Left alone, he gave a final tug at the lines, and became aware that he was no longer on his own. He looked up and saw Renzi standing with a set face, looking out over the tumble of blue-grey seas.
Kydd hesitated. His sociable advances before had been repelled with a cold intensity and he was not sure how he would be received now. He fiddled with the loose end of a downhaul and waited. His decisive action on the island
had not been forgiven by Renzi, who had retreated into himself, but ironically, in the week or so since, this had been generously misinterpreted by his shipmates who were convinced that he was recovering from a mind-scarring experience. They gave him every possible sympathy.
Kydd watched Renzi covertly, the face in profile appearing even more solitary and inaccessible. A larger sea surged from astern, faster than they could sail. It overtook them with a swelling and falling accompanied by a marked lurch that sent them both staggering and reaching for a steadying rope. This simple human impulse seemed to bring a fluidity to the situation: Kydd caught a flicker in Renzi's eye. He wandered over beside him.
'Hearty sailin' weather,' Kydd said. He tested the tautness of the nearest rope. Renzi did not move away. He still faced outwards, his expression set — but his lips moved slightly as though speaking to himself. Encouraged, Kydd looked at him directly. 'Mullion says as how we'll be stayin' on this same tack f'r all of three thousan' miles.'
'That would be a logical assumption,' Renzi replied coolly, his gaze still on the heaving seascape.
'Our gear had better be sound, I believe,' Kydd added, anxious to keep momentum in the conversation.
Renzi looked sideways. 'If it is not then no one will ever know — but us,' he said, and Kydd could swear a smile hovered.
'A hard end t' our island adventure,' he dared.
There was just a moment's hesitancy, then, 'I have been considering the whole experience.' Kydd waited. 'It would appear that my expectations were over-sanguine in the matter of Man and Nature. The essence of Rousseau's thesis remains unaltered; timeless in its perception, sublime in its penetration - but it is subverted. We are too late.'
Clearing his throat Kydd began, 'But why . . .'
'It is now very clear. If even in so distant an island as this "civilisation" has come, then it must have spread its canker over the entire inhabited globe. Is there anywhere left at all on this terraqueous sphere that a true self may go to attain perfectibility? I think not/ A pensive expression replaced his forbidding look. 'Perhaps Rousseau would have achieved a higher immortality were he to have demonstrated a modus of perfectibility within the mundus vulgaris. In short, my friend, I accept that there is no longer any possibility for me to achieve a state of natural grace, and thus I bow to the ineluctability of my fate.'
The smile surfaced, and Kydd responded, barely able to restrain himself from clapping Renzi on the back. 'Never fear, we have a long haul ahead before we reach our own civilisation, an' that at war,' he said.
Renzi's face cleared. The blue Pacific rollers were now behind them, the grey of the Southern Ocean was the predominant theme, and he gazed intensely at the clouds obscuring the wan sun.
'Fierce and more fierce the gathering tempest grew, South, and by West, the threatening demon blew; Auster's resistless force all air invades, And every rolling wave more ample spreads.'
'Y'r Wordsworth, then?' Kydd guessed. He would have been just as happy at the fine words if it had been the village blacksmith.
'I believe it might have been the peerless Falconer, talking about the mighty ocean in his Shipwreck, but I may be mistaken.'
Kydd smiled broadly - all was right with the world.
'Yair, second time fer me, mates,' said Crow, his face animated at the memory, 'an' that's twice too many fer me.' He pushed his pot forward. 'Worst place in th' whole god-blasted world fer a sailor, an' that's no error.' The faces of his audience grew serious.
'We gets westerlies all th' way, should be quick,' Mullion said.
'Aye, but we're only at forty south now an' it's comin' on ter blow — we need ter get to fifty-six south fer Cape Horn, an' there it's a reg'lar built hell.' Nobody spoke. 'Black squalls hit yer out o' nowhere, grievous cold, seas the size o' which make yer blood freeze ter see 'em — no galley fire on account o' the lunatic movin' o' the barky, it's no place ter be. But there's some days it's as charmin' as ever you'd want, mates, seas calm an' sun out a-shinin' on them great black rocks — but yer knows that next it's goin' ter turn on yer, like an animal, screamin' 'n' shriekin' an' out ter tear the hooker t' bits . . .'
Artemis swooped and lifted, her hull creaking and working energetically. It was easy to imagine the result of a harsher climate, and Kydd looked about at the swaying lanthorn and slight movement of the canvas screen, and felt a quickening of his senses.