Delphi Works of Ford Madox Ford (Illustrated) (300 page)

Hudson came back to Edward Colman.

“Say to them,” he said, “I thank them — that, by their very ready kneeling they have saved me the trouble of hanging them from the stiif-yard.”

He looked upon Captain Vanderdonk, and then, “Ask of this cockle-beard is this not a just sentence that they be hanged.”

Captain Vanderdonk looked still at the iceberg that gleamed suddenly in a waft of sunlight, blue and purple, and scarlet and shadowy green, for the grey air was very clear.

“It were a just sentence,” he muttered; “you have the authority of the East Indian Council to bid me do it.”

“Now make this speech for me, Edward Colman,” Hudson said. “And make it in a very loud voice, for hitherto you have spoken a little mumblingly.” He looked up at the vane and reflected, then he spoke —

“I, Henry Hudson, am, by the grace of God and mine own endeavours, a prince among navigators, and for the duration of this voyage High Pilot of the United Province of the Netherlands.” Edward Colman called these words out in Dutch. “I stand here,” Hudson continued, “to do my best endeavours for that State in whose service I am. I will do my best endeavours; if you do not my bidding I will rub your faces against such a grindstone that your mothers when you come back shall not know A from B nor your fore-ends from your sterns. I am Henry Hudson the navigator; I care not whether you like or mislike my sailing orders. I sail where I will to do my best endeavours; it is nothing to me what you do think.”

Whilst Edward Colman translated these words Hudson set his thumbs in his belt and thought.

He was quite ready by the time Edward Colman had finished those words, and he spoke on —

“I had given orders that no man of the
Good Hope
should leave his ship. Master Outreweltius, you have broken orders. Had you not now kneeled down in acknowledgment of your heavy sin I would have hanged you.”

All the Dutchmen were so perfectly still that it was marvellous.

“But,” Hudson said, “I was never much of a man for hanging men in their sins; I like not to think of men a-suffering in hell. It is a horrid thought. I will give you time to repent and amend. But remember that you will henceforth walk beneath the shadow of the gallows, till I be pleased to pardon you.”

The Dutchmen still looked at the flooring of the deck.

“Master Outreweltius,” Hudson said again, “I do not like that men with the gallows brand upon them should give orders in my ships. You shall not any more be master of the
Good Hope.
You shall walk these decks of the
Half Moon
, a private man, and pay your passage and victuals till I see that you be amended. Get you up and go forward. You are no more a seaman of mine and shall not hear my councils.”

When Edward Colman had translated these words Outreweltius staggered to his feet.

He said only, “Why, this is justice. I acknowledge it,” and he went forward till the mainsail hid his black figure behind its pearly grey expanse. “There is much of good sense in that Outreweltius,” Hudson said to Edward Colman. “You will mark how in silence he let his mind run to just conclusions. There must have been much of mutiny on the
Good Hope
to force him to break my orders and come here.”

“You visit it very heavily upon him,” Edward Colman said.

“Yet see what a conversion my heaviness hath worked,” Hudson answered. “For that is the best type of Dutchman that we have.”

He looked upon the other two from the
Good Hope
that still knelt, the one of -them smiling like a fool, round and blue-eyed. The other, the black dwarf, was gnawing his beard.

“I do not like that black man,” Hudson said. “Say now these words for me.” And Edward Colman was made to say —

“Hieronymus, this is your sentence; you have been mate to Outreweltius; your sin is great, but not so great as his. I will have you stay upon this ship, but not in the honourable capacity of a seaman-gentleman; you shall wash the dishes and draw the beer and so serve for your passage — for I trow you are a very poor man — too poor to pay your meat and salt.”

Hieronymus rose and stamped his feet. He cast a baleful glance round upon the crew of the
Half Moon.

“You have a knife beneath your cloak,” Hudson said, “pray you cast it into the sea and get you forward out of this council.”

Hieronymus shrugged his cloak-shoulders right up to his ears; when he was abreast of the high-mast they saw him cast something into the sea.

“That was the sheath, not the knife,” Hudson said to Edward Colman. “That is a very evil man. I will wager he came with Outreweltius as a spy upon him, and was the mouthpiece of the others of the
Good Hope
to urge him to mutiny.”

“Why will you not call him back,” Edward Colman said, “and make him cast away his knife too?”

“Edward Colman,” Hudson answered; “if you make objections to my rulings you and I shall have a quarrel.”

He looked upon the round-headed man that still knelt.

“What is your name?” he asked him; for he had Dutch enough for that.

The man on his knees laughed foolishly and said he was Joseph Cats.

“Oh, aye,” Hudson answered, “you are a very good sailor man. I know your name.”

He reflected for fully a half minute.

“Which man,” he asked Edward Colman, “which man was it that steered our boat on the canals? Him that I struck on the shoulder.”

Colman pointed at the man with the red hair and blue eyes.

“And which is his best friend according to your observations?”

Edward Colman pointed to a man that was the red-haired man’s brother. Both were called Jubal — Peter and Charles.

“I have taken two men from the
Good Hope,”
Hudson bade him say. “You two, Peter and Charles, get you into the boat. You shall to the
Good Hope
to take their places in the crew.”

Peter and Charles Jubal went slowly to the peak of the stern-house, where the boat lay at the end of a line. There was more hafred in Peter Jubal’s eyes than in the eyes of Hieronymus the black dwarf with the knife, and his brother dragged his legs very unwillingly upon the floor.

“So we are rid of two that might mutiny,” Hudson said.

“Aye,” Edward Colman answered. “Buï will not the crew of the
Good Hope
by that be rendered the more mutinous?”

“Edward Colman,” Hudson answered, “I bid you not question my decrees. Later I will deal with thee.”

“Why,” Edward Colman answered, “I did not say it was not very wise. I asked you but why you did these things as a pupil may ask of a scholar.”

“Speak now to Joseph Cats.” Hudson vouchsafed him no more answer.

“Joseph Cats, I perceive you are a simple and a childish man. You are also a good sailor. I do make you master of the
Good Hope.”

Joseph Cats rubbed his head; he arose half from his knees, but because he was very stiff with kneeling he sat down suddenly upon the deck.

“Well,” Hudson said, “it is a good omen that you prostrate yourself. Get you up and be gone.

See that you come not here again till you have orders. See that you rule your crew that I perceive to be very mutinous.”

Joseph Cats had no more to say than “I will;” but because when he came to speak he stammered very badly it took him a long time to say it. He sought for his hat upon his hands and knees; it lay in the scuppers, and when he was there he pulled himself up by the bulwark and roared for the boat — for he could shout very well, though the impediment in his speech rendered low talking very painful to him.

He had one leg over the side, when Hudson shouted to him to come back.

“Gentlemen of my crew,” Hudson said; “this, as you have perceived, is a council. I will have the master of the
Good Hope
in it to aid me with his advice.”

He had before him then eleven sailors, and the Captain Vanderdonk of the
Half Moon
and the round-headed Master Cats.

“Sirs,” Hudson said, “I will ask you whither we are bound and in search of what.”

He asked first the Captain Vanderdonk this question, and Captain Vanderdonk answered —

“To the East Indies, I think, by way of the-North-West Passage.”

Hudson bade Edward Colman ask each man, from the ancient down to the three boys, and then the Master Cats.

Each man answered, to the East Indies by way of the North-West Passage; only Joseph Cats, who was very afraid and very jubilant together, answered that he did not know whither they were bound.

Hudson bade Edward Colman go ask the steersman whither they were bound.

The steersman was the old man with the pentagon upon his breast. He was up upon the house at their backs. He had his feet planted very firmly upon the deck up there in the air; his eyes were angrily upon the mainsail, his back against the steering-bar; his white hair blew shaggily across his blood-red face, and at each bound of the ship that he strove to keep up into the wind he frowned angrily. The floor of that little platform was painted white, and the little wooden pillars of the balustrade all round it were white and green and gilt. It was more spotless than was commonly a lady’s litter in England, and the grey seas with their locks and bars of foam crouched and seethed all round this old Dutchman alone and solitary. There was no land anywhere to be seen, and the iceberg was hidden by the mainsail; only its breath was beginning to come very cold down to them. The steering-bar creaked and jerked, and the old man cried out —

“What good are you, oh Englishman? When shall a man come to relieve me?”

“Doubtless when the council is ended,” Edward Colman laughed at him; for if this old Dutchman cursed at him, they liked each other very well.

“Oh, mad Englishman,” the old man cried out with his engrossed and bloodshot eyes still upon the peak of the mainsail, “here is a mad voyage; a mad council, and assuredly we sail into mad seas.”

“The navigator,” Edward Colman said, “does bid me ask thee whither we are bound.”

The old man set his eyes upon Edward Colman’s face; he took one hand from the bar to smite his lean, hard breast.

“We are bound to hell, where it is icy!” he said. “You will not ever again see home nor wife — nor I — but we shall be tormented by devils. All the omens say that thing.”

Edward Colman leaned back against the balustrade and laughed.

“But whither upon this earth are we bound?” The old man shook the hair from his forehead. “In the old days there was none of this passaging and traversing,” he said.

“Old Jan,” Edward cried out, “whither are we bound?”

“In my grandfather’s day they took a cage of ravens to sea,” old Jan answered.

“Oh, aye,” Edward Colman laughed, “and they coasted along the shores, and when a fog came they let a raven loose to see if they were far from land.”

“You will laugh at a raven,” old Jan said, “but it is true that a raven is your best navigator. And the ravens will have eaten you and me or ever we see our homes again.”

He spat upon the floor.

“English madman,” he said, “tell your mad master I know very well what he will essay. But it is an old madness. He will never come to it.”

“You say we are for the North-West Passage.”

Edward Colman asked, for he was impatient to come back to the council and hear the end.

“I say,” old Jan answered, “that this voyage the ship will not be lost, but only you and I and maybe another. And I say that witches are roaring upon us, and I say I have never yet seen such a crawling sea, and I say that the wind will alter so that it will be hard to come back for them that survive us.” He was working himself into a hot rage, his voice was going higher, and Edward Colman left him.