Complete Works of Ford Madox Ford, page 258
“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.
“The steersman,” he said to Hudson, “does not know whither we are bound.”
Hudson gathered himself together for his dramatic effect. First he looked upon Joseph Cats.
“Master Mariner,” he said, “it is fitting that I give you a rendezvous in the case that our ships lose sight the one of the other.”
He addressed himself next to his captain and his crew.
“Masters all,” he said, “it was deemed fitting whilst we were yet in Amsterdam that our true destination should be concealed from all the world by a false report of whither we are bound. It is true that we are bound to the Indies, for is not this ship of the Company of the East Indiamen? But we are not bound thither by way of the North-West Passage — for I am not yet such a fool as to think that I shall find a passage westward when all Greenland lies to our westward. No, my masters, I am not yet such a madman.”
A certain unrest showed itself amongst all these black figures of seamen; they questioned each other with their looks; and it was here that Hudson paused that Edward Colman might translate his words. Then Hudson spoke again — to Joseph Cats this time.
“To you,” he said, “I appoint as a rendezvous the northern end of Novaia Zemlia Land, in the place that I have named Hudson’s Touches.”
A sudden, stilled motion was observable in all those faces before him; the Captain Vanderdonk even turned his face from the observation of the horizon and looked at Hudson. Hudson stroked his beard.
“My masters,” he said, “whither we are bound is the East Indies — but we go there over the North Pole.”
There was no need of Colman to translate those words; the crew caught that one ominous sound, and there went up from them a deep sigh, like a grunt of rage. One voice cried out —
“We did not ship for this madness!”
And Hudson still stood stroking his beard. When he had heard Edward Colman’s translation of that cry he said — and he strove to put reasonableness into his tone —
“My masters and shipmates, ye did not ship for any destination, but as your bond and agreement is with your Company, to sail for six or for nine months. That was how your indenture ran. Ye cannot deny it.”
“It was said in Amsterdam,” Captain Vanderdonk uttered at last, “that we were bound for the North-West Passage.”
“Aye,” Hudson said to him, “it was so said in Amsterdam by the cookmaids and tavern wenches; you heard no such word from me or from any of the council.”
“That is true,” Captain Vanderdonk answered, “it was a very sly trick. We are well caught. For assuredly none of us would have enlisted for this mad enterprise.”
“I may well believe you,” Hudson said, “but these are the orders under which I sail, as I will show you if you come to my cabin to read mine orders.”
He reflected for a moment; then he added —
“I will sail this ship heartily and with loyal eagerness to find the passage that is spoken of, over the North Pole where Thorne reported there were open sea-ways; I will do this with the last endeavour of my life. I would will to sail with ye all as good companions. But this I promise you; I was never a man for hanging; I do not like it — but he who first says, Turn back this ship of the Half Moon,’ he shall go back to Holland in chains and there he shall not easily escape his hanging. God prosper our voyage.”
He stayed to note very keenly how the crew should receive the translation of this message, then he said —
“Captain, I order and advise you to put the ship about. For we draw very near that field of ice. It is a very large one, and since I have been often in these seas I can tell that suddenly the wind will change and blow towards it.”
And he betook himself to his cabin.
CHAPTER III.
ANNE JEAL was walking in the shaded court of the Tower, where the block is set up to behead traitors upon. Her two guards followed her about, going where she would, but never leaving her from their sight; they were leaning against the balustrade of the steps up into the White Tower where the King lodged. One had his arms folded across his chest and his head forward as if he were asleep, the other was throwing little grains of pebbles at a young sparrow that had fallen from a nest in the gutter above.
Anne Jeal was very disconsolate and low in spirits; she dared not sweat her waxen image for fear it should slay her lover, she could not otherwise come into touch with him, though it was sweeter to hear his sighs and groans than not to hear him speak at all. She had all London town to go about if she would, but she got no pleasure there. Once she had been to a conjurer and necromancer in the Crooked Friars, but she thought him a very fool, and though she had made a promise to him to visit him again she had little heart to do so. She had tried to speak with the King, but she had found no way to come to him; the Earl Dalgarno was gone she knew not where.
She desired very heartily at times to be at home, for she had heard from a knave, whom her father had sent to London with boxes of clothes and gear six days before, that Magdalena Koop was come into Edward Colman’s house. And at times this filled her so with fury that she was mad to run to Rye and tear the eyes from the fair girl’s head. But always the thought came to her, when she had these fits of raging, that Edward Colman was coming from Amsterdam to be examined before the council and to be confronted with her.
And her heart became sick with hope at the thought of being there with him in London, for she could not believe that Magdalena Koop could inspire a very lasting attachment, she was too like an ox. But if he was coming there to London, if she was to see him again; it might be very soon, it might be in the next seven days. And the seven days from the 23rd to the 29th of March of that year were, as her tables showed, the most fitting to set out upon a love adventure of all the days of the year....
The trees above the courtyard were showing leaves of green, the sunlight slanted down between the towers, in the gutter the parent sparrows were calling angrily at the man who threw little stones on to their child where it fluttered.
There came down the steps the lord that, at the council, had put to her such few and sharp questions and had made all the other lords do his will. He came swiftly down the steps; he wore a cloak of damson-coloured velvet and a little hat with white plumes in the side of it, and he had several papers in his dark and narrow fingers. Her two guards sprang up as he came down, they pulled their blue flat caps to their proper angles on their shaven heads, they crossed their hands before them and bent each one knee. He hardly glanced at them at all, but hurried by. Anne Jeal had many times thus seen him; almost every day he had hastened once or twice past her out of some passage. But he had never spoken to her, and she had never wished to speak with him. She had heard his name — it was Hog or Ham, or she had forgotten it because she hated him.
Whilst he was hastening like that, engrossed and fast, he checked suddenly and turned upon his heel. His eye had just lit on her, and he spoke to her guards; they stood very respectfully, their caps inclined to listen, then they went slowly over the great cobble stones towards the door of the guard-house. The courtier came very swiftly to her; he was very magnificent that day; there were great rings upon his thin fingers, his white ruff had little gold wire-work at its edge, and there was a band of blue silk with a jewel round his hat.
