her! Ha! there are signs of tents made of sails on shore, and broken bales of goods! Her people have been seized and carried into the desert, as usual, and this is a fearful hint that we must keep the Montauk off the bottom. Turn-to the people, Mr. Leach, and get up your sheers that we may step our jury-masts at once; the smallest breeze on the land would drive us ashore, without any after-sail."

While the mates and the crew set about completing the work they had prepared the previous day, Captain Truck and his passengers passed the time in ascertaining all they could concerning the wreck, and the reasons of their being themselves in a position so very different from what they had previously believed.

As respects the first, little more could be ascertained; she lay absolutely high and dry on a hard sandy beach, where she had probably been cast during the late gale, and sufficient signs were made out by the captain, to prove to him that she had been partly plundered. More than this could not be discovered at that distance, and the work of the Montauk was too urgent to send a boat manned with her own people to examine. Mr. Blunt, Mr. Sharp, Mr. Monday, and the servants of the two former, however, volunteering to pull the cutter, it was finally decided to look more closely into the facts, Captain Truck himself taking charge of the expedition.--While the latter is getting ready, a word of explanation will suffice to tell the reader the reason why the Montauk had fallen so much to leeward.

The ship being so near the coast, it became now very obvious she was driven by a current that set along the land, but which, it was probable, had set towards it more in the offing. The imperceptible drift between the observation of the previous day and the discovery of the coast, had sufficed to carry the vessel a great distance; and to this simple cause, coupled perhaps with some neglect in the steerage during the past night, was her present situation to be solely attributed. Just at this moment, the little air there was came from the land, and by keeping her head off-shore, Captain Truck entertained no doubt of his being able to escape the calamity that had befallen the other ship in the fury of the gale. A wreck is always a matter of so much interest with mariners, therefore, that taking all these things into view, he had come to the determination we have mentioned, of examining into the history of the one in sight, so far as circumstances permitted.

The Montauk carried three boats; the launch, a large, safe, and well-constructed craft, which stood in the usual chucks between the foremast and mainmast; a jolly-boat, and a cutter. It was next to impossible to get the first into the water, deprived as the ship was of its mainmast; but the other hanging at davits, one on each quarter, were easily lowered. The packets seldom carry any arms beyond a light gun to fire signals with, the pistols of the master, and perhaps a fowling-piece or two. Luckily the passengers were better provided: all the gentlemen had pistols, Mr. Monday and Mr. Dodge excepted, if indeed they properly belonged to this category, as Captain Truck would say, and most of them had also fowling-pieces. Although a careful examination of the coast with the glasses offered no signs of the presence of any danger from enemies, these arms were carefully collected, loaded, and deposited in the boats, in order to be prepared for the worst. Provisions and water were also provided, and the party were about to proceed.

Captain Truck and one or two of the adventurers were still on the deck, when Eve, with that strange love of excitement and adventure that often visits the most delicate spirits, expressed an idle regret that she could not make one in the expedition.

"There is something so strange and wild in landing on an African desert," she said; "and I think a near view of the wreck would repay us, Mademoiselle, for the hazard."

The young men hesitated between their desire to have such a companion, and their doubts of the prudence of the step; but Captain Truck declared there could be no risk, and Mr. Effingham consenting, the whole plan was altered so as to include the ladies; for there was so much pleasure in varying the monotony of a calm, and escaping the confinement of ship, that everybody entered into the new arrangement with zeal and spirit.

A single whip was rigged on the fore-yard, a chair was slung, and in ten minutes both ladies were floating on the ocean in the cutter. This boat pulled six oars, which were manned by the servants of the two Messrs. Effinghams, Mr. Blunt, and Mr. Sharp, together with the two latter gentlemen in person. Mr. Effingham steered. Captain Truck had the jolly-boat, of which he pulled an oar himself, aided by Saunders, Mr. Monday, and Sir George Templemore; the mates and the regular crew being actively engaged in rigging their jury-mast. Mr. Dodge declined being of the party, feeding himself with the hope that the present would be a favourable occasion to peep into the state-rooms, to run his eye over forgotten letters and papers, and otherwise to increase the general stock of information of the editor of the Active Inquirer.

"Look to your chains, and see all clear for a run of the anchors, Mr. Leach, should you set within a mile of the shore,"