it and enfolded by one arm, was a greenish hairy thing, like a mat - a loathsome great vampire of the most poisonous kind, no doubt. ‘I should never have believed it of him:
his sacred oath in the morning watch and now he stuffs the ship with vampires; and God knows what is in that bag. No doubt he was tempted, but surely he might blush for his fall?’
No blush; nothing but a look of idiot delight as he came slowly up the side, hampered by his burden and comforting it in Portuguese as he came.
‘I am happy to see that you were so successful, Dr Maturin,’ he said, looking down into the launch and the canoes, loaded with glowing heaps of oranges and shaddocks, red meat, iguanas, bananas, greenstuff. ‘But I am afraid no vampires can be allowed on board.’
‘This is a sloth,’ said Stephen, smiling at him. ‘A three-?toed sloth, the most affectionate, discriminating sloth you can imagine!’ The sloth turned its round head, fixed its eyes on Jack, uttered a despairing wail and buried its face again in Stephen’s shoulder, tightening its grip to the strangling-?point.
‘Come, Jack, disengage his right arm, if you please: you need not be afraid. Excellency, pray be so good -the left arm, gently disengaging the claws. There, there, my fine fellow. Now let us carry him below. Handsomely, handsomely; do not alarm the sloth, I beg.’
The sloth was not easily alarmed; as soon as it was provided with a piece of hawser stretched taut in the cabin it went fast to sleep, hanging by its claws and swaying with the roll as it might have done in the wind-?rocked branches of its native forest. Indeed, apart from its candid distress at the sight of Jack’s face it was perfectly adapted for a life at sea; it was uncomplaining; it required no fresh air, no light; it throve in a damp, confined atmosphere; it could sleep in any circumstances; it was tenacious of life; it put up with any hardship. It accepted biscuit. gratefully, and pap; and in the evenings it would hobble on deck, walking on its claws, and creep into the rigging, hanging there upside down and advancing two or three yards at a time, with pauses for sleep. The hands loved it from the first, and would often carry it into the tops or higher; they declared it brought the ship good luck, though it was difficult to see why, since the wind rarely blew east of south, and that but feebly, day after day.
Yet the fresh provisions had their astonishingly rapid effect; in a week’s time the sick-?bay was almost empty, and the Surprise, fully manned and cheerful, had recovered her old form, her high-?masted, trim appearance. She returned to her exercising of the great guns, laid aside for the more urgent repairs, and every day the trade-?wind carried away great wafts of her powder-?smoke: at first this perturbed the sloth; it scuttled, almost ran, below, its claws going clack-?clack-?clack in the silence between one broadside and the next; but by the time they had passed directly under the sun and the wind came strong and true at last, it slept through the whole exercise, hanging in its usual place in the mizen catharpins, above the quarterdeck carronades, just as it slept through the Marines’ musketry and Stephen’s pistol-?practice.
All through this tedious, tedious passage, even in the north-?east trades, the frigate had not shown of her best, but now with the steady urgent rush of air, this strong ocean of wind, she behaved like the old Surprise of Jack Aubrey’s youth. He was not satisfied with her trim, nor with the present rake of her masts, nor with the masts themselves, far less with the state of her bottom; yet still, with the wind just far enough abaft the beam for the studding-?sails to set pretty, she ran with the old magical life and thrust, a particular living, supple command of the sea that he would have recognised at once, if he had been set down upon her deck blindfolded.
The sun had gone down in a brief crimson blaze; the night was sweeping up from the east over a moonless sky, a deeper blue with every minute; and every wave-?top began to glow with inner fire. The acting third lieutenant paused in his strut on the windward side of the sloping quarterdeck and called over to leeward, ‘Mr Braithwaite, are you ready with the log, there?’ Babbington did not dare come it very high with his former messmates yet, but he cut many a charming caper over the midshipmen of the starboard berth - balm to his soul - and this unnecessary question was intended only to compel Braithwaite to reply, ‘All ready and along, sir.’
The bell struck. Braithwaite heaved the log clear of the stronger phosphorescence racing down the frigate’s side: the line tore off the reel. At the quartermaster’s cry he checked the run, jerked the pin, hauled the log aboard and shouted, ‘We’ve done it! We’ve done it! Eleven on the nose!’
‘It’s not true!’ cried Babbington, his dignity all sunk in delight. ‘Let’s have another go.’
They heaved the log again, watched it dwindle in the shining turmoil of the wake, more brilliant now with the darkening of the sky, and with his fingers on the running line Babbington nipped on the eleventh knot itself, shrieking ‘Eleven!’
‘What are you at?’ asked Jack, behind the excited huddle of midshipmen.
‘I am just checking Mr Braithwaite’s accuracy, sir,’ said the third lieutenant. ‘Oh sir, we are doing eleven knots! Eleven knots, sir; ain’t it prime?’
Jack smiled, felt the iron-?taut backstay, and walked forward to where Stephen and Mr White, the envoy’s chaplain, were crouching on the forecastle, braced against the lean of the ship and clinging haphazard to anything, kevils, beckets, even the burning metal of the horse. ‘Is it settled yet?’ he asked.
‘We are waiting for the agreed moment, sir,’ said the chaplain. ‘Perhaps you would be so good as to keep time and see all’s fair: a whole bottle of pale ale depends upon this. The moment Venus sets, Dr Maturin is to read from the first page he opens, by the phosphorescence alone.’
‘Not footnotes,’ said Stephen.
Jack glanced up, and there against the Southern Cross, high on the humming topgallant forestay, was the sloth, rocking easy with the rhythm of the ship. ‘I doubt you have too much starlight,’ he said. At this speed the frigate’s bow-?wave rose high, washing the lee head-?rails with an unearthly blue-?green light and sending phosphorescent drops over them, even more brilliant than the wake that tore out straight behind them, a ruled line three miles long gleaming like a flow of metal. For a moment Jack fixed the glowing spray as it was whirled inboard and then across the face of the foresail by the currents from the jibs and staysail, and then he turned his eyes westwards, where the planet was as low on the horizon as she could be. The round glow touched the sea, reappeared on the rise, vanished entirely; and the starlight distinctly lost in power. ‘She dips,’ he cried.
Stephen opened the book, and holding it with the page to the bow-?wave he read,
‘Speed the soft intercourse from soul to soul
And waft a sigh from Indus to the Pole.
Mr White, I exult, I triumph. I claim my bottle; and Lord, Lord, how I shall enjoy it - such a thirst! Captain Aubrey, I beg you will share our bottle. Come, Lethargy,’
he called directing his voice into the velvet sky.
