The Hot Swamp

“I am sure he will, for he is a kind man; and I know he loves me, though he has never said so.”

“I should like to know that father of yours. I like your description of him—so stern of face, yet so kind of heart, and with such an unchangeable will when he sees what is right. But what is right, and what is wrong?”

“Ay—what is—who can tell? Some people believe that the gods make their will known to man through the Delphic Oracle.”

“Boh!” exclaimed the captain with a look of supreme contempt.

The turn of thought silenced both speakers for a time; and when Captain Arkal turned to resume the conversation, he found that his friend was sound asleep.

Chapter Three

On the Voyage

Weather has always been, and, we suppose, always will be, capricious. Its uncertainty of character—in the Levant, as in the Atlantic, in days of old as now, was always the same—smiling to-day; frowning to-morrow; playful as a lamb one day; raging like a lion the next.

After the rough handling experienced by the Penelope at the beginning of her voyage, rude Boreas kindly retired, and spicy breezes from Africa rippled the sea with just sufficient force to intensify its heavenly blue, and fill out the great square-sail so that there was no occasion to ply the oars. One dark, starlight but moonless night, a time of quiet talk prevailed from stem to stern of the vessel as the grizzled mariners spun long yarns of their prowess and experiences on the deep, for the benefit of awe-stricken and youthful shipmates whose careers were only commencing.

“You’ve heard, no doubt, of the great sea-serpent?” observed little Maikar, who had speedily recovered from the flattening to which Bladud had subjected him, and was busy enlivening a knot of young fellows in the bow of the ship.

“Of course we have!” cried one; “father used to tell me about it when I was but a small boy. He never saw it himself, though he had been to the Tin Isles and Albion more than once; but he said he had met with men who had spoken with shipmates who had heard of it from men who had seen it only a few days before, and who described it exactly.”

“Ah!” remarked another, “but I have met a man who had seen it himself on his first voyage, when he was quite a youth; and he said it had a bull’s head and horns, with a dreadful long body all over scales, and something like an ass’s tail at the end.”

“Pooh!—nonsense!” exclaimed little Maikar, twirling his thumbs, for smoking had not been introduced into the world at that period—and thumb-twirling would seem to have served the ancient world for leisurely pastime quite as well, if not better—at least we are led to infer so from the fact that Herodotus makes no mention of anything like a vague, mysterious sensation of unsatisfied desire to fill the mouth with smoke in those early ages, which he would certainly have done had the taste for smoke been a natural craving, and thumb-twirling an unsatisfactory occupation. This absolute silence of the “Father of History,” we think, almost proves our point. “Nonsense!” repeated little Maikar. “The youth of the man who told you about the serpent accounts for his wild description, for youth is prone to strange imaginings and—”

“It seems to me,” interrupted a grave man, who twirled his thumbs in that slow, deliberate way in which a contemplative man smokes—“it seems to me that there’s no more truth about the great sea-serpent than there is about the golden fleece. I don’t believe in either of them.”

“Don’t you? Well, all I can say is,” returned the little man, gazing fixedly in the grave comrade’s face, “that I saw the great sea-serpent with my own eyes!”

“No! did you?” exclaimed the group, drawing their heads closer together with looks of expectancy.

“Ay, that did I, mates; but you mustn’t expect wild descriptions about monsters with bulls’ horns and asses’ tails from me. I like truth, and the truth is, that the brute was so far away at the time we saw it, that not a man of us could tell exactly what it was like, and when we tried the description, we were all so different, that we gave it up; but we were all agreed on this point, that it certainly was the serpent.”

The listeners seemed rather disappointed at this meagre account and sudden conclusion of what had bidden fair to become a stirring tale of the sea; but Maikar re-aroused their expectations by stating his firm belief that it was all nonsense about there being only one sea-serpent.

“Why, how could there be only one?” he demanded, ceasing to twirl, in order that he might clench his fist and smite his knee with emphasis. “Haven’t you got a grandfather?” he asked, turning suddenly to the grave man.

“Certainly, I’ve got two of them if you come to that,” he answered, taken rather aback by the brusque and apparently irrelevant nature of the question.

“Just so—two of them,” repeated the little man, “and don’t you think it likely that the sea serpent must have had two grandfathers also?”

“Undoubtedly—and two grandmothers as well. Perhaps he’s got them yet,” replied the grave man with a contemplative look over the side, where the rippling sea gleamed with phosphoric brilliancy.

“Exactly so,” continued Maikar in an eager tone, “and of course these also must have had two grandfathers besides a mother each, and it is more than likely that the great sea-serpent himself is the father of a large family.”

“Which implies a wife,” suggested one of the seamen.

“Not necessarily,” objected an elderly seaman, who had once been to the lands lying far to the north of Albion, and had acquired something of that tendency to object to everything at all times which is said to characterise the people of the far North. “Not necessarily,” he repeated, “for the serpent may be a bachelor with no family at all.”

There was a short laugh at this, and an illogical man of the group made some irrelevant observation which led the conversation into a totally different channel, and relegated the great sea-serpent, for the time being, to oblivion!

While the men were thus engaged philosophising in the bow, Bladud and the captain were chatting in subdued voices in the stern.

“It is impossible,” said the latter, in reply to a remark made by the former, “it is impossible for me to visit your father’s court this year, though it would please me much to do so, but my cargo is intended for the south-western Cassiterides. To get round to the river on the banks of which your home stands would oblige me to run far towards the cold regions, into waters which I have not yet visited—though I know them pretty well by hearsay. On another voyage I may accomplish it, but not on this one.”

“I am sorry for that, Arkal, because things that are put off to another time are often put off altogether. But the men of the Tin Isles often visit my father’s town in their boats with copper and tin, and there are tracks through the forest which horses can traverse. Could you not visit us overland? It would not be a journey of many weeks, and your trusty mate might look after the ship in your absence. Besides, the diggers may not have enough of the metal ready to fill your ship, so you may be idle a long time. What say you?”

Captain Arkal frowned, as was his wont when considering a knotty question, and shook his head.

“I doubt if I should be wise to venture so much,” he said; “moreover, we are not yet at the end of our voyage. It is of little use troubling one’s-self about the end of anything while we are only at the beginning.”

“Nevertheless,” rejoined Bladud, “to consider the possible end while yet at the beginning, seems not unreasonable, though, undoubtedly, we may never reach the end. Many a fair ship sets sail and never returns.”

“Ay, that is true, as I know to my cost,” returned the captain, “for this is not my first venture. A long time ago I loaded a ship about the size of this one, and sent her under command of one of my best friends to the Euxine sea for gold. I now think that that old story about Jason and his ship Argo sailing in search of the golden fleece was running too strong in my youthful brain. Besides that, of course I had heard the report that there is much gold in that direction, and my hopes were strong, for you know all the world runs after gold. Anyhow, my ship sailed and I never saw her or my friend again. Since then I have contented myself with copper and tin.”

A slight increase in the wind at that moment caused the captain to dismiss his golden and other memories, and look inquiringly to windward.

“A squall, methinks?” said Bladud.

“No, only a puff,” replied his friend, ordering the steersman to alter the course a little.

The squall or puff was only strong enough to cause the Penelope to make a graceful bow to the controlling element and cleave the sparkling water with her prow so swiftly that she left a gleaming wake as of lambent fire astern. It was short-lived, however, and was followed by a calm which obliged little Maikar and his comrades to cease their story-telling and ply their fifty oars. Thus the pace was kept going, though not quite so swiftly as if they were running before a stiff breeze.

“The gods are propitious,” said the captain; “we are going to have a prosperous voyage.”

“How many gods are propitious?” asked Bladud.

“That is a question much too deep for me to answer.”

“But not too deep to think of—is it?”

“Of what use would be my thinking?” returned the captain, lightly. “I leave such matters to the learned.”

“Now, mate,” he added, turning to his subordinate, “I’m going to rest a while. See that you keep an open eye for squalls and pirates. Both are apt to come down on you when you least expect them.”

But neither squalls nor pirates were destined to interfere with the Penelope during the greater part of that voyage. Day after day the skies were clear, the sea comparatively smooth, and the winds favourable. Sometimes they put ashore, when the weather became stormy and circumstances were favourable. On such occasions they lighted camp-fires under the trees, the ruddy light of which glowed with a grand effect on the picturesque sailors as they sat, stood, or reclined around them.

At other times they were obliged to keep more in the open sea, and occasionally met with traders like themselves returning home, with whom, of course, they were glad to fraternise for a time and exchange views.

Once only did they meet with anything like a piratical vessel, but as that happened to be late in the evening, they managed, by plying the oars vigorously, and under the shade of night, to escape a second encounter with those robbers of the sea.

Thus, in course of time, the length of the great inland sea was traversed, the southern coast of what is now known as France was reached, and the captain’s prophecy with regard to a prosperous voyage was thus far fulfilled.

Chapter Four

The Storm and Wreck

It was near daybreak on the morning of a night of unclouded splendour when the mate of the Penelope aroused his chief with the information that appearances to windward betokened a change of some sort in the weather.