Chapter XXXIX: A Sea of Fire

We sailed from Barbadoes about sunrise on the morning of the 3rd of March, and sternly I rejoiced that the distance between us and the land of our conquest and, as I hoped, of retribution, was so short.

All were now on board again, and as we left Carlisle Bay and gained the open sea, the cheers we exchanged rang merrily from ship to ship. Bridgetown, with its little spires, the windmills, the mole and forts, disappeared, as the bay seemed to close its arms, and the undulating line of coast diminished to a low dark streak, when evening found us again ploughing the sea of gold and azure, with the bright-hued dolphin dashing through the brine, and the silver-scaled flying-fish springing like a work of enchantment, from wave to wave:--

A feeble thing,
With brine still dropping from its wing,
Just sparkling in the solar glow,
To plunge again in depths below.

We had a fair wind, and by lying well to the westward, saw the fading rays of the setting sun gild the two high and conical hills of St. Lucia--the Pitons--which are covered from the beach to their summits with the greenest foliage; but these darkened and seemed to melt away as the cloudless sun went down beyond the burning sea, while afar off on our larboard quarter a crimson gleam shot at times across the horizon. It came from the flaming crater of La Soufrière in St. Lucia, where clouds of burning alum, sulphur, and cinders are hourly spouted to the sky.

I was detailed for the middle watch, and, apart from all, trod to and fro on the lee-side of the main-deck, full of my own thoughts; for at such a solitary time they came thick and fast upon me--memories of the lost Eulalie--of my mother's quiet home, and fancies of the dangers that were now before me, and which every day became more imminent.

St. Lucia had faded into the sea astern.

It was not without emotions of strange and undefinable interest, that I gazed upon those isles and the ocean that washed their burning shores. My memory was filled with stories of Raleigh; of Vasco de Gama, who doubled the haunted Cape of Storms; of Nunez de Balboa, who, clad in his armour, toiled in search of the long fabulous Southern Sea; of Kidd, the daring pirate, of the early navigators, of the old buccaneers, of marooned men and the savage Caribs, who roasted and devoured their prisoners. For these isles of modern wealth and slavery were the ancient arena of battle, storm, and wild adventure, where sunken wrecks laden with golden doubloons and silver dollars, were lying in many a bight and bay; where fables said that treasures buried in the sand were guarded by the spirits of murdered men; where olive-coloured mermaids whilom sat upon the rocks and sandy keys, luring mariners to destruction, even as the syrens did in the classic days of old. Such scenes and stories were always associated in my mind with memories of Selkirk and Robinson Crusoe, who, in my boyish dreams, I was wont to consider a very happy fellow indeed in having, as some one says, "a whole island all to himself;" but of this kind of happiness the reader will hear more at a future time.

I remember we passed a lonely little isle, whereon a Spanish hermit had dwelt for years, subsisting on fruit, fish, and tortoises. His dwelling was constructed with the bones of a stranded whale; and a large wooden cross, which he had toiled to erect as a landmark from the sea, could still be discerned through our telescopes. But to resume.

The night was soft, and the atmosphere, even at that distance from the land, possessed the warmth and perfume peculiar to the tropics and to the isles of the Antilles. The heat of the air was tempered by the breeze that swept over the rolling waves from shores laden with the fragrance of fruit and spices, that had basked the livelong day under the sun of a cloudless sky.

The watch on deck was numerous; but in a large frigate it was easy to seclude oneself and give way to reverie. In the clear light of the stars, her cloud of snowy canvas swelled out upon the breeze, and as she rolled slightly on each successive billow, the reef-points on the full white bosom of every shadowy sail waved slowly to and fro like silken fringes.

To windward lay the long line of the fleet--each ship following the other in silence, like white and noiseless spectres of vast stature, gliding over the solemn sea; and no light was visible now, save the red spark of a lantern at the mainmast-head of the admiral's stately three-decker.

As we proceeded, the sea began gradually to assume a very remarkable appearance.

Gradually, the wake of every ship--that long white path of boiling foam which seems to run astern, became a line of apparent fire--alternately brilliant and lurid, then pale and ashy in hue. This increased rapidly, till every ridge of water became a dancing line of red light--every wave a crimson cone, based with emerald green, till gradually the whole sea around the ship became a sheet of seeming fire. Amid this, gigantic monsters, wavering and misshapen in form, gleamed terribly as they shot past in pursuit of each other.

These were merely _fishes_ and animalculæ which were thus magnified by the effect of this wonderful phenomenon. Every rope that trailed overboard was covered with flaming light. Flames seemed also to adhere to the ships' sides, and the spray that flew over their bows and cat-heads, seemed sparks of living fire.

The wonder and beauty of this terrible scene drew exclamations of astonishment from all who were on deck; but after we had sailed a few knots further, the sea of light gradually faded away, and long ere the night-watch were piped down, the waves that rolled around our armament, seemed by contrast darker than ever.

This afforded great matter for speculation among the seamen and Fusiliers of the middle watch; and it was in vain that I endeavoured to explain the theories of the phosphorescent or luminous sea, by describing the light-emitting faculties of the myriads of animalculæ, fish, and slimy substances that float in its depths; for an old tar, who was a great authority on all matters pertaining to salt water, in H.M.S. _Adder_, asserted on his "solemn davy 'twarnt no such thing--but was a spell laid on the water in these here parts in the old times by some buccaneer, whose ship had been burned after plundering a church in St. Lucia, and had gone down with all hands on board, and in flames of fire to the bottom of the sea, where she would continue to burn till the day of judgment, when we would all be piped out of our graves on deck."