Dead Mans Rock | Page 6

with a fever--a malady common enough
in those parts--but was better, and would start in something over a
week, in the Belle Fortune, a barque of some 650 tons register,
homeward bound with a cargo of sugar, spices, and coffee, and having
a crew of about eighteen hands, with, he thought, one or two passengers.
The letter was full of strong hope and love, so that my mother, who
trembled a little when she read about the fever, plucked up courage to
smile again towards the close. The ship would be due about October, or
perhaps November. So once more we had to resume our weary waiting,
but this time with glad hearts, for we knew that before Christmas the
days of anxiety and yearning would be over.
The long summer drew to a glorious and golden September, and so
faded away in a veil of grey sky; and the time of watching was nearly
done. Through September the skies had been without cloud, and the sea
almost breathless, but with the coming of October came dirty weather
and a strong sou'-westerly wind, that gathered day by day, until at last,
upon the evening of October 11th, it broke into a gale. My mother for
days had been growing more restless and anxious with the growing
wind, and this evening had much ado to sit quietly and endure. I
remembered that as the storm raged without and tore at the door-hinges,
while the rain lashed and smote the tamarisk branches against the panes,

I sat by her knee before the kitchen fire and read bits from my favourite
"Holy War," which, in the pauses of the storm, she would explain to
me.
I was much put to it that night, I recollect, by the questionable morality
at one point of Captain Credence, who in general was my favourite
hero, dividing that honour with General Boanerges for the most part,
but exciting more sympathy by reason of his wound--so grievously I
misread the allegory, or rather saw no allegory at all. So my mother
explained it to me, though all the while, poor creature, her heart was
racked with terror for her Mansoul, beaten, perhaps, at that moment
from its body by the fury of that awful night. Then when the fable's
meaning was explained, and my difficulty smoothed away, we fell to
talking of father's home-coming, in vain endeavours to cheat ourselves
of the fears that rose again with every angry bellow of the tempest, and
agreed that his ship could not possibly be due yet (rejoicing at this for
the first time), but must, we feigned, be lying in a dead calm off the
West Coast of Africa; until we almost laughed--God pardon us!--at the
picture of his anxiety to be home while such a storm was raging at the
doors of Lantrig. And then I listened to wonderful stories of the East
Indies and the marvels that men found there, and wondered whether
father would bring home a parrot, and if it would be as like Aunt
Loveday as the parrot down at the "Lugger Inn," at Polkimbra, and so
crept upstairs to bed to dream of Captain Credence and parrots, and the
"Lugger Inn" in the city of Mansoul, as though no fiends were shouting
without and whirling sea and sky together in one devil's cauldron.
How long I slept I know not; but I woke with the glare of a candle in
my eyes, to see my mother, all in white, standing by the bed, and in her
eyes an awful and soul-sickening horror.
"Jasper, Jasper! wake up and listen!"
I suppose I must have been still half asleep, for I lay looking at her with
dazzled sight, not rightly knowing whether this vision were real or part
of my strange dreams.
"Jasper, for the love of God wake up!"

At this, so full were her words of mortal fear, I shook off my
drowsiness and sat up in bed, wide awake now and staring at the
strange apparition. My mother was white as death, and trembling so
that the candle in her hand shook to and fro, casting wild dancing
shadows on the wall behind.
"Oh, Jasper, listen, listen!"
I listened, but could hear nothing save the splashing of spray and rain
upon my window, and above it the voice of the storm; now moaning as
a creature in pain, now rising and growing into an angry roar whereat
the whole house from chimney to base shook and shuddered, and anon
sinking slowly with loud sobbings and sighings as though the anguish
of a million tortured souls were borne down the blast.
"Mother, I hear nothing but the storm."
"Nothing but the storm! Oh, Jasper, are you sure you hear nothing but
the storm?"
"Nothing else, mother,