Page:Traditional Tales of the English and Scottish Peasantry - 1887.djvu/161

Rh the billows roll, with a joy that arises from the hope of revenge: the sky became darker, the sea flashed over the decks, and the tempest hurried the ship onward with a rapidity which alarmed the sailors, accustomed as they were to the element. The seams of the vessel began to admit the sea, and everywhere symptoms appeared of her immediate destruction.

"I heard a conversation overhead I shall never forget. 'I tell you,' said a voice in Lowland Scotch, 'good can never come of such evil as your captain and you have wrought; had you taken Miles Colvine's gold and silver alone, the sin had been but little, and a grey-headed repentance might have mended all. But the bonnie lady! Her voice has been heard to-day, and tremble all you that touched her sweet body, for here has come an avenging tempest. The sea will soon devour us, and hot hell will hold us; and the mother who bore, and the wife who loved me, and the bonnie babes I have nursed on my knee will behold me no more; and all for being in company with such hell-hounds as you.'

"A voice replied to all this, in a tone too low and suppressed to be audible; and the Scotchman answered again: 'Lo, look! Did ever eyes behold such a sight? All around us the sea is smooth as glass, and other ships pass by us under a gentle breeze, without a wetted sail; but we!—the anger of Heaven has found us, for on us the thick tempest beats, and the evil one is pursuing us to destruction. O thou eternal villain—captain shall I call thee no more—and you!—you fifteen wretches, who shared with him in his crime, make you ready, for that storm will neither leave you, nor forsake you, till you are buried in the ocean.'

"At the very moment when ruin seemed inevitable the tempest ceased, the clouds passed away, and the descending sun shone brightly down, making the shoreless waters sparkle as far as the eye could reach. No bounds were now set to the joy of the crew; they crowded the deck, made a circle round several vessels of wine and baskets of biscuit; and, before the twilight had passed away, a few only were capable of guiding the vessel. The night grew very dark, and, as I sat in utter despair, I heard the same friendly voice that I had so lately heard, say, 'Miles Colvine, put your trust in Him who can still the tempest; thy time is come.'

"In a moment the wicket opened, and the same voice said,