Chapter XXXVIII
I wonder. I wonder. Did the Samurai make a mistake? Or was it the
darkness of oncoming death that chilled and clouded that star-cool brain
of his, and made a mock of all his wisdom? Or was it the blunder that
brought death upon him beforehand? I do not know, I shall never know; for it is a matter no one of us dreams of hinting at, much less discussing.
I shall begin at the beginning--yesterday afternoon. For it was
yesterday afternoon, five weeks to a day since we emerged from the
Straits of Le Maire into this gray storm-ocean, that once again we found
ourselves hove to directly off the Horn. At the changing of the watches
at four o'clock, Captain West gave the command to Mr. Pike to wear ship. We were on the starboard tack at the time, making leeway off shore. This manoeuvre placed us on the port tack, and the consequent leeway, to me, seemed on shore, though at an acute angle, to be sure.
In the chart-room, glancing curiously at the chart, I measured the
distance with my eye and decided that we were in the neighbourhood of
fifteen miles off Cape Horn.
"With our drift we'll be close up under the land by morning, won't we?" I
ventured tentatively.
"Yes," Captain West nodded; "and if it weren't for the West Wind Drift, and if the land did not trend to the north-east, we'd be ashore by morning. As it is, we'll be well under it at daylight, ready to steal around if there is a change, ready to wear ship if there is no change."
It did not enter my head to question his judgment. What he said had to
be. Was he not the Samurai?
And yet, a few minutes later, when he had gone below, I noticed Mr. Pike
enter the chart-house. After several paces up and down, and a brief
pause to watch Nancy and several men shift the weather cloth from lee to
weather, I strolled aft to the chart-house. Prompted by I know not what, I peeped through one of the glass ports.
There stood Mr. Pike, his sou'wester doffed, his oilskins streaming
rivulets to the floor, while he, dividers and parallel rulers in hand, bent over the chart. It was the expression of his face that startled me. The habitual sourness had vanished. All that I could see was anxiety and apprehension . . . yes, and age. I had never seen him look so old; for there, at that moment, I beheld the wastage and weariness of all his sixty-nine years of sea-battling and sea-staring.
I slipped away from the port and went along the deck to the break of the
poop, where I held on and stood staring through the gray and spray in the
conjectural direction of our drift. Somewhere, there, in the north-east
and north, I knew was a broken, iron coast of rocks upon which the
graybeards thundered. And there, in the chart-room, a redoubtable
sailorman bent anxiously over a chart as he measured and calculated, and
measured and calculated again, our position and our drift.
And I knew it could not be. It was not the Samurai but the henchman who
was weak and wrong. Age was beginning to tell upon him at last, which
could not be otherwise than expected when one considered that no man in
ten thousand had weathered age so successfully as he.
I laughed at my moment's qualm of foolishness and went below, well
content to meet my loved one and to rest secure in her father's wisdom. Of course he was right. He had proved himself right too often already on the long voyage from Baltimore.
At dinner Mr. Pike was quite distrait. He took no part whatever in the
conversation, and seemed always to be listening to something from
without--to the vexing clang of taut ropes that came down the hollow
jiggermast, to the muffled roar of the gale in the rigging, to the smash
and crash of the seas along our decks and against our iron walls.
Again I found myself sharing his apprehension, although I was too
discreet to question him then, or afterwards alone, about his trouble. At
eight he went on deck again to take the watch till midnight, and as I
went to bed I dismissed all forebodings and speculated as to how many
more voyages he could last after this sudden onslaught of old age.
I fell asleep quickly, and awoke at midnight, my lamp still burning, Conrad's Mirror of the Sea on my breast where it had dropped from my hands. I heard the watches change, and was wide awake and reading when Mr. Pike came below by the booby-hatch and passed down my hail by my open door, on his way to his room.