Jamrach's Menagerie - Carol Birch [79]
“We shall never see a whale again,” Dag Aarnasson said.
Nine bells, the air still and hot. The ocean had a troubled look.
“Why do you say so, Dag?”
He grinned. “Curse of the dragon. So they say.”
“I could believe anything out here,” I said. “Anyway, it’s gone now.”
“True enough.” John Copper, soaked in sweat. “So, what say we never mention the damn thing again?”
Billy, aloft, called out. The captain shouted: “All hands ahoy!” I heard the sound of running feet.
Tim, staring past my shoulder, suddenly had a look of wonder on his face. “Oh God, what now?” he said softly.
I turned.
In the west the dark cloud ceiling had a bloated, boiling look, but was luridly bright in one place. From here, a long, white serpent, swaying gracefully, reached down to the surface of the ocean.
“What is it?”
“Waterspout,” said Dag.
“Tumble aft!” Rainey yelled. “Every one of you! Gabriel to helm.”
A forked gash of lightning flickered deep inside the cloud.
“Jump to, jump to.” Rainey swept us aft. “Billy, get down!”
It was coming nearer, a lovely, whirling, dreamy thing dancing across the water with furious speed.
“Clew him up, clew him up!” the captain cried.
Strange to have to jump and haul when all you wanted to do was be silent and watch. I’d seen many a wonder since I left home, but nothing to match this. It seemed as if it ran at us, but stopped a mile or so away to observe. It looked as if the cloud was sucking up the sea through a spinning column of luminous mist.
“Main tack and -sheet let go!” shouted Captain Proctor.
A huge brightness was like fire in the sky behind it.
“Don’t stand gaping, Mr. Linver, jump to!”
We got her round. It was on our lee. I had a moment to look: there was a massive commotion at the foot of the spout, a brightening, as if a spectral ship sailed there. Then again, the whole thing was like a silver column resting on a silver plinth. It climbed and climbed through the sky like the beanstalk in the old story, like the world tree joining earth to heaven. How big was it? I don’t know. Monstrous. Everything here was monstrous.
“Topsail halyards let go!”
Then another came, also from the west, a beautiful, oyster-pearl column with what seemed like a pale cloud rising within, and then a third, wider at the top like the funnel of a trumpet and tapering down to a place on the water with the appearance of grey fire. These two joined the first. The three stood swaying, sinuous, spinning gloriously on our lee. So beautiful. I never saw anything so beautiful in my life. I could almost say it was worth it all to see a sight like that. First they danced a stately court dance, three willowy girls weaving in and out of one another, advancing, retreating, bowing and bending, coming together to part and circle, deft and elegant in every move as nymphs and fairies but stronger than Hercules. And all the while we ran about settling down the topgallants and tops while the mains snapped and cracked in the growing gale.
“It’s revenge,” said Billy, “that’s what it is.”
“Right enough,” agreed Felix sagely.
“Don’t talk shite,” Tim said. “It’s weather.”
We tacked round cautiously. The western sky was bunched and black, full of inner movement. A distant sound of shrill singing came from afar. Captain Proctor’s face was worried, and that worried me. Lightning shuddered in the clouds. Mr. Rainey strode about shouting orders, and we nipped about like wraiths, the sky flashing silently every few seconds and lighting our faces, all of us a-shake and agog in the eerie light.
We were making good progress away when the dance played itself out. The three columns stood for a moment, vibrating finely as if collecting themselves, then, one after the other in perfect harmony, traversed a smooth, wide arc and regrouped once more on our leeward side, where with no more ado the youngest—and as it were, the most slenderly girlish—peeled away and ran at us. She came with the roaring of the deluge and unimaginable speed, passing no more than a hundred feet before our