His oaken complexion was renewed in the sun, and work aloft restored his upper body strength to the point at which he could have swarmed up a rope hand over hand without using his feet to grip.
Renzi envied Kydd's easy development, his agility aloft, his natural gifts as a sailor. Kydd's splicing and pointing was meticulous, while his own was adequate but lacked the regularity, even technical beauty, of Kydd's work. His own body tended to the spare, whipcord wiriness that went with his austere temperament, and where Kydd gloried in the dangers lurking aloft, Renzi was careful and sure in his movements, never taking uncalculated risks or making an unconsidered move. Kydd soon caught up and overtook him in these skills but, as Renzi reminded himself, his own objective was to serve a sentence, not to make a life's calling.
He recalled what had passed when they were tasked off to bowse down the gammoning around the bowsprit. Suspended on opposite sides, under the gratings and walkways above, they were as close to the exact point at which the stem cleaved the water as they could be. It was mesmerising, seeing at such close quarters the cutwater dip slowly and deeply into the ocean, scattering rainbow jewels of water, pausing, then making an unhurried rise, as regular and comforting as the breathing at a mother's breast. It took an effort of will for them to finish the job and return.
And at night, the startlingly bright moonpath of countless gleaming shards, which continually fractured and joined, danced and glittered in a spirited restlessness. The reliable winds at this latitude left little for the watch on deck to do, and they would stare at it for long periods. Under its influence they considered the mysteries of life, which the normal course of existence on land, with its ever-present distractions, would never have allowed. Time at sea had a different quality: it required that men move to its own rhythms, conforming to its own pace.
'Night's as black as ol’ Nick hisself,' said Doud, finishing hanking the fall of the weather fore-brace. The usual trimming of sails at the beginning of the watch was complete now and they would probably be stood down. Only voices in the dark and passing shadows on the glimmering paleness of the decks were evidence of the existence of other beings. A low cry came from aft: 'Watch on deck, stand down.'
They would remain on deck ready, but they could make themselves as comfortable as the conditions would allow. Soft talk washed around Kydd; old times, old loves. Drowsily, he looked up at the sky. It was easy to be hypnotised by the regular shifting occlusion of sails and rigging across the star-field as the vessel rolled to the swell.
'What's down there?' he found himself sayings
The talk trailed off. 'Yer what?' said one voice.
Kydd levered himself up while the thought took shape. 'I mean, at the bottom o' the sea — we're only on th' top, must be all kinds'a things down there.' His mind swam with images of sunken ships, skeletons of whales and the recollection of a diorama he had once seen of Davy Jones's Locker. It seemed reasonable to expect the muddy sea-bed that their anchor gripped to extend indefinitely in all directions, coming up only for land. 'How deep does it get?' he asked.
A deeper voice answered, 'Dunno. That is ter say, no one knows. Yer deep-sea lead is eighty, hunnerd fathom, an' it gives "no bottom" only a few leagues off Scilly. After that, who knows? It's as deep as it is.'
Six hundred, maybe a thousand feet, and straight down. Kydd remembered the purity and crystal clarity of deep sea-water in the daytime with the sun's rays reaching down in moving shafts of light, and even then he had never seen the bottom.
'Night-time, that's when yer thinks about it — what's there movin' about under our keel, mates, a rousin' good question,' the voice declared.
A buzz of animated conversation started.
'Ship goes down with all hands in a blow, stands ter reason, they're down there still.'
'Naah - sharks'll be at their bones quicker'n silver.'
'What flam, Jeb! Where's yer sharks in th' north?'
'There's other things, mate, what likes ter eat a sailor's bones. Things down there a-waitin' their chance.'
'What things?' Kydd asked, apprehensive of the reply.
'Monsters, mate! Huge 'n' bloody monsters.'
This provoked a restless stirring, but the voice was not contradicted. The cheerful slapping of ropes against the mast and the unseen plash of the wake shifted imperceptibly to a manic fretfulness. A new voice started from further away: 'He's right there, has ter be said. Some as say there ain't no monsters, but yer've got ter agree, a sea this big c'n hide more'n a whole tribe of 'em.'
'Sure there's monsters,' an older voice cut in. 'An' I seen one. Two summers ago only. We wuz at anchor off Funchal — 'n' that ain't so far from here — had fishin' lines over the side, hopin' fer albacore, so 'twas stout gear we had out.' He cleared his throat and continued, 'Nearly sundown, 'n' we was about to haul th' lines in when comes such a tug on one it nearly took me with it inter the 'oggin. Me frien' who was alongside me saw the line smokin' out like it had a stone weight on it plungin' down, an' he takes a turn on a cleat, slows it down a bit. Then th' line slackens an' he hauls in.'