CHAPTER V
VOICES HEARD IN THE MIST
The sun became fainter still, and vanished. Though the air round thedinghy seemed quite clear, the on-coming boats were hazy and dim, andthat part of the horizon that had been fairly clear was now blotted out.
The long-boat was leading by a good way. When she was within hailingdistance the captain’s voice came.
“Dinghy ahoy!”
“Ahoy!”
“Fetch alongside here!”
The long-boat ceased rowing to wait for the quarter-boat that wasslowly creeping up. She was a heavy boat to pull at all times, and nowshe was overloaded.
The wrath of Captain Le Farge with Paddy Button for the way he hadstampeded the crew was profound, but he had not time to give vent to it.
“Here, get aboard us, Mr Lestrange!” said he, when the dinghy wasalongside; “we have room for one. Mrs Stannard is in the quarter-boat,and it’s overcrowded; she’s better aboard the dinghy, for she can lookafter the kids. Come, hurry up, the smother is coming down on us fast.Ahoy!”—to the quarter-boat—“hurry up, hurry up!”
The quarter-boat had suddenly vanished.
Mr Lestrange climbed into the long-boat. Paddy pushed the dinghy a fewyards away with the tip of a scull, and then lay on his oars waiting.
“Ahoy! ahoy!” cried Le Farge.
“Ahoy!” came from the fog bank.
Next moment the long-boat and the dinghy vanished from each other’ssight: the great fog bank had taken them.
Now a couple of strokes of the port scull would have brought Mr Buttonalongside the long-boat, so close was he; but the quarter-boat was inhis mind, or rather imagination, so what must he do but take threepowerful strokes in the direction in which he fancied the quarter-boatto be.
The rest was voices.
“Dinghy ahoy!”
“Ahoy!”
“Ahoy!”
“Don’t be shoutin’ together, or I’ll not know which way to pull.Quarter-boat ahoy! where are yiz?”
“Port your helm!”
“Ay, ay!”—putting his helm, so to speak, to starboard—“I’ll be wid yizin wan minute—two or three minutes’ hard pulling.”
“Ahoy!”—much more faint.
“What d’ye mane rowin’ away from me?”—a dozen strokes.
“Ahoy!”—fainter still.
Mr Button rested on his oars.
“Divil mend them—I b’lave that was the long-boat shoutin’.”
He took to his oars again and pulled vigorously.
“Paddy,” came Dick’s small voice, apparently from nowhere, “where arewe now?”
“Sure, we’re in a fog; where else would we be? Don’t you be affeared.”
“I ain’t affeared, but Em’s shivering.”
“Give her me coat,” said the oarsman, resting on his oars and taking itoff. “Wrap it round her; and when it’s round her we’ll all let one bighalloo together. There’s an ould shawl som’er in the boat, but I can’tbe after lookin’ for it now.”
He held out the coat and an almost invisible hand took it; at the samemoment a tremendous report shook the sea and sky.
“There she goes,” said Mr Button “an’ me old fiddle an’ all. Don’t befrightened, childer; it’s only a gun they’re firin’ for divarsion. Nowwe’ll all halloo togither—are yiz ready?”
“Ay, ay,” said Dick, who was a picker-up of sea terms.
“Halloo!” yelled Pat.
“Halloo! Halloo!” piped Dick and Emmeline.
A faint reply came, but from where, it was difficult to say. The oldman rowed a few strokes and then paused on his oars. So still was thesurface of the sea that the chuckling of the water at the boat’s bow asshe drove forward under the impetus of the last powerful stroke couldbe heard distinctly. It died out as she lost way, and silence closedround them like a ring.
The light from above, a light that seemed to come through a vastscuttle of deeply-muffed glass, faint though it was, almost toextinction, still varied as the little boat floated through the strataof the mist.
A great sea fog is not homogeneous—its density varies: it ishoneycombed with streets, it has its caves of clear air, its cliffs ofsolid vapour, all shifting and changing place with the subtlety oflegerdemain. It has also this wizard peculiarity, that it grows withthe sinking of the sun and the approach of darkness.
The sun, could they have seen it, was now leaving the horizon.
They called again. Then they waited, but there was no response.
“There’s no use bawlin’ like bulls to chaps that’s deaf as adders,”said the old sailor, shipping his oars; immediately upon whichdeclaration he gave another shout, with the same result as far aseliciting a reply.
“Mr Button!” came Emmeline’s voice.
“What is it, honey?”
“I’m—m—’fraid.”
“You wait wan minit till I find the shawl—here it is, by the sametoken!—an’ I’ll wrap you up in it.”
He crept cautiously aft to the stern-sheets and took Emmeline in hisarms.
“Don’t want the shawl,” said Emmeline; “I’m not so much afraid in yourcoat.” The rough, tobacco-smelling old coat gave her courage somehow.
“Well, thin, keep it on. Dicky, are you cowld?”
“I’ve got into daddy’s great-coat; he left it behind him.”
“Well, thin, I’ll put the shawl round me own shoulders, for it’s cowldI am. Are y’ hungry, childer?”
“No,” said Dick, “but I’m drefful—Hi—yow——”
“Slapy, is it? Well, down you get in the bottom of the boat, and here’sthe shawl for a pilla. I’ll be rowin’ again in a minit to keep meselfwarm.”
He buttoned the top button of the coat.
“I’m a’right,” murmured Emmeline in a dreamy voice.
“Shut your eyes tight,” replied Mr Button, “or Billy Winker will bedridgin’ sand in them.
“’Shoheen, shoheen, shoheen, shoheen, Sho-hu-lo, sho-hu-lo. Shoheen, shoheen, shoheen, shoheen, Hush a by the babby O.’”
It was the tag of an old nursery folk-song they sing in the hovels ofthe Achill coast fixed in his memory, along with the rain and the windand the smell of the burning turf, and the grunting of the pig and theknickety-knock of a rocking cradle.
“She’s off,” murmured Mr Button to himself, as the form in his armsrelaxed. Then he laid her gently down beside Dick. He shifted forward,moving like a crab. Then he put his hand to his pocket for his pipe andtobacco and tinder box. They were in his coat pocket, but Emmeline wasin his coat. To search for them would be to awaken her.
The darkness of night was now adding itself to the blindness of thefog. The oarsman could not see even the thole pins. He sat adrift mindand body. He was, to use his own expression, “moithered.” Haunted bythe mist, tormented by “shapes.”
It was just in a fog like this that the Merrows could be hearddisporting in Dunbeg bay, and off the Achill coast. Sporting andlaughing, and hallooing through the mist, to lead unfortunate fishermenastray.
Merrows are not altogether evil, but they have green hair and teeth,fishes’ tails and fins for arms; and to hear them walloping in thewater around you like salmon, and you alone in a small boat, with thedread of one coming floundering on board, is enough to turn a man’shair grey.
For a moment he thought of awakening the children to keep him company,but he was ashamed. Then he took to the sculls again, and rowed “by thefeel of the water.” The creak of the oars was like a companion’s voice,the exercise lulled his fears. Now and again, forgetful of the sleepingchildren, he gave a halloo, and paused to listen. But no answer came.
Then he continued rowing, long, steady, laborious strokes, each takinghim further and further from the boats that he was never destined tosight again.
The Blue Lagoon: A Romance Page 5
