Фредерик Марриет: Snarleyyow, or, the Dog Fiend

Corporal Van Spitter went on the quarter-deck, which he found vacant; he hauled up the boat to the counter, and by degrees lowered into it his unwieldy carcass, which almost swamped the little conveyance. He then waited a little, and with difficulty forced the boat up against the strong flood-tide that was running, till at last he gained the chesstree of the cutter, when he shortened in the painter (or rope that held the boat), made it fast to a ringbolt without being perceived, and there he lay concealed, not daring to move, for fear of making a noise.

Smallbones had, however, watched him carefully, and as the corporal sat in the middle thwart, with his face turned aft, catching but imperfectly the conversation of the men, the lad separated the painter with a sharp knife, and at the same time dropping his foot down, gave the bow of the boat a shove off, which made it round with the stream. The tide was then running five or six miles an hour, and before the corporal, in the utter darkness, could make out what had occurred, or raise his heavy carcass to assist himself, he was whirled away by the current clear of the vessel, and soon disappeared from the sight of Smallbones, who was watching his progress.

It is true that the corporal shouted for assistance when he found himself astern, and also that he was heard by the men, but Smallbones had leaped among them, and in a few words told them what he had done; so of course they took no notice, but rubbed their hands with delight at the idea of the corporal being adrift like a bear in a washing-tub, and they all prayed for a gale of wind to come on that he might be swamped, and most of them remained on deck to hear what Mr Vanslyperken would say and do when the corporal's absence was discovered. Mr Vanslyperken remained nearly two hours without sending for the corporal; at last, surprised at not seeing him return, he went on deck. The men on the forecastle perceiving this, immediately disappeared gently down the fore-hatchway. Mr Vanslyperken walked forward and found that every one was, as he supposed, either in bed or below; for in harbour the corporal kept one of the watches, and this night it was his first watch. Vanslyperken looked over the side all round the cutter, and could see no boat and no Corporal Van Spitter, and it immediately occurred to him that the corporal must have gone adrift, and he was very much puzzled how to act. It would be flood-tide for two hours more, and then the whole ebb would run before it was daylight. Corporal Van Spitter would traverse the whole Zuyder Zee before they might find him. Unless he had the fortune to be picked up by some small craft, he might perish with cold and hunger. He could not sail without him; for what could he do without Corporal Van Spitter, his protection, his factotum, his distributer of provisions, &c. The loss was irreparable, and Mr Vanslyperken, when he thought of the loss of the widow's favour and the loss of his favourite, acknowledged with bitterness that his star was not in the ascendant. After some reflection, Mr Vanslyperken thought that as nothing could be gained by making the fact known, the wisest thing that he could do was to go to bed and say nothing about it, leaving the whole of the ulterior proceedings until the loss of the boat should be reported to him in the morning. Having arranged this in his mind, Mr Vanslyperken took two or three turns more, and then went down and turned in.

The loss of the boat was reported by Obadiah Coble at daylight, and Mr Vanslyperken immediately went on deck with his spy-glass to ascertain if he could distinguish the corporal coming down with the last of the ebb-tide but he was nowhere to be seen. Mr Vanslyperken went to the mast-head and surveyed in every direction, but he could neither see anything like the boat or Corporal Van Spitter. His anxiety betrayed to the men that he was a party to the corporal's proceedings, and they whispered among themselves. At last Mr Vanslyperken came down on deck, and desired Corporal Van Spitter to be sent to him. Of course, it was soon reported to him that Corporal Van Spitter was nowhere to be found, and Mr Vanslyperken pretended to be much astonished. As the lieutenant took it for granted that the boat had been swept out with the ebb, he determined to get under weigh in pursuance of his orders, pick up the corporal, if he could find him, and then proceed to Portsmouth, which was the port of his destination. Smallbones attended his master, and was so unusually active that the suspicious Mr Vanslyperken immediately decided that he had had a finger in the business; but he took no notice, resolving in his own mind that Smallbones should some day or another be adrift himself as the corporal was, but with this difference, that there should be no search made after him. As soon as the men had finished their breakfasts, the cutter was got under weigh and proceeded to sea. During the whole day Vanslyperken cruised in the Zuyder Zee looking for the boat, but without success, and at last he unwillingly shaped his course for England, much puzzled and perplexed, as now he had no one to act as his steward to whom he could confide, or by whose arrangements he could continue to defraud the ship's company; and, farther, he was obliged to put off for the present all idea of punishing Jemmy Ducks, for, without the corporal, the marines were afraid to move a step in defiance of the ship's company. The consequence was, that the three days that they were at sea, Mr Vanslyperken confined himself altogether to his cabin, for he was not without some fears for his own safety. On his arrival at Portsmouth, he delivered his letters to the admiral, and received orders to return to his cruising ground after the smugglers as soon as he had replaced his lost boat.

We have observed that Mr Vanslyperken had no relations on this side of the water; but in saying that, we referred to the epoch that he was in the service previous to the accession of King William. Since that, and about a year from the time we are now writing about, he had brought over his mother, whom he had not, till the peace, seen for years, and had established her in a small apartment in that part of the town now known by the name of the Halfway Houses. The old woman lived upon a small pension allowed by the Dutch court, having been employed for many years in a subordinate capacity in the king's household. She was said to have once been handsome, and when young, prodigal of her favours; at present she was a palsied old woman, bent double with age and infirmity, but with all her faculties as complete as if she was in her prime. Nothing could escape her little twinkling bloodshot eyes, or her acute ear; she could scarcely hobble fifty yards, but she kept no servant to assist her, for, like her son, she was avaricious in the extreme. What crime she had committed was not known, but that something lay heavy on her conscience was certain; but if there was guilt, there was no repentance, only fear of future punishment. Cornelius Vanslyperken was her only living child: she had been twice married. The old woman did not appear to be very fond of him, although she treated him still as a child, and executed her parental authority as if he were still in petticoats. Her coming over was a sort of mutual convenience. She had saved money, and Vanslyperken wished to secure that, and also have a home and a person to whom he could trust; and she was so abhorred, and the reports against her so shocking where she resided, that she was glad to leave a place where every one, as she passed, would get out of her way, as if to avoid contamination. Yet these reports were vague, although hinting at some horrid and appalling crimes. No one knew what they exactly were, for the old woman had outlived her contemporaries, and the tradition was imperfect, but she had been handed down to the next generation as one to be avoided as a basilisk.