登陆注册
14366000000001

第1章

IN THE year 1799, Captain Amasa Delano, of Duxbury, in Massachusetts, commanding a large sealer and general trader, lay at anchor, with a valuable cargo, in the harbour of St. Maria- a small, desert, uninhabited island towards the southern extremity of the long coast of Chili. There he had touched for water.

On the second day, not long after dawn, while lying in his berth, his mate came below, informing him that a strange sail was coming into the bay. Ships were then not so plenty in those waters as now. He rose, dressed, and went on deck.

The morning was one peculiar to that coast. Everything was mute and calm; everything grey. The sea, though undulated into long roods of swells, seemed fixed, and was sleeked at the surface like waved lead that has cooled and set in the smelter's mould. The sky seemed a grey mantle. Flights of troubled grey fowl, kith and kin with flights of troubled grey vapours among which they were mixed, skimmed low and fitfully over the waters, as swallows over meadows before storms. Shadows present, foreshadowing deeper shadows to come.

To Captain Delano's surprise, the stranger, viewed through the glass, showed no colours; though to do so upon entering a haven, however uninhabited in its shores, where but a single other ship might be lying, was the custom among peaceful seamen of all nations.

Considering the lawlessness and loneliness of the spot, and the sort of stories, at that day, associated with those seas, Captain Delano's surprise might have deepened into some uneasiness had he not been a person of a singularly undistrustful good nature, not liable, except on extraordinary and repeated excitement, and hardly then, to indulge in personal alarms, any way involving the imputation of malign evil in man. Whether, in view of what humanity is capable, such a trait implies, along with a benevolent heart, more than ordinary quickness and accuracy of intellectual perception, may be left to the wise to determine.

But whatever misgivings might have obtruded on first seeing the stranger would almost, in any seaman's mind, have been dissipated by observing that the ship, in navigating into the harbour, was drawing too near the land, for her own safety's sake, owing to a sunken reef making out off her bow. This seemed to prove her a stranger, indeed, not only to the sealer, but the island; consequently, she could be no wonted freebooter on that ocean. With no small interest, Captain Delano continued to watch her- a proceeding not much facilitated by the vapours partly mantling the hull, through which the far matin light from her cabin streamed equivocally enough; much like the sun-by this time crescented on the rim of the horizon, and apparently, in company with the strange ship, entering the harbour- which, wimpled by the same low, creeping clouds, showed not unlike a Lima intriguante's one sinister eye peering across the Plaza from the Indian loop-hole of her dusk saya-y-manta.

It might have been but a deception of the vapours, but, the longer the stranger was watched, the more singular appeared her manoeuvres.

Ere long it seemed hard to decide whether she meant to come in or no- what she wanted, or what she was about. The wind, which had breezed up a little during the night, was now extremely light and baffling, which the more increased the apparent uncertainty of her movements.

Surmising, at last, that it might be a ship in distress, Captain Delano ordered his whale-boat to be dropped, and, much to the wary opposition of his mate, prepared to board her, and, at the least, pilot her in. On the night previous, a fishing-party of the seamen had gone a long distance to some detached rocks out of sight from the sealer, and, an hour or two before day-break, had returned, having met with no small success. Presuming that the stranger might have been long off soundings, the good captain put several baskets of the fish, for presents, into his boat, and so pulled away. From her continuing too near the sunken reef, deeming her in danger, calling to his men, he made all haste to apprise those on board of their situation. But, some time ere the boat came up, the wind, light though it was, having shifted, had headed the vessel off, as well as partly broken the vapours from about her.

Upon gaining a less remote view, the ship, when made signally visible on the verge of the leaden-hued swells, with the shreds of fog here and there raggedly furring her, appeared like a whitewashed monastery after a thunder-storm, seen perched upon some dun cliff among the Pyrenees. But it was no purely fanciful resemblance which now, for a moment, almost led Captain Delano to think that nothing less than a ship-load of monks was before him. Peering over the bulwarks were what really seemed, in the hazy distance, throngs of dark cowls; while, fitfully revealed through the open port-holes, other dark moving figures were dimly descried, as of Black Friars pacing the cloisters.

Upon a still nigher approach, this appearance was modified, and the true character of the vessel was plain- a Spanish merchantman of the first class; carrying Negro slaves, amongst other valuable freight, from one colonial port to another. A very large, and, in its time, a very fine vessel, such as in those days were at intervals encountered along that main; sometimes superseded Acapulco treasure-ships, or retired frigates of the Spanish king's navy, which, like superannuated Italian palaces, still, under a decline of masters, preserved signs of former state.

As the whale-boat drew more and more nigh, the cause of the peculiar pipe-clayed aspect of the stranger was seen in the slovenly neglect pervading her. The spars, ropes, and great part of the bulwarks looked woolly, from long unacquaintance with the scraper, tar, and the brush. Her keel seemed laid, her ribs put together, and she launched, from Ezekiel's Valley of Dry Bones.

同类推荐
  • 菩萨本缘经

    菩萨本缘经

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。
  • 佛母般泥洹经

    佛母般泥洹经

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。
  • 佛说申日经

    佛说申日经

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。
  • 吕祖师三尼医世说述

    吕祖师三尼医世说述

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。
  • 侠义风月传

    侠义风月传

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。
热门推荐
  • 细说中国的世界遗产37地

    细说中国的世界遗产37地

    本书是《星球大观环球地理系列》的其中一册。本书通过优美的文字与精美的图片,带您游览明清故宫——权利与欲望的交织;秦始皇陵及兵马俑——长眠于地相爱的陶俑部队;中国南方喀斯特——镶嵌在中国南方的五彩宝石;还有云雾的家乡,松石的画廊——三清山国家公园……本书由专业资深的书业策划团队倾力打造,收录来自世界顶级影像机构的美妙图片,怡情悦性的高品质图文编创。
  • 活该

    活该

    如果我们的梦想曾经追过,请别告诉我,你不在爱了
  • 天涯征战记

    天涯征战记

    本书已删除,敬请关注蓝风新书《梦网江湖》,谢谢各位支持!
  • 网游之废土世界

    网游之废土世界

    在一片喧嚣中李杰重生了,前世未达成的愿望能否达成?隐藏在黑暗之中的阴影到底是什么?废土真的有那么简单吗?且看李杰如何一步步解开这个惊天谜团......
  • 乌衣游

    乌衣游

    每个人心目中都有一个武侠,而这就我心目中的武侠,有快活有逍遥,有肝肠寸断的背叛还有那高歌畅饮不寂寞!有那仗剑而行不惆怅!
  • 冬至春雨三部曲

    冬至春雨三部曲

    本应是一个阳光开朗的少年,却经历种种磨难,心碎飘零,悲伤成河,带着疲乏、疼痛的心进入了梦乡,醒来看见了温暖的阳光,是否能分清那是现实,还是一场虚无缥缈的梦境……
  • 天地主宰

    天地主宰

    绝世武神秦阳,因故被神域九帝围攻,自爆元神,重生为一个被宗门暗算的小城世子,且看他如何以体内的封禁战灵,重踏武道,步步为营,杀上九霄,屠戮神魔,成为这天地万界的大主宰!
  • 蒹葭:乱世红颜

    蒹葭:乱世红颜

    蒹葭苍苍,白露为霜,所谓伊人,在水一方。她如那苍茫的蒹葭一般,若飘若止,若有若无,望之而不可及,见之而不可求。烽火乱世,是孑然一身守护家国无恙,还是与心爱之人谱写一曲锦绣华章;是携手天涯笑看天家,还是锦衣华服睥睨天下;是曲终人散琴声黯哑,还是琴瑟和鸣凤求鸾答;多舛命运的又将经历怎样的艰险狡诈,一切是命定还是人为,结局是否早已写好,金戈铁马,是否会踏出一个盛世繁华……
  • 侯门女帝

    侯门女帝

    我说过你要是想要救他,便让你的身体来交换。”他眼底含着冰霜,神情暴戾而阴狠。“好。”前世,她是宅斗的胜利者,以戾悍之名伴随一身,最终被毁容,戳眼,成为了丑颜瞎妇。前世,他是侯门世子,错信骨肉亲情,最终深陷牢狱。他和她不相干,却相随。再次重生,他们携手,却不知,阴谋接踵而来,曾经的爱情早已被误会掩埋。内心的仇恨慢慢的发芽,在这场爱恨情仇中,究竟谁才是谁的劫?当他们的误会变成小山,仇恨悄悄发芽,这一切又将是如何的收场?她那迷雾般的身世又会带来怎样的冲击?她说:“人不犯我我不犯人,人若犯我我必千刀万剐了他。”他说:“这一世,弱水三千,独取一瓢。”
  • 史上最伟大穿越狗

    史上最伟大穿越狗

    我郁闷,我抓狂啊,为什么会变成这副样子啊!同为穿越狗,为什么她们都比我幸运!一点也不像我这么倒霉的!好,就算是穿的有点差的,有的没有穿越成了金枝玉叶,穿越成了穷苦人家,再不幸的穿越到了某娱乐场所的小姐,可是别人是穿越狗,别人有金手指,别人可以分分钟组成个后宫啊!不像我哦,真是倒霉透了定,我居然穿越成了太监!是的,你没有看错,就是皇宫的除了皇上太子王爷的啊就阉人太监啊!而且还是货真价实的那种太监。。。。。更惨的是,我还得奉旨去陪咱们前任皇帝大傻子出宫溜达去。不去的话,那现任皇帝还要送我回老家啊。。。。哎哎,皇上你别闹了,走,奴才带你去玩。