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+Project Gutenberg's Stories by English Authors: The Sea, by Various
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Stories by English Authors: The Sea
+
+Author: Various
+
+Posting Date: May 24, 2013 [EBook #6041]
+Release Date: July, 2004
+First Posted: October 23, 2002
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK STORIES BY ENGLISH AUTHORS: THE SEA ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Charles Aldarondo, Charles Franks, Nicole
+Apostola and The Online Distributed Proofreading Team.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+STORIES BY ENGLISH AUTHORS
+
+THE SEA
+
+
+  THE EXTRAORDINARY ADVENTURE OF A CHIEF MATE BY W. CLARK RUSSELL
+  QUARANTINE ISLAND BY SIR WALTER BESANT
+  THE ROCK SCORPIONS ANONYMOUS
+  THE MASTER OF THE "CHRYSTOLITE" BY G. B. O'HALLORAN
+  "PETREL" AND "THE BLACK SWAN" ANONYMOUS
+  MELISSA'S TOUR BY GRANT ALLEN
+  VANDERDECKEN'S MESSAGE HOME ANONYMOUS
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE EXTRAORDINARY ADVENTURE OF A CHIEF MATE
+
+BY W. CLARK RUSSELL
+
+
+In the newspapers of 1876 appeared the following extracts from
+the log of a merchantman: "VOLCANIC ISLAND IN THE NORTH ATLANTIC.
+--The ship Hercules, of Liverpool, lately arrived in the Mersey,
+reports as follows: March 23, in 2 deg. 12' north latitude, 33 deg.
+27' west longitude, a shock of earthquake was felt, and shortly
+afterward a mass of land was hove up at a distance of about two miles
+from the ship. Michael Balfour, the chief officer, fell overboard.
+A buoy was thrown to him, the ship brought to the wind, and a boat
+lowered within fifteen minutes of the occurence. But though the
+men sought the chief mate for some time, nothing could be seen of
+him, and it is supposed that he sank shortly after falling into
+the sea. Masters of vessels are recommended to keep a sharp lookout
+in approaching the situation of the new island as given above. No
+doubt it will be sighted by other ships, and duly reported."
+
+I am Michael Balfour; I it was who fell overboard; and it is
+needless for me to say here that I not drowned. The volcanic island
+was only reported by one other ship, and the reason why will be
+read at large in this account of my strange adventure and merciful
+deliverance.
+
+It was the evening of the 23d of March, 1876. Our passage to the
+equator from Sydney had been good, but for three days we had been
+bothered with light head winds and calms, and since four o'clock
+this day the ocean had stretched in oil-smooth undulations to its
+margin, with never a sigh of air to crispen its marvellous serenity
+into shadow. The courses were hauled up, the staysails down, the
+mizzen brailed up; the canvas delicately beat the masts to the soft
+swing of the tall spars, and sent a small rippling thunder through
+the still air, like a roll of drums heard at a distance. The heat
+was great; I had never remembered a more biting sun. The pitch in
+the seams was soft as putty, the atmosphere was full of the smell
+of blistered paint, and it was like putting your hand on a red-hot
+stove to touch the binnacle hood or grasp for an an instant an iron
+belaying-pin.
+
+A sort of loathing comes into a man with a calm like this. "The
+very deep did rot," says the poet; and you understood his fancy
+when you marked the blind heave of the swell to the sun standing
+in the midst of a sky of brass, with his wake under him sinking in
+a sinuous dazzle, as though it was his fiery glance piercing to the
+green depths a thousand fathoms deep. It was hot enough to slacken
+the nerves and give the imagination a longer scope than sanity
+would have it ride by.
+
+That was why, perhaps, I found something awful and forbidding in
+the sunset, though at another time it might scarcely have detained
+my gaze a minute. But it is true, nevertheless, that others besides
+me gaped at the wonderful gushings of hot purple,--arrested whirlpools
+of crimson haze, they looked,--in the heart of which the orb sat
+rayless, flooding the sea with blood under him, so magnificently
+fell was the hue, and flushing the sky with twenty dyes of gold
+and orange, till, in the far east, the radiance fainted into the
+delicacy of pale amber.
+
+"Yon's a sunset," said Captain Matthews, a North of England man,
+to me, "to make a fellow think of the last day."
+
+"I'm looking at it, sir," said I, "as though I had never seen a
+sunset before. That's the oddest part of it, to my mind. There's
+fire enough there to eat a gale up. How should a cat's-paw crawl
+then?" And I softly whistled, while he wetted his finger and held
+it up; but to no purpose; the draught was all between the rails,
+and they blew forward and aft with every swing of the sails.
+
+When the dusk came along, the silence upon the sea was something
+to put all sorts of moods into a man. The sky was a hovering velvet
+stretch of stars, with a young moon lying curled among them, and
+winkings of delicate violet sheet-lightning down in the southwest,
+as though some gigantic-tinted lantern, passing, flung its light
+upon the dark blue obscure there. The captain went below, after a
+long, impatient look round, and I overhung the rail, peering into
+the water alongside, or sending my gaze into the frightful distance,
+where the low-lying stars hung. With every soft dip of the ship's
+side to the slant of the dark folds, there shot forth puffs of
+cloudy phosphor, intermixed with a sparkling of sharper fires now
+and again, blue, yellow, and green, like worms of flame striking
+out of their cocoons of misty radiance. The noise of the canvas on
+high resembled the stirring of pinions, and the cheep of a block,
+the grind of a parrel, helped the illusion, as though the sounds
+were the voices of huge birds restlessly beating their pinions
+aloft.
+
+Presently the man at the wheel startled me with an observation.
+I went to him, and he pointed upward with a long, shadowy arm. I
+looked, and saw a corposant, as it is called at sea,--a St. Elmo's
+fire,--burning at the end of the crossjack-yard. The yard lay
+square, and the polished sea beneath gave back the reflection so
+clearly that the mystic fire lay like a huge glow-worm on the black
+mirror.
+
+"There should be wind not far off," said the helmsman, in a subdued
+voice; for few sailors can see one of these lights without a stirring
+of their superstitious instincts, and this particular exhalation
+hung close to us.
+
+"I hope so," said I, "though I don't know where it's to come from."
+
+As I spoke, the light vanished. I ran my eye over the yards,
+expecting its reappearance; but it returned no more, and the sails
+rose pale and phantom-like to the stars. I was in an odd humour,
+and this was an apparition not to brighten one up. Of course one
+knows all about these maritime corpse-candles, and can explain
+their nature; but nevertheless the sudden kindling of them upon
+the darkness of the night, in the dead hush of the calm or amid the
+fury of the shrieking hurricane, produces feelings which there is
+nothing in science to resolve. I could have laughed to find myself
+sending a half-awed look aloft, as if I expected to see some visionary
+hand at work upon another one these graveyard illuminations-with
+a stealing out of some large, sad face to the melancholy glow; but
+I returned to the side very pensive for all that, and there stood
+watching the fiery outline of a shark subtly sneaking close to the
+surface (insomuch that the wake of its fin slipped away in little
+coils of green flame) toward the ship's bows.
+
+Half an hour later the dark curl of a light air of wind shattered
+the starlight in the sea, and our canvas fell asleep. I called to
+the watch to trim sail, and in a few moments the decks were busy
+with the figures of men pulling and hauling and surging out at the
+ropes in sulky, slumberous growlings. The captain arrived.
+
+"Little worth having in this, I fear," said he. "But make the most
+of it--make the most of it. Get the foretopmast stunsail run up.
+If she creeps but a league, it is a league to the good."
+
+The sail was sleepily set. Humbugging about with stunsails to the
+cat's-paws little pleased the men, especially at night. For three
+days they had been boxhauling the yards about to no purpose, and
+it was sickening work running stunsail-booms out to airs that died
+in their struggles to reach us. However, here was a draught at
+last, and the old gurgling and moaning sounds of the breathless,
+sluggish swell washing heavily like liquid lead to the sides were
+replaced by the tinkling noises of waters parting at the bows with
+a pretty little seething of expiring foam, and the hiss of exploding
+froth-bells. At eleven o'clock the light breeze was still holding,
+and the ship was floating softly through the dusk, the paring
+of moon swaying like a silver sickle over the port mizzen topsail
+yard-arm, everything quiet along the decks, no light save the
+sheen from the lamps in the binnacle, and nothing stirring but the
+figure of a man on the forecastle pacing athwartships, and blotting
+out at every step a handful of the stars which lay like dust
+on the blackness, under the yawn of the forecourse. On a sudden a
+steamer's lights showed on the starboard bow--a green beam, and a
+yellow one above, with the water on fire beneath them, and sparks
+floating away upon her coil of smoke, that made you think of the
+spangles of a falling rocket. She went past swiftly, at no great
+distance from us. There was not a moan in the hot breeze to disturb
+the wonderful ocean stillness, and you almost thought you caught
+the beating of the iron heart in her, and the curious monotonous
+songs which engines sing as they work. She swept past like a phantom,
+running a line of illuminated windows along, which resembled a
+row of street-lamps out in the darkness; and as she came on to our
+quarter she struck seven bells (half-past eleven), the rich metallic
+notes of which I clearly heard; and with the trembling of the last
+stroke upon the ear her outline melted.
+
+At that instant a peculiar thrill ran through the ship. It may
+be likened to the trembling in a floor when a heavy waggon passes
+in the street outside. It was over in a breath, but I could have
+sworn that it was not my fancy. I walked aft to the wheel, and
+said to the man, "Did you notice anything just now?"
+
+"Seemed to me as if the vessel trembled like," he replied.
+
+As he spoke the ship shook again, this time strongly. It was
+something more than a shudder; the sensation was for all the world
+as though she had scraped over a shoal of rock or shingle. There
+was a little clatter below, a noise of broken glass. The watch,
+who had been dozing on deck, sprang to their feet, and their
+ejaculations of surprise and fear rolled in a growl among them.
+The captain ran out of the companionway in his shirt and trousers.
+
+"What was that, Mr. Balfour?" he bawled.
+
+"Either the shock of an earthquake," said I, "or a whale sliding
+along our keel."
+
+"Get a cast of the lead! get a cast of the lead!" he shouted.
+
+This was done to the full scope of the hand-line, without bottom,
+of course. By this time the watch below had tumbled up, and all
+hands were now on deck, staring aloft or over the side, sniffing,
+spitting, muttering, and wondering what had happened.
+
+"There's that bloomin' compreesant come again!" exclaimed a hoarse
+voice; and, sure enough, a light similar to the one that had hung
+at the crossjack yard-arm now floated upon the end of the upper
+maintopsail-yard.
+
+"The devil's abroad to-night!" exclaimed the captain. "There's
+sulphur enough about," and he fell a-snuffling.
+
+What followed might have made an infidel suppose so; for scarce
+were the words out of his mouth when there happened an astonishing
+blast of noise, as loud and violent as that of forty or fifty cannons
+fired off at once, and out of the black sea no farther than a mile
+broad on the starboard beam rose a pillar of fire, crimson as the
+light of the setting sun and as dazzling too; it lived while you
+might have counted twenty, but in that time it lighted up the sea
+for leagues and leagues, put out the stars, and made the sky resemble
+a canopy of yellow satin; we on the ship saw one another's faces
+as if by daylight; the shrouds and masts and our own figures cast
+jet-black shadows on the deck; the whole ship flashed out to that
+amazing radiance like a fabric sun-touched. The column of fire
+then fattened and disappeared, and the night rolled down upon our
+blinded eyes as black as thunder.
+
+There was no noise--no hissing as of boiling water. If the furious
+report that preceded the leap of the fire had rendered its coming
+terrible, its extinction was made not less awful by the tomb-like
+stillness that attended it. I sprang on to the rail, believing I
+could perceive a dark mass--like a deeper dye upon the blackness
+that way--upon the water, and to steady myself caught hold of the
+mizzen loyal backstay, swinging out to my arm's length and peering
+with all my might. My excitement was great, and the consternation
+that posessed the ship's crew was upon me. As I leaned, the
+vessel heeled violently to a large swell caused by the volcanic
+disturbances. The roll was extraordinarily severe, heaving the
+vessel down to her covering-board; and the great hill of water
+running silent and in darkness through the sea, so that it could
+neither be viewed nor heard, made the sickening lurch a dreadful
+surprise and wonder.
+
+It was in that moment that I fell overboard. I suppose my grip of
+the backstay relaxed when the ship lay down; but, let the thing
+have happened how it would, in a breath I was under water. It is
+said that the swiftness of thought is best shown by dreams. This
+may be so; yet I cannot believe that thought was ever swifter in
+a dream than it was in me ere I came to the surface; for in those
+few seconds I gathered exactly what had befallen me, wondered
+whether my fall had been seen, whether I should be saved, realised
+my hopeless condition if I had not been observed, and, above all, was
+thinking steadfastly and with horror of the shark I had not long
+ago watched stemming in fire past the ship. I was a very indifferent
+swimmer, and what little power I had in that way was like to be
+paralysed by thoughts of the shark. I rose and fetched a breath,
+shook the water out of my eyes, and looked for the ship. She had
+been sliding along at the rate of about four knots an hour; but
+had she been sailing at ten she could not seem to have gone farther
+from me during the brief while I was submerged. From the edge of
+the water, where my eyes were, she appeared a towering pale shadow
+about a mile off. I endeavoured to scream out; but whether the cold
+of the plunge had bereft me of my voice, or that I had swallowed
+water enough to stop my pipes, I found I could utter nothing
+louder than a small groan. I made several strokes with my arms,
+and suddenly spied a life-buoy floating almost twenty yards ahead
+of me. I made for it in a transport of joy, for the sight of it
+was all the assurance I could ask that they knew on the ship that
+I had tumbled overboard; and, coming to the buoy, I seized and
+threw it over my head, and then got it under my arms and so floated.
+
+The breeze, such as it was, was on the ship's quarter, and she
+would need to describe a considerable arc before she rounded to.
+I could hear very faintly the voices on board, the flinging down
+of coils of rope, the dim echoes of hurry and commotion. I again
+sought to exert my lungs, but could deliver no louder note than a
+moan. The agony of mind I was under lest a shark should seize me I
+cannot express, and my strained eyeballs would come from the tall
+shadow of the ship to the the sea about me in a wild searching of
+the liquid ebony of it for the sparkling configuration of the most
+abhorred of all fish. I could have sworn that hours elapsed before
+they lowered a boat from the ship, that seemed to grow fainter and
+fainter every time I looked at her, so swallowing is the character
+of ocean darkness, and so subtle apparently, so fleet in fact, the
+settling away of a fabric under canvas from an object stationary
+on the water. I could distinctly hear the rattle of the oars in
+the rowlocks, and the splash of the dipped blades, but could not
+discern the boat. It was speedily evident, however, that they were
+pulling wide of me; my ear could not mistake. Again I tried to
+shout, but to no purpose. Manifestly no one had thought of taking
+my bearings when I fell, and I, who lay south, was being sought
+for southwest.
+
+Time passed; the boat never approached me within a quarter of a
+mile. They must instantly have heard me, could I have halloed; but
+my throat refused its office. I reckoned that they continued to
+row here and there for about half an hour, during which they were
+several times hailed by the captain, as I supposed; the sound of
+the oars then died. A little later I heard the very faint noises
+made by their hoisting the boat and hauling in upon the braces,
+and then there was nothing for me to do but to watch, with dying
+eyes, the shadow of the ship till it faded, and the stars shone
+where she had been.
+
+The sky shed very little light, and there was no foam to cast an
+illumination of its own. However, by this time, as you will suppose,
+I was used to my situation; that is to say, the horror and novelty
+of my condition had abated, and settled into a miserable feeling
+of despair; so that I was like a dying man who had passed days in
+an open boat, and who languidly directs his eyes over the gunwale
+at the sea, with the hopelessness that is bred by familiarity with
+his dreadful posture. It was some time after the ship had melted
+into the airy dusk that I seemed to notice, for the first time
+since I had been in the life-buoy, the lump of blackness at which
+I had been straining my eyes when the vessel heeled and I fell.
+It had the elusiveness of a light at sea, that is best seen (at
+a distance) by gazing a little on one side of it. It lay, a black
+mass, and whether it was a vast huddle of weeds, or a great whale
+killed by the earthquake, or solid land uphove by the volcanic
+rupture, was not conjecturable. It hung, still and not very tall,
+for I could not see that it put out any stars, and was about a mile
+distant. Whatever it might prove, I could not be worse off near
+or on or amid it than I was here; so, setting my face toward it,
+I began to strike out with my legs and arms.
+
+The water was so fiery, it chipped in flashes to every blow of my
+hands. I swam in the utmost terror, never knowing but that the next
+moment I should be feeling the teeth of a shark upon my legs, for
+the sparkling of the sea to my kicks and motions was signal enough
+for such a beast if it was a league distant; but I may as well say
+here that there is no doubt the shock of earthquake and the flame
+effectually cleared the sea in its neighbourhood of every kind
+of fish that floated in it, though the hope of such a thing could
+yield me but very little comfort while I swam.
+
+I continued to make good progress, and presently approaching the
+block of blackness, for so it looked, perceived that it was certainly
+land,--a solid rock, in short,--the head of some mountainous
+submarine formation lifted ten or twelve feet above the sea. I could
+now discern a faintness of vapour circling up from it and showing
+like steam against the stars. Its front stretched a length of a
+few hundred feet; how far it went behind I could not tell. A small
+sound of creaming waters came from it, produced by the light swell
+washing its shelter side. It lay all in a line of grayish darkness
+even when I was quite close, and I could see nothing but the shapeless
+body of it. Of a sudden my feet struck ground, and I waded thirty
+paces along a shelf that was under water till my paces lifted to
+the dry beach. But by this time I was fearfully exhausted; I could
+scarcely breathe. My legs and arms were numbed to the weight of
+lead. The atmosphere was warm, but not unbearably so--not hotter
+than it had been at noon in the ship. Steam crawled up from every
+pore, like the drainings of smoke from damp straw, but it did not
+add to the distress of my breathing. I made shift to stagger onward
+till I had gone about fifty feet from the wash of the sea. Nature
+then broke down; my knees gave way, I stumbled and fell--whether
+in a swoon or whether in a death-like slumber, I cannot say; all
+I can tell is that when I awoke, or recovered my senses, the sun
+stood fifteen degrees above the horizon, and I opened my eyes upon
+a hot and dazzling sky.
+
+I sat up in the utmost amazement. My mind for some time was all
+abroad, and I could recollect nothing. Memory then entered me with
+a bound, and I staggered to my feet with a cry. The first thing
+I took notice of was that my clothes were nearly dry, which was
+not very reconcilable with the steam that was still issuing from
+the island, though it was as I say. My bones ached cruelly, but
+I was not sensible of any particular languor. The brilliance was
+so blinding that I had to employ my eyes very warily in order
+to see; and it was not until I had kept opening and shutting them
+and shading them with my hands for some minutes that they acquired
+their old power. The island on which I stood had unquestionably been
+hove up in the night by the earthquake. I cannot figure it better
+than by asking you to imagine a gigantic mass of pumice-stone,
+somewhat flat on top, and shelving on all sides very gently to the
+water, lying afloat but steady on the sea. It was of the hue of
+pumice, and as clean as an egg-shell, without a grain of calcined
+dust or any appearance of scoriae that I could anywhere observe.
+It was riddled with holes, some wide and deep--a very honeycomb;
+and that I did not break my neck or a limb in staggering walk from
+the beach in the darkness, I must ever account the most miraculous
+part of my adventure.
+
+But what (when I had my whole wits) riveted my attention, and held
+me staring open-mouthed, as though in good truth the apparition of
+the devil had risen before me, was the body of a ship leaning on
+its bilge, at not more than a gunshot from where I stood, looking
+toward the interior. When my eyes first went to the thing I could
+not believe them. I imagined it some trick of the volcanic explosion
+that had fashioned a portion of the land or rock (as it may be
+called) into the likeness of a ship, but, on gazing steadfastly, I
+saw that it was indeed a vessel, rendered extraordinarily beautiful
+and wonderful by being densely covered with shells of a hundred
+different kinds, by which her bulk was enlarged, though her shape
+was preserved. Bright fountains of water were gushing from fifty
+places in her, all these waterfalls shone like rainbows, and showed
+surprisingly soft and lovely against the velvet green of the moss
+and the gray and kaleidoscopic tints of the shells upon her. Lost
+in amazement, I made my way toward her, and stood viewing her at
+a short distance. She had three lower masts standing--one right
+in the bows, and the mizzen raking very much aft. All three masts
+were supported by shrouds, and that was all the rigging the sea
+had left. She looked to be made of shells and moss; her shrouds and
+masts were incrusted as thickly as her hull. She was a mere tub of
+a ship in shape, being scarce twice as long as she was broad, with
+great fat buttocks, a very tall stern narrowing atop, and low bows
+with a prodigious curve to the stem-head. I am not well versed in
+the shipping of olden times, but I would have willingly staked all
+I was worth in the world that the fabric before me belonged to a
+period not much later than the days of Columbus, and that she had
+been sunk at least three centuries below the sea; and it was also
+perfectly clear to me that she had risen in the daylight, out of
+her green and oozy sepulchre, with the upheaval of the bed on which
+she lay to the convulsion that had produced this island.
+
+But my situation was not one to suffer me to stand long idly
+wondering and staring. The moment I brought my eyes away from
+the ship to the mighty desolation of the blue and gleaming ocean,
+a horror broke upon me, my heart turned into lead, and in the
+anguish of my spirits I involuntarily lifted my clinched hands to
+God. What was to become of me? I had no boat, no means of making
+anything to bear me, nothing but the life-buoy, that was no better
+than a trap for sharks to tear me to pieces in. I was thirsty, but
+there was no fresh water on this steaming speck of rock, and I tell
+you, the knowing that there was none, and that unless rain fell
+I must die of thirst, had like to have driven me mad. Where the
+ship was, and beyond it, the island rose somewhat in the form of
+a gentle undulation. I walked that way, and there obtained a view
+of the whole island, which was very nearly circular, like the head
+of a hill, somewhat after the shape of a saucepan lid. It resembled
+a great mass of sponge to the sight, and there was no break upon its
+surface save the incrusted ship, which did, indeed, form a very
+conspicuous object. Happening to look downward, I spied a large
+dead fish, of the size of a cod of sixteen or eighteen pounds,
+lying a-dry in a hole. I put my arm down and dragged it out, and,
+hoping by appeasing my hunger to help my thirst somewhat, I opened
+my knife and cut a little raw steak, and ate it. The moisture in the
+flesh refreshed me, and, that the sun might not spoil the carcass,
+I carried it to the shadow made by the ship, and put it under one
+of the waterfalls that the play might keep it sweet. There was
+plenty more dead fish in the numerous holes, and I picked out two
+and put them in the shade; but I knew that the great heat must
+soon taint them and rot the rest, whence would come a stench that
+might make the island poisonous to me.
+
+I sat down under the bends of the ship for the shadow it threw,
+and gazed at the sea. Perhaps I ought to have felt grateful for
+the miraculous creation of this spot of land, when, but for it, I
+must have miserably perished in the life-buoy, dying a most dreadful,
+slow, tormenting death, if some shark had not quickly despatched
+me; but the solitude was so frightful, my doom seemed so assured,
+I was threatened with such dire sufferings ere my end came, that,
+in the madness and despair of my heart, I could have cursed the
+intervention of this rock, which promised nothing but the prolongation
+of my misery. There was but one live spark amid the ashes of my
+hopes; namely, that the island lay in the highway of ships, and
+that it was impossible a vessel could sight so unusual an object
+without deviating from her course to examine it. That was all the
+hope I had; but God knows there was nothing in it to keep me alive
+when I set off against it the consideration that there was no water
+on the island, no food; that a ship would have to sail close to
+remark so flat and little a point as this rock; and that days, ay,
+and weeks might elapse before the rim of yonder boundless surface,
+stretching in airy leagues of deep blue to the azure sky at the
+horizon, should be broken by the star-like shining of a sail.
+
+Happily, the wondrous incrusted bulk was at hand to draw my thoughts
+away from my hideous condition; for I verily believe, had my eye
+found nothing to rest upon but the honeycombed pumice, my brain would
+have given way. I stood up and took a long view of the petrified
+shell-covered structure, feeling a sort of awe in me while I looked,
+for it was a kind of illustration of the saying of the sea giving
+up its dead, and the thing stirred me almost as though it had been
+a corpse that had risen to the sun, after having been a secret of
+the deep for three hundred years.
+
+It occurred to me that if I could board her she might furnish me
+with a shelter from the dew of the night. She had channels with
+long plates, all looking as if they were formed of shells; and
+stepping round to the side toward which she leaned, I found the
+fore channel-plates to be within reach of my hands. The shells were
+slippery and cutting; but I was a sailor, and there would have been
+nothing in a harder climb than this to daunt me. So, after a bit
+of a struggle, I succeeded in hauling myself into the chains, and
+thence easily dragged myself over the rail on to the deck.
+
+The sight between the bulwarks was far more lovely and surprising
+than the spectacle presented by the ship's sides. For the decks
+seemed not only formed of shells of a hundred different hues;
+there was a great abundance of branching corals, white as milk,
+and marine plants of kinds for which I could not find names, of
+several brilliant colours; so that, what with the delicate velvet
+of the moss, the dark shades of seaweed of figurations as dainty
+as those of ferns, and the different sorts of shells, big and
+little, all lying as solid as if they had been set in concrete,
+the appearance of the ship submitted was something incredibly
+fantastic and admirable. Whether the hatches were on or not I could
+not tell, so thickly coated were the decks; but whether or not, the
+deposits and marine growths rendered the surface as impenetrable
+as iron, and I believe it would have kept a small army of labourers
+plying their pickaxes for a whole week to have made openings into
+the hold through that shelly coating of mail.
+
+My eye was taken by a peculiar sort of protuberance at the foot
+of the mainmast. It stood as high as I did, and had something of
+the shape of a man, and, indeed, after staring at it for some time,
+I perceived that it had been a man; that is to say, it was a human
+skeleton, filled up to the bulk of a living being by the shells and
+barnacles which covered it. Ashore, it might have passed for some
+odd imitation in shells of the human figure; but, viewing it as I
+did, in the midst of that great ocean, amid the frightful solitude
+of the great dome of heaven, in a ship that was like the handiwork
+of the sea-gods at the bottom of the deep--I say, looking at it as
+I did, and knowing the thing had had life in centuries past, and
+had risen thus wildly garnished out of the unfathomable secret
+heart of the ocean, it awed me to an extent I cannot express, and
+I gazed as though fascinated. In all probability, this was a man
+who, when the ship foundered, had been securely lashed to the mast
+for safety or for punishment.
+
+I turned away at last with a shudder, and walked aft. The wreck
+was unquestionably some Spanish or Portuguese carrack or galleon
+as old as I have stated; for you saw her shape when you stood on
+her deck, and her castellated stern rising into a tower from her
+poop and poop-royal, as it was called, proved her age as convincingly
+as if the date of her launch had been scored upon her.
+
+What was in her hold? Thousands of pounds' worth of precious ore in
+gold and silver bars and ingots, for all I knew; but had she been
+flush to her upper decks with doubloons and ducats, I have exchanged
+them all for the sight of a ship, or for a rill of fresh water. I
+searched the horizon with feverish eyes; there was nothing in sight.
+The afternoon was advancing; the sun was burning unbearably midway
+down the western sky, and my thirst tormented me. I dropped over
+the side and cut another steak of fish; but though the moisture
+temporarily relieved me, the salt of the water flowing upon it dried
+into my throat and increased my sufferings. There was a light air
+blowing, and the sea trembled to it into a deeper hue of blue, and
+met in a glorious stream of twinkling rubies under the setting sun.
+I counted half a score of wet black fins round about the island,
+and understood that the sharks had recovered from their scare, and
+had returned to see if the earthquake had cast up anything to eat.
+
+When the sun sank, the night came along in a stride; the curl of the
+moon looked wanly down upon me, and the sky flashed with starshine,
+so rich and magnificent was the glow of the nearer luminaries.
+I reentered the ship and stepped to the cabin front, over which
+extended a "break" or penthouse, under which I might find some
+shelter from the dew that was already falling like rain, and squatted
+down, lascar-fashion, with my back against the shell-armoured
+bulkhead. Great Father! never had I known what solitude was till
+then. There was no sound save the quiet foaming of waters draining
+from the wreck, and the purring of the very light swell softly
+moving upon the beach, and the faint, scarce audible whispering
+of the dew-laden draught of air stirring in the stony, fossilised
+shrouds. My throat felt like hot brass; I tried to pray, but could
+not. Imagination grew a little delirious, and I would sometimes
+fancy that the terrible shape at the foot of the mainmast moved
+as if seeking to free itself and approach me. There was a constant
+glancing of shooting stars on high, swift sparklings and trailings
+of luminous dust, and, as on the previous night, here and there
+upon the horizon a dim violet play of sheet-lightning. It was like
+being at the bottom of the sea, alive there, to be in this black,
+shelly, weed-smelling ship. Whether my thoughts came to me waking
+or sleeping I cannot tell, but I know some mad fancies possessed
+me, and upon the sable canvas of the night, imagination, like
+a magic lantern, flung a dozen febriletinctured pictures, and
+I particularly recollect conceiving that I was my own soul at the
+bottom of the ocean in the ship; that, in the green twilight of
+the valley in which I was, I saw many forms of dead men standing or
+lying or sitting, preserving the postures in which they had come
+floating down into the darkly gleaming profound--figures of sailors
+of different centuries clad in the garb of their times, intermixed
+with old ordnance making coarse and rusty streaks upon the sand,
+the glitter of minted money, the gleam of jewels, and fish brightly
+apparelled and of shapes unknown to man floating round about like
+fragments of rainbow. My dreams always wound up with imaginations
+of babbling drinks, and then I'd wake with the froth upon my lips.
+However, I got some ease by leaving my handkerchief to soak in the
+dew and then sucking it.
+
+Several times during the night I had got on to the upper poop--the
+deck above the poop anciently termed the poop-royal--and looked
+around me. But there was nothing to see, not a shadow to catch the
+eye. The breeze freshened somewhat about midnight, and the air
+was made pleasant by the musical noises of running waters. I fell
+asleep an hour before dawn, and when I awoke the early ashen line
+was brightening in the east. The birth of the day is rapid in those
+parallels, and the light of the morning was soon all over sea and
+sky. I turned to search the ocean, and the first thing I saw was a
+brig not above half a mile from the island. She had studding sails
+set, and was going north, creeping along before the breeze. The
+instant I saw her I rushed on to the poop, where my figure would be
+best seen, and fell to flourishing my handkerchief like a maniac.
+I sought to shout, but my voice was even weaker than it had been
+after I fell overboard. I have no power to describe my feelings
+while I waited to see what the brig would do. I cursed myself for
+not having kept a lookout, so that I might have had plenty of time
+to signal to her as she approached. If she abandoned me I knew I
+must perish, as every instant assured me that I had neither mental
+nor physical power to undergo another day and night without drink
+and without hope upon the island.
+
+On a sudden she hauled up the lee clew of her mainsail, boom-ended
+her studding sails, and put her helm over. I knew what this signified,
+and, clasping my hands, I looked up to God.
+
+Presently a boat was lowered and pulled toward the island. I dropped
+over the side, tumbling down upon my nose in my weakness, and made
+with trembling legs to the beach, standing, in my eagerness, in
+the very curl of the wash there. There were three men in the boat,
+and they eyed me, as they rowed, over their shoulders as if I had
+been a spectre.
+
+"Who are you, mate, and what country is this?" exclaimed the man
+who pulled stroke, standing up to stretch his hand to me.
+
+I pointed to my throat, and gasped, "Water!" I could barely
+articulate.
+
+Nothing in this wide world moves sailors like a cry to them for
+water. In an instant the three men had dragged me into the boat,
+and were straining like horses at their oars, as they sent the boat
+flashing through the rippling water. We dashed alongside.
+
+"He's dying of thirst!" was the cry.
+
+I was bundled on deck; the captain ran below, and returned with a
+small draught of wine and water.
+
+"Start with that," said he. "You'll be fitter for a longer pull
+later on."
+
+The drink gave me back my voice; yet for a while I could scarce
+speak, for the tears that swelled my heart.
+
+"Are there any more of ye?" said the captain.
+
+I answered, "No."
+
+"But what land's this?" he inquired.
+
+"An island uphove by an earthquake," said I.
+
+"Great thunder!" he cried. "And what's that arrangement in shells
+and weeds atop of it?"
+
+"A vessel that's probably been three hundred years at the bottom,"
+I answered.
+
+"The quake rose it, hey?"
+
+"Just as it is," said I.
+
+"Well, boil me," cried the worthy fellow, "if it don't seem too good
+to be true! Mr. Fletcher, trim sail, sir. Best shove along--shove
+along. Come, sir, step below with me for a rest and a bite, and
+give me your tale."
+
+A warily eaten meal with another sup of wine and water made me a
+new man. We sat below a long while, I telling my story, he making
+notes and talking of the credit he would get for bringing home a
+report of a new country, when suddenly the mate put his head into
+the skylight.
+
+"Captain!"
+
+"Hillo!"
+
+"The island's gone, sir."
+
+"What d' ye mean? that we've sunk it?"
+
+"No, by the Lord; but that it's sunk itself."
+
+We ran on deck, and where the island should have been was all clear
+sea.
+
+The captain stared at the water, with his mouth wide open.
+
+"Nothing to report after all!" he cried.
+
+"I saw it founder!" exclaimed the mate. "I had my eye on it when
+it sank. I've seen some foundering in my day; but this beats all
+my going a-fishing!"
+
+"Well," said the captain to me, "we didn't come too soon, sir."
+
+I hid my face in my hands.
+
+The Susan Gray was the name of the brig that rescued me. The
+Hercules saw the first of the island, and the Susan Gray the last
+of it. Hence, as I said at the start, it was reported by two vessels
+only.
+
+
+
+
+QUARANTINE ISLAND
+
+BY SIR WALTER BESANT
+
+
+"No!" he cried, passionately. "You drew me on; you led me to believe
+that you cared for me; you encouraged me! What! can a girl go on
+as you have done without meaning anything? Does a girl allow a
+man to press her hand--to keep her hand--without meaning anything?
+Unless these things mean nothing, you are the most heartless girl
+in the whole world; yes--I say the coldest, the most treacherous,
+the most heartless!" It was evening, and moonlight; a soft and
+delicious night in September. The waves lapped gently at their
+feet, the warm breeze played upon their faces, the moon shone upon
+them--an evening wholly unfit for such a royal rage as this young
+gentleman (two and twenty is still young) exhibited. He walked
+about on the parade, which was deserted except for this solitary
+pair, gesticulating, waving his arms, mad with the madness of
+wounded love.
+
+She sat on one of the seaside benches, her hands clasped, her head
+bent, overwhelmed and frightened and remorseful. He went on: he
+recalled the day when first they met; he reminded her of the many,
+many ways in which she had led him on to believe that she cared
+for him; he accused her of making him love her in order to laugh
+at him. When he could find nothing more to say, he flung himself
+upon the bench,--but on the other end of it,--and crossed his arms,
+and dropped his head upon them. So that there were two on the bench,
+one at either end, and both with their heads dropped--a pretty
+picture in the moonlight of a lovers' quarrel. But this was worse
+than a lovers' quarrel. It was the end of everything, for the girl
+was engaged to another man.
+
+She rose. If he had been looking up, he would have seen that there
+were tears in her eyes and on her cheek.
+
+"Mr. Fernie," she stammered, timidly, "I suppose there is nothing
+more to say. I am no doubt all that you have called me. I am
+heartless; I have led you on. Well, but I did not know--how could
+I tell that you were taking things so seriously? How can you be so
+angry just because I can't marry you? One girl is no better than
+another. There are plenty of girls in the world. I thought you
+liked me, and I--but what is the use of talking? I am heartless
+and cold; I am treacherous and vain and cruel, and--and--won't you
+shake hands with me once more, Claude, before we part?"
+
+"No! I will never shake hands with you again; never--never! By
+heavens! nothing that could happen now would ever make me shake
+hands with you again. I hate you, I loathe you, I shudder at the
+sight of you, I could not forgive you--never! You have ruined my
+life. Shake hands with you! Who but a heartless and worthless woman
+could propose such a thing?"
+
+She shivered and shook at his wild words. She could not, as she
+said, understand the vehemence of the passion that held the man.
+He was more than half mad, and she was only half sorry. Forgive
+the girl. She was only seventeen, just fresh from her governess.
+She was quite innocent and ignorant. She knew nothing about the
+reality and vehemence of passion; she thought that they had been
+very happy together. Claude, to be sure, was ridiculously fond of
+taking her hand; once he kissed her head to show the depth of his
+friendship. He was such a good companion; they had had such a
+pleasant time; it was a dreadful pity that he should be so angry.
+Besides, it was not as if she liked the other man, who was old and
+horrid.
+
+"Good-bye, then, Claude," she said. "Perhaps when we meet again you
+will be more ready to forgive me. Oh," she laughed, "it is so silly
+that a man like you--a great, strong, clever, handsome man--should
+be so foolish over a girl! Besides, you ought to know that a girl
+can't have things her own way always. Good-bye, Claude. Won't you
+shake hands?" She laid her hand upon his shoulder,--just touched
+it,--turned, and fled.
+
+She had not far to go. The villa where she lived was within
+five minutes' walk. She ran in, and found her mother alone in the
+drawing-room.
+
+"My dear," the mother said, irritably, "I wish to goodness you
+wouldn't run out after dinner. Where have you been?"
+
+"Only into the garden, and to look at the sea."
+
+"There's Sir William in the dining-room still."
+
+"Let him stay there, mother dear. He'll drink up all the wine and
+go to sleep, perhaps, and then we shall be rid of him."
+
+"Go in, Florence, and bring him out. It isn't good for him, at his
+age, to drink so much."
+
+"Let the servants go," the girl replied, rebellious.
+
+"My dear, your own accepted lover! Have you no right feeling? O
+Florence! and when I am so ill, and you know--I told you--"
+
+"A woman should not marry her grandfather. I've had more than
+enough of him to-day already. You made me promise to marry him.
+Until I do marry he may amuse himself. As soon as we are married,
+I shall fill up all the decanters, and keep them full, and encourage
+him to drink as much as ever he possibly can."
+
+"My dear, are you mad?"
+
+"Oh no! I believe I have only just come to my senses. Mad? No.
+I have been mad. Now, when it is too late, I am sane. When it is
+too late--when I have just understood what I have done."
+
+"Nonsense, child! What do you mean by being too late? Besides, you
+are doing what every girl does. You have accepted the hand of an
+old man who can give you a fine position and a great income and
+every kind of luxury. What more can a girl desire? When I die--you
+know already--there will be nothing--nothing at all for you. Marriage
+is your only chance."
+
+At this moment the door opened, and Sir William himself appeared.
+He was not, although a man so rich, and therefore so desirable,
+quite a nice old man to look at--not quite such an old man as a
+girl would fall in love with at first sight; but perhaps under the
+surface there lay unsuspected virtues by the dozen. He was short
+and fat; his hair was white; his face was red; he had great white
+eyebrows; he had thick lips; his eyes rolled unsteadily, and his
+shoulders lurched; he had taken much more wine than is good for a
+man of seventy.
+
+He held out both hands and lurched forward. "Florenshe," he said,
+thickly, "letsh sit down together somewhere. Letsh talk, my dear."
+
+The girl slipped from the proffered hands and fled from the room.
+
+"Whatsh matter with the girl?" said Sir William.
+
+Out at sea, all by itself, somewhere about thirty miles from a
+certain good-sized island in a certain ocean, there lies another
+little island--an eyot--about a mile long and half a mile broad. It
+is a coral islet. The coral reef stretches out all round it, except
+in one or two places, where the rock shelves suddenly, making it
+possible for a ship to anchor there. The islet is flat, but all
+round it runs a kind of natural sea-wall, about ten feet high and
+as many broad; behind it, on the side which the wall protects from
+the prevailing wind, is a little grove of low, stunted trees, the
+name and kind of which the successive tenants of the island have
+never been curious to ascertain. I am therefore unable to tell you
+what they are. The area protected by the sea-wall, as low as the
+sea-level, was covered all over with long, rank grass. At the
+north end of the islet a curious round rock, exactly like a martello
+tower, but rather higher, rose out of the water, separated from
+the sea-wall by twenty or thirty feet of deep water, dark blue,
+transparent; sometimes rolling and rushing and tearing at the sides
+of the rock, sometimes gently lifting the seaweed that clung to
+the sides. Round the top of the rock flew, screaming all the year
+round, the sea-birds. Far away on the horizon, like a blue cloud,
+one could see land; it was the larger island, to which this place
+belonged. At the south end was a lighthouse, built just like all
+lighthouses, with low white buildings at its foot, and a flagstaff,
+and an enclosure which was a feeble attempt at a flower-garden.
+You may see a lighthouse exactly like it at Broadstairs. In fact,
+it is a British lighthouse. Half a mile from the lighthouse, where
+the sea-wall broadened into a wide, level space, there was a wooden
+house of four rooms--dining-room, salon, and two bedrooms. It was
+a low house, provided with a veranda on either side. The windows
+had no glass in them, but there were thick shutters in case
+of hurricanes. There were doors to the rooms, but they were never
+shut. Nothing was shut or locked up or protected. On the inner or
+land side there was a garden, in which roses (a small red rose)
+grew in quantities, and a few English flowers. The elephant-creeper,
+with its immense leaves, clambered up the veranda poles and over
+the roof. There was a small plot of ground planted pineapples, and
+a solitary banana-tree stood under the protection of the house,
+its leaves blown to shreds, its head bowed down.
+
+Beyond the garden was a collection of three or four huts, where
+lived the Indian servants and their families.
+
+The residents of this retreat--this secluded earthly paradise--were
+these Indian servants with their wives and children; the three
+lighthouse men, who messed together; and the captain, governor, or
+commander-in-chief, who lived in the house all by himself because
+he had no wife or family.
+
+Now the remarkable thing about this island is that, although it
+is so far removed from any other inhabited place, and although it
+is so small, the human occupants number many thousands. With the
+exception of the people above named, these thousands want nothing:
+neither the light of the the day or the warmth of the sun; neither
+food nor drink. They lie side by side under the rank grass, without
+headstones or even graves to mark their place, without a register
+or record of their departure, without even coffins! There they
+lie,--sailors, soldiers, coolies, negroes,--forgotten and lost as
+much as if they had never been born. And if their work lives after
+them, nobody knows what that work is. They belong to the vast army
+of the Anonymous. Poor Anonymous! They do all the work. They grow
+our corn and breed our sheep; they make and mend for us; they build
+up our lives for us. We never know them, nor thank them, nor think
+of them. All over the world, they work for their far-off brethren;
+and when one dies, we know not, because another takes his place.
+And at the last a mound of green grass, or even nothing but an
+undistinguished strip of ground!
+
+Here lay, side by side, the Anonymous--thousands of them. Did
+I say they were forgotten? Not quite; they are remembered by the
+two or three Indian women, wives of the Indian servants, who live
+there. At sunset they and their children retreat to their huts,
+and stay in them till sunrise next morning. They dare not so much
+as look outside the door, because the place is crowded with white,
+shivering, sheeted ghosts! Speak to one of these women; she will
+point out to you, trembling, one, two, half a dozen ghosts. It
+is true that the dull eye of the Englishman can see nothing. She
+sees them--distinguishes them one from the other. She can see them
+every night; yet she can never overcome her terror. The governor,
+or captain, or commander-in-chief, for his part, sees nothing.
+He sleeps in his house quite alone, with his cat and dog, windows
+and doors wide open, and has no fear of any ghosts. If he felt any
+fear, of course he would be surrounded and pestered to death every
+night with multitudes of ghosts; but he fears nothing. He is a
+doctor, you see; and no doctor ever yet was afraid of ghosts.
+
+How did they come here--this huge regiment of dead men? In several
+ways. Cholera accounts for most, yellow fever for some, other
+fevers for some, but for the most cholera has been the destroyer.
+Because, you see, this is Quarantine Island. If a ship has cholera
+or any other infectious disease on board, it cannot touch at the
+island close by, which is a great place for trade, and has every
+year a quantity of ships calling; the infected ship has to betake
+herself to Quarantine Island, where her people are landed, and
+where they stay until she has a clear bill; and that sometimes is
+not until the greater part of her people have changed their berths
+on board for permanent lodgings ashore. Now you understand. The
+place is a great cemetery. It lies under the hot sun of the tropics.
+The sky is always blue; the sun is always hot. It is girdled by
+the sea. It is always silent; for the Indian children do not laugh
+or shout, and the Indian women are too much awed by the presence
+of the dead to wrangle; always silent, save for the crying of the
+sea-birds on the rock. There are no letters, no newspapers, no
+friends, no duties--none save when a ship puts in; and then, for
+the doctor, farewell rest, farewell sleep, until the bill of health
+is clean. Once a fortnight or so, if the weather permits and if the
+communications are open,--that is, if there is no ship there,--a boat
+arrives from the big island with rations and letters and supplies.
+Sometimes a visitor comes, but not often, because, should an
+infected ship put in, he would have to stay as long as the ship.
+A quiet, peaceful, monotonous life for one who is weary of the
+world, or for a hermit; and as good as the top of a pillar for
+silence and for meditation.
+
+The islet lay all night long in much the same silence which lapped
+and wrapped it all the day. The water washed musically upon the
+shore; the light in the lighthouse flashed at intervals; there was
+no other sign of life. Toward six o'clock in the morning the dark
+east grew gray; thin, long white rays shot out across the sky, and
+then the light began to spread. Before the gray turned to pink or
+the pink to crimson, before there was any corresponding glow in the
+western sky, the man who occupied the bungalow turned out of bed,
+and came forth to the veranda, clad in the silk pajamas and silk
+jacket which formed the evening or dress suit in which he slept.
+The increasing light showed that he was a young man still, perhaps
+about thirty--a young man with a strong and resolute face and
+a square forehead. He stood under the veranda watching, as he had
+done every day for two years or more, the break of day and the
+sunrise. He drank in the delicious breeze, cooled by a thousand
+miles and more of ocean. No one knows the freshness and sweetness
+of the air until he has so stood in the open and watched the dawn
+of a day in the tropics. He went back to the house, and came out
+again clad in a rough suit of tweeds and a helmet. His servant
+was waiting for him with his morning tea. He drank it, and sallied
+forth. By this time the short-lived splendour of the east was fast
+broadening to right and left, until it stretched from pole to pole.
+Suddenly the sun leaped up and the colours fled and the splendour
+vanished. The sky became all over a deep, clear blue, and round
+about the sun was a brightness which no eye but that of the sea-bird
+can face and live. The man in the helmet turned to the sea-shore,
+and walked briskly along the natural mound or sea-wall. Now and
+then he stepped down upon the white coral sand, picked up a shell,
+looked at it, and threw it away. When he came to the sea-birds'
+rock, he sat down and watched it. In the deep water below, sea-snakes,
+red and purple and green, were playing about; the bluefish, who
+are not in the least afraid of the snakes, rolled lazily round and
+round the rock; in the recesses lurked unseen the great conger-eel,
+which dreads nothing but the thing of long and horny tentacles,
+the ourite or squid: round and round the rock darted the humourous
+tazaar, which bites the bathers in shallow waters all for fun and
+mischief, and with no desire at all to eat their flesh; and besides
+these a thousand curious creatures, which this man, who had trained
+his eyes by days and days of watching, came here every day to look
+at. While he stood there the sea-birds took no manner of notice
+of him, flying close about him, lighting on the shore close at his
+feet. They were intelligent enough to know that he was only dangerous
+with a gun in his hand. Presently he got up and continued his walk.
+All round the sea-wall of the island measures about three miles.
+He took this walk every morning and every evening in the early cool
+and the late. The rest of the time he spent indoors.
+
+When he got back it was nearly seven, and the day was growing hot.
+He took his towels, went down to the shore, to a place where the
+coral reef receded, leaving a channel out to the open. The channel
+swarmed with sharks, but he bathed there every morning, keeping in
+the shallow water while the creatures watched him from the depths
+beyond with longing eyes. He wore a pair of slippers on account
+of the laf, which is a very pretty little fish indeed to look at;
+but he lurks in dark places near the shore, and he is too lazy to
+get out of the way, and if you put your foot near him he sticks
+out his dorsal fin, which is prickly and poisoned; and when a man
+gets that into the sole of his foot he goes home and cuts his leg
+off, and has to pretend that he lost it in action.
+
+When he had bathed, the doctor went back to his house, and performed
+some simple additions to his toilet. That is to say, he washed the
+salt water out of his hair and beard; not much else. As to collars,
+neckties, braces, waistcoats, black coats, rings, or any such
+gewgaws, they were not wanted on this island. Nor are watches and
+clocks; the residents go by the sun. The doctor got up at daybreak,
+and took his walk, as you have seen, and his bath. He was then
+ready for his breakfast, a solid meal, in which fresh fish, newly
+caught that morning, and curried chicken, with claret and water,
+formed the principal part. A cup of coffee came after, with a cigar
+and a book on the veranda. By this time the sun was high, and the
+glare of forenoon had succeeded the coolness of the dawn. After
+the cigar the doctor went indoors. The room was furnished with a
+few pictures, a large bookcase full of books, chiefly medical, a
+table covered with papers, and two or three chairs. No curtains,
+carpets, or blinds; the doors and windows wide open to the veranda
+on both sides.
+
+He sat down and began writing; perhaps he was writing a novel. I think
+no one could think of a more secluded place for writing a novel.
+Perhaps he was doing something scientific. He continued writing
+till past midday. When he felt hungry, he went into the dining-room,
+took a biscuit or two, and a glass of vermuth. Then, because it
+was now the hour for repose, and because the air outside was hot,
+and the sea-breeze had dropped to a dead calm, and the sun was like
+a red-hot glaring furnace overhead, the doctor kicked off his boots,
+threw off his coat, lay down on a grass mat under the mosquito-curtain,
+and instantly fell fast asleep. About five o'clock he awoke and
+got up; the heat of the day was over. He took a long draught of
+cold tea, which is the most refreshing and the coolest drink in the
+world. The sun was now getting low, and the air was growing cool.
+He put on his helmet, and set off again to walk round his domain.
+This done, he bathed again. Then he went home as the sun sank, and
+night fell instantly without the intervention of twilight. They
+served him dinner, which was like his breakfast but for the addition
+of some cutlets. He took his coffee; he took a pipe--two pipes,
+slowly, with a book; he took a whisky-and-soda; and he went to bed.
+I have said that he had no watch; it hung idly on a nail; therefore
+he knew not the time, but it would very likely be about half-past
+nine. However that might be, he was the last person up in this
+ghostly Island of the Anonymous Dead.
+
+This doctor, captain-general, and commandant of Quarantine Island
+was none other than the young man who began this history with a
+row royal and a kingly rage. You think, perhaps, that he had turned
+hermit in the bitterness of his wrath, and for the faults of one
+simple girl had resolved on the life of a solitary. Nothing of
+the kind. He was an army doctor, and he left the service in order
+to take this very eligible appointment, where one lived free, and
+could spend nothing except a little for claret. He proposed to stay
+there for a few years in order to make a little money by means of
+which he might become a specialist. This was his ambition. As for
+that love-business seven years past, he had clean forgotten it,
+girl and all. Perhaps there had been other tender passages. Shall
+a man, wasting in despair, die because a girl throws him over?
+Never! Let him straightway forget her. Let him tackle his work; let
+him put off the business of love--which can always wait--until he
+can approach it once more in the proper spirit of illusion, and
+once more fall to worshipping an angel.
+
+Neither nature nor civilisation ever designed a man's life to be
+spent in monotony. Most of us have to work for our daily bread,
+which is always an episode, and sometimes a pretty dismal episode,
+to break and mark the day. One day there came such a break in the
+monotonous round of the doctor's life. It came in the shape of a
+ship. She was a large steamer, and she steamed slowly.
+
+It was early in the morning, before breakfast. The doctor and one
+of the lighthouse men stood on the landing-place watching her.
+
+"She's in quarantine, doctor, sure as sure," said the man. "I
+wonder what's she's got. Fever, for choice; cholera, more likely.
+Well, we take our chance."
+
+"She's been in bad weather," said the doctor, looking at her
+through his glass. "Look; she's lost her mizzen, and her bows are
+stove in. I wonder what's the meaning of it. She's a transport." She
+drew nearer. "Troops! Well, I'd rather have soldiers than coolies."
+
+She was a transport. She was full of soldiers, time-expired men
+and invalids going home. She was bound from Calcutta to Portsmouth.
+She had met with a cyclone; driven out of her course and battered,
+she was making for the nearest port when cholera broke out on board.
+
+Before nightfall the island was dotted with white tents; a hospital
+was rigged up with the help of the ship's spars and canvas. The
+men were all ashore, and the quarantine doctor, with the ship's
+doctor, was hard at work among the cases, and the men were dropping
+in every direction.
+
+Among the passengers were a dozen ladies and some children. The
+doctor gave up his house to them, and retired to a tent or to the
+lighthouse or anywhere to sleep. Much sleep could not be expected for
+some time to come. He saw the boat land with the ladies on board;
+he took off his hat as they walked past. There were old ladies,
+middle-aged ladies, young ladies. Well, there always is this
+combination. Then he went on with his work. But he had a curious
+sensation, as if something of the past had been revived in his mind.
+It is, however, not an uncommon feeling. And one of the ladies
+changed colour when she saw him.
+
+Then began the struggle for life. No more monotony in Quarantine
+Island. Right and left, all day long, the men fell one after the
+other; day after day more men fell, more men died. The two doctors
+quickly organised their staff. The ship's officers became clinical
+clerks; some of the ladies became nurses. And the men, the rough
+soldiers, sat about in their tents with pale faces, expecting. Of
+those ladies who worked there was one who never seemed weary, never
+wanted rest, never asked for relief. She was at work all day and
+all night in the hospital; if she went out, it was only to cheer
+up the men outside. The doctor was but conscious of her work and of
+her presence; he never spoke to her. When he came to the hospital,
+another nurse received him; if he passed her, she seemed always
+to turn away. At a less troubled time he would have observed this.
+At times he felt again that odd sensation of a recovered past, but
+he regarded it not; he had other things to consider. There is no
+time more terrible for the courage of the stoutest man than a time
+of cholera on board ship or in a little place whence there is no
+escape; no time worse for a physician than one when his science
+is mocked and his skill avails nothing. Day after day the doctor
+fought from morning till night, and far on to the morning again;
+day after day new graves were dug; day after day the chaplain read
+over the new-made graves the service of the dead for the gallant
+lads who thus died, inglorious, for their country.
+
+There came a time, at last, when the conqueror seemed tired
+of conquest; he ceased to strike. The fury of the disease spent
+itself; the cases happened singly, one or two a day instead of ten
+or twenty. The sick began to recover; they began to look about
+them. The single cases ceased; the pestilence was stayed; and they
+sat down to count the cost. There had been on board the transport
+three hundred and seventy-five men, thirty-two officers, a dozen
+ladies, a few children, and the ship's crew. Twelve officers,
+two of the ladies, and a hundred men had perished when the plague
+abated.
+
+"One of your nurses is ill, doctor."
+
+"Not cholera, I do hope."
+
+"No; I believe a kind of collapse. She is at the bungalow. I told
+them I would send you over."
+
+"I will go at once."
+
+He left a few directions, and walked over to the house. It was, he
+found, the nurse who had been of all the most useful and the most
+active. She was now lying hot and feverish, her mind wandering,
+inclined to ramble in her talk. He laid his hand upon her temples;
+he felt her pulse; he looked upon her face; the odd feeling
+of something familiar struck him again. "I don't think it is very
+much," he said. "A little fever. She may have been in the sun; she
+has been working too hard; her strength has given way." He still
+held her wrist.
+
+"Claude," murmured the sick girl, "you are very cruel. I didn't
+know--and a girl cannot always have her own way."
+
+Then he recognised her.
+
+"Good heavens!" he cried, "it is Florence!"
+
+"Not always have her own way," she repeated. "If I could have had
+my own way, do you think I would--"
+
+"Florence!" he said again; "and I did not even recognise her.
+Strange!"
+
+Another of the ladies, the colonel's wife, was standing beside him.
+
+"You know her, doctor?"
+
+"I knew her a long time ago--some years ago--before she married."
+
+"Married? Florence is not married. You must be thinking of some
+one else."
+
+"No. This is Florence Vernon, is it not? Yes. Then she was formerly
+engaged to marry a certain Sir William Duport."
+
+"Oh, I believe there was some talk about an old man who wanted to
+marry her. But she wouldn't have him. It was just before her mother
+died. Did you know her mother?"
+
+"I knew her mother a little when they were living at Eastbourne.
+So she refused the old man, did she? and has remained unmarried.
+Curious! I had almost forgotten her. The sight of her brings back
+the old days. Well, after she has pulled so gallantly through the
+cholera, we cannot have her beaten by a little fever. Refused the
+old man, did she?"
+
+In the dead of night he sat watching by the bedside, the colonel's
+wife with him.
+
+"I had almost forgotten," whispered the lady, "that story of the
+old baronet. She told me about it once. Her mother was ill, and
+anxious about her daughter because she had next to nothing except
+an annuity. The old man offered; he was an unpleasant old man, but
+there was a fine house and everything. It was all arranged. The girl
+was quite a child, and understood nothing. She was to be sold, in
+fact, to this old person, who ought to have been thinking of his
+latter end instead of a pretty girl. Then the mother died suddenly,
+and the girl broke it off. She was a clever girl, and she has been
+teaching. For the last three years she has been in India; now she
+is going home under my charge. She is a brave girl, doctor, and
+a good girl. She has received half a dozen offers, but she has
+refused them all; so I think there must be somebody at home."
+
+"Claude," murmured the girl, wandering, "I never thought you would
+care so much. If I had thought so, I would not have encouraged
+you. Indeed, indeed, I would not. I thought we were only amusing
+ourselves."
+
+"Claude is a pretty name. What is your own Christian name, doctor?"
+asked the colonel's wife, curiously.
+
+"It is--in fact--it is Claude," he replied, blushing; but there
+was not enough light to see his blushes.
+
+"Dear me!" said the colonel's wife.
+
+A few days later the patient, able to sit for a while in the shade
+of the veranda, was lying in a long cane chair. Beside her sat
+the colonel's wife who had nursed her through the attack. She was
+reading aloud to her. Suddenly she stopped. "Here comes the doctor,"
+she said; "and, Florence, my dear, his name, you know, is Claude.
+I think you have got something to talk about with Claude besides
+the symptoms." With these words she laughed, nodded her head, and
+ran into the salon.
+
+The veranda, with its green blinds of cane hanging down, and its
+matting on the floor, and its easy-chairs and tables, made a pretty
+room to look at. In the twilight, the fragile figure, pale, thin,
+dressed in white, would have lent interest even to a stranger. To
+the doctor, I suppose, it was only a "case." He pushed the blinds
+aside and stepped in, strong, big, masterful. "You are much better,"
+he said; "you will very soon be able to walk about. Only be careful
+for a few days. It was lucky that the attack came when it did,
+and not a little earlier when we were in the thick of the trouble.
+Well, you won't want me much longer, I believe."
+
+"No, thank you," she murmured, without raising her eyes.
+
+"I have had no opportunity," he said, standing over her, "of
+explaining that I really did not know who you were, Miss Vernon.
+Somehow I didn't see your face, or I was thinking of other things.
+I suppose you had forgotten me. Anyhow, it was not until the other
+day, when I was called in, that I remembered. But I dare say you
+have forgotten me."
+
+"No; I have not forgotten."
+
+"I thought that long ago you had become Lady Duport."
+
+"No; that did not take place."
+
+"I hear that you have been teaching since your mother's death. Do
+you like it?"
+
+"Yes; I like it."
+
+"Do you remember the last time we met--on the sea-shore? Do you
+remember, Florence?" His voice softened suddenly. "We had a quarrel
+about that old villain; do you remember?"
+
+"I thought you had forgotten such a little thing as that long ago,
+and the girl you quarrelled with."
+
+"The point is rather whether you remember. That is of much more
+importance."
+
+"I remember that you swore that you would never forgive a worthless
+girl who had ruined your life. Did I ruin your life, Dr. Fernie?"
+
+He laughed. He could not honestly say that she had. In fact, his
+life, so far as concerned his work, had gone on much about the
+same. But then, such a man does not allow love to interfere with
+his career.
+
+"And then you went and threw over the old man. Florence, why didn't
+you tell me that you were going to do that? You might have told
+me."
+
+She shook her head. "Until you fell into such a rage, and called
+me such dreadful names, I did not understand."
+
+"Why didn't you tell me, Florence?" he repeated.
+
+She shook her head again.
+
+"You were only a little innocent, ignorant child then," he said;
+"of course you could not understand. I was an ass and a brute and
+a fool not to know."
+
+"You said you would never forgive me. You said you would never
+shake hands with me again."
+
+He held out his hand. "Since," he said, "you are not going to
+marry the old man, and since you are not engaged to anybody else,
+why--then--in that case--the old state of things is still going
+on; and--and--Florence--but if you give me your hand, I shall keep
+it, mind."
+
+"Dear me!" said the colonel's wife, standing in the doorway. "Do
+quarantine doctors always kiss their patients? But you told me,
+doctor dear, that your Christian name was Claude; didn't you? That
+explains everything."
+
+The ship, with those of her company whom the plague had spared,
+presently steamed away, and, after being repaired, made her way to
+Portsmouth dockyard. But one of her company stayed behind, and is
+now queen or empress of the island of which her husband is king,
+captain, commandant, and governor-general, and also resident
+quarantine doctor.
+
+
+
+
+THE ROCK SCORPIONS
+
+(ANONYMOUS)
+
+
+The screw steamer Jenny Jones was lying alongside a coal-hulk at
+Gibraltar one October afternoon. By three o'clock her bunkers were
+nearly filled, and the captain was getting ready for casting off,
+when one of the natives came on board. Captain Hindhaugh looked
+about for something to throw at the visitor, and only the difficulty
+of selecting an efficient missile from a large and varied assortment
+prevented him from letting fly at once.
+
+The "Scorpion" said, "Ah, no, no, Capeetan! No been throw nothin'
+at myself. Beesiness! I'se been com' for beesiness. Big thing,
+Capeetan!"
+
+The last phrase was spoken with such a profound wink that
+Hindhaugh held his hand, and, addressing the man as one would an
+ill-conditioned dog, said, "Don't keep bowing and scraping there,
+you tastrel! Get it out sharp!"
+
+The Scorpion whispered, "No been talk up here. Keep ship one hour,
+two hour, three hour. You'se been com' with me, and I speak you
+somethin' myself."
+
+Like many of his tribe, this interesting native spoke a kind
+of English which is not heard anywhere else on the Mediterranean
+shore. A few of the people on the Rock learn to talk very well to
+our men, but most of those who come about the ships use a picturesque
+lingo in which "myself" takes the place of quite a variety of parts of
+speech.
+
+Hindhaugh invited the man below, and asked him to explain himself.
+The fellow leaned over the table and chattered on, throwing quick
+side glances at every few words.
+
+"This been big thing, Capeetan. You get away a little; drop your
+anchor a little. Then three felucca com' alongside, and you'se been
+hoist bales. Then you 'se go where agent say you. Very big thing.
+Five thousand sovereign."
+
+"What is it? tobacco?"
+
+"That been it."
+
+"Where for?"
+
+"Huelva."
+
+"I'm not going out of Portuguese waters at no price."
+
+"Ah, no, no, Cheesu, Capeetan--no! Five mile. We have felucca there
+ready. I 'se been see him myself."
+
+"What's the figure? what's the money?"
+
+"You com' 'shore and see agent with myself."
+
+Hindhaugh put a revolver in his pocket and went on deck; the
+Scorpion got ashore, and hung about with an air of innocence. The
+captain was about to follow when the man in charge of the hulk
+called out, "Do you intend to keep bumping us like this all night?
+Why don't you cast off? You're knocking us all to flinders."
+
+Hindhaugh beckoned. "Look here, my good chap, it won't matter to
+you for a couple of hours. Let us lie till dusk, and then I'll
+get away. I've got important business ashore."
+
+"That's very well, Captain. But look here; if there's anything on,
+I'm in it. You understand--I'm in it."
+
+"You understand that, do you? Well then, I'll tell you to keep
+your mouth shut just now, or never another ton of coal will you
+put aboard of us as long as I run here."
+
+"All right, Captain. No need to be nasty. You'll do the square
+thing, I bet."
+
+Then Hindhaugh went ashore, and the Scorpion walked on ahead,
+gazing on architectural beauties with easy interest. Presently the
+two men came to a narrow stairway, and the Englishman gripped his
+revolver. A dark-eyed Spaniard was waiting on a landing, and held
+up two fingers when the guide passed. The Scorpion knocked at
+a greasy door, and an ugly fellow, with a cowl on, looked out and
+nodded. Hindhaugh stepped into a room that reeked with garlic and
+decay. Two men sat in the steamy dusk at the far side. An oily
+gentleman rose and bowed. "I'm the interpreter, Captain. You and
+this merchant must do your business through me. What'll you take
+to drink?"
+
+"Get through your business, mister. I'm not wanting any drink."
+
+In brief, jerky sentences the interpreter explained what was wanted.
+
+"You steam slowly till you're near the Fleet. Then put all your
+men on and get the stuff up. This man goes with you, and he'll
+tell you where to go. Lie five miles off Huelva."
+
+"I sha'n't go except to Portuguese waters."
+
+"Good. Then the lighters will come and the men will discharge
+you."
+
+"And now," said the captain, "what about me? How much?"
+
+"One hundred and twenty pounds."
+
+"Can't be done. Make it two hundred and fifty."
+
+After some haggling, a bargain was made for two hundred and twenty.
+Then Hindhaugh went further: "I want one hundred and ten down before
+we start, and the balance before you take an ounce of tobacco out
+of us."
+
+This was settled; the merchant bowed, and the skipper went away,
+still keeping his hand on the revolver. Every cranny in the walls
+seemed fit to hide a murderer--seemed made for nothing else; and
+Hindhaugh thought what a fool he must have been to venture under
+that foul arch.
+
+On getting aboard, the captain sent for his brother, who sailed
+as mate with him. He said, "Now, Jack, I'm going to run some risk.
+You take this pistol, and get her oiled and put right. When you see
+three feluccas coming alongside, get all the chaps on deck--the Dora's
+crew as well as ours." (Hindhaugh was taking home a ship-wrecked
+crew, and he was very grateful just then for that accession of
+force.) "Whack on everything you know, and get the bales up sharp.
+Tell the engineers to stand by for driving her, and leave the rest
+to me. If we're nailed we'll be detained, and I don't know what
+may happen; so you'll have to look slippy."
+
+Jack replied, "All right, sir!" Quarter-deck manners were punctiliously
+observed by one of the brothers.
+
+The shadows fell low, and the crown of the Rock grew dim.
+The creeping wind stole over the Pearl Rock, and set the sinister
+ripples dancing; the bugles sang mysteriously through the gloom,
+and the mystery of the night was in the air. The Jenny Jones stole
+quietly toward the broad sheet of water where the vessels of the
+Fleet heaved up their shadowy bulk above the lapping flood. All the
+English sailors were stripped to the shirt, and a low hum of excited
+talk came from amidships. Suddenly the raking yard of a felucca
+started out from amid the haze; then came another, and another.
+A sailor slipped a cork fender over the side, and there was a
+muffled bump and a slight scrape. Jack, the mate, whispered, "Now,
+you cripples!" and a brief scene of wild hurry and violent labour
+ensued. Bale after bale was whisked aboard; the Englishmen worked
+as only English sailors can, and the Scorpions excelled themselves
+under the influence of fear and black wine. When the last bale was
+up, Hindhaugh said to the man who first boarded him, "Who's got
+the money?"
+
+"Me, Capeetan. All right. Honest man myself. You'se been have
+every dollar."
+
+"Well then, it's neck or nothing. We have half an hour to clear
+out into the Gut. Come below, and shell out."
+
+The Scorpion counted out one hundred pounds in gold, and then asked,
+"That be enough? Other money all right other end."
+
+"Deuce a bit! Down with the other ten or I sliver you."
+
+The Scorpion did not know what "sliver" meant, but the gleam of
+the skipper's cold eye was enough for him. He paid up and went on
+deck.
+
+Hindhaugh had just said to the engineer, "Now, rive the soul out
+of her," when a low, panting sound was heard, and a white shape
+appeared gliding over the water. The captain had let the feluccas
+go, and the Jenny Jones was moving. He waved for the mate. "It's
+all up. Here's a mess. You must go home overland; suppose you swim
+ashore. Steady the men down."
+
+Jack performed one or two steps of a dance, and placed his finger
+against his nose. He rather enjoyed a scrape, did this frivolous
+chief officer. The white shape came nearer, and a sharp whistle
+sounded. Hindhaugh had known well enough that it was a steam-launch
+that made the panting noise, and he got ready for the worst. The
+launch drew right across the bows of the steamer, and then the
+throbbing of the little engines ceased. Again the whistle sounded;
+the launch gave a bound forward; then she struck away into the
+darkness, and Hindhaugh drew a long breath.
+
+In an instant every possible ounce of steam was put on, and the
+Jenny Jones went away at eleven knots toward the Gut. All night
+long the firemen were kept hard at it, and before morning the Rock
+was far astern of the driving steamboat.
+
+Three of the Scorpions had stayed aboard, and Captain Hindhaugh
+noticed that they earned their knives. He noticed, too, that the
+cringing manner which the fellows had shown before the Rock was
+cleared had given place to a sort of subdued swagger.
+
+About noon the engines were slowed down almost to nothing, and
+the Jenny Jones crept gently on toward the shore. By four o'clock
+the vessel was well into Portuguese waters, and Hindhaugh was
+prepared to defy any quantity of Spanish coast-guards. When the
+sun had dipped low the Scorpion-in-chief came aft, and pointed
+mysteriously to the northeast.
+
+"You'se been look where I point myself. Feluccas! You'se follow
+them in and drop anchor."
+
+Hindhaugh smiled. "Do you think you're talking to a fool? Come you
+below there, and let me have that other money sharp."
+
+"Ah, Capeetan, wait till agent's man come with felucca. I'se been
+have no money myself."
+
+Hindhaugh was not a person to be trifled with. He quietly took
+out his revolver. "Now, do you see that pretty thing? First shot
+for you. Look at that block forrad, and see how much chance you'll
+have if I fire at you." The pop of the revolver sounded, and then
+Hindhaugh went forward, pulling the Scorpion with him. "Do you see
+that hole, you image? How would you like if that was your gizzard?
+Now, no games, my joker."
+
+The Scorpion begged for time, and Hindhaugh was so sure of his
+man that he made no further objection. He had another conference
+with Jack, and, to that worthy man's great delight, he expressed
+certain forebodings.
+
+"We're going to have a fight over this job," said the skipper. "I'm
+dead sure of it. Go down and load the two muskets, and give them
+to the safest men. When the lighters DO come, borrow the fireman's
+iron rods. I've lent the steward my bowie that I got at Charleston,
+and you can try and hold that old bulldog straight. We mustn't show
+the least sign of funking."
+
+Then Hindhaugh and his brother called for tea, and fed solidly.
+
+The Scorpion whispered down the companion, "They'se been com'," and
+the captain went on deck. Two large felucca-rigged lighters hove
+up slowly through the dusk, and the chief Scorpion's signal was
+answered. Hindhaugh saw both lighters draw near, he felt the usual
+scraping bump, and then he heard a sudden thunder of many feet.
+The second mate sung out, "Here's half a hundred of these devils,
+sir. They're all armed to the teeth." And sure enough, a set of
+ferocious-looking rapscallions had boarded the steamer. They looked
+like low-class Irishmen browned with walnut-juice. Each man had
+a heavy array of pistols in his sash, and all of them carried ugly
+knives. The Scorpion waved to the gang, and they arranged themselves
+around the pile of bales that stuck out through the after-hatch.
+Hindhaugh had fully discounted all the chances, and had made up
+his mind to one thing: he wouldn't be "done."
+
+The Scorpion imperiously observed, "Come below, Capeetan," and
+Hindhaugh went. Then the defiant native of the Rock put his back
+against the cabin door, heaved out his chest in a manly way, and
+said, "Now, Capeetan, you no have more money. You speak much, and
+I'se been get your throat cut myself."
+
+"You've got no money?"
+
+"No; not a damn dollar."
+
+"You won't keep to your bargain?"
+
+"No; you come 'shore for your money if you want him."
+
+Hindhaugh made up his mind in a flash. In spite of his habit of
+wearing a frock-coat and tall hat, he was more than half a pirate,
+and he would have ruffled it, like his red-bearded ancestors, had
+fighting been still the usual employment of Norsemen. He marked his
+man's throat, and saw that the insolent hands could not get at a
+knife quickly. Then he sprang at the Scorpion, gripped him by the
+windpipe, and swung him down. The fellow gurgled, but he couldn't
+cry out. Hindhaugh called the steward, and that functionary came
+out of his den with the long bowie. "Sit on him," said the captain.
+"If he stirs cut his throat. Now, you, if you move a finger you're
+done." The steward straddled across the Scorpion, and held the
+knife up in a sarcastic way.
+
+Hindhaugh went swiftly on deck, and stepped right among the jabbering
+Spaniards. He smiled as though nothing had happened, but when he
+saw one man lay hold of a bale he pulled him back. "Tell them I'll
+shoot the first man that tries to lift a bale till I'm ready."
+
+This message brought on a torrent of talk, which gave the captain
+time. He whispered to Jack, "Sneak you round through the engine-room.
+That lighter's made fast forrad; the second one's fast here. Get
+a hatchet from the carpenter, and set him alongside of the second
+rope. When I whistle twice, both of you nick the ropes, and we'll
+jink these swindling swine." The engineer also received orders to
+go full speed ahead on the instant that the whistle sounded.
+
+Hindhaugh kept up his air of good-humour, although the full sense
+of the risk he ran was in his mind. His threat of shooting had made
+the Spaniards suspicious, although they were used to big talk of
+the kind. One peep into the cabin would have brought on a collision,
+and although the Englishmen might have fought, there was nothing
+to gain by a fight. Everything depended on swiftness of action, and
+Hindhaugh determined grimly that if rapidity could do anything he
+would teach the "furriners" a lesson for trying to swindle him.
+
+He said, very politely, "We're all ready now. You get your men
+aboard the lighters, and we'll soon rash your cargo over the side."
+This was transmitted to the smugglers, and immediately they swarmed
+aboard their own boats. They had rather expected a quarrel, and
+this pacific solution pleased them. As Jack afterward said, "They
+blethered like a lot o' wild geese."
+
+All the foreigners were gone but three. Hindhaugh stepped quietly
+up to the interpreter, and said, very low, "I'm covering you with
+my revolver from inside my pocket. Don't you stir. Is that other
+money going to be paid?"
+
+The interpreter had been innocent of all knowledge of the wild
+work in the cabin. He stammered, "I thought by your way it was all
+right. Where's our man?"
+
+"I've got him safe enough. Ask those fellows in the lighters if any
+of them can pay the freight for the job. If you tell them to fire
+they may miss me, and I can't miss you."
+
+No one, not even the consignee's man, had any money; the smugglers
+meant to trick the Revenue, and the English captain as well.
+Hindhaugh whistled, and then roared out, "Lie down, all of you! Ram
+her ahead!" The hatchets went crack, crack; the steamer shuddered
+and plunged forward; and the lighters bumped swiftly astern.
+
+"Over the side, you animals, or I'll take you out to sea and drown
+you."
+
+The three Spaniards rushed to the side, and took flying leaps into
+the lighters. Hindhaugh stooped low and ran to the companion. "Let
+that beggar up," he shouted. The Scorpion scuttled on deck. "Now,
+mister, I'll let you see if you'll take me in. Over you go. Over
+the stern with you, and mind the propeller doesn't carve you." Two
+shots were fired, but they went wild. The Scorpion saw the whole
+situation; he poised for a second on the rail, and then jumped
+for it, and Hindhaugh laughed loudly as his enemy came up blowing.
+Jack performed a triumphal war-dance on the steamer's bridge, and
+the Jenny Jones was soon far out of pistol range.
+
+All that night Captain Hindhaugh did not sleep a wink. He was quite
+persuaded that he had acted the part of an exemplary Briton. What
+is the use of belonging to the ruling race if a mere foreigner is
+to do as he likes with you? But the adventurous skipper had landed
+himself in a pretty mess, and the full extent of his entanglement
+grew on him every minute. At twelve o'clock, when the watch was
+relieved, Jack came aft in a state of exultation that words cannot
+describe. He chuckled out, "Well, sir, we've made our fortunes
+this time." Hindhaugh damped his spirits by saying, slowly, "Not
+too fast; that 'baccy's got to go overboard, my boy." Jack's mental
+processes became confused. He had been measuring the cubic contents
+of the smuggled goods, and the thought of wasting such a gift of
+the gods fairly stunned him. Had it been cotton, his imagination
+would not have been touched. But 'baccy! and overboard! It was
+too much, and he groaned. He was ready with expedients at once.
+
+"Why not run it to Holland?"
+
+"Can't be done; where's our bill of lading?"
+
+"Make up one yourself; you have plenty of forms."
+
+"And suppose the luck goes the wrong way. What's to happen to
+me--and to you too for that matter?"
+
+"Run to a tobacco port, and warehouse the stuff in your own name."
+
+"We're not bound for a tobacco port. What's to be done about the
+cargo of ore that we are carrying? No, John; the whole five thousand
+pounds must go over the side."
+
+Next morning broke joyously. The sea looked merry with miles of
+brisk foam, and the little Portuguese schooners flew like butterflies
+hither and thither. Every cloud of spray plucked from the dancing
+crests flashed like white fire under the clear sun. It was one of
+the mornings when one cannot speak for gladness. But Hindhaugh's
+thoughts were fixed on material things. The rich bales lay there,
+and their presence affected him like a sarcasm. The men were called
+aft, and the shovels used for trimming grain were brought up. Then
+the captain said, "Now each of you take a pound or two of this
+tobacco, and then break the bales and shovel the rest overboard."
+The precious packages were burst, and the sight of the beautiful
+leaf, the richness of the tender aroma, affected the sailors with
+remorse. It was like offering up a sacrifice. But the captain's
+orders were definite; so until near noon the shovels were plied
+smartly, and one hundredweight after another of admirable tobacco
+drifted away on the careless sea.
+
+Hindhaugh watched grimly until at last his emotions overcame him.
+He growled, "Confound it, I can't do it! Belay there, men; I'll have
+another think over this job." And think he did, with businesslike
+solemnity, all day long. He saw that he might make a small fortune
+by risking his liberty, and the curious morality of the British
+sailor prevented him from seeing shades of right or wrong where
+contraband business was concerned. Had you told him that the
+tobacco was stolen, he would have pitched you overboard; he felt
+his morality to be unimpeachable; it was only the question of
+expediency that troubled him. For three days it was almost unsafe
+to go near him, so intently did he ponder and plan. On the fifth
+day he had worked his way through his perplexities, and was ready
+with a plan. A pilot cutter came in sight, and Hindhaugh signalled
+her. The pilot's boat was rowed alongside, and the bronzed and
+dignified chief swaggered up to the captain with much cordiality.
+No one is so cordial as a pilot who has secured a good ship. The
+two men exchanged news, and gradually slid into desultory talk.
+Suddenly Hindhaugh said, "Are you game for a bit of work? Do you
+ever DO anything?"
+
+The pilot was virtuously agitated. He drew himself up, and, taking
+care that the mate should hear, answered, "Me! Not for the wurrrld,
+Cap'n. I've got a wife and children, sir."
+
+"All right, Pilot, never mind; come down and have some tea."
+
+Then Hindhaugh gradually drew his man out, until the pilot
+was absolutely confidential. The captain knew by the very excess
+of purity expressed in the pilot's first answer that he was not
+dealing with a simpleton; but he carefully kept away from the main
+subject which was in his (and the pilot's) mind. At last the man
+leaned over and gave a masonic sign. "What was that job you was
+speaking about, Cap'n? We're near home now, you know. Better not
+go too near."
+
+Hindhaugh played a large card. He smiled carelessly. "Fact is, I've
+just told the fellows to shy the stuff overboard; I shall risk no
+more."
+
+"Mercy me, Cap'n! You're mad. How did I know who you were? I see
+all about it now, but I did not know what game you might have on
+with me. I'm in it, you know, if the dimes is right!"
+
+"How?"
+
+"Why, if the job's big enough. You stand off for a day; go down to
+the Sleeve, and hang round, and I'll find you a customer."
+
+"If you do, I pay you three hundred pound as soon as his money's
+down."
+
+"Done, then. My boat's not gone far. Whistle her, and I'll go slap
+for Bristol. Never you mind for a day or two. How's your coals?"
+
+"They're all right. You scoot now, and fetch your man over this
+way. I'll go half-speed to the sou'west for twelve hours, another
+twelve hours half-speed back. You'll find us."
+
+In thirty-six hours the pilot cutter came back, and a Hebrew
+gentleman boarded the Jenny Jones from her. After a long inspection,
+the visitor said, "Now look here, I must have a hundred per cent.
+margin out of this. What's your figure?"
+
+"Two thousand five hundred."
+
+"Won't do. Say two thousand, and you pay the jackal out of that."
+
+"Done. And how do you manage?"
+
+"I'll split the lot up among three trawlers. You wait off, and
+give the jackal an extra fifty for bringing the boats down. I risk
+the rest."
+
+Another night passed, and the dawn was breaking coldly when the
+dirty sails of the trawlers came in sight. Ship after ship had
+hailed Hindhaugh, and offered to tow him if anything had happened
+to his engines. He knew he would be reported as lying off apparently
+disabled, and he was in a feverish state of excitement. The Hebrew
+speculator watched the last bale down the side, and then handed over
+the money, had a glass of brandy with the pilot, and departed--whither
+Hindhaugh neither knew nor cared. The Jenny Jones ran for her
+port. She had just slowed down, and the great waves of smoke from
+the town were pouring over her, when two large boats, heavily
+laden with men, came off to her. The men swarmed up the side, and
+the officer in command shouted, "Bring up the pickaxes, and go to
+work!" The hatches were pulled off before the steamer had taken up
+her moorings, and the men went violently to work among the ore.
+Hindhaugh looked innocent, and inquired, "What's all this about,
+officer?"
+
+"Fact is, Captain, we've got a telegram from Gibraltar to say you
+have contraband on board. You may save all trouble if you make a
+clean breast."
+
+"Contraband! Who told you that?"
+
+"Oh, we should have known without the wire. That gentleman on the
+quay there came overland, and he put us up to you."
+
+Hindhaugh looked ashore, and saw a dark face that he knew well. He
+whistled and smiled. Then he said to the officer, "You may just
+as well stop those poor beggars from blistering their hands. You
+won't find anything here except what the men have in the forecastle.
+You're done this journey fairly. Come away down and liquor, and
+I'll tell you all about it." Then Hindhaugh gave an artistic account
+of the whole transaction, and put the matter in such a light that
+the custom-house officer cordially congratulated him on having
+escaped without a slit weasand.
+
+The Jenny Jones went back to Gibraltar, and Captain Hindhaugh was
+very careful never to go ashore without a companion. One day he
+was passing a chandler's shop when a sunken glitter of dark eyes
+met him. His old acquaintance, the chief Scorpion, was looking
+stilettos and poison at him. But Hindhaugh went by in his big,
+burly way, and contented himself with setting on three watchmen
+every night during his stay. To this day he is pleased with himself
+for having given the foreigners a lesson in the elements of morality,
+and he does not fear their knives one whit.
+
+
+
+
+THE MASTER OF THE "CHRYSOLITE"
+
+BY G. B. O'HALLORAN
+
+
+Captain Anderson stood alone in the world. But he was one who COULD
+stand alone, for his will was strong and his affections were weak.
+Those who thought they knew him best said he was hardy. The remainder
+said he was hard, his heart a stone. Still he was a human being, for,
+like others, he cherished hobbies. His hobbies, however, were not
+of that class which is compassed about by rest and roses. Instead,
+they were clothed with a stern delight born of defiance and danger.
+To work his ship across the Bay in the teeth of an adverse gale; to
+weather a lee shore; to master a rebellious crew single-handed--these
+were the wild diversions which satisfied him. Once, in the China
+seas, his men grew mutinous, said the ship was "leaking like a
+lobster-pot," and straightway put her about for Singapore; swore
+they did not care what the skipper thought--in fact, would like
+to talk to him a bit. The skipper was below when the first mate
+brought down the news and a very pale face as well.
+
+"Tell the men to muster!"
+
+So soon as the mate's back was turned, John Anderson took a revolver
+from a locker and charged it; then, ascending the companion-ladder,
+he walked to the break of the poop, with his hands buried in the
+pockets of a pea-jacket. Down below him were the men, lolling
+about in a sullen crowd on the weather side of the quarter-deck.
+They were thirty or forty in number, and were a vicious-looking
+set.
+
+"Now then, my men! Half an hour ago we were steering due northeast.
+Who was it dared to lay the ship's nose the other way?"
+
+The burly boatswain swung his way out of the crowd, planted his foot
+on the first step of the poop-ladder, and stared up at the captain.
+
+"I did, and be damned to you!" roared he. There was a loud report.
+The boatswain dropped, shot in the leg. And the crew shivered under
+a gleaming eye and a gleaming weapon.
+
+"All hands 'bout ship!" cried the master. The wounded boatswain,
+raising himself for a moment on one hand, piped faintly, and fell
+back unconscious. But the men were already at their stations, and
+in five minutes more the Chrysolite was heading northeast again.
+
+Such incidents as these gave John Anderson an unenviable reputation
+among sailors. It was seldom that the same crew served him twice.
+Two voyages under this tartar were more than could be stood, and
+from his subordinates, therefore, he gained nothing but hatred
+and fear.
+
+It was very difficult, then, to find out where Captain Anderson's
+weakness lay. Everybody, of course, has his weakness. But this man
+appeared to be all strength. His whole life seemed like a rod of
+burnished steel--a passion-proof life, a fire-proof rod. The owners
+of the Chrysolite, Messrs. Ruin & Ruin, of Billiter Street, piqued
+themselves on knowing his tender point. He was avaricious, thought
+they; he would do much for money, and they would some day try him
+in the furnace. It was true, indeed, that the old sailor had amassed
+considerable wealth during his frequent voyages to the East. It
+was true also that he was sparing and saving; that he drove bargains
+to the verge of perdition, and clinched them at the crucial moment.
+But it was equally true that he was free from fraud. His teas were
+what they pretended to be, his silks unimpeachable, and no man
+ever came back upon him with complaints of their genuineness. The
+world allowed that he was at least commercially honourable, but
+felt fully convinced that he was eaten up with the desire for gold.
+
+But the world was wrong. The captain himself was sometimes given
+to metaphysical speculation, and even HE was puzzled to know if
+his heart had a whit more feeling than any other pumping-engine.
+Women he looked upon as frivolities of vanity to which he could
+not reconcile his stern nature; and men he regarded as instruments
+to be rigorously disciplined, not failing at the same time
+to discipline himself. His heart was of no use to him except to
+circulate his blood. In default, therefore, of loving anything,
+he fell naturally to pursuing a difficult task--the piling up of a
+mountain of gold. This was congenial solely because it was difficult,
+and difficulties overcome were his only sources of satisfaction.
+
+Now it happened that a new firm trading to the East, in competition
+with Messrs. Ruin & Ruin, had made advances to Captain Anderson
+with a view to engaging him in their service; and as they offered
+liberal terms, including a handsome percentage, it was not long
+before the old seaman was won over. Here is a chance, thought he, of
+heaping up my mountain so much the more quickly, and I am determined
+that my actions shall not be hampered by sentiment. Notwithstanding
+this last threat, he found it a very unpleasant thing to break with
+his old employers, one of whose ships he had commanded for a score
+of years. But he would get scot-free of them before he finally concluded
+negotiations with the new people. And so it came to pass that one
+morning he walked along Billiter Street with his twenty-year-old
+commission in his pocket.
+
+It is curious how fond real old salts are of dress when ashore.
+Here was John Anderson in a top-hat and kid gloves, looking anything
+but at home in them. The glossy hat was a mockery to his bold
+sea-worn face, and his big knuckles were almost bursting through
+the soft kid with indignation at the affront put upon them.
+
+He reached the chambers in which the firm of Messrs. Ruin & Ruin
+was established, and ascended the staircase, for the office was on
+the second floor. The senior partner was within, and the captain
+was admitted into his room without delay.
+
+"Glad to see you, Captain Anderson," said Mr. Ruin, in an unusually
+cordial tone, at the same time shaking hands. "You've made a capital
+passage, and freighted the Chrysolite well."
+
+Mr. Ruin was a big, fat man who spoke oilily. His clean-shaven
+face was never without the remnants of a smile--a smile, though,
+which was not remarkable for its sincerity. Still, it had its
+value,--in the market,--for it was a commercial smile. A pair of
+small gray eyes were almost hidden by the obese curves of his cheeks;
+but you learned in a very short time that they kept a sharp and
+shrewd lookout from behind those ramparts. The two men sat down at
+opposite sides of the table, the owner guessing from the captain's
+manner that there was something in the wind, and the captain
+thinking his employer's exuberance of civility betokened more than
+was manifest.
+
+"Yes, I brought her a quick passage," replied Anderson; then, looking
+straight at the owner, "and it's the last she'll make under me."
+
+The remnants of a smile coalesced, ploughing up Mr. Ruin's cheeks
+into greasy furrows.
+
+"My dear Captain, we could not hear of it! We're too old friends
+to part like that."
+
+"Well, sir, I've come this morning, for private reasons, to throw
+up my commission," said the captain, simultaneously throwing down
+his commission before the senior partner's eyes.
+
+"I can't accept it, Mr. Anderson; I can't indeed," replied the
+owner, picking up the parchment. "And I'll tell you why. My brother
+and I have been thinking matters over, and we've really been obliged
+to confess, for conscience' sake, that the Chrysolite is getting
+old."
+
+"Devilish old!" muttered the captain, forgetting himself for a
+moment.
+
+"Well, now I think of it again, I believe my brother did say she
+was 'devilish old'--a strange coincidence. Still she is a fine
+model of a boat. What d' ye think yourself?"
+
+"She has rare lines," said the other, with a slight approach to
+grave enthusiasm.
+
+"The very remark I made myself only yesterday. Yes, we agreed she
+was a pretty boat; and I admit, from sheer sentiment, I cannot bear
+to think of her being chopped up for firewood. So inharmonious,
+don't you think?"
+
+The old sailor looked sullen and said nothing.
+
+Mr. Ruin leaned his elbows well on to the table in a confidential
+manner, and reduced his voice to husky whispering.
+
+"My brother told me he should not mind seeing her end her days as
+a picturesque wreck, but to sell her for match-wood was barbarous.
+I was really of the same opinion. And--and--couldn't it be managed
+for her, Captain Anderson?"
+
+The two looked at each other narrowly. "If you can get any one to
+do it, of course it can be done. But _I_ would sooner--"
+
+"Now before you judge, hear me, Captain. I feel sure you could
+find that man if you chose. See; the Chrysolite is insured in
+the Jupiter Insurance Company for nine thousand pounds. Here is
+the policy. And the man that saves her from the axe, and makes a
+picturesque wreck of her, will earn the gratitude of Messrs. Ruin
+& Ruin, and three thousand pounds besides."
+
+For once even the remnants of a smile had disappeared from the
+senior partner's face, and he stood confessed--the type of a cool
+financial scoundrel.
+
+The sailor, on the other hand, was agitated as no one had ever seen
+him before. The veins stood out on his brawny throat like rope;
+his eyelids were purple; for a few moments his head swam. Then he
+righted himself as suddenly, with an emphatic refusal ready on his
+lips. But the wily partner had left the room. This gave Anderson
+time to think, and the more he thought the more that pile of gold
+forced itself before him, until, forsooth, he fell to thinking
+how such an end COULD be compassed--by another commander. He saw
+clearly that a skilful seaman might achieve this thing with slight
+danger to himself and his crew. And all this time the three thousand
+pounds shone so lustrously that his moral vision was dazzled, and
+the huge iniquity of the whole affair was rapidly vanishing from
+sight.
+
+When Mr. Ruin reentered, Anderson was looking ashamed and guilty.
+
+"Well, Captain, can I help you to a conclusion?" came from the
+oily lips.
+
+"It's this way," replied the old man, turning round, but keeping
+his eyes fixed on the carpet; "I can't do it. No, I can't."
+
+Mr. Ruin eyed him dubiously, and rubbed his chin gently. "I'm
+sorry--very, very sorry! Three thousand pounds won't go long begging,
+though. And I shall have to accept your resignation, Captain."
+
+Anderson only took up his hat and walked slowly out of the room.
+He had not descended many steps when he turned back and reopened
+the door.
+
+"No, sir," he said; "it can't be done. I must think it over,
+and--no--it can't be done." With that he went his way, miserable.
+
+The same night he received a letter by post. It contained his old
+commission, reinstating him in the command of the Chrysolite.
+
+Four months later the Chrysolite was unloading a general cargo in
+Mauritius harbour. Captain Anderson had thought it over.
+
+The quay was quickly covered with Manchester bales and Birmingham
+cases; and it was not long before the tackle at the main-yard arm
+was set a-clicking, as the baskets of sand ballast were hove up
+to be poured into the empty hold. No such luxuries were there as
+steam-winches; not any of those modern appliances for lightening
+labour. Instead, five or six hands plied the ponderous work at
+the winch handles, the labour being substantially aggravated by
+the heat of a vertical sun. A spell at the orthodox hand-winch in
+the tropics is an ordeal not to be lightly spoken of, and sailors
+have the very strongest objection to the work. It requires the
+utmost vigilance on the part of the captain, therefore, to prevent
+the feebler spirits from deserting. He was able, however, to reckon
+a full crew as he steered out of Port Louis harbour and shaped his
+course for Ceylon.
+
+Some of the hands had grumbled at not having more liberty to go
+ashore. In an excess of passion, Anderson made answer:
+
+"To your kennels, you dogs! I'll put you ashore soon enough, and
+I'll warrant you'll stay there longer than you care for."
+
+It was indiscreet language, and the men puzzled over it. They
+concluded that the skipper meant to obtain their imprisonment at
+the next British port they should touch for mutinous conduct, and,
+knowing he was a man of his word, they assumed their best behaviour.
+
+Captain Anderson had not changed for the better. Hitherto he had
+maintained a firmness of discipline boarding upon severity, and he
+certainly had never relaxed from that attitude. Now he had become
+an incomprehensible mixture of indulgence and cruelty. The two
+elements were incompatible, and the more intelligent of his officers
+were not long in perceiving that there was a vicious and variable
+wind in their superior's moral atmosphere, under which his canvas
+strained or flapped unaccountably. They imagined, to pursue their
+own figure, that his hand did not grasp the reason tiller with
+its customary grip, and that his bark was left more or less to the
+conflicting guidance of other influences. Many a time since his
+departure from England had the old sailor been stung with remorse
+at the unwritten tenor of his present commission. He would frequently
+try to look the whole thing in the face--would endeavour to account
+for the acceptance of an office against which his whole self
+revolted. He would recite the interview in the Billiter Street
+chambers with his employer, passing rapidly over the preliminary
+parts until he came to the REWARD. No! he was not false enough or
+euphemistic enough to call it a reward; he would regard it as a
+bribe. But he could never get further. He always grounded on his
+reef of gold, and no tide of indignation or regret, no generous
+current of honour, had power to sweep him off again into the
+saving waters. Here the fierce rays of desire shot down upon the
+resplendent heap, whose reflected glory filled the whole vision
+of the water with its lustre. Blame him not too much, nor it. For,
+after all, man is but man, and gold is a thing of comfort.
+
+But had Captain Anderson followed his mental inquiries to a conclusion,
+had he demonstrated to himself the depth of moral degradation into
+which he must be plunged, his pride would never have allowed him
+to do anything but redeem his unuttered word.
+
+As an illustration of the captain's lately acquired habit of indulgence,
+the most remarkable was his treatment of the watch on deck during
+the night. The man on the lookout, for instance, was in the habit
+of going to sleep if the weather made it at all practicable. The
+rest of the watch, some fifteen or twenty hands, followed suit, or
+even skulked back into the fo'castle, there to stretch themselves
+out on their chests and smoke. These things the captain connived
+at, and the men were only too glad of the relief to inquire
+too curiously into his reasons. The main object of a sailing-ship
+sailor is to gain as much sleep as he can by whatever means, and
+in pursuit of this end he will evade even those duties which are
+most essential to the safety of the ship.
+
+One night, during the middle watch, the captain came on deck, and
+took to walking up and down with the second mate. The night was
+clear, though dark. The Chrysolite was close-hauled on the starboard
+tack, and was making good headway under a clinking breeze. She
+was an old-fashioned, frigate-built, full-rigged ship, such as one
+seldom happens on now, her quarter-galleries, chain-plates, to'
+gallant bulwarks, and single topsail-yards being all out of date
+among the ship-builders of to-day. It has been said that she had
+"rare lines," and the remark was just. A more imposing pile of
+timber was possibly never floated. She had plenty of beam to cope
+with the South Atlantic wave-giants, and not too much sheer. Her
+fiddle-stem was gracefully cut, and harmonised to perfection with
+the slight rake aft of her lofty masts. Her spars, also, were finely
+proportioned to the breadth of her hull. So that, with her canvas
+spread in an unwavering breeze, the Chrysolite was a stately creature
+and "a thing of beauty."
+
+"Mr. Grant," said the captain, addressing his subordinate officer,
+"be good enough to take a star and work out the ship's position."
+
+The second mate quickly brought his sextant, and took the altitude
+of a star convenient for his purpose. He then went below to the cabin
+to perform his calculations. The lookout man, a ready sleeper, was
+in a heavy slumber, upon which the stiffening breeze made no effect.
+The rest of the watch had disappeared in the customary fashion.
+Captain Anderson was practically alone on deck.
+
+He walked forward, leaned over the weather-rail, and directed his
+glass. He saw just exactly what he expected to see. There, right
+ahead in the distance, the binoculars showed a long, thin streak
+of sparkling silver, appearing like a lightning flash held fast
+between the darkness and the deep sea. It was phosphorescent water
+playing on a sand-bank.
+
+Anderson put the glass into his pocket. He was sullen and determined.
+He stood motionless for full half an hour, trying to repress the
+workings of an aroused conscience; but his thoughts would not let
+him alone. There was something behind them, some new sensations,
+which set them buzzing in his mind. These sensations were his
+finest feelings--ennobling emotions which had been cramped in the
+grip of discipline for forty years. He could not comprehend it, but
+he found himself pursuing a train of thoughts of finer sensibility
+than he had ever experienced, and in which the great bribe had no
+place. He foreshadowed in his mind's eye the tragic events over which
+he was now presiding. He foresaw the danger to life and limb with
+a fresh clearness of vision. He pictured to himself the possible
+agonies of his fellow-creatures (never once thinking of his own) with
+a sentiment much akin to pity--strong, too, but not sufficiently
+strong to overcome that unbending guide which forbade him for
+honour's sake to go back upon his promise. Then there was the doom
+of the ship itself--
+
+The man is not angry, much less fearful; but his lips are quivering
+and his nostrils widening with a passion hitherto unknown. He sees
+the picture vividly--a majestic, gallant ship done to destruction;
+a rich, ruined seaman wandering on earth a broken heart in a
+dishonoured bosom. Not only a gallant ship, but a lifelong pride
+and the fulness of a heart's desire swept recklessly into limbo.
+Here, at last, had his love revealed itself.
+
+"No, by God, she SHALL not perish!"
+
+With a rapid movement he gains the fo'castle, and roars into it,
+"All hands 'bout ship! Quick now, for your very lives!"
+
+There is no mistaking his tone. It is not one of driving tyranny,
+but of urgent agony, and it goes right home to every man.
+
+Up they tumble in a ready crowd, many in their shirts alone. They
+are all sleepy, but the business on hand will soon cure them of
+this.
+
+They stand by. The helm is put down, and quickly the Chrysolite
+veers round in process of reaching the other tack. Will she do it?
+No! She trembles almost in the teeth of the wind, misses stays,
+and falls off again on to the old tack.
+
+Anderson cannot understand it, old sailor as he is; puts the helm
+down once more; once more she misses.
+
+"Back the main-yard! Shiver the foreyard!"
+
+Soon every stitch of canvas on the mainmast is swung about to face
+the breeze, while that on the foremast is hauled in. Although she
+be going at eight knots, THAT should check her.
+
+But it does not.
+
+"Mizzen topsail braces, then!" Quick as thought the lee braces are
+slacked off, and those on the weather side made taut. Still she
+is not checked. Strange, too, for the breeze is stiff. Anderson
+feels she is in the stream of a strong current.
+
+There had been no need to say what was the cause of danger. The
+heavy boom of breakers rose above the tread of feet, the clashing
+of spars, and the chorus of curses.
+
+Meanwhile Mr. Grant has finished his calculations below. He has
+found for a result that the ship is among the Maldive reefs. He is
+certain there must be some error in his work, and he sets himself
+to revise his figures. But the breeze sweeps into the cabin with
+a faint command from the upper air--"Back the main-yard!"--and he
+shrewdly guesses that his calculations are correct.
+
+The captain is everywhere at once, urging and aiding. He sees the
+whole canvas aback, and yet the Chrysolite drifts on. He cannot
+'bout his ship nor back her.
+
+The reef is quite within appreciable distance now. The hands can
+do nothing more, so they gaze at the dancing line of phosphorescent
+atoms, and curse tremendously--though these may be their last
+moments.
+
+"All hands wear ship!" comes sharply from Anderson.
+
+"--you and your orders!" cries some one. "To the boats, to the
+boats!"
+
+Although the Chrysolite carried five boats, no less than four of them
+were unseaworthy. In those days the examination of an outward-bound
+ship was slurred over, with the natural consequence that the
+marine law was more frequently broken than observed. The only boat
+on board the Chrysolite worth launching was the life-boat, which
+stood bottom upward between the main and mizzen masts. At the cry
+"To the boats!" there was a rush for her. But Anderson is first.
+He carries in his hand a small axe, meant for clearing away light
+wreckage. With a vigorous blow the life-boat is stove in. The men
+stop short, daunted. He turns about and faces them, looking like
+an angry Titan.
+
+"Now then, you hell-hounds, wear the ship or sink!" They see he
+means to be master to the end.
+
+It is too late even for imprecation. The men literally spring to
+their work, with an alacrity begot of desperation. Every moment is
+of the utmost value, for the reef is very close and the horrible
+breakers are in all ears.
+
+Anderson himself holds the wheel. He has put the helm up, and soon
+the great ship, with swelling sails, breaks out of the current.
+He feels the change in an instant; the hands know it too. But the
+danger is not past. Leaving the wheel to another, he runs quickly
+forward to lean over the weather-rail. As he passes through the
+crowd on the fo'castle, the poor fellows cheer him ringingly. The
+fine old seaman doffs his cap and makes them a grand, manly bow.
+
+He glances at the reef and then mutters quietly to himself, "She
+will never clear it, and God forgive me!" Then, wheeling round, he
+gives a command.
+
+"Let go both anchors; it is our only chance!"
+
+Many hearts sink at the order, but in as few moments as possible
+the cables are smoking through the hawse-pipes. The anchors touch
+bottom, and hold. All hands clutch the stanchions or shrouds in
+anticipation of the shock. It comes. The ship, racing on, is brought
+up with a round turn of such sudden force as to shake every nail
+in her timbers. Aloft there is crash upon crash, and the lighter
+spars come showering on to the deck, bringing with them ragged
+remnants of canvas. One man is struck down. The hawsers hum with
+strenuous vibration. The timbers at the bluff of the bow crack
+almost vertically, until the ship's nose is well-nigh torn out.
+The tension is too great and the port cable snaps. The starboard
+one is tougher. But were it ever so tough it would not save the
+ship, for its anchor is dragging. Back she sags, gathered into her
+doom by the whitening waters; until at length, thus lifted along,
+her keel rests athwart the bank, and she heels over. Her sailing
+days are done. As the consecutive seas sweep up the reef, she lifts
+her head and drops it again and again, like a poor recumbent brute
+in its death-hour. But the wind must sometime cease, and the waves
+forget their anger. Then will she take a long repose, leaning on
+her shattered side--the very type of a picturesque wreck.
+
+About this time Messrs. Ruin & Ruin were more than usually interested
+in the shipping news, and one morning they saw, under the heading
+of "Wrecks and Casualties," this:
+
+"MINICOY (MALDIVE ISLANDS).--The ship Chrysolite, of London, went
+ashore yesterday night on the southern reefs, and is now a total
+wreck. All hands saved except John Anderson, master, who was killed
+by a falling spar."
+
+The result of the whole business had far exceeded the owners'
+expectations. It had been so neatly done; and the greatest comfort
+of all was that no one was now left who could tell tales. They
+did not exactly thank God in so many words for the death of their
+faithful servant. That was very sad, as of course it should be.
+But they thanked Him in all humility for a certain sum of three
+thousand pounds, which would have gone elsewhere but for--If he,
+Anderson, had had wife or children, Messrs. Ruin & Ruin felt almost
+certain they would have made provision for them. But they thanked
+God again that he had never married. All that was necessary to be
+done now was to send in a claim for the insurance money, and, if
+well advised, retire into private life.
+
+Messrs. Ruin & Ruin talked the matter over between them, congratulated
+themselves upon their prosperity, made no end of choice little
+plans for the future, and finally decided to forsake the commercial
+profession. And, indeed, they would have done so, but that the
+evening papers contained an item of intelligence which, though less
+expected, and therefore more startling, contained just as lively
+an interest for them as the report of the wreck. It ran thus:
+
+"It is currently reported that the Jupiter Insurance Company has
+failed heavily, and is only able to meet its liabilities with a
+composition of sixpence on the pound."
+
+Messrs. Ruin & Ruin still carry on business near Billiter Street,
+but their offices are now on the top floor in a very back alley.
+
+
+
+
+"PETREL" AND "THE BLACK SWAN"
+
+(ANONYMOUS)
+
+
+"Sail, ho!"
+
+Never, surely, did the cry fall upon more welcome ears, save and
+except those of men becalmed in a boat upon the open sea. For
+twelve weary days and nights had we, the officers and men of H.M.S.
+Petrel (six guns, Commander B. R. Neville), been cooped up in our
+iron prison, patrolling one of the hottest sections of the terrestrial
+globe, on the lookout for slavers. From latitude 4 deg. north to
+latitude 4 deg. south was our beat, and we dared not venture beyond
+these limits. Our instructions were to keep out of sight of land
+and try to intercept some of the larger vessels, which, it was
+suspected, carried cargoes of slaves from the ---- coast. The ship,
+the sea, the cloudless sky--there was nothing else to see, nothing
+else to think of. Work, study, play even, were alike impossible in
+that fierce, scorching heat. If you touched a bit of iron on deck
+it almost burned your hand. If you lay down between-decks covered
+with a sheet, you awoke in a bath of perspiration.
+
+"Sail, ho!"
+
+The man, in his excitement, repeated the shout before he could be
+hailed from the deck.
+
+"Where away?" sang out the captain.
+
+"Two points on the weather-bow, sir," was the reply.
+
+That phrase about the "weather-bow" was a nautical fiction, for
+there was no wind to speak of, and what there was was nearly dead
+astern.
+
+"Keep her away two points," said Commander Neville; and the order
+was promptly obeyed.
+
+In a few seconds the news had spread through the ship, and the men
+clustered on the bulwarks, straining their eyes to get a glimpse of
+the stranger. Even the stokers, poor fellows, showed their sooty
+faces at the engine-room hatchway. Of course the stranger might
+be, and probably was, an innocent trader; but then she might be a
+slaver; and golden visions of prize-money floated before the eyes
+of every man and boy on board the Petrel.
+
+We did not steam very fast, as of course our supply of coal was
+limited; and it was about two hours before sundown when we fairly
+sighted the stranger. She was a long three-masted schooner, with
+tall raking masts, lying very low in the water. All her canvas was
+set; and as a little wind had sprung up, she was slipping through
+the water at a fair pace.
+
+"She looks for all the world like a slaver, sir," remarked Mr.
+Brabazon, the first lieutenant, to the commander.
+
+Neville said nothing, but his lips were firmly compressed, and a
+gleam of excitement was in his eyes.
+
+"Fire a blank cartridge, Mr. O'Riley," said he to the second
+lieutenant; "and signal her to ask her nationality and her code
+number."
+
+This was done; and in answer to the signal the schooner slowly
+hoisted the American colours.
+
+"She has eased away her sheets, and luffed a point or two, sir,"
+said the quartermaster, touching his cap.
+
+The captain merely answered this by a nod.
+
+"Put a shot in your gun, Mr. O'Riley," said he. "Lower your hoist
+and make a fresh hoist demanding her name."
+
+This was done, but the American took no notice.
+
+"Fire a shot, Mr. O'Riley--wide, of course," said the commander.
+
+Again the deafening report of the big gun sounded in our ears; and
+we could see the splash of the shot as it struck the water about
+fifty yards from the schooner. Immediately a flag was run up, then
+another and another; and we saw that she was not giving us her
+code number, but was spelling out her name, letter by letter--The
+Black Swan.
+
+"Just look that up in the United States Merchant Registry," said
+the captain to the first lieutenant. And in half a minute he
+had reported--"No such name, sir." This was something more than
+suspicious. And the wind was rising.
+
+"Hoist the signal for her to heave to!" cried Commander Neville.
+"Take a boat and half a dozen hands, Mr. O'Riley," he continued;
+"board her, inspect her papers, and come back to report. If her
+papers are not in order," added he, "you may search for slaves;
+but if they are you had better do nothing further. You know it is
+clearly set down in the Protocol that we are not entitled to search
+the hold if the papers are in order; and there have been complaints
+lately against some over-zealous officers, who have got into trouble
+in consequence. So be careful. But keep your eyes open. Note any
+suspicious circumstances, and come back and report."
+
+Before Lieutenant O'Riley reached the ship he saw that everything
+about her had been sacrificed to speed. Her spars, especially, were
+unusually heavy for a craft of her size.
+
+The British officer was received by a little, thin, elderly man
+wearing a Panama hat and speaking with a strong Yankee accent.
+
+"Produce your papers, if you please," said O'Riley. They were handed
+out at once, and seemed to be perfectly regular.
+
+"What have you got on board?" was the next question.
+
+"General cargo--dry goods, and so on."
+
+"Why isn't your name on the register?"
+
+"Ain't it now? Well, I guess it must be because this is a new ship.
+We can't put our name on by telegraph, mister."
+
+"Just tell your men to knock off the hatches. I want to have a look
+at your cargo."
+
+The skipper shook his head.
+
+"I've been delayed long enough," said he, "and have lost a great
+part of the only wind we've had in this darned latitude for a week."
+
+"I'll do it myself, then!" cried O'Riley.
+
+"Not now, sir; not with six men while I have fifteen. You have no
+right to search the hold of a respectable merchantman and disturb
+her cargo. Do you take me for a slaver, or what? Ef you must have
+the hatches up, send back to your man-of-war for a larger crew, so
+as to overpower me, you understand, and you may do it with pleasure.
+Bet I guess there'll be a complaint lodged at Washington, and you
+folks in London will have to pay for it. That's all, mister. I only
+want things fair and square, within my treaty rights."
+
+And having delivered himself of this long speech, the Yankee skipper
+turned on his heel.
+
+Of course O'Riley could only return to the Petrel and report all
+this to his commander. "I'm convinced she is a slaver, sir," said
+he in conclusion.
+
+"But you have no evidence of it; and you say the papers were all
+in order."
+
+"Apparently they were, sir."
+
+"Then I'm afraid I can do nothing," said the commander. And to the
+deep disgust of the whole ship's crew, the order was given for the
+Petrel to return to her course.
+
+All that night, however, Commander Neville was haunted by a doubt
+whether he had not better have run the risk of a complaint and a
+reprimand, rather than forego the overhauling of so suspicious-looking
+a craft; and in the morning a rumour reached his ears that the
+cockswain, who had accompanied Mr. O'Riley to The Black Swan, had
+noticed something about her of a doubtful nature. The man was sent
+for and questioned; and he said that, while the lieutenant was on
+board, the boat of which he was in charge had dropped a little way
+astern; and that he had then noticed that the name of the vessel
+had been recently painted out, but that the last two letters were
+distinctly visible. And these letters were LE, not AN.
+
+"The scoundrel said she was a new ship!" cried the commander. "'Bout
+ship!"
+
+"We can't possibly catch her up, sir," said the first lieutenant,
+drily.
+
+"I don't know that, Mr. Brabazon," answered Neville. "There has
+been hardly any wind, and we know the course she was steering. She
+could not expect to see us again; so in all probability she has
+kept to that course. By making allowances, we may intercept her;
+I am convinced of it."
+
+The hope of again encountering The Black Swan, faint as it was,
+caused quite a commotion in our little world. The day passed without
+our sighting a single sail; but when the morning dawned Lieutenant
+Brabazon was forced to own that the commander's judgment had
+proved better than his own. By the greatest good luck we had hit
+upon the right track. There, right in front of us, was the American
+schooner, her sails lazily flapping against her masts.
+
+"Full speed ahead, and stand by!" shouted the captain down the
+engine-room tube.
+
+"Signal to her to heave to, and if she does not obey, fire a shot
+right across her bows, Mr. O'Riley," continued the commander.
+"Mr. Brabazon, you take a boat and thirty men well armed. Board
+her, and have her hatches off at once. You'll stand no nonsense,
+I know."
+
+"All right, sir," cried the lieutenant, an active, somewhat imperious
+officer, of the Civis Romanus sum type. He had been unusually
+disgusted at his commander's decision to leave The Black Swan without
+searching her; and he was delighted that a more active policy had
+been begun.
+
+"I say, Brabazon," whispered the commander to him, as he was going
+over the side, "you know I'm stepping a bit beyond bounds, and
+I'm just a little anxious. If she turns out to be a slaver, as
+we suspect, step to the taffrail and wave your handkerchief, will
+you?"
+
+"I will, sir; I'm certain it will be all right," cheerfully responded
+the first lieutenant.
+
+A tall, slim, youngish man, in white linen, received the British
+officer as he set foot on the deck of The Black Swan.
+
+"I am at present in command of this craft, sir," said the young
+American. "The skipper is not fit just at present. We had a visit
+from you two days ago, I think. Can I do anything for you?"
+
+"Yes; I want you to take off your hatches," said the lieutenant,
+sharply.
+
+"Well, sir," began the Yankee, "I guess your demand is beyond your
+treaty powers."
+
+"I know all about that. I must have the hatches off."
+
+"And you are detaining me and overhauling my cargo on no grounds
+whatever--"
+
+"Will you do it at once?" broke in the British officer.
+
+"I repeat--ON NO GROUNDS WHATEVER; will cause an in--ter--na--tional
+difficulty, and may bring re--markably unpleasant con--sequences
+to your captain. Now--"
+
+"Off with your hatches!" cried the lieutenant.
+
+"Sir!"
+
+"If you don't, by George, I will!"
+
+"You know clearly what you're doing, sir?"
+
+"I do."
+
+"And you know the risk you run?"
+
+"I do. No more palaver. Off with them at once, or I'll break them
+open."
+
+Further resistance was useless. The thing was done; and the moment
+the first hatch was raised the sickening effluvium that issued from
+the hold proclaimed the truth. Nearly three hundred slaves were
+packed between-decks, many of the poor creatures standing so close
+that they could not lie down.
+
+With a look of speechless contempt at the young mate of the
+schooner, the lieutenant walked to the side of the ship and waved
+his handkerchief. That instant a loud British cheer rang over the
+water, given by the blue-jackets, who could be seen clustering in
+the rigging like bees.
+
+"I told our skipper judgment would overtake us," said the Yankee.
+"Say, mister," he added, in another tone, "seeing that the game's
+up, suppose we have a glass of iced champagne downstairs?"
+
+The lieutenant hesitated. To drink with the mate of a slaver!
+But--iced champagne!
+
+Slowly he moved toward the companionway. "I don't mind if I do,"
+he said, at length; "and you may as well bring up your papers with
+the drinks, for I shall carry them on board the Petrel. Of course
+you understand that you are my prize."
+
+And having set a guard at the hatchways, the lieutenant descended
+the cabin stairs.
+
+The iced champagne was duly forthcoming, and under its genial
+influence Lieutenant Brabazon began to feel something like pity
+for the young mate who had been so early seduced into the paths of
+crime. Probably he had a mother or a sweetheart somewhere in the
+States who imagined that he was already on his way home, whereas
+now his character was ruined, even if he escaped a long term of
+imprisonment.
+
+This feeling was strengthened as he saw that his companion was
+gazing mournfully at his glass without speaking a word. At length
+the young man lifted his head.
+
+"Say, mister, what'll they do to me, do you think?"
+
+"I can't tell. Of course you know that what you have been engaged
+in is a kind of piracy?"
+
+"No!"
+
+"I believe so. Cargo and crew are confiscated, of course. What
+they will do with you I can't tell."
+
+"They won't hang me, will they?"
+
+"Probably not," said the lieutenant; "but let this be a warning
+to you. You see what it is to wander off the straight course and
+hanker after forbidden gains. Lead an honest life in future, when
+you are released from custody. Avoid vicious companions--But what's
+this?" he cried, as his eye fell on an empty scabbard hanging on the
+wall. It looked very like a United States service sword scabbard,
+and immediately the thought darted through his mind that this
+hypocritical young Yankee (who had been pretending to wipe away a
+tear as he listened to the lieutenant's good advice) had been doing
+something worse, or at least more heavily punished, than running
+cargoes of slaves.
+
+The British officer looked round the cabin. A United States navy
+cap was lying on a plush-covered bench.
+
+"Ah! you've been having a brush with an American man-of-war!" cried
+Lieutenant Brabazon. "You will have to tell my superior officer
+how you came into possession of these articles. I most place you
+under arrest!" And, bitterly regretting that he had sat down to
+table with the fellow, the British officer rushed on deck.
+
+"Quartermaster," he cried, "bring up a guard of four men, and take
+this man," pointing to the Yankee, who had followed him on deck,
+"to the Petrel. If he tries to escape, shoot him at once!"
+
+The quartermaster advanced to seize the prisoner; but before
+he reached him he involuntarily stopped short. A roar of laughter
+sounded in his ears. The American mate and his companions were
+shrieking and staggering about the deck; even the crew of the
+slaver were, every man Jack of them, grinning from ear to ear. The
+lieutenant was dumfounded.
+
+"Excuse me, sir; but the joke was too good," said the Yankee, coming
+forward and holding out his hand. "I am the first lieutenant of the
+United States war-ship Georgia, in command of a prize crew on board
+this vessel, taking her to ---- to have her condemned. We seized
+her yesterday. Hearing that you had been on a visit to her the
+day before, and had gone away without doing anything, I couldn't
+resist the temptation of taking you in. Hope you don't bear malice?
+Let's finish that magnum of champagne."
+
+It was evidently the best thing to be done; but the lieutenant was
+not a first-rate companion on that occasion.
+
+"Give my respects to your commander," called out the United States
+officer, as his guest went down into his boat, "and advise him
+from me not to be so jolly particular another time. And I'll try
+to take your kind advice and sail a straight course in future!" he
+cried, as her Majesty's boat shot away for the last time from the
+side of The Black Swan.
+
+
+
+
+MELISSA'S TOUR
+
+BY GRANT ALLEN
+
+
+Lucy looked across the table at me with a face of blank horror.
+"O Vernon," she cried, "what are we EVER to do? And an American
+at that! This is just TOO ghastly!" It's a habit of Lucy's, I may
+remark, to talk italics.
+
+I laid down my coffee-cup, and glanced back at her in surprise.
+"Why, what's up?" I exclaimed, scanning the envelope close. "A
+letter from Oxford, surely. Mrs. Wade, of Christchurch--I thought
+I knew the hand. And SHE's not an American."
+
+"Well, look for yourself!" Lucy cried, and tossed the note to me,
+pouting. I took it, and read. I'm aware that I have the misfortune to
+be only a man, but it really didn't strike me as quite so terrible.
+
+"DEAR MRS. HANCOCK: George has just heard that your husband and
+you are going for a trip to New York this summer. COULD you manage
+to do us a VERY GREAT kindness? I hope you won't mind it. We have
+an American friend--a Miss Easterbrook, of Kansas City, niece of
+Professor Asa P. Easterbrook, the well-known Yale geologist--who
+very much wishes to find an escort across the Atlantic. If you
+would be so good as to take charge of her, and deliver her safely
+to Dr. Horace Easterbrook, of Hoboken, on your arrival in the States,
+you would do a good turn to her, and at the same time confer an
+eternal favour on "Yours very truly, "EMILY WADE."
+
+Lucy folded her hands in melodramatic despair.
+
+"Kansas City!" she exclaimed, with a shudder of horror. "And Asa
+P. Easterbrook! A geologist, indeed! That horrid Mrs. Wade! She
+just did it on purpose!"
+
+"It seems to me," I put in, regarding the letter close, "she did
+it merely because she was asked to find a chaperon for the girl;
+and she wrote the very shortest possible note, in a perfunctory
+way, to the very first acquaintance she chanced to hear of who was
+going to America."
+
+"Vernon!" my wife exclaimed, with a very decided air, "you men are
+such simpletons! You credit everybody always with the best and
+purest motives. But you're utterly wrong. I can see through that
+woman. The hateful, hateful wretch! She did it to spite me! Oh,
+my poor, poor boy; my dear, guileless Bernard!"
+
+Bernard, I may mention, is our oldest son, aged just twenty-four,
+and a Cambridge graduate. He's a tutor at King's, and though he's
+a dear good fellow, and a splendid long-stop, I couldn't myself
+conscientiously say I regard guilelessness as quite his most marked
+characteristic.
+
+"What are you doing?" I asked, as Lucy sat down with a resolutely
+determined air at her writing-table in the corner.
+
+"Doing!" my wife replied, with some asperity her tone. "Why,
+answering that hateful, detestable woman!"
+
+I glanced over her shoulder, and followed her pen as she wrote:
+
+"MY DEAR MRS. WADE: It was INDEED a delight to us to see your neat
+little handwriting again. NOTHING would give us greater pleasure,
+I'm sure, than to take charge of your friend, who, I'm confident,
+we shall find a most charming companion. Bernard will be with us,
+so she won't feel it dull, I trust. We hope to have a very delightful
+trip, and your happy thought in providing us with a travelling
+companion will add, no doubt, to all our enjoyment--especially
+Bernard's. We both join in very kindest regards to Mr. Wade and
+yourself, and I am ever
+
+"Yours most cordially,
+
+"LUCY B. HANCOCK."
+
+My wife fastened down the envelope with a very crushing air. "There!
+THAT ought to do for her," she said, glancing up at me triumphantly.
+"I should think she could see from that, if she's not as blind as
+an owl, I've observed her atrocious designs upon Bernard, and mean
+to checkmate them. If, after such a letter, she has the cheek to
+send us her Yankee girl to chaperon, I shall consider her lost
+to all sense of shame and all notions of decency. But she won't,
+of course. She'll withdraw her unobtrusively." And Lucy flung the
+peccant sheet that had roused all this wrath on to the back of the
+fireplace with offended dignity.
+
+She was wrong, however. By next evening's post a second letter
+arrived, more discomposing, if possible, to her nerves than the
+first one.
+
+"Mrs. Lucy B. Hancock, London.
+
+"DEAR MADAM: I learn from my friend, Mrs. Wade, of Oxford College,
+that you are going to be kind enough to take charge of me across
+the ocean. I thank you for your courtesy, and will gladly accept
+your friendly offer. If you will let me know by what steamer you
+start, I will register my passage right away in Liverpool. Also,
+if you will be good enough to tell me from what depot you leave
+London, and by what train, I will go along with you in the cars.
+I'm unused to travel alone. "Respectfully, "MELISSA P. EASTERBROOK."
+
+Lucy gazed at it in despair. "A creature like that!" she cried, all
+horror-struck. "Oh, my poor, dear Bernard! 'The ocean,' she says!
+'Go along with you in the cars!' 'Melissa P. Easterbrook!'"
+
+"Perhaps," I said, tentatively, "she may be better than her name.
+And at any rate, Bernard's not BOUND to marry her!"
+
+Lucy darted at me profound volumes of mute feminine contempt. "The
+girl's pretty," she said, at last, after a long, deep pause, during
+which I had been made to realise to the full my own utter moral
+and intellectual nothingness. "You may be sure she's pretty. Mrs.
+Wade wouldn't have foisted her upon us if she wasn't pretty, but
+unspeakable. It's a vile plot on her part to destroy my peace of
+mind. You won't believe it, Vernon; but I KNOW that woman. And what
+does the girl mean by signing herself 'Respectfully,' I wonder?"
+
+"It's the American way," I ventured gently to interpose.
+
+"So I gather," my wife answered, with a profound accent of contempt.
+To her anything that isn't done in the purest English way stands
+ipso facto self-condemned immediately.
+
+A day or two later a second letter arrived from Miss Easterbrook,
+in reply to one of Lucy's suggesting a rendezvous. I confess it
+drew up in my mind a somewhat painful picture. I began to believe
+my wife's fears were in some ways well grounded.
+
+"Mrs. Lucy B. Hancock, London [as before].
+
+"DEAR MADAM: I thank you for yours, and will meet you on the day
+and hour you mention at St. Pancras depot. You will know me when
+you see me, because I shall wear a dove-coloured dress, with bonnet
+to match, and a pair of gray spectacles.
+
+"Respectfully,
+
+"MELISSA P. EASTERBROOK."
+
+I laid it down and sighed. "A New England schoolmarm!" I exclaimed,
+with a groan. "It sounds rather terrible. A dove-coloured dress and
+a pair of gray spectacles! I fancy I can picture her to myself:
+a tall and bony person of a certain age, with corkscrew curls, who
+reads improving books and has views of her own about the fulfilment
+of prophecy."
+
+But as my spirits went down so Lucy's went up, like the old man
+and woman in the cottage weather-glass. "That looks more promising,"
+she said. "The spectacles are good. Perhaps, after all, dear
+Bernard may escape. I don't think he's at all the sort of person
+to be taken with a dove-coloured bonnet."
+
+For some days after Bernard came home from Cambridge we chaffed a
+good deal among ourselves about Miss Melissa Easterbrook. Bernard
+took quite my view about the spectacles and dress. He even drew
+on an envelope a fancy portrait of Miss Easterbrook, as he said
+himself, "from documentary evidence." It represented a typical
+schoolmarm of the most virulent order, and was calculated to
+strike terror into the receptive mind of ingenuous youth on simple
+inspection.
+
+At last the day came when we were to go to Liverpool. We arrived
+at St. Pancras in very good time, and looked about on the platform
+for a tall and hard-faced person of transatlantic aspect, arrayed
+in a dove-coloured dress and a pair of gray spectacles. But we
+looked in vain; nobody about seemed to answer to the description.
+At last Bernard turned to my wife with a curious smile. "I think
+I've spotted her, mother," he said, waving his hand vaguely to the
+right. "That lady over yonder--by the door of the refreshment-room.
+Don't you see? That must be Melissa." For we knew her only as
+Melissa already among ourselves; it had been raised to the mild
+rank of a family witticism.
+
+I looked in the direction he suggested, and paused for certainty.
+There, irresolute by the door, and gazing about her timidly with
+inquiring eyes, stood the prettiest, tiniest, most shrinking little
+Western girl you ever saw in your life--attired, as she said, in
+a dove-coloured dress, with bonnet to match, and a pair of gray
+spectacles. But oh, what a dove-coloured dress! Walter Crane
+might have designed it--one of those perfect travelling costumes
+of which the America girl seems to possess a monopoly; and the
+spectacles--well, the spectacles, though undoubtedly real, added
+just a touch of piquancy to an otherwise almost painfully timid
+and retiring little figure.
+
+The moment I set eyes on Melissa Easterbrook, I will candidly
+admit, I was her captive at once; and even Lucy, as she looked at
+her, relaxed her face involuntarily into a sympathetic smile. As a
+rule, Lucy might pose as a perfect model of the British matron in
+her ampler and maturer years--"calmly terrible," as an American
+observer once described the genus; but at sight of Melissa she
+melted without a struggle. "Poor wee little thing, how pretty she
+is!" she exclaimed, with a start. You will readily admit that was
+a great deal from Lucy.
+
+Melissa came forward tentatively, a dainty blush half rising on her
+rather pale and delicate little cheek. "Mrs. Hancock?" she said, in
+an inquiring tone, with just the faintest suspicion of an American
+accent in her musical, small voice. Lucy took her hand cordially.
+"I was sure it was you, ma'am," Melissa went on, with pretty confidence,
+looking up into her face, "because Mrs. Wade told me you'd be as
+kind to me as a mother; and the moment I saw you I just said to
+myself, 'That MUST be Mrs. Hancock; she's so sweetly motherly.'
+How good of you to burden yourself with a stranger like me! I hope,
+indeed, I won't be too much trouble."
+
+That was the beginning. I may as well say, first as last, we were
+all of us taken by storm "right away" by Melissa. Lucy herself
+struck her flag unconditionally before a single shot was fired; and
+Bernard and I, hard hit at all points, surrendered at discretion.
+She was the most charming little girl the human mind can conceive.
+Our cold English language fails, in its roughness, to describe her.
+She was petite, mignonne, graceful, fairy-like, yet with a touch
+of Yankee quaintness and a delicious espieglerie that made her
+absolutely unique in my experience of women. We had utterly lost
+our hearts to her before ever we reached Liverpool; and, strange to
+say, I believe the one of us whose heart was most completely gone
+was, if only you'll believe it, that calmly terrible Lucy.
+
+Melissa's most winning characteristic, however, as it seemed to me,
+was her perfect frankness. As we whirled along on our way across
+England, she told us everything about herself, her family, her friends,
+her neighbours, and the population of Kansas City in general. Not
+obtrusively or egotistically,--of egotism Melissa would be wholly
+incapable,--but in a certain timid, confiding, half-childlike way,
+as of the lost little girl, that was absolutely captivating. "Oh
+no, ma'am," she said, in answer to one of Lucy's earliest questions;
+"I didn't come over alone. I think I'd be afraid to. I came with a
+whole squad of us who were doing Europe. A prominent lady in Kansas
+City took charge of the square lot. And I got as far as Rome with
+them, through Germany and Switzerland, and then my money wouldn't
+run to it any further; so I had to go back. Travelling comes high
+in Europe, what with hotels and fees and having to pay to get your
+baggage checked. And that's how I came to want an escort."
+
+Bernard smiled good-naturedly. "Then you had only a fixed sum," he
+asked, "to make your European tour with?"
+
+"That's so, sir," Melissa answered, looking up at him quizzically
+through those pretty gray spectacles. "I'd put away quite a little
+sum of my own to make this trip upon. It was my only chance of
+seeing Europe and improving myself a piece. I knew when I started
+I couldn't go all the round trip with the rest of my party; but I
+thought I'd set out with them, anyway, and go ahead as long as my
+funds held out; and then, when I was through, I'd turn about and
+come home again."
+
+"But you put away the money yourself?" Lucy asked, with a little
+start of admiring surprise.
+
+"Yes, ma'am," Melissa answered, sagely. "I know it. I saved it."
+
+"From your allowance?" Lucy suggested, from the restricted horizon
+of her English point of view.
+
+Melissa laughed a merry little laugh of amusement. "Oh no," she
+said; "from my salary."
+
+"From your salary!" Bernard put in, looking down at her with an
+inquiring glance.
+
+"Yes, sir; that's it," Melissa answered, all unabashed. "You see,
+for four years I was a clerk in the post-office." She pronounced
+it "churk," but that's a detail.
+
+"Oh, indeed!" Bernard echoed. He was burning to know how, I could
+see, but politeness forbade him to press Melissa on so delicate
+a point any further.
+
+Melissa, however, herself supplied at once the missing information.
+"My father was postmaster in our city," she said, simply, "under
+the last administration,--President Blanco's, you know,--and he
+made me one of his clerks, of course, when he'd gotten the place;
+and as long as the fun went on, I saved all my salary for a tour
+in Europe."
+
+"And at the end of four years?" Lucy said.
+
+"Our party went out," Melissa put in, confidentially. "So, when
+the trouble began, my father was dismissed, and I had just enough
+left to take me as far as Rome, as I told you."
+
+I was obliged to explain parenthetically, to allay Lucy's wonderment,
+that in America the whole personnel of every local government office
+changes almost completely with each incoming President.
+
+"That's so, sir," Melissa assented, with a wise little nod. "And
+as I didn't think it likely our folks would get in again in a
+hurry,--the country's had enough of us,--I just thought I'd make
+the best of my money when I'd got it."
+
+"And you used it all up in giving yourself a holiday in Europe?"
+Lucy exclaimed, half reproachfully. To her economic British mind
+such an expenditure of capital seemed horribly wasteful.
+
+"Yes, ma'am," Melissa answered, all unconscious of the faint
+disapproval implied in Lucy's tone. "You see, I'd never been
+anywhere much away from Kansas City before; and I thought this was
+a special opportunity to go abroad and visit the picture-galleries
+and cathedrals of Europe, and enlarge my mind and get a little
+culture. To us a glimpse of Europe's an intellectual necessary."
+
+"Oh, then you regarded your visit as largely educational?" Bernard
+put in, with increasing interest. Though he's a fellow and tutor
+of King's, I will readily admit that Bernard's personal tastes lie
+rather in the direction of rowing and foot-ball than of general
+culture; but still, the American girl's point of view decidedly
+attracted him by its novelty in a woman.
+
+"That's so, sir," Melissa answered once more, in her accustomed
+affirmative. "I took it as a sort of university trip. I graduated
+in Europe. In America, of course, wherever you go, all you can see's
+everywhere just the same--purely new and American; the language,
+the manners, the type, don't vary. In Europe, you cross a frontier
+or a ribbon of sea, and everything's different. Now, on this trip
+of ours, we went first to Chester to glimpse a typical old English
+town--those rows, oh, how lovely! And then to Leamington for
+Warwick Castle and Kenilworth. Kenilworth's just glorious--isn't
+it?--with its mouldering red walls and its dark-green ivy, and
+the ghost of Amy Robsart walking up and down upon the close-shaven
+English grass-plots."
+
+"I've heard it's very beautiful," Bernard admitted, gravely.
+
+"What! you live so close, and you've never BEEN there!" Melissa
+exclaimed, in frank surprise.
+
+Bernard allowed with a smile he had been so culpably negligent.
+
+"And Stratford-on-Avon, too!" Melissa went on, enthusiastically,
+her black eyes beaming. "Isn't Stratford just charming! I don't
+care for the interminable Shakespeare nuisance, you know; that's
+all too new and made up; we could raise a Shakespeare house like
+that in Kansas City any day. But the church and the elms and the
+swans and the river! I made such a sweet little sketch of them all,
+so soft and peaceful. At least, the place itself was as sweet as
+a corner of heaven, and I tried as well as I could in my way to
+sketch it."
+
+"I suppose it IS very pretty," Bernard replied, in a meditative
+tone.
+
+Melissa started visibly. "What! have you never been there, either?"
+she exclaimed, taken aback. "Well, that IS odd, now! You live in
+England, and have never run over to Stratford-on-Avon! Why, you
+do surprise me! But there! I suppose you English live in the midst
+of culture, as it were, and can get to it all right away at any
+time; so perhaps you don't think quite as much of it as we, who
+have to save up our money, perhaps for years, to get, for once in
+our lives, just a single passing glimpse of it. You live at Cambridge,
+you see; you must be steeped in culture right down to the finger-ends."
+
+Bernard modestly responded, twirling his manly moustache, that the
+river and the running-ground, he feared, were more in his way than
+art or architecture.
+
+"And where else did you go besides England?" Lucy asked, really
+interested.
+
+"Well, ma'am, from London we went across by Ostend to Bruges, where
+I studied the Memlings, and made a few little copies from them,"
+Melissa answered, with her sunny smile. "It's such a quaint old
+place--Bruges; life seems to flow as stagnant as its own canals.
+Have you ever been there?"
+
+"Oh, charming!" Lucy answered; "most delightful and quiet.
+But--er--who are the Memlings? I don't quite recollect them."
+
+Melissa gazed at her open-eyed. "The Memlings?" she said, slowly;
+"why, you've just missed the best thing at Bruges if you haven't
+seen them. They've such a naive charm of their own, so innocent
+and sympathetic. They're in the Hopital de St. Jean, you know, where
+Memling put them. And it's so delightful to see great pictures
+like those (though they're tiny little things to look at) in their
+native surroundings, exactly as they were first painted--the 'Chasse
+de Ste. Ursule,' and all those other lovely things, so infantile
+in their simplicity, and yet so exquisitely graceful and pure and
+beautiful. I don't know as I saw anything in Europe to equal them
+for pathos in their own way--except, of course, the Fra Angelicos
+at San Marco in Florence."
+
+"I don't think I've seen them," Lucy murmured, with an uncomfortable
+air. I could see it was just dawning upon her, in spite of her
+patronising, that this Yankee girl, with her imperfect command of
+the English tongue, knew a vast deal more about some things worth
+notice than she herself did. "And where did you go then, dear?"
+
+"Oh, from Bruges we went on to Ghent," Melissa answered, leaning
+back, and looking as pretty as a picture herself in her sweet little
+travelling dress, "to see the great Van Eyck, the 'Adoration of
+the Lamb,' you know--that magnificent panel picture. And then
+we went to Brussels, where we had Dierick Bouts and all the later
+Flemings; and to Antwerp for Rubens and Vandyck and Quentin
+Matsys; and the Hague, after that, for Rembrandt and Paul Potter;
+and Amsterdam, in the end, for Van der Heist and Gerard Dow and the
+late Dutch painters. So, you see, we had quite an artistic tour;
+we followed up the development of Netherlandish art from beginning
+to end in historical order. It was just delightful."
+
+"I went to Antwerp once," Bernard put in, somewhat sheepishly, still
+twirling his moustache; "but it was on my way to Switzerland, and
+I didn't see much, as far as I can recollect, except the cathedral
+and the quay and the hotel I was stopping at."
+
+"Ah, that's all very well for YOU," Melissa answered, with a
+rather envious air. "You can see these things any day. But for us
+the chance comes only once in a lifetime, and we must make the most
+of it."
+
+Well, in such converse as this we reached Liverpool in due time,
+and went next morning on board our steamer. We had a lovely passage
+out, and, all the way, the more we saw of Melissa the more we liked
+her. To be sure, Lucy received a terrible shock the third day out,
+when she asked Melissa what she meant to do when she returned to
+Kansas City. "You won't go into the post-office again, I suppose,
+dear?" she said, kindly, for we had got by that time on most friendly
+terms with our little Melissa.
+
+"I guess not," Melissa answered. "No such luck any more. I'll have
+to go back again to the store as usual."
+
+"The store!" Lucy repeated, bewildered. "I--I don't quite understand
+you."
+
+"Well, the shop, I presume you'd call it," Melissa answered, smiling.
+"My father's gotten a book-store in Kansas City, and before I went
+into the post-office I helped him at the counter; in fact, I was
+his saleswoman."
+
+"I assure you, Vernon," Lucy remarked, in our berth that night,
+"if an Englishwoman had said it to me, I'd have been obliged to
+apologise to her for having forced her to confess it, and I don't
+know what way I should ever have looked to hide my face while she was
+talking about it. But with Melissa it's all so different somehow.
+She spoke as if it was the most natural thing on earth for her
+father to keep a shop, and she didn't seem the least little bit in
+the world ashamed of it, either."
+
+"Why should she?" I answered, with my masculine bluntness. But that
+was perhaps a trifle too advanced for Lucy. Melissa was exercising
+a widening influence on my wife's point of view with astonishing
+rapidity; but still, a perfect lady must always draw a line somewhere.
+
+All the way across, indeed, Melissa's lively talk was a constant
+delight and pleasure to every one of us. She was so taking,--that
+girl,--so confidential, so friendly. We really loved her. Then
+her quaint little Americanisms were as pretty as herself--not only
+her "Yes, sirs," and her "No, ma'ams," her "I guess" and "That's
+so," but her fresh Western ideas, and her infinite play of fancy
+in the queen's English. She turned it as a potter turns his clay.
+In Britain our mother tongue has crystallised long since into set
+forms and phrases. In America it has the plasticity of youth; it is
+fertile in novelty--nay, even in surprises. And Melissa knew how to
+twist it deftly into unexpected quips and incongruous conjunctions.
+Her talk ran on like a limpid brook, with a musical ripple playing
+ever on the surface. As for Bernard, he helped her about the ship
+like a brother, as she moved lightly around, with her sylph-like
+little form, among the ropes and capstans. Melissa liked to be
+helped, she said; she didn't believe one bit in woman's rights;
+no, indeed; she was a great deal too fond of being taken care of
+for that. And who wouldn't take care of her,--that delicate little
+thing,--like some choice small masterpiece of cunning workmanship?
+Why, she almost looked as if she were made of Venetian glass, and
+a fall on deck would shatter her into a thousand fragments.
+
+And her talk all the way was of the joys of Europe--the castles
+and abbeys she was leaving behind, the pictures and statues she had
+seen and admired, the pictures and statues she had left unvisited.
+"Somebody told me in Paris," she said to me one day, as she hung on
+my arm on deck, and looked up into my face confidingly with that
+childlike smile of hers, "the only happy time in an American woman's
+life is the period when she's just got over the first poignant regret
+at having left Europe, and hasn't just reached the point when she
+makes up her mind that, come what will, she really MUST go back
+again. And I thought, for my part, then my happiness was fairly
+spoiled for life, for I shall never be able again to afford the
+journey."
+
+"Melissa, my child," I said, looking down at those ripe, rich lips,
+"in this world one never knows what may turn up next. I've observed
+on my way down the path of life that, when fruit hangs rosy red
+on the tree by the wall, some passer-by or other is pretty sure in
+the end to pluck it."
+
+But that was too much for Melissa's American modesty. She looked
+down and blushed like a rose herself; but she answered me nothing.
+
+A night or two before we reached New York I was standing in the
+gloom, half hidden by a boat on the davits amidships, enjoying my
+vespertinal cigar in the cool of evening; and between the puffs I
+caught from time to time stray snatches of a conversation going on
+softly in the twilight between Bernard and Melissa. I had noticed
+of late, indeed, that Bernard and Melissa walked much on deck in
+the evening together; but this particular evening they walked long
+and late, and their conversation seemed to me (if I might judge
+by fragments) particularly confidential. The bits of it I caught
+were mostly, it is true, on Melissa's part (when Bernard said
+anything he said it lower). She was talking enthusiastically of
+Venice, Florence, Pisa, Rome, with occasional flying excursions into
+Switzerland and the Tyrol. Once, as she passed, I heard something
+murmured low about Botticelli's "Primavera"; when next she went
+by it was the Alps from Murren; a third time, again, it was the
+mosaics at St. Mark's, and Titian's "Assumption," and the doge's
+palace. What so innocent as art, in the moonlight, on the ocean?
+
+At last Bernard paused just opposite where I stood (for they didn't
+perceive me), and said very earnestly, "Look here, Melissa,"--he
+had called her Melissa almost from the first moment, and she to
+prefer it, it seemed so natural,--"look here, Melissa. Do you know,
+when you talk about things like that, you make me feel so dreadfully
+ashamed of myself."
+
+"Why so, Mr. Hancock?" Melissa asked, innocently.
+
+"Well, when I think what opportunities I've had, and how little I've
+used them," Bernard exclaimed, with vehemence, "and then reflect
+how few you've got, and how splendidly you've made the best of
+them, I just blush, I tell you, Melissa, for my own laziness."
+
+"Perhaps," Melissa interposed, with a grave little air, "if one
+had always been brought up among it all, one wouldn't think quite
+so much of it. It's the novelty of antiquity that makes it so charming
+to people from my country. I suppose it seems quite natural, now,
+to you that your parish church should be six hundred years old,
+and have tombs in the chancel, with Elizabethan ruffs, or its floor
+inlaid with Plantagenet brasses. To us, all that seems mysterious,
+and in a certain sort of way one might almost say magical. Nobody
+can love Europe quite so well, I'm sure, who has lived in it from
+a child. YOU grew up to many things that burst fresh upon us at
+last with all the intense delight of a new sensation."
+
+They stood still as they spoke, and looked hard at one another.
+There was a minute's pause. Then Bernard began again. "Melissa,"
+he faltered out, in a rather tremulous voice, "are you sorry to go
+home again?"
+
+"I just hate it!" Melissa answered, with a vehement burst. Then
+she added, after a second, "But I've enjoyed the voyage."
+
+"You'd like to live in Europe?" Bernard asked.
+
+"I should love it!" Melissa replied. "I'm fond of my folks,
+of course, and I should be sorry to leave them; but I just love
+Europe. I shall never go again, though. I shall come right away
+back to Kansas City now, and keep store for father for the rest of
+my natural existence."
+
+"It seems hard," Bernard went on, musing, "that anybody like you,
+Melissa, with such a natural love of art and of all beautiful
+things,--anybody who can draw such sweet dreams of delight as those
+heads you showed us after Filippo Lippi, anybody who can appreciate
+Florence and Venice and Rome as you do,--should have to live all
+her life in a far Western town, and meet with so little sympathy
+as you're likely to find there."
+
+"That's the rub," Melissa replied, looking up into his face with
+such a confiding look. (If any pretty girl had looked up at ME
+like that, I should have known what to do with her; but Bernard
+was twenty-four, and young men are modest.) "That's the rub, Mr.
+Hancock. I like--well, European society so very much better. Our
+men are nice enough in their own way, don't you know; but they
+somehow lack polish--at least, out West, I mean, in Kansas City.
+Europeans may n't be very much better when you get right at them,
+perhaps; but on the outside, anyway to ME, they're more attractive
+somehow."
+
+There was another long pause, during which I felt as guilty as
+ever eavesdropper before me. Yet I was glued to the spot. I could
+hardly escape. At last Bernard spoke again. "I should like to have
+gone round with you on your tour, Melissa," he said. "I don't know
+Italy; I don't suppose by myself I could even appreciate it. But
+if YOU were by my side, you'd have taught me what it all meant;
+and then I think I might perhaps understand it."
+
+Melissa drew a deep breath. "I wish I could take it all over again,"
+she answered, half sighing. "And I didn't see Naples, either. That
+was a great disappointment. I should like to have seen Naples, I
+must confess, so as to know I could at least in the end die happy."
+
+"Why do you go back?" Bernard asked, suddenly, with a bounce,
+looking down at that wee hand that trembled upon the taffrail.
+
+"Because I can't help myself," Melissa answered, in a quivering
+voice. "I should like--I should like to live always in England."
+
+"Have you any special preference for any particular town?" Bernard
+asked, moving closer to her--though, to be sure, he was very, very
+near already.
+
+"N--no; n--none in particular," Melissa stammered out, faintly,
+half sidling away from him.
+
+"Not Cambridge, for example?" Bernard asked, with a deep gulp and
+an audible effort.
+
+I felt it would be unpardonable for me to hear any more. I had heard
+already many things not intended for me. I sneaked off, unperceived,
+and left those two alone to complete that conversation.
+
+Half an hour later--it was a calm, moonlight night--Bernard rushed
+down eagerly into the saloon to find us. "Father and mother," he
+said, with a burst, "I want you up on deck for just ten minutes.
+There's something up there I should like so much to show you."
+
+"Not whales?" I asked, hypocritically, suppressing a smile.
+
+"No, not whales," he replied; "something much more interesting."
+
+We followed him blindly, Lucy much in doubt what the thing might
+be, and I much in wonder, after Mrs. Wade's letter, how Lucy might
+take it.
+
+At the top of the companion--ladder Melissa stood waiting for us,
+demure, but subdued, with a still timider look than ever upon that
+sweet, shrinking, small face of hers. Her heart beat hard, I could
+see by the movement of her bodice, and her breath came and went;
+but she stood there like a dove, in her dove-coloured travelling
+dress.
+
+"Mother," Bernard began, "Melissa's obliged to come back to America,
+don't you know, without having ever seen Naples. It seems a horrid
+shame she should miss seeing it. She hadn't money enough left, you
+recollect, to take her there."
+
+Lucy gazed at him, unsuspicious. "It does a pity," she answered,
+sympathetically.
+
+"She'd enjoy it so much. I'm sorry she hasn't been able to carry
+out all her programme."
+
+"And, mother," Bernard went on, his eyes fixed hard on hers, "how
+awfully she'd be thrown away on Kansas City! I can't bear to think
+of her going back to 'keep store' there."
+
+"For my part, I think it positively wicked," Lucy answered, with a
+smile, "and I can't think what--well, people in England are about,
+to allow her to do it."
+
+I opened my eyes wide. Did Lucy know what she was saying? Or had
+Melissa, then, fascinated her--the arch little witch!--as she had
+fascinated the rest of us?
+
+But Bernard, emboldened by this excellent opening, took Melissa
+by the hand as if in due form to present her. "Mother," he said,
+tenderly, leading the wee thing forward, "and father, too, THIS is
+what I wanted to show you--the girl I'm engaged to!"
+
+I paused and trembled. I waited for the thunderbolt. But no thunderbolt
+fell. On the contrary, Lucy stepped forward, and, under cover of
+the mast, caught Melissa in her arms and kissed her twice over.
+"My dear child," she cried, pressing her hard, "my dear little
+daughter, I don't know which of you two I ought most to congratulate."
+
+"But I do," Bernard murmured low. And, his father though I am, I
+murmured to myself, "And so do I, also."
+
+"Then you're not ashamed of me, mother dear," Melissa whispered,
+burying her dainty little bead on Lucy's shoulder, "because I kept
+store in Kansas City?"
+
+Lucy rose above herself in the excitement of the moment. "My
+darling wee daughter," she answered, kissing her tenderly again,
+"it's Kansas City alone that ought to be ashamed of itself for
+putting YOU to keep store--such a sweet little gem as you are!"
+
+
+
+
+
+VANDERDECKEN'S MESSAGE HOME;
+
+OR,
+
+THE TENACITY OF NATURAL AFFECTION
+
+(ANONYMOUS)
+
+
+Our ship, after touching at the Cape, went out again, and, soon losing
+sight of the Table Mountain, began to be assailed by the impetuous
+attacks of the sea, which is well known to be more formidable there
+than in most parts of the known ocean. The day had grown dull and
+hazy, and the breeze, which had formerly blown fresh, now sometimes
+subsided almost entirely, and then, recovering its strength for
+a short time, and changing its direction, blew with temporary
+violence, and died away again, as if exercising a melancholy caprice.
+A heavy swell began to come from the southeast. Our sails flapped
+against the masts, and the ship rolled from side to side as heavily
+as if she had been water-logged. There was so little wind that she
+would not steer.
+
+At 2 P.M. we had a squall, accompanied by thunder and rain. The
+seamen, growing restless, looked anxiously ahead. They said we would
+have a dirty night of it, and that it would not be worth while to
+turn into their hammocks. As the second mate was describing a gale
+he had encountered off Cape Race, Newfoundland, we were suddenly
+taken all aback, and the blast came upon us furiously. We continued
+to scud under a double-reefed mainsail and foretopsail till dusk;
+but, as the sea ran high, the captain thought it safest to bring
+her to. The watch on deck consisted of four men, one of whom was
+appointed to keep a lookout ahead, for the weather was so hazy
+that we could not see two cables' length from the bows. This man,
+whose name was Tom Willis, went frequently to the bows as if to
+observe something; and when the others called to him, inquiring
+what he was looking at, he would give no definite answer. They
+therefore went also to the bows, and appeared startled, and at
+first said nothing. But presently one of them cried, "William, go
+call the watch."
+
+The seamen, having been asleep in their hammocks, murmured at this
+unseasonable summons, and called to know how it looked upon deck.
+To which Tom Willis replied, "Come up and see. What we are minding
+is not on deck, but ahead."
+
+On hearing this they ran up without putting on their jackets, and
+when they came to the bows there was a whispering.
+
+One of them asked, "Where is she? I do not see her." To which another
+replied, "The last flash of lightning showed there was not a reef
+in one of her sails; but we, who know her history, know that all
+her canvas will never carry her into port."
+
+By this time the talking of the seamen had brought some of the
+passengers on deck. They could see nothing, however, for the ship
+was surrounded by thick darkness and by the noise of the dashing
+waters, and the seamen evaded the questions that were put to them.
+
+At this juncture the chaplain came on deck. He was a man of grave
+and modest demeanor, and was much liked among the seamen, who called
+him Gentle George. He overheard one of the men asking another if
+he had ever seen the Flying Dutchman before, and if he knew the
+story about her. To which the other replied, "I have heard of her
+beating about in these seas. What is the reason she never reaches
+port?"
+
+The first speaker replied, "They give different reasons for it,
+but my story is this: She was an Amsterdam vessel, and sailed from
+that port seventy years ago. Her master's name was Vanderdecken.
+He was a staunch seaman, and would have his own way in spite of
+the devil. For all that, never a sailor under him had reason to
+complain, though how it is on board with them now nobody knows.
+The story is this, that, in doubling the Cape, they were a long
+day trying to weather the Table Bay, which we saw this morning.
+However, the wind headed them, and went against then more and more,
+and Vanderdecken walked the deck, swearing at the wind. Just after
+sunset a vessel spoke him, asking if he did not mean to go into the
+bay that night. Vanderdecken replied, 'May I be eternally d--d if
+I do, though I should beat about here till the day of judgment!'
+And, to be sure, Vanderdecken never did go into that bay; for it
+is believed that he continues to beat about in these seas still,
+and will do so long enough. This vessel is never seen but with
+foul weather along with her."
+
+To which another replied, "We must keep clear of her. They say that
+her captain mans his jolly-boat when a vessel comes in sight, and
+tries hard to get alongside, to put letters on board, but no good
+comes to them who have communication with him."
+
+Tom Willis said, "There is such a sea between us at present as
+should keep us safe from such visits."
+
+To which the other answered, "We cannot trust to that, if Vanderdecken
+sends out his men."
+
+Some of this conversation having been overheard by the passengers,
+there was a commotion among them. In the meantime the noise of the
+waves against the vessel could scarcely be distinguished from the
+sounds of the distant thunder. The wind had extinguished the light
+in the binnacle, where the compass was, and no one could tell
+which way the ship's head lay. The passengers were afraid to ask
+questions, lest they should augment the secret sensation of fear
+which chilled every heart, or learn any more than they already knew.
+For while they attributed their agitation of mind to the state of
+the weather, it was sufficiently perceptible that their alarms also
+arose from a cause which they did not acknowledge.
+
+The lamp at the binnacle being relighted, they perceived that the
+ship lay closer to the wind than she had hitherto done, and the
+spirits of the passengers were somewhat revived.
+
+Nevertheless, neither the tempestuous state of the atmosphere nor
+the thunder had ceased, and soon a vivid flash of lightning showed
+the waves tumbling around us, and, in the distance, the Flying
+Dutchman scudding furiously before the wind under a press of canvas.
+The sight was but momentary, but it was sufficient to remove all
+doubt from the minds of the passengers. One of the men cried aloud,
+"There she goes, topgallants and all."
+
+The chaplain had brought up his prayer-book, in order that he might
+draw from thence something to fortify and tranquillise the minds
+of the rest. Therefore, taking his seat near the binnacle, so that
+the light shone upon the white leaves of the book, he, in a solemn
+tone, read out the service for those distressed at sea. The sailors
+stood round with folded arms, and looked as if they thought it
+would be of little use. But this served to occupy the attention of
+those on deck for a while.
+
+In the meantime the flashes of lightning, becoming less vivid,
+showed nothing else, far or near, but the billows weltering round
+the vessel. The sailors seemed to think that they had not yet seen
+the worst, but confined their remarks and prognostications to
+their own circle.
+
+At this time the captain, who had hitherto remained in his berth,
+came on deck, and, with a gay and unconcerned air, inquired what
+was the cause of the general dread. He said he thought they had
+already seen the worst of the weather, and wondered that his men
+had raised such a hubbub about a capful of wind. Mention being
+made of the Flying Dutchman, the captain laughed. He said he "would
+like very much to see any vessel carrying topgallantsails in such
+a night, for it would be a sight worth looking at." The chaplain,
+taking him by one of the buttons of his coat, drew him aside, and
+appeared to enter into serious conversation with him.
+
+While they were talking together, the captain was heard to say,
+"Let us look to our own ship, and not mind such things;" and,
+accordingly, he sent a man aloft to see if all was right about the
+foretopsail-yard, which was chafing the mast with a loud noise.
+
+It was Tom Willis who went up; and when he came down he said that
+all was tight, and that he hoped it would soon get clearer; and
+that they would see no more of what they were most afraid of.
+
+The captain and first mate were heard laughing loudly together,
+while the chaplain observed that it would be better to repress such
+unseasonable gaiety. The second mate, a native of Scotland, each
+other without offering to do anything. The boat had come very near
+the chains, when Tom Willis called out, "What do you want? or what
+devil has blown you here in such weather?" A piercing voice from
+the boat replied, in English, "We want to speak with your captain."
+The captain took no notice of this, and, Vanderdecken's boat having
+come close alongside, one of the men came upon deck, and appeared
+like a fatigued and weather-beaten seaman holding some letters in
+his hand.
+
+Our sailors all drew back. The chaplain, however, looking steadfastly
+upon him, went forward a few steps, and asked, "What is the purpose
+of this visit?"
+
+The stranger replied, "We have long been kept here by foul weather,
+and Vanderdecken wishes to send these letters to his friends in
+Europe."
+
+Our captain now came forward, and said, as firmly as he could, "I
+wish Vanderdecken would put his letters on board of any other vessel
+rather than mine."
+
+The stranger replied, "We have tried many a ship, but most of them
+refuse our letters."
+
+Upon which Tom Willis muttered, "It will be best for us if we do
+the same, for they say there is sometimes a sinking weight in your
+paper."
+
+The stranger took no notice of this, but asked where we were from.
+On being told that we were from Portsmouth, he said, as if with
+strong feeling, "Would that you had rather been from Amsterdam!
+Oh, that we saw it again! We must see our friends again." When he
+uttered these words, the men who were in the boat below wrung their
+hands, and cried, in a piercing tone, in Dutch, "Oh, that we saw
+it again! We have been long here beating about; but we must see
+our friends again."
+
+The chaplain asked the stranger, "How long have you been at sea?"
+
+He replied, "We have lost our count, for our almanac was blown
+overboard. Our ship, you see, is there still; so why should you
+ask how long we have been at sea? For Vanderdecken only wishes to
+write home and comfort his friends."
+
+To which the chaplain replied, "Your letters, I fear, would be of
+no use in Amsterdam, even if they were delivered; for the persons
+to whom they are addressed are probably no longer to be found there,
+except under very ancient green turf in the churchyard."
+
+The unwelcome stranger then wrung his hands and appeared to weep,
+and replied, "It is impossible; we cannot believe you. We have
+been long driving about here, but country nor relations cannot be
+so easily forgotten. There is not a raindrop in the air but feels
+itself kindred to all the rest, and they fall back into the sea to
+meet with each other again. How then can kindred blood be made to
+forget where it came from? Even our bodies are part of the ground
+of Holland; and Vanderdecken says, if he once were to come to
+Amsterdam, he would rather be changed into a stone post, well fixed
+into the ground, than leave it again if that were to die elsewhere.
+But in the meantime we only ask you to take these letters."
+
+The chaplain, looking at him with astonishment, said, "This is the
+insanity of natural affection, which rebels against all measures
+of time and distance."
+
+The stranger continued, "Here is a letter from our second mate to
+his dear and only remaining friend, his uncle, the merchant who
+lives in the second house on Stuncken Yacht Quay."
+
+He held forth the letter, but no one would approach to take it.
+
+Tom Willis raised his voice and said, "One of our men, here, says
+that he was in Amsterdam last summer, and he knows for certain that
+the street called Stuncken Yacht Quay was pulled down sixty years
+ago, and now there is only a large church at that place."
+
+The man from the Flying Dutchman said, "It is impossible; we cannot
+believe you. Here is another letter from myself, in which I have
+sent a bank-note to my dear sister, to buy some gallant lace to
+make her a high head-dress."
+
+Tom Willis, hearing this, said, "It is most likely that her head
+now lies under a tombstone, which will outlast all the changes of
+the fashion. But on what house is your bank-note?"
+
+The stranger replied, "On the house of Vanderbrucker & Company."
+
+The man of whom Tom Willis had spoken said, "I guess there will
+now be some discount upon it, for that banking house was gone
+to destruction forty years ago; and Vanderbrucker was afterward
+a-missing. But to remember these things is like raking up the
+bottom of an old canal."
+
+The stranger called out, passionately, "It is impossible;
+we cannot believe it! It is cruel to say such things to people in
+our condition. There is a letter from our captain himself, to his
+much-beloved and faithful wife, whom he left at a pleasant summer
+dwelling on the border of the Haarlemer Mer. She promised to have
+the house beautifully painted and gilded before he came back,
+and to get a new set of looking-glasses for the principal chamber,
+that she might see as many images of Vanderdecken as if she had
+six husbands at once."
+
+The man replied, "There has been time enough for her to have had
+six husbands since then; but were she alive still, there is no fear
+that Vanderdecken would ever get home to disturb her."
+
+On hearing this the stranger again shed tears, and said if they would
+not take the letters he would leave them; and, looking around, he
+offered the parcel to the captain, chaplain, and to the rest of
+the crew successively, but each drew back as it was offered, and
+put his hands behind his back. He then laid the letters upon the
+deck, and placed upon them a piece of iron which was lying near,
+to prevent them from being blown away. Having done this, he swung
+himself over the gangway, and went into the boat.
+
+We heard the others speak to him, but the rise of a sudden squall
+prevented us from distinguishing his reply. The boat was seen to
+quit the ship's side, and in a few moments there were no more traces
+of her than if she had never been there. The sailors rubbed their
+eyes as if doubting what they had witnessed; but the parcel still
+lay upon deck, and proved the reality of all that had passed.
+
+Duncan Saunderson, the Scotch mate, asked the captain if he should
+take them up and put them in the letter-bag. Receiving no reply,
+he would have lifted them if it had not been for Tom Willis, who
+pulled him back, saying that nobody should touch them.
+
+In the meantime the captain went down to the cabin, and the chaplain,
+having followed him, found him at his bottle-case pouring out a
+large dram of brandy. The captain, although somewhat disconcerted,
+immediately offered the glass to him, saying, "Here, Charters,
+is what is good in a cold night." The chaplain declined drinking
+anything, and, the captain having swallowed the bumper, they
+both returned to the deck, where they found the seamen giving their
+opinions concerning what should be done with the letters. Tom Willis
+proposed to pick them up on a harpoon, and throw it overboard.
+
+Another speaker said, "I have always heard it asserted that it is
+neither safe to accept them voluntarily, nor, when they are left,
+to throw them out of the ship."
+
+"Let no one touch them," said the carpenter. "The way to do with
+the letters from the Flying Dutchman is to case them up on deck,
+so that, if he sends back for them, they are still there to give
+him."
+
+The carpenter went to fetch his tools. During his absence the ship
+gave so violent a pitch that the piece of iron slid off the letters,
+and they were whirled overboard by the wind, like birds of evil
+omen whirring through the air. There was a cry of joy among the
+sailors, and they ascribed the favourable change which soon took
+place in the weather to our having got quit of Vanderdecken. We
+soon got under way again. The night watch being set, the
+rest of the crew retired to their berths.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Stories by English Authors: The Sea, by Various
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK STORIES BY ENGLISH AUTHORS: THE SEA ***
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Stories by English Authors: The Sea, by  Various
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+Title: Stories by English Authors: The Sea
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+Author:  Various
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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, STORIES BY ENGLISH AUTHORS: THE SEA ***
+
+
+
+
+This eBook was produced by Charles Aldarondo, Charles Franks, Nicole
+Apostola and The Online Distributed Proofreading Team.
+
+
+
+STORIES BY ENGLISH AUTHORS
+
+THE SEA
+
+
+THE EXTRAORDINARY ADVENTURE OF A CHIEF MATE BY W. CLARK RUSSELL
+QUARANTINE ISLAND BY SIR WALTER BESANT
+THE ROCK SCORPIONS ANONYMOUS
+THE MASTER OF THE "CHRYSTOLITE" BY G. B. O'HALLORAN
+"PETREL" AND "THE BLACK SWAN" ANONYMOUS
+MELISSA'S TOUR BY GRANT ALLEN
+VANDERDECKEN'S MESSAGE HOME ANONYMOUS
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE EXTRAORDINARY ADVENTURE OF A CHIEF MATE
+
+BY W. CLARK RUSSELL
+
+
+
+
+
+In the newspapers of 1876 appeared the following extracts from
+the log of a merchantman: "VOLCANIC ISLAND IN THE NORTH ATLANTIC.
+--The ship Hercules, of Liverpool, lately arrived in the Mersey,
+reports as follows: March 23, in 2 deg. 12' north latitude, 33 deg.
+27' west longitude, a shock of earthquake was felt, and shortly
+afterward a mass of land was hove up at a distance of about two miles
+from the ship. Michael Balfour, the chief officer, fell overboard.
+A buoy was thrown to him, the ship brought to the wind, and a boat
+lowered within fifteen minutes of the occurence. But though the
+men sought the chief mate for some time, nothing could be seen of
+him, and it is supposed that he sank shortly after falling into
+the sea. Masters of vessels are recommended to keep a sharp lookout
+in approaching the situation of the new island as given above. No
+doubt it will be sighted by other ships, and duly reported."
+
+I am Michael Balfour; I it was who fell overboard; and it is
+needless for me to say here that I not drowned. The volcanic island
+was only reported by one other ship, and the reason why will be
+read at large in this account of my strange adventure and merciful
+deliverance.
+
+It was the evening of the 23d of March, 1876. Our passage to the
+equator from Sydney had been good, but for three days we had been
+bothered with light head winds and calms, and since four o'clock
+this day the ocean had stretched in oil-smooth undulations to its
+margin, with never a sigh of air to crispen its marvellous serenity
+into shadow. The courses were hauled up, the staysails down, the
+mizzen brailed up; the canvas delicately beat the masts to the soft
+swing of the tall spars, and sent a small rippling thunder through
+the still air, like a roll of drums heard at a distance. The heat
+was great; I had never remembered a more biting sun. The pitch in
+the seams was soft as putty, the atmosphere was full of the smell
+of blistered paint, and it was like putting your hand on a red-hot
+stove to touch the binnacle hood or grasp for an an instant an iron
+belaying-pin.
+
+A sort of loathing comes into a man with a calm like this. "The
+very deep did rot," says the poet; and you understood his fancy
+when you marked the blind heave of the swell to the sun standing
+in the midst of a sky of brass, with his wake under him sinking in
+a sinuous dazzle, as though it was his fiery glance piercing to the
+green depths a thousand fathoms deep. It was hot enough to slacken
+the nerves and give the imagination a longer scope than sanity
+would have it ride by.
+
+That was why, perhaps, I found something awful and forbidding in
+the sunset, though at another time it might scarcely have detained
+my gaze a minute. But it is true, nevertheless, that others besides
+me gaped at the wonderful gushings of hot purple,--arrested whirlpools
+of crimson haze, they looked,--in the heart of which the orb sat
+rayless, flooding the sea with blood under him, so magnificently
+fell was the hue, and flushing the sky with twenty dyes of gold
+and orange, till, in the far east, the radiance fainted into the
+delicacy of pale amber.
+
+"Yon's a sunset," said Captain Matthews, a North of England man,
+to me, "to make a fellow think of the last day."
+
+"I'm looking at it, sir," said I, "as though I had never seen a
+sunset before. That's the oddest part of it, to my mind. There's
+fire enough there to eat a gale up. How should a cat's-paw crawl
+then?" And I softly whistled, while he wetted his finger and held
+it up; but to no purpose; the draught was all between the rails,
+and they blew forward and aft with every swing of the sails.
+
+When the dusk came along, the silence upon the sea was something
+to put all sorts of moods into a man. The sky was a hovering velvet
+stretch of stars, with a young moon lying curled among them, and
+winkings of delicate violet sheet-lightning down in the southwest,
+as though some gigantic-tinted lantern, passing, flung its light
+upon the dark blue obscure there. The captain went below, after a
+long, impatient look round, and I overhung the rail, peering into
+the water alongside, or sending my gaze into the frightful distance,
+where the low-lying stars hung. With every soft dip of the ship's
+side to the slant of the dark folds, there shot forth puffs of
+cloudy phosphor, intermixed with a sparkling of sharper fires now
+and again, blue, yellow, and green, like worms of flame striking
+out of their cocoons of misty radiance. The noise of the canvas on
+high resembled the stirring of pinions, and the cheep of a block,
+the grind of a parrel, helped the illusion, as though the sounds
+were the voices of huge birds restlessly beating their pinions
+aloft.
+
+Presently the man at the wheel startled me with an observation.
+I went to him, and he pointed upward with a long, shadowy arm. I
+looked, and saw a corposant, as it is called at sea,--a St. Elmo's
+fire,--burning at the end of the crossjack-yard. The yard lay
+square, and the polished sea beneath gave back the reflection so
+clearly that the mystic fire lay like a huge glow-worm on the black
+mirror.
+
+"There should be wind not far off," said the helmsman, in a subdued
+voice; for few sailors can see one of these lights without a stirring
+of their superstitious instincts, and this particular exhalation
+hung close to us.
+
+"I hope so," said I, "though I don't know where it's to come from."
+
+As I spoke, the light vanished. I ran my eye over the yards,
+expecting its reappearance; but it returned no more, and the sails
+rose pale and phantom-like to the stars. I was in an odd humour,
+and this was an apparition not to brighten one up. Of course one
+knows all about these maritime corpse-candles, and can explain
+their nature; but nevertheless the sudden kindling of them upon
+the darkness of the night, in the dead hush of the calm or amid the
+fury of the shrieking hurricane, produces feelings which there is
+nothing in science to resolve. I could have laughed to find myself
+sending a half-awed look aloft, as if I expected to see some visionary
+hand at work upon another one these graveyard illuminations-with
+a stealing out of some large, sad face to the melancholy glow; but
+I returned to the side very pensive for all that, and there stood
+watching the fiery outline of a shark subtly sneaking close to the
+surface (insomuch that the wake of its fin slipped away in little
+coils of green flame) toward the ship's bows.
+
+Half an hour later the dark curl of a light air of wind shattered
+the starlight in the sea, and our canvas fell asleep. I called to
+the watch to trim sail, and in a few moments the decks were busy
+with the figures of men pulling and hauling and surging out at the
+ropes in sulky, slumberous growlings. The captain arrived.
+
+"Little worth having in this, I fear," said he. "But make the most
+of it--make the most of it. Get the foretopmast stunsail run up.
+If she creeps but a league, it is a league to the good."
+
+The sail was sleepily set. Humbugging about with stunsails to the
+cat's-paws little pleased the men, especially at night. For three
+days they had been boxhauling the yards about to no purpose, and
+it was sickening work running stunsail-booms out to airs that died
+in their struggles to reach us. However, here was a draught at
+last, and the old gurgling and moaning sounds of the breathless,
+sluggish swell washing heavily like liquid lead to the sides were
+replaced by the tinkling noises of waters parting at the bows with
+a pretty little seething of expiring foam, and the hiss of exploding
+froth-bells. At eleven o'clock the light breeze was still holding,
+and the ship was floating softly through the dusk, the paring
+of moon swaying like a silver sickle over the port mizzen topsail
+yard-arm, everything quiet along the decks, no light save the
+sheen from the lamps in the binnacle, and nothing stirring but the
+figure of a man on the forecastle pacing athwartships, and blotting
+out at every step a handful of the stars which lay like dust
+on the blackness, under the yawn of the forecourse. On a sudden a
+steamer's lights showed on the starboard bow--a green beam, and a
+yellow one above, with the water on fire beneath them, and sparks
+floating away upon her coil of smoke, that made you think of the
+spangles of a falling rocket. She went past swiftly, at no great
+distance from us. There was not a moan in the hot breeze to disturb
+the wonderful ocean stillness, and you almost thought you caught
+the beating of the iron heart in her, and the curious monotonous
+songs which engines sing as they work. She swept past like a phantom,
+running a line of illuminated windows along, which resembled a
+row of street-lamps out in the darkness; and as she came on to our
+quarter she struck seven bells (half-past eleven), the rich metallic
+notes of which I clearly heard; and with the trembling of the last
+stroke upon the ear her outline melted.
+
+At that instant a peculiar thrill ran through the ship. It may
+be likened to the trembling in a floor when a heavy waggon passes
+in the street outside. It was over in a breath, but I could have
+sworn that it was not my fancy. I walked aft to the wheel, and
+said to the man, "Did you notice anything just now?"
+
+"Seemed to me as if the vessel trembled like," he replied.
+
+As he spoke the ship shook again, this time strongly. It was
+something more than a shudder; the sensation was for all the world
+as though she had scraped over a shoal of rock or shingle. There
+was a little clatter below, a noise of broken glass. The watch,
+who had been dozing on deck, sprang to their feet, and their
+ejaculations of surprise and fear rolled in a growl among them.
+The captain ran out of the companionway in his shirt and trousers.
+
+"What was that, Mr. Balfour?" he bawled.
+
+"Either the shock of an earthquake," said I, "or a whale sliding
+along our keel."
+
+"Get a cast of the lead! get a cast of the lead!" he shouted.
+
+This was done to the full scope of the hand-line, without bottom,
+of course. By this time the watch below had tumbled up, and all
+hands were now on deck, staring aloft or over the side, sniffing,
+spitting, muttering, and wondering what had happened.
+
+"There's that bloomin' compreesant come again!" exclaimed a hoarse
+voice; and, sure enough, a light similar to the one that had hung
+at the crossjack yard-arm now floated upon the end of the upper
+maintopsail-yard.
+
+"The devil's abroad to-night!" exclaimed the captain. "There's
+sulphur enough about," and he fell a-snuffling.
+
+What followed might have made an infidel suppose so; for scarce
+were the words out of his mouth when there happened an astonishing
+blast of noise, as loud and violent as that of forty or fifty cannons
+fired off at once, and out of the black sea no farther than a mile
+broad on the starboard beam rose a pillar of fire, crimson as the
+light of the setting sun and as dazzling too; it lived while you
+might have counted twenty, but in that time it lighted up the sea
+for leagues and leagues, put out the stars, and made the sky resemble
+a canopy of yellow satin; we on the ship saw one another's faces
+as if by daylight; the shrouds and masts and our own figures cast
+jet-black shadows on the deck; the whole ship flashed out to that
+amazing radiance like a fabric sun-touched. The column of fire
+then fattened and disappeared, and the night rolled down upon our
+blinded eyes as black as thunder.
+
+There was no noise--no hissing as of boiling water. If the furious
+report that preceded the leap of the fire had rendered its coming
+terrible, its extinction was made not less awful by the tomb-like
+stillness that attended it. I sprang on to the rail, believing I
+could perceive a dark mass--like a deeper dye upon the blackness
+that way--upon the water, and to steady myself caught hold of the
+mizzen loyal backstay, swinging out to my arm's length and peering
+with all my might. My excitement was great, and the consternation
+that posessed the ship's crew was upon me. As I leaned, the
+vessel heeled violently to a large swell caused by the volcanic
+disturbances. The roll was extraordinarily severe, heaving the
+vessel down to her covering-board; and the great hill of water
+running silent and in darkness through the sea, so that it could
+neither be viewed nor heard, made the sickening lurch a dreadful
+surprise and wonder.
+
+It was in that moment that I fell overboard. I suppose my grip of
+the backstay relaxed when the ship lay down; but, let the thing
+have happened how it would, in a breath I was under water. It is
+said that the swiftness of thought is best shown by dreams. This
+may be so; yet I cannot believe that thought was ever swifter in
+a dream than it was in me ere I came to the surface; for in those
+few seconds I gathered exactly what had befallen me, wondered
+whether my fall had been seen, whether I should be saved, realised
+my hopeless condition if I had not been observed, and, above all, was
+thinking steadfastly and with horror of the shark I had not long
+ago watched stemming in fire past the ship. I was a very indifferent
+swimmer, and what little power I had in that way was like to be
+paralysed by thoughts of the shark. I rose and fetched a breath,
+shook the water out of my eyes, and looked for the ship. She had
+been sliding along at the rate of about four knots an hour; but
+had she been sailing at ten she could not seem to have gone farther
+from me during the brief while I was submerged. From the edge of
+the water, where my eyes were, she appeared a towering pale shadow
+about a mile off. I endeavoured to scream out; but whether the cold
+of the plunge had bereft me of my voice, or that I had swallowed
+water enough to stop my pipes, I found I could utter nothing
+louder than a small groan. I made several strokes with my arms,
+and suddenly spied a life-buoy floating almost twenty yards ahead
+of me. I made for it in a transport of joy, for the sight of it
+was all the assurance I could ask that they knew on the ship that
+I had tumbled overboard; and, coming to the buoy, I seized and
+threw it over my head, and then got it under my arms and so floated.
+
+The breeze, such as it was, was on the ship's quarter, and she
+would need to describe a considerable arc before she rounded to.
+I could hear very faintly the voices on board, the flinging down
+of coils of rope, the dim echoes of hurry and commotion. I again
+sought to exert my lungs, but could deliver no louder note than a
+moan. The agony of mind I was under lest a shark should seize me I
+cannot express, and my strained eyeballs would come from the tall
+shadow of the ship to the the sea about me in a wild searching of
+the liquid ebony of it for the sparkling configuration of the most
+abhorred of all fish. I could have sworn that hours elapsed before
+they lowered a boat from the ship, that seemed to grow fainter and
+fainter every time I looked at her, so swallowing is the character
+of ocean darkness, and so subtle apparently, so fleet in fact, the
+settling away of a fabric under canvas from an object stationary
+on the water. I could distinctly hear the rattle of the oars in
+the rowlocks, and the splash of the dipped blades, but could not
+discern the boat. It was speedily evident, however, that they were
+pulling wide of me; my ear could not mistake. Again I tried to
+shout, but to no purpose. Manifestly no one had thought of taking
+my bearings when I fell, and I, who lay south, was being sought
+for southwest.
+
+Time passed; the boat never approached me within a quarter of a
+mile. They must instantly have heard me, could I have halloed; but
+my throat refused its office. I reckoned that they continued to
+row here and there for about half an hour, during which they were
+several times hailed by the captain, as I supposed; the sound of
+the oars then died. A little later I heard the very faint noises
+made by their hoisting the boat and hauling in upon the braces,
+and then there was nothing for me to do but to watch, with dying
+eyes, the shadow of the ship till it faded, and the stars shone
+where she had been.
+
+The sky shed very little light, and there was no foam to cast an
+illumination of its own. However, by this time, as you will suppose,
+I was used to my situation; that is to say, the horror and novelty
+of my condition had abated, and settled into a miserable feeling
+of despair; so that I was like a dying man who had passed days in
+an open boat, and who languidly directs his eyes over the gunwale
+at the sea, with the hopelessness that is bred by familiarity with
+his dreadful posture. It was some time after the ship had melted
+into the airy dusk that I seemed to notice, for the first time
+since I had been in the life-buoy, the lump of blackness at which
+I had been straining my eyes when the vessel heeled and I fell.
+It had the elusiveness of a light at sea, that is best seen (at
+a distance) by gazing a little on one side of it. It lay, a black
+mass, and whether it was a vast huddle of weeds, or a great whale
+killed by the earthquake, or solid land uphove by the volcanic
+rupture, was not conjecturable. It hung, still and not very tall,
+for I could not see that it put out any stars, and was about a mile
+distant. Whatever it might prove, I could not be worse off near
+or on or amid it than i was here; so, setting my face toward it,
+I began to strike out with my legs and arms.
+
+The water was so fiery, it chipped in flashes to every blow of my
+hands. I swam in the utmost terror, never knowing but that the next
+moment I should be feeling the teeth of a shark upon my legs, for
+the sparkling of the sea to my kicks and motions was signal enough
+for such a beast if it was a league distant; but I may as well say
+here that there is no doubt the shock of earthquake and the flame
+effectually cleared the sea in its neighbourhood of every kind
+of fish that floated in it, though the hope of such a thing could
+yield me but very little comfort while I swam.
+
+I continued to make good progress, and presently approaching the
+block of blackness, for so it looked, perceived that it was certainly
+land,--a solid rock, in short,--the head of some mountainous
+submarine formation lifted ten or twelve feet above the sea. I could
+now discern a faintness of vapour circling up from it and showing
+like steam against the stars. Its front stretched a length of a
+few hundred feet; how far it went behind I could not tell. A small
+sound of creaming waters came from it, produced by the light swell
+washing its shelter side. It lay all in a line of grayish darkness
+even when I was quite close, and I could see nothing but the shapeless
+body of it. Of a sudden my feet struck ground, and I waded thirty
+paces along a shelf that was under water till my paces lifted to
+the dry beach. But by this time I was fearfully exhausted; I could
+scarcely breathe. My legs and arms were numbed to the weight of
+lead. The atmosphere was warm, but not unbearably so--not hotter
+than it had been at noon in the ship. Steam crawled up from every
+pore, like the drainings of smoke from damp straw, but it did not
+add to the distress of my breathing. I made shift to stagger onward
+till I had gone about fifty feet from the wash of the sea. Nature
+then broke down; my knees gave way, I stumbled and fell--whether
+in a swoon or whether in a death-like slumber, I cannot say; all
+I can tell is that when I awoke, or recovered my senses, the sun
+stood fifteen degrees above the horizon, and I opened my eyes upon
+a hot and dazzling sky.
+
+I sat up in the utmost amazement. My mind for some time was all
+abroad, and I could recollect nothing. Memory then entered me with
+a bound, and I staggered to my feet with a cry. The first thing
+I took notice of was that my clothes were nearly dry, which was
+not very reconcilable with the steam that was still issuing from
+the island, though it was as I say. My bones ached cruelly, but
+I was not sensible of any particular languor. The brilliance was
+so blinding that I had to employ my eyes very warily in order
+to see; and it was not until I had kept opening and shutting them
+and shading them with my hands for some minutes that they acquired
+their old power. The island on which I stood had unquestionably been
+hove up in the night by the earthquake. I cannot figure it better
+than by asking you to imagine a gigantic mass of pumice-stone,
+somewhat flat on top, and shelving on all sides very gently to the
+water, lying afloat but steady on the sea. It was of the hue of
+pumice, and as clean as an egg-shell, without a grain of calcined
+dust or any appearance of scoriae that I could anywhere observe.
+It was riddled with holes, some wide and deep--a very honeycomb;
+and that I did not break my neck or a limb in staggering walk from
+the beach in the darkness, I must ever account the most miraculous
+part of my adventure.
+
+But what (when I had my whole wits) riveted my attention, and held
+me staring open-mouthed, as though in good truth the apparition of
+the devil had risen before me, was the body of a ship leaning on
+its bilge, at not more than a gunshot from where I stood, looking
+toward the interior. When my eyes first went to the thing I could
+not believe them. I imagined it some trick of the volcanic explosion
+that had fashioned a portion of the land or rock (as it may be
+called) into the likeness of a ship, but, on gazing steadfastly, I
+saw that it was indeed a vessel, rendered extraordinarily beautiful
+and wonderful by being densely covered with shells of a hundred
+different kinds, by which her bulk was enlarged, though her shape
+was preserved. Bright fountains of water were gushing from fifty
+places in her, all these waterfalls shone like rainbows, and showed
+surprisingly soft and lovely against the velvet green of the moss
+and the gray and kaleidoscopic tints of the shells upon her. Lost
+in amazement, I made my way toward her, and stood viewing her at
+a short distance. She had three lower masts standing--one right
+in the bows, and the mizzen raking very much aft. All three masts
+were supported by shrouds, and that was all the rigging the sea
+had left. She looked to be made of shells and moss; her shrouds and
+masts were incrusted as thickly as her hull. She was a mere tub of
+a ship in shape, being scarce twice as long as she was broad, with
+great fat buttocks, a very tall stern narrowing atop, and low bows
+with a prodigious curve to the stem-head. I am not well versed in
+the shipping of olden times, but I would have willingly staked all
+I was worth in the world that the fabric before me belonged to a
+period not much later than the days of Columbus, and that she had
+been sunk at least three centuries below the sea; and it was also
+perfectly clear to me that she had risen in the daylight, out of
+her green and oozy sepulchre, with the upheaval of the bed on which
+she lay to the convulsion that had produced this island.
+
+But my situation was not one to suffer me to stand long idly
+wondering and staring. The moment I brought my eyes away from
+the ship to the mighty desolation of the blue and gleaming ocean,
+a horror broke upon me, my heart turned into lead, and in the
+anguish of my spirits I involuntarily lifted my clinched hands to
+God. What was to become of me? I had no boat, no means of making
+anything to bear me, nothing but the life-buoy, that was no better
+than a trap for sharks to tear me to pieces in. I was thirsty, but
+there was no fresh water on this steaming speck of rock, and I tell
+you, the knowing that there was none, and that unless rain fell
+I must die of thirst, had like to have driven me mad. Where the
+ship was, and beyond it, the island rose somewhat in the form of
+a gentle undulation. I walked that way, and there obtained a view
+of the whole island, which was very nearly circular, like the head
+of a hill, somewhat after the shape of a saucepan lid. It resembled
+a great mass of sponge to the sight, and there was no break upon its
+surface save the incrusted ship, which did, indeed, form a very
+conspicuous object. Happening to look downward, I spied a large
+dead fish, of the size of a cod of sixteen or eighteen pounds,
+lying a-dry in a hole. I put my arm down and dragged it out, and,
+hoping by appeasing my hunger to help my thirst somewhat, I opened
+my knife and cut a little raw steak, and ate it. The moisture in the
+flesh refreshed me, and, that the sun might not spoil the carcass,
+I carried it to the shadow made by the ship, and put it under one
+of the waterfalls that the play might keep it sweet. There was
+plenty more dead fish in the numerous holes, and I picked out two
+and put them in the shade; but I knew that the great heat must
+soon taint them and rot the rest, whence would come a stench that
+might make the island poisonous to me.
+
+I sat down under the bends of the ship for the shadow it threw,
+and gazed at the sea. Perhaps I ought to have felt grateful for
+the miraculous creation of this spot of land, when, but for it, I
+must have miserably perished in the life-buoy, dying a most dreadful,
+slow, tormenting death, if some shark had not quickly despatched
+me; but the solitude was so frightful, my doom seemed so assured,
+I was threatened with such dire sufferings ere my end came, that,
+in the madness and despair of my heart, I could have cursed the
+intervention of this rock, which promised nothing but the prolongation
+of my misery. There was but one live spark amid the ashes of my
+hopes; namely, that the island lay in the highway of ships, and
+that it was impossible a vessel could sight so unusual an object
+without deviating from her course to examine it. That was all the
+hope I had; but God knows there was nothing in it to keep me alive
+when I set off against it the consideration that there was no water
+on the island, no food; that a ship would have to sail close to
+remark so flat and little a point as this rock; and that days, ay,
+and weeks might elapse before the rim of yonder boundless surface,
+stretching in airy leagues of deep blue to the azure sky at the
+horizon, should be broken by the star-like shining of a sail.
+
+Happily, the wondrous incrusted bulk was at hand to draw my thoughts
+away from my hideous condition; for I verily believe, had my eye
+found nothing to rest upon but the honeycombed pumice, my brain would
+have given way. I stood up and took a long view of the petrified
+shell-covered structure, feeling a sort of awe in me while I looked,
+for it was a kind of illustration of the saying of the sea giving
+up its dead, and the thing stirred me almost as though it had been
+a corpse that had risen to the sun, after having been a secret of
+the deep for three hundred years.
+
+It occurred to me that if I could board her she might furnish me
+with a shelter from the dew of the night. She had channels with
+long plates, all looking as if they were formed of shells; and
+stepping round to the side toward which she leaned, I found the
+fore channel-plates to be within reach of my hands. The shells were
+slippery and cutting; but I was a sailor, and there would have been
+nothing in a harder climb than this to daunt me. So, after a bit
+of a struggle, I succeeded in hauling myself into the chains, and
+thence easily dragged myself over the rail on to the deck.
+
+The sight between the bulwarks was far more lovely and surprising
+than the spectacle presented by the ship's sides. For the decks
+seemed not only formed of shells of a hundred different hues;
+there was a great abundance of branching corals, white as milk,
+and marine plants of kinds for which I could not find names, of
+several brilliant colours; so that, what with the delicate velvet
+of the moss, the dark shades of seaweed of figurations as dainty
+as those of ferns, and the different sorts of shells, big and
+little, all lying as solid as if they had been set in concrete,
+the appearance of the ship submitted was something incredibly
+fantastic and admirable. Whether the hatches were on or not I could
+not tell, so thickly coated were the decks; but whether or not, the
+deposits and marine growths rendered the surface as impenetrable
+as iron, and I believe it would have kept a small army of labourers
+plying their pickaxes for a whole week to have made openings into
+the hold through that shelly coating of mail.
+
+My eye was taken by a peculiar sort of protuberance at the foot
+of the mainmast. It stood as high as I did, and had something of
+the shape of a man, and, indeed, after staring at it for some time,
+I perceived that it had been a man; that is to say, it was a human
+skeleton, filled up to the bulk of a living being by the shells and
+barnacles which covered it. Ashore, it might have passed for some
+odd imitation in shells of the human figure; but, viewing it as I
+did, in the midst of that great ocean, amid the frightful solitude
+of the great dome of heaven, in a ship that was like the handiwork
+of the sea-gods at the bottom of the deep--I say, looking at it as
+I did, and knowing the thing had had life in centuries past, and
+had risen thus wildly garnished out of the unfathomable secret
+heart of the ocean, it awed me to an extent I cannot express, and
+I gazed as though fascinated. In all probability, this was a man
+who, when the ship foundered, had been securely lashed to the mast
+for safety or for punishment.
+
+I turned away at last with a shudder, and walked aft. The wreck
+was unquestionably some Spanish or Portuguese carrack or galleon
+as old as I have stated; for you saw her shape when you stood on
+her deck, and her castellated stern rising into a tower from her
+poop and poop-royal, as it was called, proved her age as convincingly
+as if the date of her launch had been scored upon her.
+
+What was in her hold? Thousands of pounds' worth of precious ore in
+gold and silver bars and ingots, for all I knew; but had she been
+flush to her upper decks with doubloons and ducats, I have exchanged
+them all for the sight of a ship, or for a rill of fresh water. I
+searched the horizon with feverish eyes; there was nothing in sight.
+The afternoon was advancing; the sun was burning unbearably midway
+down the western sky, and my thirst tormented me. I dropped over
+the side and cut another steak of fish; but though the moisture
+temporarily relieved me, the salt of the water flowing upon it dried
+into my throat and increased my sufferings. There was a light air
+blowing, and the sea trembled to it into a deeper hue of blue, and
+met in a glorious stream of twinkling rubies under the setting sun.
+I counted half a score of wet black fins round about the island,
+and understood that the sharks had recovered from their scare, and
+had returned to see if the earthquake had cast up anything to eat.
+
+When the sun sank, the night came along in a stride; the curl of the
+moon looked wanly down upon me, and the sky flashed with starshine,
+so rich and magnificent was the glow of the nearer luminaries.
+I reentered the ship and stepped to the cabin front, over which
+extended a "break" or penthouse, under which I might find some
+shelter from the dew that was already falling like rain, and squatted
+down, lascar-fashion, with my back against the shell-armoured
+bulkhead. Great Father! never had I known what solitude was till
+then. There was no sound save the quiet foaming of waters draining
+from the wreck, and the purring of the very light swell softly
+moving upon the beach, and the faint, scarce audible whispering
+of the dew-laden draught of air stirring in the stony, fossilised
+shrouds. My throat felt like hot brass; I tried to pray, but could
+not. Imagination grew a little delirious, and I would sometimes
+fancy that the terrible shape at the foot of the mainmast moved
+as if seeking to free itself and approach me. There was a constant
+glancing of shooting stars on high, swift sparklings and trailings
+of luminous dust, and, as on the previous night, here and there
+upon the horizon a dim violet play of sheet-lightning. It was like
+being at the bottom of the sea, alive there, to be in this black,
+shelly, weed-smelling ship. Whether my thoughts came to me waking
+or sleeping I cannot tell, but I know some mad fancies possessed
+me, and upon the sable canvas of the night, imagination, like
+a magic lantern, flung a dozen febriletinctured pictures, and
+I particularly recollect conceiving that I was my own soul at the
+bottom of the ocean in the ship; that, in the green twilight of
+the valley in which I was, I saw many forms of dead men standing or
+lying or sitting, preserving the postures in which they had come
+floating down into the darkly gleaming profound--figures of sailors
+of different centuries clad in the garb of their times, intermixed
+with old ordnance making coarse and rusty streaks upon the sand,
+the glitter of minted money, the gleam of jewels, and fish brightly
+apparelled and of shapes unknown to man floating round about like
+fragments of rainbow. My dreams always wound up with imaginations
+of babbling drinks, and then I'd wake with the froth upon my lips.
+However, I got some ease by leaving my handkerchief to soak in the
+dew and then sucking it.
+
+Several times during the night I had got on to the upper poop--the
+deck above the poop anciently termed the poop-royal--and looked
+around me. But there was nothing to see, not a shadow to catch the
+eye. The breeze freshened somewhat about midnight, and the air
+was made pleasant by the musical noises of running waters. I fell
+asleep an hour before dawn, and when I awoke the early ashen line
+was brightening in the east. The birth of the day is rapid in those
+parallels, and the light of the morning was soon all over sea and
+sky. I turned to search the ocean, and the first thing I saw was a
+brig not above half a mile from the island. She had studding sails
+set, and was going north, creeping along before the breeze. The
+instant I saw her I rushed on to the poop, where my figure would be
+best seen, and fell to flourishing my handkerchief like a maniac.
+I sought to shout, but my voice was even weaker than it had been
+after I fell overboard. I have no power to describe my feelings
+while I waited to see what the brig would do. I cursed myself for
+not having kept a lookout, so that I might have had plenty of time
+to signal to her as she approached. If she abandoned me I knew I
+must perish, as every instant assured me that I had neither mental
+nor physical power to undergo another day and night without drink
+and without hope upon the island.
+
+On a sudden she hauled up the lee clew of her mainsail, boom-ended
+her studding sails, and put her helm over. I knew what this signified,
+and, clasping my hands, I looked up to God.
+
+Presently a boat was lowered and pulled toward the island. I dropped
+over the side, tumbling down upon my nose in my weakness, and made
+with trembling legs to the beach, standing, in my eagerness, in
+the very curl of the wash there. There were three men in the boat,
+and they eyed me, as they rowed, over their shoulders as if I had
+been a spectre.
+
+"Who are you, mate, and what country is this?" exclaimed the man
+who pulled stroke, standing up to stretch his hand to me.
+
+I pointed to my throat, and gasped, "Water!" I could barely
+articulate.
+
+Nothing in this wide world moves sailors like a cry to them for
+water. In an instant the three men had dragged me into the boat,
+and were straining like horses at their oars, as they sent the boat
+flashing through the rippling water. We dashed alongside.
+
+"He's dying of thirst!" was the cry.
+
+I was bundled on deck; the captain ran below, and returned with a
+small draught of wine and water.
+
+"Start with that," said he. "You'll be fitter for a longer pull
+later on."
+
+The drink gave me back my voice; yet for a while I could scarce
+speak, for the tears that swelled my heart.
+
+"Are there any more of ye?" said the captain.
+
+I answered, "No."
+
+"But what land's this?" he inquired.
+
+"An island uphove by an earthquake," said I.
+
+"Great thunder!" he cried. "And what's that arrangement in shells
+and weeds atop of it?"
+
+"A vessel that's probably been three hundred years at the bottom,"
+I answered.
+
+"The quake rose it, hey?"
+
+"Just as it is," said I.
+
+"Well, boil me," cried the worthy fellow, "if it don't seem too good
+to be true! Mr. Fletcher, trim sail, sir. Best shove along--shove
+along. Come, sir, step below with me for a rest and a bite, and
+give me your tale."
+
+A warily eaten meal with another sup of wine and water made me a
+new man. We sat below a long while, I telling my story, he making
+notes and talking of the credit he would get for bringing home a
+report of a new country, when suddenly the mate put his head into
+the skylight.
+
+"Captain!"
+
+"Hillo!"
+
+"The island's gone, sir."
+
+"What d' ye mean? that we've sunk it?"
+
+"No, by the Lord; but that it's sunk itself."
+
+We ran on deck, and where the island should have been was all clear
+sea.
+
+The captain stared at the water, with his mouth wide open.
+
+"Nothing to report after all!" he cried.
+
+"I saw it founder!" exclaimed the mate. "I had my eye on it when
+it sank. I've seen some foundering in my day; but this beats all
+my going a-fishing!"
+
+"Well," said the captain to me, "we didn't come too soon, sir."
+
+I hid my face in my hands.
+
+The Susan Gray was the name of the brig that rescued me. The
+Hercules saw the first of the island, and the Susan Gray the last
+of it. Hence, as I said at the start, it was reported by two vessels
+only.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+QUARANTINE ISLAND
+
+BY SIR WALTER BESANT
+
+
+
+
+
+"No!" he cried, passionately. "You drew me on; you led me to believe
+that you cared for me; you encouraged me! What! can a girl go on
+as you have done without meaning anything? Does a girl allow a
+man to press her hand--to keep her hand--without meaning anything?
+Unless these things mean nothing, you are the most heartless girl
+in the whole world; yes--I say the coldest, the most treacherous,
+the most heartless!" It was evening, and moonlight; a soft and
+delicious night in September. The waves lapped gently at their
+feet, the warm breeze played upon their faces, the moon shone upon
+them--an evening wholly unfit for such a royal rage as this young
+gentleman (two and twenty is still young) exhibited. He walked
+about on the parade, which was deserted except for this solitary
+pair, gesticulating, waving his arms, mad with the madness of
+wounded love.
+
+She sat on one of the seaside benches, her hands clasped, her head
+bent, overwhelmed and frightened and remorseful. He went on: he
+recalled the day when first they met; he reminded her of the many,
+many ways in which she had led him on to believe that she cared
+for him; he accused her of making him love her in order to laugh
+at him. When he could find nothing more to say, he flung himself
+upon the bench,--but on the other end of it,--and crossed his arms,
+and dropped his head upon them. So that there were two on the bench,
+one at either end, and both with their heads dropped--a pretty
+picture in the moonlight of a lovers' quarrel. But this was worse
+than a lovers' quarrel. It was the end of everything, for the girl
+was engaged to another man.
+
+She rose. If he had been looking up, he would have seen that there
+were tears in her eyes and on her cheek.
+
+"Mr. Fernie," she stammered, timidly, "I suppose there is nothing
+more to say. I am no doubt all that you have called me. I am
+heartless; I have led you on. Well, but I did not know--how could
+I tell that you were taking things so seriously? How can you be so
+angry just because I can't marry you? One girl is no better than
+another. There are plenty of girls in the world. I thought you
+liked me, and I--but what is the use of talking? I am heartless
+and cold; I am treacherous and vain and cruel, and--and--won't you
+shake hands with me once more, Claude, before we part?"
+
+"No! I will never shake hands with you again; never--never! By
+heavens! nothing that could happen now would ever make me shake
+hands with you again. I hate you, I loathe you, I shudder at the
+sight of you, I could not forgive you--never! You have ruined my
+life. Shake hands with you! Who but a heartless and worthless woman
+could propose such a thing?"
+
+She shivered and shook at his wild words. She could not, as she
+said, understand the vehemence of the passion that held the man.
+He was more than half mad, and she was only half sorry. Forgive
+the girl. She was only seventeen, just fresh from her governess.
+She was quite innocent and ignorant. She knew nothing about the
+reality and vehemence of passion; she thought that they had been
+very happy together. Claude, to be sure, was ridiculously fond of
+taking her hand; once he kissed her head to show the depth of his
+friendship. He was such a good companion; they had had such a
+pleasant time; it was a dreadful pity that he should be so angry.
+Besides, it was not as if she liked the other man, who was old and
+horrid.
+
+"Good-bye, then, Claude," she said. "Perhaps when we meet again you
+will be more ready to forgive me. Oh," she laughed, "it is so silly
+that a man like you--a great, strong, clever, handsome man--should
+be so foolish over a girl! Besides, you ought to know that a girl
+can't have things her own way always. Good-bye, Claude. Won't you
+shake hands?" She laid her hand upon his shoulder,--just touched
+it,--turned, and fled.
+
+She had not far to go. The villa where she lived was within
+five minutes' walk. She ran in, and found her mother alone in the
+drawing-room.
+
+"My dear," the mother said, irritably, "I wish to goodness you
+wouldn't run out after dinner. Where have you been?"
+
+"Only into the garden, and to look at the sea."
+
+"There's Sir William in the dining-room still."
+
+"Let him stay there, mother dear. He'll drink up all the wine and
+go to sleep, perhaps, and then we shall be rid of him."
+
+"Go in, Florence, and bring him out. It isn't good for him, at his
+age, to drink so much."
+
+"Let the servants go," the girl replied, rebellious.
+
+"My dear, your own accepted lover! Have you no right feeling? O
+Florence! and when I am so ill, and you know--I told you--"
+
+"A woman should not marry her grandfather. I've had more than
+enough of him to-day already. You made me promise to marry him.
+Until I do marry he may amuse himself. As soon as we are married,
+I shall fill up all the decanters, and keep them full, and encourage
+him to drink as much as ever he possibly can."
+
+"My dear, are you mad?"
+
+"Oh no! I believe I have only just come to my senses. Mad? No.
+I have been mad. Now, when it is too late, I am sane. When it is
+too late--when I have just understood what I have done."
+
+"Nonsense, child! What do you mean by being too late? Besides, you
+are doing what every girl does. You have accepted the hand of an
+old man who can give you a fine position and a great income and
+every kind of luxury. What moree can a girl desire? When I die--you
+know already--there will be nothing--nothing at all for you. Marriage
+is your only chance."
+
+At this moment the door opened, and Sir William himself appeared.
+He was not, although a man so rich, and therefore so desirable,
+quite a nice old man to look at--not quite such an old man as a
+girl would fall in love with at first sight; but perhaps under the
+surface there lay unsuspected virtues by the dozen. He was short
+and fat; his hair was white; his face was red; he had great white
+eyebrows; he had thick lips; his eyes rolled unsteadily, and his
+shoulders lurched; he had taken much more wine than is good for a
+man of seventy.
+
+He held out both hands and lurched forward. "Florenshe," he said,
+thickly, "letsh sit down together somewhere. Letsh talk, my dear."
+
+The girl slipped from the proffered hands and fled from the room.
+
+"Whatsh matter with the girl?" said Sir William.
+
+Out at sea, all by itself, somewhere about thirty miles from a
+certain good-sized island in a certain ocean, there lies another
+little island--an eyot--about a mile long and half a mile broad. It
+is a coral islet. The coral reef stretches out all round it, except
+in one or two places, where the rock shelves suddenly, making it
+possible for a ship to anchor there. The islet is flat, but all
+round it runs a kind of natural sea-wall, about ten feet high and
+as many broad; behind it, on the side which the wall protects from
+the prevailing wind, is a little grove of low, stunted trees, the
+name and kind of which the successive tenants of the island have
+never been curious to ascertain. I am therefore unable to tell you
+what they are. The area protected by the sea-wall, as low as the
+sea-level, was covered all over with long, rank grass. At the
+north end of the islet a curious round rock, exactly like a martello
+tower, but rather higher, rose out of the water, separated from
+the sea-wall by twenty or thirty feet of deep water, dark blue,
+transparent; sometimes rolling and rushing and tearing at the sides
+of the rock, sometimes gently lifting the seaweed that clung to
+the sides. Round the top of the rock flew, screaming all the year
+round, the sea-birds. Far away on the horizon, like a blue cloud,
+one could see land; it was the larger island, to which this place
+belonged. At the south end was a lighthouse, built just like all
+lighthouses, with low white buildings at its foot, and a flagstaff,
+and an enclosure which was a feeble attempt at a flower-garden.
+You may see a lighthouse exactly like it at Broadstairs. In fact,
+it is a British lighthouse. Half a mile from the lighthouse, where
+the sea-wall broadened into a wide, level space, there was a wooden
+house of four rooms--dining-room, salon, and two bedrooms. It was
+a low house, provided with a veranda on either side. The windows
+had no glass in them, but there were thick shutters in case
+of hurricanes. There were doors to the rooms, but they were never
+shut. Nothing was shut or locked up or protected. On the inner or
+land side there was a garden, in which roses (a small red rose)
+grew in quantities, and a few English flowers. The elephant-creeper,
+with its immense leaves, clambered up the veranda poles and over
+the roof. There was a small plot of ground planted pineapples, and
+a solitary banana-tree stood under the protection of the house,
+its leaves blown to shreds, its head bowed down,
+
+Beyond the garden was a collection of three or four huts, where
+lived the Indian servants and their families.
+
+The residents of this retreat--this secluded earthly paradise--were
+these Indian servants with their wives and children; the three
+lighthouse men, who messed together; and the captain, governor, or
+commander-in-chief, who lived in the house all by himself because
+he had no wife or family.
+
+Now the remarkable thing about this island is that, although it
+is so far removed from any other inhabited place, and although it
+is so small, the human occupants number many thousands. With the
+exception of the people above named, these thousands want nothing:
+neither the light of the the day or the warmth of the sun; neither
+food nor drink. They lie side by oide under the rank grass, without
+headstones or even graves to mark their place, without a register
+or record of their departure, without even coffins! There they
+lie,--sailors, soldiers, coolies, negroes,--forgotten and lost as
+much as if they had never been born. And if their work lives after
+them, nobody knows what that work is. They belong to the vast army
+of the Anonymous. Poor Anonymous! They do all the work. They grow
+our corn and breed our sheep; they make and mend for us; they build
+up our lives for us. We never know them, nor thank them, nor think
+of them. All over the world, they work for their far-off brethren;
+and when one dies, we know not, because another takes his place.
+And at the last a mound of green grass, or even nothing but an
+undistinguished strip of ground!
+
+Here lay, side by side, the Anonymous--thousands of them. Did
+I say they were forgotten? Not quite; they are remembered by the
+two or three Indian women, wives of the Indian servants, who live
+there. At sunset they and their children retreat to their huts,
+and stay in them till sunrise next morning. They dare not so much
+as look outside the door, because the place is crowded with white,
+shivering, sheeted ghosts! Speak to one of these women; she will
+point out to you, trembling, one, two, half a dozen ghosts. It
+is true that the dull eye of the Englishman can see nothing. She
+sees them--distinguishes them one from the other. She can see them
+every night; yet she can never overcome her terror. The governor,
+or captain, or commander-in-chief, for his part, sees nothing.
+He sleeps in his house quite alone, with his cat and dog, windows
+and doors wide open, and has no fear of any ghosts. If he felt any
+fear, of course he would be surrounded and pestered to death every
+night with multitudes of ghosts; but he fears nothing. He is a
+doctor, you see; and no doctor ever yet was afraid of ghosts.
+
+How did they come here--this huge regiment of dead men? In several
+ways. Cholera accounts for most, yellow fever for some, other
+fevers for some, but for the most cholera has been the destroyer.
+Because, you see, this is Quarantine Island. If a ship has cholera
+or any other infectious disease on board, it cannot touch at the
+island close by, which is a great place for trade, and has every
+year a quantity of ships calling; the infected ship has to betake
+herself to Quarantine Island, where her people are landed, and
+where they stay until she has a clear bill; and that sometimes is
+not until the greater part of her people have changed their berths
+on board for permanent lodgings ashore. Now you understand. The
+place is a great cemetery. It lies under the hot sun of the tropics.
+The sky is always blue; the sun is always hot. It is girdled by
+the sea. It is always silent; for the Indian children do not laugh
+or shout, and the Indian women are too much awed by the presence
+of the dead to wrangle; always silent, save for the crying of the
+sea-birds on the rock. There are no letters, no newspapers, no
+friends, no duties--none save when a ship puts in; and then, for
+the doctor, farewell rest, farewell sleep, until the bill of health
+is clean. Once a fortnight or so, if the weather permits and if the
+communications are open,--that is, if there is no ship there,--a boat
+arrives from the big island with rations and letters and supplies.
+Sometimes a visitor comes, but not often, because, should an
+infected ship put in, he would have to stay as long as the ship.
+A quiet, peaceful, monotonous life for one who is weary of the
+world, or for a hermit; and as good as the top of a pillar for
+silence and for meditation.
+
+The islet lay all night long in much the same silence which lapped
+and wrapped it all the day. The water washed musically upon the
+shore; the light in the lighthouse flashed at intervals; there was
+no other sign of life. Toward six o'clock in the morning the dark
+east grew gray; thin, long white rays shot out across the sky, and
+then the light began to spread. Before the gray turned to pink or
+the pink to crimson, before there was any corresponding glow in the
+western sky, the man who occupied the bungalow turned out of bed,
+and came forth to the veranda, clad in the silk pajamas and silk
+jacket which formed the evening or dress suit in which he slept.
+The increasing light showed that he was a young man still, perhaps
+about thirty --a young man with a strong and resolute face and
+a square forehead. He stood under the veranda watching, as he had
+done every day for two years or more. the break of day and the
+sunrise. He drank in the delicious breeze, cooled by a thousand
+miles and more of ocean. No one knows the freshness and sweetness
+of the air until he has so stood in the open and watched the dawn
+of a day in the tropics. He went back to the house, and came out
+again clad in a rough suit of tweeds and a helmet. His servant
+was waiting for him with his morning tea. He drank it, and sallied
+forth. By this time the short-lived splendour of the east was fast
+broadening to right and left, until it stretched from pole to a pole.
+Suddenly the sun leaped up and the colours fled and the splendour
+vanished. The sky became all over a deep, clear blue, and round
+about the sun was a brightness which no eye but that of the sea-bird
+can face and live. The man in the helmet turned to the sea-shore,
+and walked briskly along the natural mound or sea-wall. Now and
+then he stepped down upon the white coral sand, picked up a shell,
+looked at it, and threw it away. When he came to the sea-birds'
+rock, he sat down and watched it. In the deep water below, sea-snakes,
+red and purple and green, were playing about; the bluefish, who
+are not in the least afraid of the snakes, rolled lazily round and
+round the rock; in the recesses lurked unseen the great conger-eel,
+which dreads nothing but the thing of long and horny tentacles,
+the ourite or squid: round and round the rock darted the humourous
+tazaar, which bites the bathers in shallow waters all for fun and
+mischief, and with no desire at all to eat their flesh; and besides
+these a thousand curious creatures, which this man, who had trained
+his eyes by days and days of watching, came here every day to look
+at. While he stood there the sea-birds took no manner of notice
+of him, flying close about him, lighting on the shore close at his
+feet. They were intelligent enough to know that he was only dangerous
+with a gun in his hand. Presently he got up and continued his walk.
+All round the sea-wall of the island measures about three miles.
+He took this walk every morning and every evening in the early cool
+and the late. The rest of the time he spent indoors.
+
+When he got back it was nearly seven, and the day was growing hot.
+He took his towels, went down to the shore, to a place where the
+coral reef receded, leaving a channel out to the open. The channel
+swarmed with sharks, but he bathed there every morning, keeping in
+the shallow water while the creatures watched him from the depths
+beyond with longing eyes. He wore a pair of slippers on account
+of the laf, which is a very pretty little fish indeed to look at;
+but he lurks in dark places near the shore, and he is too lazy to
+get out of the way, and if you put your foot near him he sticks
+out his dorsal fin, which is prickly and poisoned; and when a man
+gets that into the sole of his foot he goes home and cuts his leg
+off, and has to pretend that he lost it in action.
+
+When he had bathed, the doctor went back to his house, and performed
+some simple additions to his toilet. That is to say, he washed the
+salt water out of his hair and beard; not much else. As to collars,
+neckties, braces, waistcoats, black coats, rings, or any such
+gewgaws, they were not wanted on this island. Nor are watches and
+clocks; the residents go by the sun. The doctor got up at daybreak,
+and took his walk, as you have seen, and his bath. He was then
+ready for his breakfast, a solid meal, in which fresh fish, newly
+caught that morning, and curried chicken, with claret and water,
+formed the principal part. A cup of coffee came after, with a cigar
+and a book on the veranda. By this time the sun was high, and the
+glare of forenoon had succeeded the coolness of the dawn. After
+the cigar the doctor went indoors. The room was furnished with a
+few pictures, a large bookcase full of books, chiefly medical, a
+table covered with papers, and two or three chairs. No curtains,
+carpets, or blinds; the doors and windows wide open to the veranda
+on both sides.
+
+He sat down and began writing; perhaps he was a novel. I think
+no one could think of a more secluded place for writing a novel.
+Perhaps he was doing something scientific. He continued writing
+till past midday. When he felt hungry, he went into the dining-room,
+took a biscuit or two, and a glass of vermuth. Then, because it
+was now the hour for repose, and because the air outside was hot,
+and the sea-breeze had dropped to a dead calm, and the sun was like
+a red-hot glaring furnace overhead, the doctor kicked off his boots,
+threw off his coat, lay down on a grass mat under the mosquito-curtain,
+and instantly fell fast asleep. About five o'clock he awoke and
+got up; the heat of the day was over. He took a long draught of
+cold tea, which is the most refreshing and the coolest drink in the
+world. The sun was now getting low, and the air was growing cool.
+He put on his helmet, and set off again to walk round his domain.
+This done, he bathed again. Then he went home as the sun sank, and
+night fell instantly without the intervention of twilight. They
+served him dinner, which was like his breakfast but for the addition
+of some cutlets. He took his coffee; he took a pipe--two pipes,
+slowly, with a book; he took a whisky-and-soda; and he went to bed.
+I have said that he had no watch; it hung idly on a nail; therefore
+he knew not the time, but it would very likely be about half-past
+nine. However that might be, he was the last person up in this
+ghostly Island of the Anonymous Dead.
+
+This doctor, captain-general, and commandant of Quarantine Island
+was none other than the young man who began this history with a
+row royal and a kingly rage. You think, perhaps, that he had turned
+hermit in the bitterness of his wrath, and for the faults of one
+simple girl had resolved on the life of a solitary. Nothing of
+the kind. He was an army doctor, and he left the service in order
+to take this very eligible appointment, where one lived free, and
+could spend nothing except a little for claret. He proposed to stay
+there for a few years in order to make a little money by means of
+which he might become a specialist. This was his ambition. As for
+that love-business seven years past, he had clean forgotten it,
+girl and all. Perhaps there had been other tender passages. Shall
+a man, wasting in despair, die because a girl throws him over?
+Never! Let him straightway forget her. Let him tackle his work; let
+him put off the business of love--which can always wait--until he
+can approach it once more in the proper spirit of illusion, and
+once more fall to worshipping an angel.
+
+Neither nature nor civilisation ever designed a man's life to be
+spent in monotony. Most of us have to work for our daily bread,
+which is always an episode, and sometimes a pretty dismal episode,
+to break and mark the day. One day there came such a break in the
+monotonous round of the doctor's life. It came in the shape of a
+ship. She was a large steamer, and she steamed slowly.
+
+It was early in the morning, before breakfast. The doctor and one
+of the lighthouse men stood on the landing-place watching her.
+
+"She's in quarantine, doctor, sure as sure," said the man. "I
+wonder what's she's got. Fever, for choice; cholera, more likely.
+Well, we take our chance."
+
+"She's been in bad weather," said the doctor, looking at her
+through his glass. "Look; she's lost her mizzen, and her bows are
+stove in. I wonder what's the meaning of it. She's a transport." She
+drew nearer. "Troops! Well, I'd rather have soldiers than coolies."
+
+She was a transport. She was full of soldiers, time-expired men
+and invalids going home. She was bound from Calcutta to Portsmouth.
+She had met with a cyclone; driven out of her course and battered,
+she was making for the nearest port when cholera broke out on board.
+
+Before nightfall the island was dotted with white tents; a hospital
+was rigged up with the help of the ship's spars and canvas. The
+men were all ashore, and the quarantine doctor, with the ship's
+doctor, was hard at work among the cases, and the men were dropping
+in every direction.
+
+Among the passengers were a dozen ladies and some children. The
+doctor gave up his house to them, and retired to a tent or to the
+lighthouse or anywhere to sleep. Much sleep could not be expected for
+some time to come. He saw the boat land with the ladies on board;
+he took off his hat as they walked past. There were old ladies,
+middle-aged ladies, young ladies. Well, there always is this
+combination. Then he went on with his work. But he had a curious
+sensation, as if something of the past had been revived in his mind.
+It is, however, not an uncommon feeling. And one of the ladies
+changed colour when she saw him.
+
+Then began the struggle for life. No more monotony in Quarantine
+Island. Right and left, all day long, the men fell one after the
+other; day after day more men fell, more men died. The two doctors
+quickly organised their staff. The ship's officers became clinical
+clerks; some of the ladies became nurses. And the men, the rough
+soldiers, sat about in their tents with pale faces, expecting. Of
+those ladies who worked there was one who never seemed weary, never
+wanted rest, never asked for relief. She was at work all day and
+all night in the hospital; if she went out, it was only to cheer
+up the men outside. The doctor was but conscious of her work and of
+her presence; he never spoke to her. When he came to the hospital,
+another nurse received him; if he passed her, she seemed always
+to turn away. At a less troubled time he would have observed this.
+At times he felt again that odd sensation of a recovered past, but
+he regarded it not; he had other things to consider. There is no
+time more terrible for the courage of the stoutest man than a time
+of cholera on board ship or in a little place whence there is no
+escape; no time worse for a physician than one when his science
+is mocked and his skill avails nothing. Day after day the doctor
+fought from morning till night, and far on to the morning again;
+day after day new graves were dug; day after day the chaplain read
+over the new-made graves the service of the dead for the gallant
+lads who thus died, inglorious, for their country.
+
+There came a time, at last, when the conqueror seemed tired
+of conquest; he ceased to strike. The fury of the disease spent
+itself; the cases happened singly, one or two a day instead of ten
+or twenty. The sick began to recover; they began to look about
+them. The single cases ceased; the pestilence was stayed; and they
+sat down to count the cost. There had been on board the transport
+three hundred and seventy-five men, thirty-two officers, a dozen
+ladies, a few children, and the ship's crew. Twelve officers,
+two of the ladies, and a hundred men had perished when the plague
+abated.
+
+"One of your nurses is ill, doctor."
+
+"Not cholera, I do hope."
+
+"No; I believe a kind of collapse. She is at the bungalow. I told
+them I would send you over."
+
+"I will go at once."
+
+He left a few directions, and walked over to the house. It was, he
+found, the nurse who had been of all the most useful and the most
+active. She was now lying hot and feverish, her mind wandering,
+inclined to ramble in her talk. He laid his hand upon her temples;
+he felt her pulse; he looked upon her face; the odd feeling
+of something familiar struck him again. "I don't think it is very
+much," he said. "A little fever. She may have been in the sun; she
+has been working too hard; her strength has given way." He still
+held her wrist.
+
+"Claude," murmured the sick girl, "you are very cruel. I didn't
+know--and a girl cannot always have her own way."
+
+Then he recognised her.
+
+"Good heavens!" he cried, "it is Florence!"
+
+"Not always have her own way," she repeated. "If I could have had
+my own way, do you think I would--"
+
+"Florence!" he said again; "and I did not even recognise her.
+Strange!"
+
+Another of the ladies, the colonel's wife, was standing beside him.
+
+"You know her, doctor?"
+
+"I knew her a long time ago--some years ago --before she married."
+
+"Married? Florence is not married. You must be thinking of some
+one else."
+
+"No. This is Florence Vernon, is it not? Yes. Then she was formerly
+engaged to marry a certain Sir William Duport."
+
+"Oh, I believe there was some talk about an old man who wanted to
+marry her. But she wouldn't have him. It was just before her mother
+died. Did you know her mother?"
+
+"I knew her mother a little when they were living at Eastbourne.
+So she refused the old man, did she? and has remained unmarried.
+Curious! I had almost forgotten her. The sight of her brings back
+the old days. Well, after she has pulled so gallantly through the
+cholera, we cannot have her beaten by a little fever. Refused the
+old man, did she?"
+
+In the dead of night he sat watching by the bedside, the colonel's
+wife with him.
+
+"I had almost forgotten," whispered the lady, "that story of the
+old baronet. She told me about it once. Her mother was ill, and
+anxious about her daughter because she had next to nothing except
+an annuity. The old man offered; he was an unpleasant old man, but
+there was a fine house and everything. It was all arranged. The girl
+was quite a child, and understood nothing. She was to be sold, in
+fact, to this old person, who ought to have been thinking of his
+latter end instead of a pretty girl. Then the mother died suddenly,
+and the girl broke it off. She was a clever girl, and she has been
+teaching. For the last three years she has been in India; now she
+is going home under my charge. She is a brave girl, doctor, and
+a good girl. She has received half a dozen offers, but she has
+refused them all; so I think there must be somebody at home."
+
+"Claude," murmured the girl, wandering, "I never thought you would
+care so much. If I had thought so, I would not have encouraged
+you. Indeed, indeed, I would not. I thought we were only amusing
+ourselves."
+
+"Claude is a pretty name. What is your own Christian name, doctor?"
+asked the colonel's wife, curiously.
+
+"It is--in fact--it is Claude," he replied, blushing; but there
+was not enough light to see his blushes.
+
+"Dear me!" said the colonel's wife.
+
+A few days later the patient, able to sit for a while in the shade
+of the veranda, was lying in a long cane chair. Beside her sat
+the colonel's wife who had nursed her through the attack. She was
+reading aloud to her. Suddenly she stopped. "Here comes the doctor,"
+she said; "and, Florence, my dear, his name, you know, is Claude.
+I think you have got something to talk about with Claude besides
+the symptoms." With these words she laughed, nodded her head, and
+ran into the salon.
+
+The veranda, with its green blinds of cane hanging down, and its
+matting on the floor, and its easy-chairs and tables, made a pretty
+room to look at. In the twilight, the fragile figure, pale, thin,
+dressed in white, would have lent interest even to a stranger. To
+the doctor, I suppose, it was only a "case." He pushed the blinds
+aside and stepped in, strong, big, masterful. "You are much better,"
+he said; "you will very soon be able to walk about. Only be careful
+for a few days. It was lucky that the attack came when it did,
+and not a little earlier when we were in the thick of the trouble.
+Well, you won't want me much longer, I believe."
+
+"No, thank you," she murmured, without raising her eyes.
+
+"I have had no opportunity," he said, standing over her, "of
+explaining that I really did not know who you were, Miss Vernon.
+Somehow I didn't see your face, or I was thinking of other things.
+I suppose you had forgotten me. Anyhow, it was not until the other
+day, when I was called in, that I remembered. But I dare say you
+have forgotten me."
+
+"No; I have not forgotten."
+
+"I thought that long ago you had become Lady Duport."
+
+"No; that did not take place."
+
+"I hear that you have been teaching since your mother's death. Do
+you like it?"
+
+"Yes; I like it."
+
+"Do you remember the last time we met--on the sea-shore? Do you
+remember, Florence?" His voice softened suddenly. "We had a quarrel
+about that old villain; do you remember?"
+
+"I thought you had forgotten such a little thing as that long ago,
+and the girl you quarrelled with."
+
+"The point is rather whether you remember. That is of much more
+importance."
+
+"I remember that you swore that you would never forgive a worthless
+girl who had ruined your life. Did I ruin your life, Dr. Fernie?"
+
+He laughed. He could not honestly say that she had. In fact, his
+life, so far as concerned his work, had gone on much about the
+same. But then, such a man does not allow love to interfere with
+his career.
+
+"And then you went and threw over the old man. Florence, why didn't
+you tell me that you were going to do that? You might have told
+me."
+
+She shook her head. "Until you fell into such a rage, and called
+me such dreadful names, I did not understand."
+
+"Why didn't you tell me, Florence?" he repeated.
+
+She shook her head again.
+
+"You were only a little innocent, ignorant child then," he said;
+"of course you could not understand. I was an ass and a brute and
+a fool not to know."
+
+"You said you would never forgive me. You said you would never
+shake hands with me again."
+
+He held out his hand. "Since," he said, "you are not going to
+marry the old man, and since you are not engaged to anybody else,
+why--then--in that case--the old state of things is still going
+on; and--and--Florence--but if you give me your hand, I shall keep
+it, mind."
+
+"Dear me!" said the colonel's wife, standing in the doorway. "Do
+quarantine doctors always kiss their patients? But you told me,
+doctor dear, that your Christian name was Claude; didn't you? That
+explains everything."
+
+The ship, with those of her company whom the plague had spared,
+presently steamed away, and, after being repaired, made her way to
+Portsmouth dockyard. But one of her company stayed behind, and is
+now queen or empress of the island of which her husband is king,
+captain, commandant, and governor-general, and also resident
+quarantine doctor.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE ROCK SCORPIONS
+
+(ANONYMOUS)
+
+
+
+
+
+The screw steamer Jenny Jones was lying alongside a coal-hulk at
+Gibraltar one October afternoon. By three o'clock her bunkers were
+nearly filled, and the captain was getting ready for casting off,
+when one of the natives came on board. Captain Hindhaugh looked
+about for something to throw at the visitor, and only the difficulty
+of selecting an efficient missile from a large and varied assortment
+prevented him from letting fly at once.
+
+The "Scorpion" said, "Ah, no, no, Capeetan! No been throw nothin'
+at myself. Beesiness! I'se been com' for beesiness. Big thing,
+Capeetan!"
+
+The last phrase was spoken with such a profound wink that
+Hindhaugh held his hand, and, addressing the man as one would an
+ill-conditioned dog, said, "Don't keep bowing and scraping there,
+you tastrel! Get it out sharp!"
+
+The Scorpion whispered, "No been talk up here. Keep ship one hour,
+two hour, three hour. You'se been com' with me, and I speak you
+somethin' myself."
+
+Like many of his tribe, this interesting native spoke a kind
+of English which is not heard anywhere else on the Mediterranean
+shore. A few of the people on the Rock learn to talk very well to
+our men, but most of those who come about the ships use a picturesque
+lingo in which "myself" the place of quite a variety of parts of
+speech.
+
+Hindhaugh invited the man below, and asked him to explain himself.
+The fellow leaned over the table and chattered on, throwing quick
+side glances at every few words.
+
+"This been big thing, Capeetan. You get away a little; drop your
+anchor a little. Then three felucca com' alongside, and you'se been
+hoist bales. Then you 'se go where agent say you. Very big thing.
+Five thousand sovereign."
+
+"What is it? tobacco?"
+
+"That been it."
+
+"Where for?"
+
+"Huelva."
+
+"I'm not going out of Portuguese waters at no price."
+
+"Ah, no, no, Cheesu, Capeetan--no! Five mile. We have felucca there
+ready. I 'se been see him myself."
+
+"What's the figure? what's the money?"
+
+"You com' 'shore and see agent with myself."
+
+Hindhaugh put a revolver in his pocket and went on deck; the
+Scorpion got ashore, and hung about with an air of innocence. The
+captain was about to follow when the man in charge of the hulk
+called out, "Do you intend to keep bumping us like this all night?
+Why don't you cast off? You're knocking us all to flinders."
+
+Hindhaugh beckoned. "Look here, my good chap, it won't matter to
+you for a couple of hours. Let us lie till dusk, and then I'll
+get away. I've got important business ashore."
+
+"That's very well, Captain. But look here; if there's anything on,
+I'm in it. You understand --I'm in it."
+
+"You understand that, do you? Well then, I'll tell you to keep
+your mouth shut just now, or never another ton of coal will you
+put aboard of us as long as I run here."
+
+"All right, Captain. No need to be nasty. You'll do the square
+thing, I bet."
+
+Then Hindhaugh went ashore, and the Scorpion walked on ahead,
+gazing on architectural beauties with easy interest. Presently the
+two men came to a narrow stairway, and the Englishman gripped his
+revolver. A dark-eyed Spaniard was waiting on a landing, and held
+up two fingers when the guide passed. The Scorpion knocked at
+a greasy door, and an ugly fellow, with a cowl on, looked out and
+nodded. Hindhaugh stepped into a room that reeked with garlic and
+decay. Two men sat in the steamy dusk at the far side. An oily
+gentleman rose and bowed. "I'm the interpreter, Captain. You and
+this merchant must do your business through me. What'll you take
+to drink?"
+
+"Get through your business, mister. I'm not wanting any drink."
+
+In brief, jerky sentences the interpreter explained what was wanted.
+
+"You steam slowly till you're near the Fleet. Then put all your
+men on and get the stuff up. This man goes with you, and he'll
+tell you where to go. Lie five miles off Huelva."
+
+"I sha'n't go except to Portuguese waters."
+
+"Good. Then the lighters will come and the men will discharge
+you."
+
+"And now," said the captain, "what about me? How much?"
+
+"One hundred and twenty pounds."
+
+"Can't be done. Make it two hundred and fifty."
+
+After some haggling, a bargain was made for two hundred and twenty.
+Then Hindhaugh went further: "I want one hundred and ten down before
+we start, and the balance before you take an ounce of tobacco out
+of us."
+
+This was settled; the merchant bowed, and the skipper went away,
+still keeping his hand on the revolver. Every cranny in the walls
+seemed fit to hide a murderer--seemed made for nothing else; and
+Hindhaugh thought what a fool he must have been to venture under
+that foul arch.
+
+On getting aboard, the captain sent for his brother, who sailed
+as mate with him. He said, "Now, Jack, I'm going to run some risk.
+You take this pistol, and get her oiled and put right. When you see
+three feluccas coming alongside, get all the chaps on deck--the Dora's
+crew as well as ours." (Hindhaugh was taking home a ship-wrecked
+crew, and he was very grateful just then for that accession of
+force.) "Whack on everything you know, and get the bales up sharp.
+Tell the engineers to stand by for driving her, and leave the rest
+to me. If we're nailed we'll be detained, and I don't know what
+may happen; so you'll have to look slippy."
+
+Jack replied, "All right, sir!" Quarter-deck manners were punctiliously
+observed by one of the brothers.
+
+The shadows fell low, and the crown of the Rock grew dim.
+The creeping wind stole over the Pearl Rock, and set the sinister
+ripples dancing; the bugles sang mysteriously through the gloom,
+and the mystery of the night was in the air. The Jenny Jones stole
+quietly toward the broad sheet of water where the vessels of the
+Fleet heaved up their shadowy bulk above the lapping flood. All the
+English sailors were stripped to the shirt, and a low hum of excited
+talk came from amidships. Suddenly the raking yard of a felucca
+started out from amid the haze; then came another, and another.
+A sailor slipped a cork fender over the side, and there was a
+muffled bump and a slight scrape. Jack, the mate, whispered, "Now,
+you cripples!" and a brief scene of wild hurry and violent labour
+ensued. Bale after bale was whisked aboard; the Englishmen worked
+as only English sailors can, and the Scorpions excelled themselves
+under the influence of fear and black wine. When the last bale was
+up, Hindhaugh said to the man who first boarded him, "Who's got
+the money?"
+
+"Me, Capeetan. All right. Honest man myself. You'se been have
+every dollar."
+
+"Well then, it's neck or nothing. We have half an hour to clear
+out into the Gut. Come below, and shell out."
+
+The Scorpion counted out one hundred pounds in gold, and then asked,
+"That be enough? Other money all right other end."
+
+"Deuce a bit! Down with the other ten or I sliver you."
+
+The Scorpion did not know what "sliver" meant, but the gleam of
+the skipper's cold eye was enough for him. He paid up and went on
+deck.
+
+Hindhaugh had just said to the engineer, "Now, rive the soul out
+of her," when a low, panting sound was heard, and a white shape
+appeared gliding over the water. The captain had let the feluccas
+go, and the Jenny Jones was moving. He waved for the mate. "It's
+all up. Here's a mess. You must go home overland; suppose you swim
+ashore. Steady the men down."
+
+Jack performed one or two steps of a dance, and placed his finger
+against his nose. He rather enjoyed a scrape, did this frivolous
+chief officer. The white shape came nearer, and a sharp whistle
+sounded. Hindhaugh had known well enough that it was a steam-launch
+that made the panting noise, and he got ready for the worst. The
+launch drew right across the bows of the steamer, and then the
+throbbing of the little engines ceased. Again the whistle sounded;
+the launch gave a bound forward; then she struck away into the
+darkness, and Hindhaugh drew a long breath.
+
+In an instant every possible ounce of steam was put on, and the
+Jenny Jones went away at eleven knots toward the Gut. All night
+long the firemen were kept hard at it, and before morning the Rock
+was far astern of the driving steamboat.
+
+Three of the Scorpions had stayed aboard, and Captain Hindhaugh
+noticed that they earned their knives. He noticed, too, that the
+cringing manner which the fellows had shown before the Rock was
+cleared had given place to a sort of subdued swagger.
+
+About noon the engines were slowed down almost to nothing, and
+the Jenny Jones crept gently on toward the shore. By four o'clock
+the vessel was well into Portuguese waters, and Hindhaugh was
+prepared to defy any quantity of Spanish coast-guards. When the
+sun had dipped low the Scorpion-in-chief came aft, and pointed
+mysteriously to the northeast.
+
+"You'se been look where I point myself. Feluccas! You'se follow
+them in and drop anchor."
+
+Hindhaugh smiled. "Do you think you're talking to a fool? Come you
+below there, and let me have that other money sharp."
+
+"Ah, Capeetan, wait till agent's man come with felucca. I'se been
+have no money myself."
+
+Hindhaugh was not a person to be trifled with. He quietly took
+out his revolver. "Now, do you see that pretty thing? First shot
+for you. Look at that block forrad, and see how much chance you'll
+have if I fire at you." The pop of the revolver sounded, and then
+Hindhaugh went forward, pulling the Scorpion with him. "Do you see
+that hole, you image? How would you like if that was your gizzard?
+Now, no games, my joker."
+
+The Scorpion begged for time, and Hindhaugh was so sure of his
+man that he made no further objection. He had another conference
+with Jack, and, to that worthy man's great delight, he expressed
+certain forebodings.
+
+"We're going to have a fight over this job," said the skipper. "I'm
+dead sure of it. Go down and load the two muskets, and give them
+to the safest men. When the lighters DO come, borrow the fireman's
+iron rods. I've lent the steward my bowie that I got at Charleston,
+and you can try and hold that old bulldog straight. We mustn't show
+the least sign of funking."
+
+Then Hindhaugh and his brother called for tea, and fed solidly.
+
+The Scorpion whispered down the companion, "They'se been com'," and
+the captain went on deck. Two large felucca-rigged lighters hove
+up slowly through the dusk, and the chief Scorpion's signal was
+answered. Hindhaugh saw both lighters draw near, he felt the usual
+scraping bump, and then he heard a sudden thunder of many feet.
+The second mate sung out, "Here's half a hundred of these devils,
+sir. They're all armed to the teeth." And sure enough, a set of
+ferocious-looking rapscallions had boarded the steamer. They looked
+like low-class Irishmen browned with walnut-juice. Each man had
+a heavy array of pistols in his sash, and all of them carried ugly
+knives. The Scorpion waved to the gang, and they arranged themselves
+around the pile of bales that stuck out through the after-hatch.
+Hindhaugh had fully discounted all the chances, and had made up
+his mind to one thing: he wouldn't be "done."
+
+The Scorpion imperiously observed, "Come below, Capeetan," and
+Hindhaugh went. Then the defiant native of the Rock put his back
+against the cabin door, heaved out his chest in a manly way, and
+said, "Now, Capeetan, you no have more money. You speak much, and
+I'se been get your throat cut myself."
+
+"You've got no money?"
+
+"No; not a damn dollar."
+
+"You won't keep to your bargain?"
+
+"No; you come 'shore for your money if you want him."
+
+Hindhaugh made up his mind in a flash. In spite of his habit of
+wearing a frock-coat and tall hat, he was more than half a pirate,
+and he would have ruffled it, like his red-bearded ancestors, had
+fighting been still the usual employment of Norsemen. He marked his
+man's throat, and saw that the insolent hands could not get at a
+knife quickly. Then he sprang at the Scorpion, gripped him by the
+windpipe, and swung him down. The fellow gurgled, but he couldn't
+cry out. Hindhaugh called the steward, and that functionary came
+out of his den with the long bowie. "Sit on him," said the captain.
+"If he stirs cut his throat. Now, you, if you move a finger you're
+done." The steward straddled across the Scorpion, and held the
+knife up in a sarcastic way.
+
+Hindhaugh went swiftly on deck, and stepped right among the jabbering
+Spaniards. He smiled as though nothing had happened, but when he
+saw one man lay hold of a bale he pulled him back. "Tell them I'll
+shoot the first man that tries to lift a bale till I'm ready."
+
+This message brought on a torrent of talk, which gave the captain
+time. He whispered to Jack, "Sneak you round through the engine-room.
+That lighter's made fast forrad; the second one's fast here. Get
+a hatchet from the carpenter, and set him alongside of the second
+rope. When I whistle twice, both of you nick the ropes, and we'll
+jink these swindling swine." The engineer also received orders to
+go full speed ahead on the instant that the whistle sounded.
+
+Hindhaugh kept up his air of good-humour, although the full sense
+of the risk he ran was in his mind. His threat of shooting had made
+the Spaniards suspicious, although they were used to big talk of
+the kind. One peep into the cabin would have brought on a collision,
+and although the Englishmen might have fought, there was nothing
+to gain by a fight. Everything depended on swiftness of action, and
+Hindhaugh determined grimly that if rapidity could do anything he
+would teach the "furriners" a lesson for trying to swindle him.
+
+He said, very politely, "We're all ready now. You get your men
+aboard the lighters, and we'll soon rash your cargo over the side."
+This was transmitted to the smugglers, and immediately they swarmed
+aboard their own boats. They had rather expected a quarrel, and
+this pacific solution pleased them. As Jack afterward said, "They
+blethered like a lot o' wild geese."
+
+All the foreigners were gone but three. Hindhaugh stepped quietly
+up to the interpreter, and said, very low, "I'm covering you with
+my revolver from inside my pocket. Don't you stir. Is that other
+money going to be paid?"
+
+The interpreter had been innocent of all knowledge of the wild
+work in the cabin. He stammered, "I thought by your way it was all
+right. Where's our man?"
+
+"I've got him safe enough. Ask those fellows in the lighters if any
+of them can pay the freight for the job. If you tell them to fire
+they may miss me, and I can't miss you."
+
+No one, not even the consignee's man, had any money; the smugglers
+meant to trick the Revenue, and the English captain as well.
+Hindhaugh whistled, and then roared out, "Lie down, all of you! Ram
+her ahead!" The hatchets went crack, crack; the steamer shuddered
+and plunged forward; and the lighters bumped swiftly astern.
+
+"Over the side, you animals, or I'll take you out to sea and drown
+you."
+
+The three Spaniards rushed to the side, and took flying leaps into
+the lighters. Hindhaugh stooped low and ran to the companion. "Let
+that beggar up," he shouted. The Scorpion scuttled on deck. "Now,
+mister, I'll let you see if you'll take me in. Over you go. Over
+the stern with you, and mind the propeller doesn't carve you." Two
+shots were fired, but they went wild. The Scorpion saw the whole
+situation; he poised for a second on the rail, and then jumped
+for it, and Hindhaugh laughed loudly as his enemy came up blowing.
+Jack performed a triumphal war-dance on the steamer's bridge, and
+the Jenny Jones was soon far out of pistol range.
+
+All that night Captain Hindhaugh did not sleep a wink. He was quite
+persuaded that he had acted the part of an exemplary Briton. What
+is the use of belonging to the ruling race if a mere foreigner is
+to do as he likes with you? But the adventurous skipper had landed
+himself in a pretty mess, and the full extent of his entanglement
+grew on him every minute. At twelve o'clock, when the watch was
+relieved, Jack came aft in a state of exultation that words cannot
+describe. He chuckled out, "Well, sir, we've made our fortunes
+this time." Hindhaugh damped his spirits by saying, slowly, "Not
+too fast; that 'baccy's got to go overboard, my boy." Jack's mental
+processes became confused. He had been measuring the cubic contents
+of the smuggled goods, and the thought of wasting such a gift of
+the gods fairly stunned him. Had it been cotton, his imagination
+would not have been touched. But 'baccy! and overboard! It was
+too much, and he groaned. He was ready with expedients at once.
+
+"Why not run it to Holland?"
+
+"Can't be done; where's our bill of lading?"
+
+"Make up one yourself; you have plenty of forms."
+
+"And suppose the luck goes the wrong way. What's to happen to
+me--and to you too for that matter?"
+
+"Run to a tobacco port, and warehouse the stuff in your own name."
+
+"We're not bound for a tobacco port. What's to be done about the
+cargo of ore that we are carrying? No, John; the whole five thousand
+pounds must go over the side."
+
+Next morning broke joyously. The sea looked merry with miles of
+brisk foam, and the little Portuguese schooners flew like butterflies
+hither and thither. Every cloud of spray plucked from the dancing
+crests flashed like white fire under the clear sun. It was one of
+the mornings when one cannot speak for gladness. But Hindhaugh's
+thoughts were fixed on material things. The rich bales lay there,
+and their presence affected him like a sarcasm. The men were called
+aft, and the shovels used for trimming grain were brought up. Then
+the captain said, "Now each of you take a pound or two of this
+tobacco, and then break the bales and shovel the rest overboard."
+The precious packages were burst, and the sight of the beautiful
+leaf, the richness of the tender aroma, affected the sailors with
+remorse. It was like offering up a sacrifice. But the captain's
+orders were definite; so until near noon the shovels were plied
+smartly, and one hundredweight after another of admirable tobacco
+drifted away on the careless sea.
+
+Hindhaugh watched grimly until at last his emotions overcame him.
+He growled, "Confound it, I can't do it! Belay there, men; I'll have
+another think over this job." And think he did, with businesslike
+solemnity, all day long. He saw that he might make a small fortune
+by risking his liberty, and the curious morality of the British
+sailor prevented him from seeing shades of right or wrong where
+contraband business was concerned. Had you told him that the
+tobacco was stolen, he would have pitched you overboard; he felt
+his morality to be unimpeachable; it was only the question of
+expediency that troubled him. For three days it was almost unsafe
+to go near him, so intently did he ponder and plan. On the fifth
+day he had worked his way through his perplexities, and was ready
+with a plan. A pilot cutter came in sight, and Hindhaugh signalled
+her. The pilot's boat was rowed alongside, and the bronzed and
+dignified chief swaggered up to the captain with much cordiality.
+No one is so cordial as a pilot who has secured a good ship. The
+two men exchanged news, and gradually slid into desultory talk.
+Suddenly Hindhaugh said, "Are you game for a bit of work? Do you
+ever DO anything?"
+
+The pilot was virtuously agitated. He drew himself up, and, taking
+care that the mate should hear, answered, "Me! Not for the wurrrld,
+Cap'n. I've got a wife and children, sir."
+
+"All right, Pilot, never mind; come down and have some tea."
+
+Then Hindhaugh gradually drew his man out, until the pilot
+was absolutely confidential. The captain knew by the very excess
+of purity expressed in the pilot's first answer that he was not
+dealing with a simpleton; but he carefully kept away from the main
+subject which was in his (and the pilot's) mind. At last the man
+leaned over and gave a masonic sign. "What was that job you was
+speaking about, Cap'n? We're near home now, you know. Better not
+go too near."
+
+Hindhaugh played a large card. He smiled carelessly. "Fact is, I've
+just told the fellows to shy the stuff overboard; I shall risk no
+more."
+
+"Mercy me, Cap'n! You're mad. How did I know who you were? I see
+all about it now, but I did not know what game you might have on
+with me. I'm in it, you know, if the dimes is right!"
+
+"How?"
+
+"Why, if the job's big enough. You stand off for a day; go down to
+the Sleeve, and hang round, and I'll find you a customer."
+
+"If you do, I pay you three hundred pound as soon as his money's
+down."
+
+"Done, then. My boat's not gone far. Whistle her, and I'll go slap
+for Bristol. Never you mind for a day or two. How's your coals?"
+
+"They're all right. You scoot now, and fetch your man over this
+way. I'll go half-speed to the sou'west for twelve hours, another
+twelve hours half-speed back. You'll find us."
+
+In thirty-six hours the pilot cutter came back, and a Hebrew
+gentleman boarded the Jenny Jones from her. After a long inspection,
+the visitor said, "Now look here, I must have a hundred per cent.
+margin out of this. What's your figure?"
+
+"Two thousand five hundred."
+
+"Won't do. Say two thousand, and you pay the jackal out of that."
+
+"Done. And how do you manage?"
+
+"I'll split the lot up among three trawlers. You wait off, and
+give the jackal an extra fifty for bringing the boats down. I risk
+the rest."
+
+Another night passed, and the dawn was breaking coldly when the
+dirty sails of the trawlers came in sight. Ship after ship had
+hailed Hindhaugh, and offered to tow him if anything had happened
+to his engines. He knew he would be reported as lying off apparently
+disabled, and he was in a feverish state of excitement. The Hebrew
+speculator watched the last bale down the side, and then handed over
+the money, had a glass of brandy with the pilot, and departed--whither
+Hindhaugh neither knew nor cared. The Jenny Jones ran for her
+port. She had just slowed down, and the great waves of smoke from
+the town were pouring over her, when two large boats, heavily
+laden with men, came off to her. The men swarmed up the side, and
+the officer in command shouted, "Bring up the pickaxes, and go to
+work!" The hatches were pulled off before the steamer had taken up
+her moorings, and the men went violently to work among the ore.
+Hindhaugh looked innocent, and inquired, "What's all this about,
+officer?"
+
+"Fact is, Captain, we've got a telegram from Gibraltar to say you
+have contraband on board. You may save all trouble if you make a
+clean breast."
+
+"Contraband! Who told you that?"
+
+"Oh, we should have known without the wire. That gentleman on the
+quay there came overland, and he put us up to you."
+
+Hindhaugh looked ashore, and saw a dark face that he knew well. He
+whistled and smiled. Then he said to the officer, "You may just
+as well stop those poor beggars from blistering their hands. You
+won't find anything here except what the men have in the forecastle.
+You're done this journey fairly. Come away down and liquor, and
+I'll tell you all about it." Then Hindhaugh gave an artistic account
+of the whole transaction, and put the matter in such a light that
+the custom-house officer cordially congratulated him on having
+escaped without a slit weasand.
+
+The Jenny Jones went back to Gibraltar, and Captain Hindhaugh was
+very careful never to go ashore without a companion. One day he
+was passing a chandler's shop when a sunken glitter of dark eyes
+met him. His old acquaintance, the chief Scorpion, was looking
+stilettos and poison at him. But Hindhaugh went by in his big,
+burly way, and contented himself with setting on three watchmen
+every night during his stay. To this day he is pleased with himself
+for having given the foreigners a lesson in the elements of morality,
+and he does not fear their knives one whit.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE MASTER OF THE "CHRYSOLITE"
+
+BY G. B. O'HALLORAN
+
+
+
+
+
+Captain Anderson stood alone in the world. But he was one who COULD
+stand alone, for his will was strong and his affections were weak.
+Those who thought they knew him best said he was hardy. The remainder
+said he was hard, his heart a stone. Still he was a human being, for,
+like others, he cherished hobbies. His hobbies, however, were not
+of that class which is compassed about by rest and roses. Instead,
+they were clothed with a stern delight born of defiance and danger.
+To work his ship across the Bay in the teeth of an adverse gale; to
+weather a lee shore; to master a rebellious crew single-handed--these
+were the wild diversions which satisfied him. Once, in the China
+seas, his men grew mutinous, said the ship was "leaking like a
+lobster-pot," and straightway put her about for Singapore; swore
+they did not care what the skipper thought--in fact, would like
+to talk to him a bit. The skipper was below when the first mate
+brought down the news and a very pale face as well.
+
+"Tell the men to muster!"
+
+So soon as the mate's back was turned, John Anderson took a revolver
+from a locker and charged it; then, ascending the companion-ladder,
+he walked to the break of the poop, with his hands buried in the
+pockets of a pea-jacket. Down below him were the men, lolling
+about in a sullen crowd on the weather side of the quarter-deck.
+They were thirty or forty in number, and were a vicious-looking
+set.
+
+"Now then, my men! Half an hour ago we were steering due northeast.
+Who was it dared to lay the ship's nose the other way?"
+
+The burly boatswain swung his way out of the crowd, planted his foot
+on the first step of the poop-ladder, and stared up at the captain.
+
+"I did, and be damned to you!" roared he. There was a loud report.
+The boatswain dropped, shot in the leg. And the crew shivered under
+a gleaming eye and a gleaming weapon.
+
+"All hands 'bout ship!" cried the master. The wounded boatswain,
+raising himself for a moment on one hand, piped faintly, and fell
+back unconscious. But the men were already at their stations, and
+in five minutes more the Chrysolite was heading northeast again.
+
+Such incidents as these gave John Anderson an unenviable reputation
+among sailors. It was seldom that the same crew served him twice.
+Two voyages under this tartar were more than could be stood, and
+from his subordinates, therefore, he gained nothing but hatred
+and fear.
+
+It was very difficult, then, to find out where Captain Anderson's
+weakness lay. Everybody, of course, has his weakness. But this man
+appeared to be all strength. His whole life seemed like a rod of
+burnished steel--a passion-proof life, a fire-proof rod. The owners
+of the Chrysolite, Messrs. Ruin & Ruin, of Billiter Street, piqued
+themselves on knowing his tender point. He was avaricious, thought
+they; he would do much for money, and they would some day try him
+in the furnace. It was true, indeed, that the old sailor had amassed
+considerable wealth during his frequent voyages to the East. It
+was true also that he was sparing and saving; that he drove bargains
+to the verge of perdition, and clinched them at the crucial moment.
+But it was equally true that he was free from fraud. His teas were
+what they pretended to be, his silks unimpeachable, and no man
+ever came back upon him with complaints of their genuineness. The
+world allowed that he was at least commercially honourable, but
+felt fully convinced that he was eaten up with the desire for gold.
+
+But the world was wrong. The captain himself was sometimes given
+to metaphysical speculation, and even HE was puzzled to know if
+his heart had a whit more feeling than any other pumping-engine.
+Women he looked upon as frivolities of vanity to which he could
+not reconcile his stern nature; and men he regarded as instruments
+to be rigorously disciplined, not failing at the same time
+to discipline himself. His heart was of no use to him except to
+circulate his blood. In default, therefore, of loving anything,
+he fell naturally to pursuing a difficult task--the piling up of a
+mountain of gold. This was congenial solely because it was difficult,
+and difficulties overcome were his only sources of satisfaction.
+
+Now it happened that a new firm trading to the East, in competition
+with Messrs. Ruin & Ruin, had made advances to Captain Anderson
+with a view to engaging him in their service; and as they offered
+liberal terms, including a handsome percentage, it was not long
+before the old seaman was won over. Here is a chance, thought he, of
+heaping up my mountain so much the more quickly, and I am determined
+that my actions shall not be hampered by sentiment. Notwithstanding
+this last threat, he found it a very unpleasant thing to break with
+his old employers, one of whose ships he had commanded for a score
+of years. But he would get scot-free of them before he finally concluded
+negotiations with the new people. And so it came to pass that one
+morning he walked along Billiter Street with his twenty-year-old
+commission in his pocket.
+
+It is curious how fond real old salts are of dress when ashore.
+Here was John Anderson in a top-hat and kid gloves, looking anything
+but at home in them. The glossy hat was a mockery to his bold
+sea-worn face, and his big knuckles were almost bursting through
+the soft kid with indignation at the affront put upon them.
+
+He reached the chambers in which the firm of Messrs. Ruin & Ruin
+was established, and ascended the staircase, for the office was on
+the second floor. The senior partner was within, and the captain
+was admitted into his room without delay.
+
+"Glad to see you, Captain Anderson," said Mr. Ruin, in an unusually
+cordial tone, at the same time shaking hands. "You've made a capital
+passage, and freighted the Chrysolite well."
+
+Mr. Ruin was a big, fat man who spoke oilily. His clean-shaven
+face was never without the remnants of a smile--a smile, though,
+which was not remarkable for its sincerity. Still, it had its
+value,--in the market,--for it was a commercial smile. A pair of
+small gray eyes were almost hidden by the obese curves of his cheeks;
+but you learned in a very short time that they kept a sharp and
+shrewd lookout from behind those ramparts. The two men sat down at
+opposite sides of the table, the owner guessing from the captain's
+manner that there was something in the wind, and the captain
+thinking his employer's exuberance of civility betokened more than
+was manifest.
+
+"Yes, I brought her a quick passage," replied Anderson; then, looking
+straight at the owner, "and it's the last she'll make under me."
+
+The remnants of a smile coalesced, ploughing up Mr. Ruin's cheeks
+into greasy furrows.
+
+"My dear Captain, we could not hear of it! We're too old friends
+to part like that."
+
+"Well, sir, I've come this morning, for private reasons, to throw
+up my commission," said the captain, simultaneously throwing down
+his commission before the senior partner's eyes.
+
+"I can't accept it, Mr. Anderson; I can't indeed," replied the
+owner, picking up the parchment. "And I'll tell you why. My brother
+and I have been thinking matters over, and we've really been obliged
+to confess, for conscience' sake, that the Chrysolite is getting
+old."
+
+"Devilish old!" muttered the captain, forgetting himself for a
+moment.
+
+"Well, now I think of it again, I believe my brother did say she
+was 'devilish old'--a strange coincidence. Still she is a fine
+model of a boat. What d' ye think yourself?"
+
+"She has rare lines," said the other, with a slight approach to
+grave enthusiasm.
+
+"The very remark I made myself only yesterday. Yes, we agreed she
+was a pretty boat; and I admit, from sheer sentiment, I cannot bear
+to think of her being chopped up for firewood. So inharmonious,
+don't you think?"
+
+The old sailor looked sullen and said nothing.
+
+Mr. Ruin leaned his elbows well on to the table in a confidential
+manner, and reduced his voice to husky whispering.
+
+"My brother told me he should not mind seeing her end her days as
+a picturesque wreck, but to sell her for match-wood was barbarous.
+I was really of the same opinion. And--and--couldn't it be managed
+for her, Captain Anderson?"
+
+The two looked at each other narrowly. "If you can get any one to
+do it, of course it can be done. But _I_ would sooner--"
+
+"Now before you judge, hear me, Captain. I feel sure you could
+find that man if you chose. See; the Chrysolite is insured in
+the Jupiter Insurance Company for nine thousand pounds. Here is
+the policy. And the man that saves her from the axe, and makes a
+picturesque wreck of her, will earn the gratitude of Messrs. Ruin
+& Ruin, and three thousand pounds besides."
+
+For once even the remnants of a smile had disappeared from the
+senior partner's face, and he stood confessed--the type of a cool
+financial scoundrel.
+
+The sailor, on the other hand, was agitated as no one had ever seen
+him before. The veins stood out on his brawny throat like rope;
+his eyelids were purple; for a few moments his head swam. Then he
+righted himself as suddenly, with an emphatic refusal ready on his
+lips. But the wily partner had left the room. This gave Anderson
+time to think, and the more he thought the more that pile of gold
+forced itself before him, until, forsooth, he fell to thinking
+how such an end COULD be compassed--by another commander. He saw
+clearly that a skilful seaman might achieve this thing with slight
+danger to himself and his crew. And all this time the three thousand
+pounds shone so lustrously that his moral vision was dazzled, and
+the huge iniquity of the whole affair was rapidly vanishing from
+sight.
+
+When Mr. Ruin reentered, Anderson was looking ashamed and guilty.
+
+"Well, Captain, can I help you to a conclusion?" came from the
+oily lips.
+
+"It's this way," replied the old man, turning round, but keeping
+his eyes fixed on the carpet; "I can't do it. No, I can't."
+
+Mr. Ruin eyed him dubiously, and rubbed his chin gently. "I'm
+sorry--very, very sorry! Three thousand pounds won't go long begging,
+though. And I shall have to accept your resignation, Captain."
+
+Anderson only took up his hat and walked slowly out of the room.
+He had not descended many steps when he turned back and reopened
+the door.
+
+"No, sir," he said; "it can't be done. I must think it over,
+and--no--it can't be done." With that he went his way, miserable.
+
+The same night he received a letter by post. It contained his old
+commission, reinstating him in the command of the Chrysolite.
+
+Four months later the Chrysolite was unloading a general cargo in
+Mauritius harbour. Captain Anderson had thought it over.
+
+The quay was quickly covered with Manchester bales and Birmingham
+cases; and it was not long before the tackle at the main-yard arm
+was set a-clicking, as the baskets of sand ballast were hove up
+to be poured into the empty hold. No such luxuries were there as
+steam-winches; not any of those modern appliances for lightening
+labour. Instead, five or six hands plied the ponderous work at
+the winch handles, the labour being substantially aggravated by
+the heat of a vertical sun. A spell at the orthodox hand-winch in
+the tropics is an ordeal not to be lightly spoken of, and sailors
+have the very strongest objection to the work. It requires the
+utmost vigilance on the part of the captain, therefore, to prevent
+the feebler spirits from deserting. He was able, however, to reckon
+a full crew as he steered out of Port Louis harbour and shaped his
+course for Ceylon.
+
+Some of the hands had grumbled at not having more liberty to go
+ashore. In an excess of passion, Anderson made answer:
+
+"To your kennels, you dogs! I'll put you ashore soon enough, and
+I'll warrant you'll stay there longer than you care for."
+
+It was indiscreet language, and the men puzzled over it. They
+concluded that the skipper meant to obtain their imprisonment at
+the next British port they should touch for mutinous conduct, and,
+knowing he was a man of his word, they assumed their best behaviour.
+
+Captain Anderson had not changed for the better. Hitherto he had
+maintained a firmness of discipline boarding upon severity, and he
+certainly had never relaxed from that attitude. Now he had become
+an incomprehensible mixture of indulgence and cruelty. The two
+elements were incompatible, and the more intelligent of his officers
+were not long in perceiving that there was a vicious and variable
+wind in their superior's moral atmosphere, under which his canvas
+strained or flapped unaccountably. They imagined, to pursue their
+own figure, that his hand did not grasp the reason tiller with
+its customary grip, and that his bark was left more or less to the
+conflicting guidance of other influences. Many a time since his
+departure from England had the old sailor been stung with remorse
+at the unwritten tenor of his present commission. He would frequently
+try to look the whole thing in the face--would endeavour to account
+for the acceptance of an office against which his whole self
+revolted. He would recite the interview in the Billiter Street
+chambers with his employer, passing rapidly over the preliminary
+parts until he came to the REWARD. No! he was not false enough or
+euphemistic enough to call it a reward; he would regard it as a
+bribe. But he could never get further. He always grounded on his
+reef of gold, and no tide of indignation or regret, no generous
+current of honour, had power to sweep him off again into the
+saving waters. Here the fierce rays of desire shot down upon the
+resplendent heap, whose reflected glory filled the whole vision
+of the water with its lustre. Blame him not too much, nor it. For,
+after all, man is but man, and gold is a thing of comfort.
+
+But had Captain Anderson followed his mental inquiries to a conclusion,
+had he demonstrated to himself the depth of moral degradation into
+which he must be plunged, his pride would never have allowed him
+to do anything but redeem his unuttered word.
+
+As an illustration of the captain's lately acquired habit of indulgence,
+the most remarkable was his treatment of the watch on deck during
+the night. The man on the lookout, for instance, was in the habit
+of going to sleep if the weather made it at all practicable. The
+rest of the watch, some fifteen or twenty hands, followed suit, or
+even skulked back into the fo'castle, there to stretch themselves
+out on their chests and smoke. These things the captain connived
+at, and the men were only too glad of the relief to inquire
+too curiously into his reasons. The main object of a sailing-ship
+sailor is to gain as much sleep as he can by whatever means, and
+in pursuit of this end he will evade even those duties which are
+most essential to the safety of the ship.
+
+One night, during the middle watch, the captain came on deck, and
+took to walking up and down with the second mate. The night was
+clear, though dark. The Chrysolite was close-hauled on the starboard
+tack, and was making good headway under a clinking breeze. She
+was an old-fashioned, frigate-built, full-rigged ship, such as one
+seldom happens on now, her quarter-galleries, chain-plates, to'
+gallant bulwarks, and single topsail-yards being all out of date
+among the ship-builders of to-day. It has been said that she had
+"rare lines," and the remark was just. A more imposing pile of
+timber was possibly never floated. She had plenty of beam to cope
+with the South Atlantic wave-giants, and not too much sheer. Her
+fiddle-stem was gracefully cut, and harmonised to perfection with
+the slight rake aft of her lofty masts. Her spars, also, were finely
+proportioned to the breadth of her hull. So that, with her canvas
+spread in an unwavering breeze, the Chrysolite was a stately creature
+and "a thing of beauty."
+
+"Mr. Grant," said the captain, addressing his subordinate officer,
+"be good enough to take a star and work out the ship's position."
+
+The second mate quickly brought his sextant, and took the altitude
+of a star convenient for his purpose. He then went below to the cabin
+to perform his calculations. The lookout man, a ready sleeper, was
+in a heavy slumber, upon which the stiffening breeze made no effect.
+The rest of the watch had disappeared in the customary fashion.
+Captain Anderson was practically alone on deck.
+
+He walked forward, leaned over the weather-rail, and directed his
+glass. He saw just exactly what he expected to see. There, right
+ahead in the distance, the binoculars showed a long, thin streak
+of sparkling silver, appearing like a lightning flash held fast
+between the darkness and the deep sea. It was phosphorescent water
+playing on a sand-bank.
+
+Anderson put the glass into his pocket. He was sullen and determined.
+He stood motionless for full half an hour, trying to repress the
+workings of an aroused conscience; but his thoughts would not let
+him alone. There was something behind them, some new sensations,
+which set them buzzing in his mind. These sensations were his
+finest feelings--ennobling emotions which had been cramped in the
+grip of discipline for forty years. He could not comprehend it, but
+he found himself pursuing a train of thoughts of finer sensibility
+than he had ever experienced, and in which the great bribe had no
+place. He foreshadowed in his mind's eye the tragic events over which
+he was now presiding. He foresaw the danger to life and limb with
+a fresh clearness of vision. He pictured to himself the possible
+agonies of his fellow-creatures (never once thinking of his own) with
+a sentiment much akin to pity--strong, too, but not sufficiently
+strong to overcome that unbending guide which forbade him for
+honour's sake to go back upon his promise. Then there was the doom
+of the ship itself--
+
+The man is not angry, much less fearful; but his lips are quivering
+and his nostrils widening with a passion hitherto unknown. He sees
+the picture vividly--a majestic, gallant ship done to destruction;
+a rich, ruined seaman wandering on earth a broken heart in a
+dishonoured bosom. Not only a gallant ship, but a lifelong pride
+and the fulness of a heart's desire swept recklessly into limbo.
+Here, at last, had his love revealed itself.
+
+"No, by God, she SHALL not perish!"
+
+With a rapid movement he gains the fo'castle, and roars into it,
+"All hands 'bout ship! Quick now, for your very lives!"
+
+There is no mistaking his tone. It is not one of driving tyranny,
+but of urgent agony, and it goes right home to every man.
+
+Up they tumble in a ready crowd, many in their shirts alone. They
+are all sleepy, but the business on hand will soon cure them of
+this.
+
+They stand by. The helm is put down, and quickly the Chrysolite
+veers round in process of reaching the other tack. Will she do it?
+No! She trembles almost in the teeth of the wind, misses stays,
+and falls off again on to the old tack.
+
+Anderson cannot understand it, old sailor as he is; puts the helm
+down once more; once more she misses.
+
+"Back the main-yard! Shiver the foreyard!"
+
+Soon every stitch of canvas on the mainmast is swung about to face
+the breeze, while that on the foremast is hauled in. Although she
+be going at eight knots, THAT should check her.
+
+But it does not.
+
+"Mizzen topsail braces, then!" Quick as thought the lee braces are
+slacked off, and those on the weather side made taut. Still she
+is not checked. Strange, too, for the breeze is stiff. Anderson
+feels she is in the stream of a strong current.
+
+There had been no need to say what was the cause of danger. The
+heavy boom of breakers rose above the tread of feet, the clashing
+of spars, and the chorus of curses.
+
+Meanwhile Mr. Grant has finished his calculations below. He has
+found for a result that the ship is among the Maldive reefs. He is
+certain there must be some error in his work, and he sets himself
+to revise his figures. But the breeze sweeps into the cabin with
+a faint command from the upper air--"Back the main-yard!"--and he
+shrewdly guesses that his calculations are correct.
+
+The captain is everywhere at once, urging and aiding. He sees the
+whole canvas aback, and yet the Chrysolite drifts on. He cannot
+'bout his ship nor back her.
+
+The reef is quite within appreciable distance now. The hands can
+do nothing more, so they gaze at the dancing line of phosphorescent
+atoms, and curse tremendously--though these may be their last
+moments.
+
+"All hands wear ship!" comes sharply from Anderson.
+
+"--you and your orders!" cries some one. "To the boats, to the
+boats!"
+
+Although the Chrysolite carried five boats, no less than four of them
+were unseaworthy. In those days the examination of an outward-bound
+ship was slurred over, with the natural consequence that the
+marine law was more frequently broken than observed. The only boat
+on board the Chrysolite worth launching was the life-boat, which
+stood bottom upward between the main and mizzen masts. At the cry
+"To the boats!" there was a rush for her. But Anderson is first.
+He carries in his hand a small axe, meant for clearing away light
+wreckage. With a vigorous blow the life-boat is stove in. The men
+stop short, daunted. He turns about and faces them, looking like
+an angry Titan.
+
+"Now then, you hell-hounds, wear the ship or sink!" They see he
+means to be master to the end.
+
+It is too late even for imprecation. The men literally spring to
+their work, with an alacrity begot of desperation. Every moment is
+of the utmost value, for the reef is very close and the horrible
+breakers are in all ears.
+
+Anderson himself holds the wheel. He has put the helm up, and soon
+the great ship, with swelling sails, breaks out of the current.
+He feels the change in an instant; the hands know it too. But the
+danger is not past. Leaving the wheel to another, he runs quickly
+forward to lean over the weather-rail. As he passes through the
+crowd on the fo'castle, the poor fellows cheer him ringingly. The
+fine old seaman doffs his cap and makes them a grand, manly bow.
+
+He glances at the reef and then mutters quietly to himself, "She
+will never clear it, and God forgive me!" Then, wheeling round, he
+gives a command.
+
+"Let go both anchors; it is our only chance!"
+
+Many hearts sink at the order, but in as few moments as possible
+the cables are smoking through the hawse-pipes. The anchors touch
+bottom, and hold. All hands clutch the stanchions or shrouds in
+anticipation of the shock. It comes. The ship, racing on, is brought
+up with a round turn of such sudden force as to shake every nail
+in her timbers. Aloft there is crash upon crash, and the lighter
+spars come showering on to the deck, bringing with them ragged
+remnants of canvas. One man is struck down. The hawsers hum with
+strenuous vibration. The timbers at the bluff of the bow crack
+almost vertically, until the ship's nose is well-nigh torn out.
+The tension is too great and the port cable snaps. The starboard
+one is tougher. But were it ever so tough it would not save the
+ship, for its anchor is dragging. Back she sags, gathered into her
+doom by the whitening waters; until at length, thus lifted along,
+her keel rests athwart the bank, and she heels over. Her sailing
+days are done. As the consecutive seas sweep up the reef, she lifts
+her head and drops it again and again, like a poor recumbent brute
+in its death-hour. But the wind must sometime cease, and the waves
+forget their anger. Then will she take a long repose, leaning on
+her shattered side--the very type of a picturesque wreck.
+
+About this time Messrs. Ruin & Ruin were more than usually interested
+in the shipping news, and one morning they saw, under the heading
+of "Wrecks and Casualties," this:
+
+"MINICOY (MALDIVE ISLANDS).--The ship Chrysolite, of London, went
+ashore yesterday night on the southern reefs, and is now a total
+wreck. All hands saved except John Anderson, master, who was killed
+by a falling spar."
+
+The result of the whole business had far exceeded the owners'
+expectations. It had been so neatly done; and the greatest comfort
+of all was that no one was now left who could tell tales. They
+did not exactly thank God in so many words for the death of their
+faithful servant. That was very sad, as of course it should be.
+But they thanked Him in all humility for a certain sum of three
+thousand pounds, which would have gone elsewhere but for--If he,
+Anderson, had had wife or children, Messrs. Ruin & Ruin felt almost
+certain they would have made provision for them. But they thanked
+God again that he had never married. All that was necessary to be
+done now was to send in a claim for the insurance money, and, if
+well advised, retire into private life.
+
+Messrs. Ruin & Ruin talked the matter over between them, congratulated
+themselves upon their prosperity, made no end of choice little
+plans for the future, and finally decided to forsake the commercial
+profession. And, indeed, they would have done so, but that the
+evening papers contained an item of intelligence which, though less
+expected, and therefore more startling, contained just as lively
+an interest for them as the report of the wreck. It ran thus:
+
+"It is currently reported that the Jupiter Insurance Company has
+failed heavily, and is only able to meet its liabilities with a
+composition of sixpence on the pound."
+
+Messrs. Ruin & Ruin still carry on business near Billiter Street,
+but their offices are now on the top floor in a very back alley.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+"PETREL" AND "THE BLACK SWAN"
+
+(ANONYMOUS)
+
+
+
+
+
+"Sail, ho!"
+
+Never, surely, did the cry fall upon more welcome ears, save and
+except those of men becalmed in a boat upon the open sea. For
+twelve weary days and nights had we, the officers and men of H.M.S.
+Petrel (six guns, Commander B. R. Neville), been cooped up in our
+iron prison, patrolling one of the hottest sections of the terrestrial
+globe, on the lookout for slavers. From latitude 4 deg. north to
+latitude 4 deg. south was our beat, and we dared not venture beyond
+these limits. Our instructions were to keep out of sight of land
+and try to intercept some of the larger vessels, which, it was
+suspected, carried cargoes of slaves from the ---- coast. The ship,
+the sea, the cloudless sky--there was nothing else to see, nothing
+else to think of. Work, study, play even, were alike impossible in
+that fierce, scorching heat. If you touched a bit of iron on deck
+it almost burned your hand. If you lay down between-decks covered
+with a sheet, you awoke in a bath of perspiration.
+
+"Sail, ho!"
+
+The man, in his excitement, repeated the shout before he could be
+hailed from the deck.
+
+"Where away?" sang out the captain.
+
+"Two points on the weather-bow, sir," was the reply.
+
+That phrase about the "weather-bow" was a nautical fiction, for
+there was no wind to speak of, and what there was was nearly dead
+astern.
+
+"Keep her away two points," said Commander Neville; and the order
+was promptly obeyed.
+
+In a few seconds the news had spread through the ship, and the men
+clustered on the bulwarks, straining their eyes to get a glimpse of
+the stranger. Even the stokers, poor fellows, showed their sooty
+faces at the engine-room hatchway. Of course the stranger might
+be, and probably was, an innocent trader; but then she might be a
+slaver; and golden visions of prize-money floated before the eyes
+of every man and boy on board the Petrel.
+
+We did not steam very fast, as of course our supply of coal was
+limited; and it was about two hours before sundown when we fairly
+sighted the stranger. She was a long three-masted schooner, with
+tall raking masts, lying very low in the water. All her canvas was
+set; and as a little wind had sprung up, she was slipping through
+the water at a fair pace.
+
+"She looks for all the world like a slaver, sir," remarked Mr.
+Brabazon, the first lieutenant, to the commander.
+
+Neville said nothing, but his lips were firmly compressed, and a
+gleam of excitement was in his eyes.
+
+"Fire a blank cartridge, Mr. O'Riley," said he to the second
+lieutenant; "and signal her to ask her nationality and her code
+number."
+
+This was done; and in answer to the signal the schooner slowly
+hoisted the American colours.
+
+"She has eased away her sheets, and luffed a point or two, sir,"
+said the quartermaster, touching his cap.
+
+The captain merely answered this by a nod.
+
+"Put a shot in your gun, Mr. O'Riley," said he. "Lower your hoist
+and make a fresh hoist demanding her name."
+
+This was done, but the American took no notice.
+
+"Fire a shot, Mr. O'Riley--wide, of course," said the commander.
+
+Again the deafening report of the big gun sounded in our ears; and
+we could see the splash of the shot as it struck the water about
+fifty yards from the schooner. Immediately a flag was run up, then
+another and another; and we saw that she was not giving us her
+code number, but was spelling out her name, letter by letter--The
+Black Swan.
+
+"Just look that up in the United States Merchant Registry," said
+the captain to the first lieutenant. And in half a minute he
+had reported--"No such name, sir." This was something more than
+suspicious. And the wind was rising.
+
+"Hoist the signal for her to heave to!" cried Commander Neville.
+"Take a boat and half a dozen hands, Mr. O'Riley," he continued;
+"board her, inspect her papers, and come back to report. If her
+papers are not in order," added he, "you may search for slaves;
+but if they are you had better do nothing further. You know it is
+clearly set down in the Protocol that we are not entitled to search
+the hold if the papers are in order; and there have been complaints
+lately against some over-zealous officers, who have got into trouble
+in consequence. So be careful. But keep your eyes open. Note any
+suspicious circumstances, and come back and report."
+
+Before Lieutenant O'Riley reached the ship he saw that everything
+about her had been sacrificed to speed. Her spars, especially, were
+unusually heavy for a craft of her size.
+
+The British officer was received by a little, thin, elderly man
+wearing a Panama hat and speaking with a strong Yankee accent.
+
+"Produce your papers, if you please," said O'Riley. They were handed
+out at once, and seemed to be perfectly regular.
+
+"What have you got on board?" was the next question.
+
+"General cargo--dry goods, and so on."
+
+"Why isn't your name on the register?"
+
+"Ain't it now? Well, I guess it must be because this is a new ship.
+We can't put our name on by telegraph, mister."
+
+"Just tell your men to knock off the hatches. I want to have a look
+at your cargo."
+
+The skipper shook his head.
+
+"I've been delayed long enough," said he, "and have lost a great
+part of the only wind we've had in this darned latitude for a week."
+
+"I'll do it myself, then!" cried O'Riley.
+
+"Not now, sir; not with six men while I have fifteen. You have no
+right to search the hold of a respectable merchantman and disturb
+her cargo. Do you take me for a slaver, or what? Ef you must have
+the hatches up, send back to your man-of-war for a larger crew, so
+as to overpower me, you understand, and you may do it with pleasure.
+Bet I guess there'll be a complaint lodged at Washington, and you
+folks in London will have to pay for it. That's all, mister. I only
+want things fair and square, within my treaty rights."
+
+And having delivered himself of this long speech, the Yankee skipper
+turned on his heel.
+
+Of course O'Riley could only return to the Petrel and report all
+this to his commander. "I'm convinced she is a slaver, sir," said
+he in conclusion.
+
+"But you have no evidence of it; and you say the papers were all
+in order."
+
+"Apparently they were, sir."
+
+"Then I'm afraid I can do nothing," said the commander. And to the
+deep disgust of the whole ship's crew, the order was given for the
+Petrel to return to her course.
+
+All that night, however, Commander Neville was haunted by a doubt
+whether he had not better have run the risk of a complaint and a
+reprimand, rather than forego the overhauling of so suspicious-looking
+a craft; and in the morning a rumour reached his ears that the
+cockswain, who had accompanied Mr. O'Riley to The Black Swan, had
+noticed something about her of a doubtful nature. The man was sent
+for and questioned; and he said that, while the lieutenant was on
+board, the boat of which he was in charge had dropped a little way
+astern; and that he had then noticed that the name of the vessel
+had been recently painted out, but that the last two letters were
+distinctly visible. And these letters were LE, not AN.
+
+"The scoundrel said she was a new ship!" cried the commander. "'Bout
+ship!"
+
+"We can't possibly catch her up, sir," said the first lieutenant,
+drily.
+
+"I don't know that, Mr. Brabazon," answered Neville. "There has
+been hardly any wind, and we know the course she was steering. She
+could not expect to see us again; so in all probability she has
+kept to that course. By making allowances, we may intercept her;
+I am convinced of it."
+
+The hope of again encountering The Black Swan, faint as it was,
+caused quite a commotion in our little world. The day passed without
+our sighting a single sail; but when the morning dawned Lieutenant
+Brabazon was forced to own that the commander's judgment had
+proved better than his own. By the greatest good luck we had hit
+upon the right track. There, right in front of us, was the American
+schooner, her sails lazily flapping against her masts.
+
+"Full speed ahead, and stand by!" shouted the captain down the
+engine-room tube.
+
+"Signal to her to heave to, and if she does not obey, fire a shot
+right across her bows, Mr. O'Riley," continued the commander.
+"Mr. Brabazon, you take a boat and thirty men well armed. Board
+her, and have her hatches off at once. You'll stand no nonsense,
+I know."
+
+"All right, sir," cried the lieutenant, an active, somewhat imperious
+officer, of the Civis Romanus sum type. He had been unusually
+disgusted at his commander's decision to leave The Black Swan without
+searching her; and he was delighted that a more active policy had
+been begun.
+
+"I say, Brabazon," whispered the commander to him, as he was going
+over the side, "you know I'm stepping a bit beyond bounds, and
+I'm just a little anxious. If she turns out to be a slaver, as
+we suspect, step to the taffrail and wave your handkerchief, will
+you?"
+
+"I will, sir; I'm certain it will be all right," cheerfully responded
+the first lieutenant.
+
+A tall, slim, youngish man, in white linen, received the British
+officer as he set foot on the deck of The Black Swan.
+
+"I am at present in command of this craft, sir," said the young
+American. "The skipper is not fit just at present. We had a visit
+from you two days ago, I think. Can I do anything for you?"
+
+"Yes; I want you to take off your hatches," said the lieutenant,
+sharply.
+
+"Well, sir," began the Yankee, "I guess your demand is beyond your
+treaty powers."
+
+"I know all about that. I must have the hatches off."
+
+"And you are detaining me and overhauling my cargo on no grounds
+whatever--"
+
+"Will you do it at once?" broke in the British officer.
+
+"I repeat--ON NO GROUNDS WHATEVER; will cause an in--ter--na--tional
+difficulty, and may bring re--markably unpleasant con--sequences
+to your captain. Now--"
+
+"Off with your hatches!" cried the lieutenant.
+
+"Sir!"
+
+"If you don't, by George, I will!"
+
+"You know clearly what you're doing, sir?"
+
+"I do."
+
+"And you know the risk you run?"
+
+"I do. No more palaver. Off with them at once, or I'll break them
+open."
+
+Further resistance was useless. The thing was done; and the moment
+the first hatch was raised the sickening effluvium that issued from
+the hold proclaimed the truth. Nearly three hundred slaves were
+packed between-decks, many of the poor creatures standing so close
+that they could not lie down.
+
+With a look of speechless contempt at the young mate of the
+schooner, the lieutenant walked to the side of the ship and waved
+his handkerchief. That instant a loud British cheer rang over the
+water, given by the blue-jackets, who could be seen clustering in
+the rigging like bees.
+
+"I told our skipper judgment would overtake us," said the Yankee.
+"Say, mister," he added, in another tone, "seeing that the game's
+up, suppose we have a glass of iced champagne downstairs?"
+
+The lieutenant hesitated. To drink with the mate of a slaver!
+But--iced champagne!
+
+Slowly he moved toward the companionway. "I don't mind if I do,"
+he said, at length; "and you may as well bring up your papers with
+the drinks, for I shall carry them on board the Petrel. Of course
+you understand that you are my prize."
+
+And having set a guard at the hatchways, the lieutenant descended
+the cabin stairs.
+
+The iced champagne was duly forthcoming, and under its genial
+influence Lieutenant Brabazon began to feel something like pity
+for the young mate who had been so early seduced into the paths of
+crime. Probably he had a mother or a sweetheart somewhere in the
+States who imagined that he was already on his way home, whereas
+now his character was ruined, even if he escaped a long term of
+imprisonment.
+
+This feeling was strengthened as he saw that his companion was
+gazing mournfully at his glass without speaking a word. At length
+the young man lifted his head.
+
+"Say, mister, what'll they do to me, do you think?"
+
+"I can't tell. Of course you know that what you have been engaged
+in is a kind of piracy?"
+
+"No!"
+
+"I believe so. Cargo and crew are confiscated, of course. What
+they will do with you I can't tell."
+
+"They won't hang me, will they?"
+
+"Probably not," said the lieutenant; "but let this be a warning
+to you. You see what it is to wander off the straight course and
+hanker after forbidden gains. Lead an honest life in future, when
+you are released from custody. Avoid vicious companions--But what's
+this?" he cried, as his eye fell on an empty scabbard hanging on the
+wall. It looked very like a United States service sword scabbard,
+and immediately the thought darted through his mind that this
+hypocritical young Yankee (who had been pretending to wipe away a
+tear as he listened to the lieutenant's good advice) had been doing
+something worse, or at least more heavily punished, than running
+cargoes of slaves.
+
+The British officer looked round the cabin. A United States navy
+cap was lying on a plush-covered bench.
+
+"Ah! you've been having a brush with an American man-of-war!" cried
+Lieutenant Brabazon. "You will have to tell my superior officer
+how you came into possession of these articles. I most place you
+under arrest!" And, bitterly regretting that he had sat down to
+table with the fellow, the British officer rushed on deck.
+
+"Quartermaster," he cried, "bring up a guard of four men, and take
+this man," pointing to the Yankee, who had followed him on deck,
+"to the Petrel. If he tries to escape, shoot him at once!"
+
+The quartermaster advanced to seize the prisoner; but before
+he reached him he involuntarily stopped short. A roar of laughter
+sounded in his ears. The American mate and his companions were
+shrieking and staggering about the deck; even the crew of the
+slaver were, every man Jack of them, grinning from ear to ear. The
+lieutenant was dumfounded.
+
+"Excuse me, sir; but the joke was too good," said the Yankee, coming
+forward and holding out his hand. "I am the first lieutenant of the
+United States war-ship Georgia, in command of a prize crew on board
+this vessel, taking her to ---- to have her condemned. We seized
+her yesterday. Hearing that you had been on a visit to her the
+day before, and had gone away without doing anything, I couldn't
+resist the temptation of taking you in. Hope you don't bear malice?
+Let's finish that magnum of champagne."
+
+It was evidently the best thing to be done; but the lieutenant was
+not a first-rate companion on that occasion.
+
+"Give my respects to your commander," called out the United States
+officer, as his guest went down into his boat, "and advise him
+from me not to be so jolly particular another time. And I'll try
+to take your kind advice and sail a straight course in future!" he
+cried, as her Majesty's boat shot away for the last time from the
+side of The Black Swan.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+MELISSA'S TOUR
+
+BY GRANT ALLEN
+
+
+
+
+
+Lucy looked across the table at me with a face of blank horror.
+"O Vernon," she cried, "what are we EVER to do? And an American
+at that! This is just TOO ghastly!" It's a habit of Lucy's, I may
+remark, to talk italics.
+
+I laid down my coffee-cup, and glanced back at her in surprise.
+"Why, what's up?" I exclaimed, scanning the envelope close. "A
+letter from Oxford, surely. Mrs. Wade, of Christchurch--I thought
+I knew the hand. And SHE's not an American."
+
+"Well, look for yourself!" Lucy cried, and tossed the note to me,
+pouting. I took it, and read. I'm aware that I have the misfortune to
+be only a man, but it really didn't strike me as quite so terrible.
+
+"DEAR MRS. HANCOCK: George has just heard that your husband and
+you are going for a trip to New York this summer. COULD you manage
+to do us a VERY GREAT kindness? I hope you won't mind it. We have
+an American friend--a Miss Easterbrook, of Kansas City, niece of
+Professor Asa P. Easterbrook, the well-known Yale geologist--who
+very much wishes to find an escort across the Atlantic. If you
+would be so good as to take charge of her, and deliver her safely
+to Dr. Horace Easterbrook, of Hoboken, on your arrival in the States,
+you would do a good turn to her, and at the same time confer an
+eternal favour on "Yours very truly, "EMILY WADE."
+
+Lucy folded her hands in melodramatic despair.
+
+"Kansas City!" she exclaimed, with a shudder of horror. "And Asa
+P. Easterbrook! A geologist, indeed! That horrid Mrs. Wade! She
+just did it on purpose!"
+
+"It seems to me," I put in, regarding the letter close, "she did
+it merely because she was asked to find a chaperon for the girl;
+and she wrote the very shortest possible note, in a perfunctory
+way, to the very first acquaintance she chanced to hear of who was
+going to America."
+
+"Vernon!" my wife exclaimed, with a very decided air, "you men are
+such simpletons! You credit everybody always with the best and
+purest motives. But you're utterly wrong. I can see through that
+woman. The hateful, hateful wretch! She did it to spite me! Oh,
+my poor, poor boy; my dear, guileless Bernard!"
+
+Bernard, I may mention, is our oldest son, aged just twenty-four,
+and a Cambridge graduate. He's a tutor at King's, and though he's
+a dear good fellow, and a splendid long-stop, I couldn't myself
+conscientiously say I regard guilelessness as quite his most marked
+characteristic.
+
+"What are you doing?" I asked, as Lucy sat down with a resolutely
+determined air at her writing-table in the corner.
+
+"Doing!" my wife replied, with some asperity her tone. "Why,
+answering that hateful, detestable woman!"
+
+I glanced over her shoulder, and followed her pen as she wrote:
+
+"MY DEAR MRS. WADE: It was INDEED a delight to us to see your neat
+little handwriting again. NOTHING would give us greater pleasure,
+I'm sure, than to take charge of your friend, who, I'm confident,
+we shall find a most charming companion. Bernard will be with us,
+so she won't feel it dull, I trust. We hope to have a very delightful
+trip, and your happy thought in providing us with a travelling
+companion will add, no doubt, to all our enjoyment--especially
+Bernard's. We both join in very kindest regards to Mr. Wade and
+yourself, and I am ever
+
+"Yours most cordially,
+
+"LUCY B. HANCOCK."
+
+My wife fastened down the envelope with a very crushing air. "There!
+THAT ought to do for her," she said, glancing up at me triumphantly.
+"I should think she could see from that, if she's not as blind as
+an owl, I've observed her atrocious designs upon Bernard, and mean
+to checkmate them. If, after such a letter, she has the cheek to
+send us her Yankee girl to chaperon, I shall consider her lost
+to all sense of shame and all notions of decency. But she won't,
+of course. She'll withdraw her unobtrusively." And Lucy flung the
+peccant sheet that had roused all this wrath on to the back of the
+fireplace with offended dignity.
+
+She was wrong, however. By next evening's post a second letter
+arrived, more discomposing, if possible, to her nerves than the
+first one.
+
+"Mrs. Lucy B. Hancock, London.
+
+"DEAR MADAM: I learn from my friend, Mrs. Wade, of Oxford College,
+that you are going to be kind enough to take charge of me across
+the ocean. I thank you for your courtesy, and will gladly accept
+your friendly offer. If you will let me know by what steamer you
+start, I will register my passage right away in Liverpool. Also,
+if you will be good enough to tell me from what depot you leave
+London, and by what train, I will go along with you in the cars.
+I'm unused to travel alone. "Respectfully, "MELISSA P. EASTERBROOK."
+
+Lucy gazed at it in despair. "A creature like that!" she cried, all
+horror-struck. "Oh, my poor, dear Bernard! 'The ocean,' she says!
+'Go along with you in the cars!' 'Melissa P. Easterbrook!'"
+
+"Perhaps," I said, tentatively, "she may be better than her name.
+And at any rate, Bernard's not BOUND to marry her!"
+
+Lucy darted at me profound volumes of mute feminine contempt. "The
+girl's pretty," she said, at last, after a long, deep pause, during
+which I had been made to realise to the full my own utter moral
+and intellectual nothingness. "You may be sure she's pretty. Mrs.
+Wade wouldn't have foisted her upon us if she wasn't pretty, but
+unspeakable. It's a vile plot on her part to destroy my peace of
+mind. You won't believe it, Vernon; but I KNOW that woman. And what
+does the girl mean by signing herself 'Respectfully,' I wonder?"
+
+"It's the American way," I ventured gently to interpose.
+
+"So I gather," my wife answered, with a profound accent of contempt.
+To her anything that isn't done in the purest English way stands
+ipso facto self-condemned immediately.
+
+A day or two later a second letter arrived from Miss Easterbrook,
+in reply to one of Lucy's suggesting a rendezvous. I confess it
+drew up in my mind a somewhat painful picture. I began to believe
+my wife's fears were in some ways well grounded.
+
+"Mrs. Lucy B. Hancock, London [as before].
+
+"DEAR MADAM: I thank you for yours, and will meet you on the day
+and hour you mention at St. Pancras depot. You will know me when
+you see me, because I shall wear a dove-coloured dress, with bonnet
+to match, and a pair of gray spectacles.
+
+"Respectfully,
+
+"MELISSA P. EASTERBROOK."
+
+I laid it down and sighed. "A New England schoolmarm!" I exclaimed,
+with a groan. "It sounds rather terrible. A dove-coloured dress and
+a pair of gray spectacles! I fancy I can picture her to myself:
+a tall and bony person of a certain age, with corkscrew curls, who
+reads improving books and has views of her own about the fulfilment
+of prophecy."
+
+But as my spirits went down so Lucy's went up, like the old man
+and woman in the cottage weather-glass. "That looks more promising,"
+she said. "The spectacles are good. Perhaps, after all, dear
+Bernard may escape. I don't think he's at all the sort of person
+to be taken with a dove-coloured bonnet."
+
+For some days after Bernard came home from Cambridge we chaffed a
+good deal among ourselves about Miss Melissa Easterbrook. Bernard
+took quite my view about the spectacles and dress. He even drew
+on an envelope a fancy portrait of Miss Easterbrook, as he said
+himself, "from documentary evidence." It represented a typical
+schoolmarm of the most virulent order, and was calculated to
+strike terror into the receptive mind of ingenuous youth on simple
+inspection.
+
+At last the day came when we were to go to Liverpool. We arrived
+at St. Pancras in very good time, and looked about on the platform
+for a tall and hard-faced person of transatlantic aspect, arrayed
+in a dove-coloured dress and a pair of gray spectacles. But we
+looked in vain; nobody about seemed to answer to the description.
+At last Bernard turned to my wife with a curious smile. "I think
+I've spotted her, mother," he said, waving his hand vaguely to the
+right. "That lady over yonder--by the door of the refreshment-room.
+Don't you see? That must be Melissa." For we knew her only as
+Melissa already among ourselves; it had been raised to the mild
+rank of a family witticism.
+
+I looked in the direction he suggested, and paused for certainty.
+There, irresolute by the door, and gazing about her timidly with
+inquiring eyes, stood the prettiest, tiniest, most shrinking little
+Western girl you ever saw in your life--attired, as she said, in
+a dove-coloured dress, with bonnet to match, and a pair of gray
+spectacles. But oh, what a dove-coloured dress! Walter Crane
+might have designed it--one of those perfect travelling costumes
+of which the America girl seems to possess a monopoly; and the
+spectacles--well, the spectacles, though undoubtedly real, added
+just a touch of piquancy to an otherwise almost painfully timid
+and retiring little figure.
+
+The moment I set eyes on Melissa Easterbrook, I will candidly
+admit, I was her captive at once; and even Lucy, as she looked at
+her, relaxed her face involuntarily into a sympathetic smile. As a
+rule, Lucy might pose as a perfect model of the British matron in
+her ampler and maturer years--"calmly terrible," as an American
+observer once described the genus; but at sight of Melissa she
+melted without a struggle. "Poor wee little thing, how pretty she
+is!" she exclaimed, with a start. You will readily admit that was
+a great deal from Lucy.
+
+Melissa came forward tentatively, a dainty blush half rising on her
+rather pale and delicate little cheek. "Mrs. Hancock?" she said, in
+an inquiring tone, with just the faintest suspicion of an American
+accent in her musical, small voice. Lucy took her hand cordially.
+"I was sure it was you, ma'am," Melissa went on, with pretty confidence,
+looking up into her face, "because Mrs. Wade told me you'd be as
+kind to me as a mother; and the moment I saw you I just said to
+myself, 'That MUST be Mrs. Hancock; she's so sweetly motherly.'
+How good of you to burden yourself with a stranger like me! I hope,
+indeed, I won't be too much trouble."
+
+That was the beginning. I may as well say, first as last, we were
+all of us taken by storm "right away" by Melissa. Lucy herself
+struck her flag unconditionally before a single shot was fired; and
+Bernard and I, hard hit at all points, surrendered at discretion.
+She was the most charming little girl the human mind can conceive.
+Our cold English language fails, in its roughness, to describe her.
+She was petite, mignonne, graceful, fairy-like, yet with a touch
+of Yankee quaintness and a delicious espieglerie that made her
+absolutely unique in my experience of women. We had utterly lost
+our hearts to her before ever we reached Liverpool; and, strange to
+say, I believe the one of us whose heart was most completely gone
+was, if only you'll believe it, that calmly terrible Lucy.
+
+Melissa's most winning characteristic, however, as it seemed to me,
+was her perfect frankness. As we whirled along on our way across
+England, she told us everything about herself, her family, her friends,
+her neighbours, and the population of Kansas City in general. Not
+obtrusively or egotistically,--of egotism Melissa would be wholly
+incapable,--but in a certain timid, confiding, half-childlike way,
+as of the lost little girl, that was absolutely captivating. "Oh
+no, ma'am," she said, in answer to one of Lucy's earliest questions;
+"I didn't come over alone. I think I'd be afraid to. I came with a
+whole squad of us who were doing Europe. A prominent lady in Kansas
+City took charge of the square lot. And I got as far as Rome with
+them, through Germany and Switzerland, and then my money wouldn't
+run to it any further; so I had to go back. Travelling comes high
+in Europe, what with hotels and fees and having to pay to get your
+baggage checked. And that's how I came to want an escort."
+
+Bernard smiled good-naturedly. "Then you had only a fixed sum," he
+asked, "to make your European tour with?"
+
+"That's so, sir," Melissa answered, looking up at him quizzically
+through those pretty gray spectacles. "I'd put away quite a little
+sum of my own to make this trip upon. It was my only chance of
+seeing Europe and improving myself a piece. I knew when I started
+I couldn't go all the round trip with the rest of my party; but I
+thought I'd set out with them, anyway, and go ahead as long as my
+funds held out; and then, when I was through, I'd turn about and
+come home again."
+
+"But you put away the money yourself?" Lucy asked, with a little
+start of admiring surprise.
+
+"Yes, ma'am," Melissa answered, sagely. "I know it. I saved it."
+
+"From your allowance?" Lucy suggested, from the restricted horizon
+of her English point of view.
+
+Melissa laughed a merry little laugh of amusement. "Oh no," she
+said; "from my salary."
+
+"From your salary!" Bernard put in, looking down at her with an
+inquiring glance.
+
+"Yes, sir; that's it," Melissa answered, all unabashed. "You see,
+for four years I was a clerk in the post-office." She pronounced
+it "churk," but that's a detail.
+
+"Oh, indeed!" Bernard echoed. He was burning to know how, I could
+see, but politeness forbade him to press Melissa on so delicate
+a point any further.
+
+Melissa, however, herself supplied at once the missing information.
+"My father was postmaster in our city," she said, simply, "under
+the last administration,--President Blanco's, you know,--and he
+made me one of his clerks, of course, when he'd gotten the place;
+and as long as the fun went on, I saved all my salary for a tour
+in Europe."
+
+"And at the end of four years?" Lucy said.
+
+"Our party went out," Melissa put in, confidentially. "So, when
+the trouble began, my father was dismissed, and I had just enough
+left to take me as far as Rome, as I told you."
+
+I was obliged to explain parenthetically, to allay Lucy's wonderment,
+that in America the whole personnel of every local government office
+changes almost completely with each incoming President.
+
+"That's so, sir," Melissa assented, with a wise little nod. "And
+as I didn't think it likely our folks would get in again in a
+hurry,--the country's had enough of us,--I just thought I'd make
+the best of my money when I'd got it."
+
+"And you used it all up in giving yourself a holiday in Europe?"
+Lucy exclaimed, half reproachfully. To her economic British mind
+such an expenditure of capital seemed horribly wasteful.
+
+"Yes, ma'am," Melissa answered, all unconscious of the faint
+disapproval implied in Lucy's tone. "You see, I'd never been
+anywhere much away from Kansas City before; and I thought this was
+a special opportunity to go abroad and visit the picture-galleries
+and cathedrals of Europe, and enlarge my mind and get a little
+culture. To us a glimpse of Europe's an intellectual necessary."
+
+"Oh, then you regarded your visit as largely educational?" Bernard
+put in, with increasing interest. Though he's a fellow and tutor
+of King's, I will readily admit that Bernard's personal tastes lie
+rather in the direction of rowing and foot-ball than of general
+culture; but still, the American girl's point of view decidedly
+attracted him by its novelty in a woman.
+
+"That's so, sir," Melissa answered once more, in her accustomed
+affirmative. "I took it as a sort of university trip. I graduated
+in Europe. In America, of course, wherever you go, all you can see's
+everywhere just the same--purely new and American; the language,
+the manners, the type, don't vary. In Europe, you cross a frontier
+or a ribbon of sea, and everything's different. Now, on this trip
+of ours, we went first to Chester to glimpse a typical old English
+town--those rows, oh, how lovely! And then to Leamington for
+Warwick Castle and Kenilworth. Kenilworth's just glorious--isn't
+it?--with its mouldering red walls and its dark-green ivy, and
+the ghost of Amy Robsart walking up and down upon the close-shaven
+English grass-plots."
+
+"I've heard it's very beautiful," Bernard admitted, gravely.
+
+"What! you live so close, and you've never BEEN there!" Melissa
+exclaimed, in frank surprise.
+
+Bernard allowed with a smile he had been so culpably negligent.
+
+"And Stratford-on-Avon, too!" Melissa went on, enthusiastically,
+her black eyes beaming. "Isn't Stratford just charming! I don't
+care for the interminable Shakespeare nuisance, you know; that's
+all too new and made up; we could raise a Shakespeare house like
+that in Kansas City any day. But the church and the elms and the
+swans and the river! I made such a sweet little sketch of them all,
+so soft and peaceful. At least, the place itself was as sweet as
+a corner of heaven, and I tried as well as I could in my way to
+sketch it."
+
+"I suppose it IS very pretty," Bernard replied, in a meditative
+tone.
+
+Melissa started visibly. "What! have you never been there, either?"
+she exclaimed, taken aback. "Well, that IS odd, now! You live in
+England, and have never run over to Stratford-on-Avon! Why, you
+do surprise me! But there! I suppose you English live in the midst
+of culture, as it were, and can get to it all right away at any
+time; so perhaps you don't think quite as much of it as we, who
+have to save up our money, perhaps for years, to get, for once in
+our lives, just a single passing glimpse of it. You live at Cambridge,
+you see; you must be steeped in culture right down to the finger-ends."
+
+Bernard modestly responded, twirling his manly moustache, that the
+river and the running-ground, he feared, were more in his way than
+art or architecture.
+
+"And where else did you go besides England?" Lucy asked, really
+interested.
+
+"Well, ma'am, from London we went across by Ostend to Bruges, where
+I studied the Memlings, and made a few little copies from them,"
+Melissa answered, with her sunny smile. "It's such a quaint old
+place--Bruges; life seems to flow as stagnant as its own canals.
+Have you ever been there?"
+
+"Oh, charming!" Lucy answered; "most delightful and quiet.
+But--er--who are the Memlings? I don't quite recollect them."
+
+Melissa gazed at her open-eyed. "The Memlings?" she said, slowly;
+"why, you've just missed the best thing at Bruges if you haven't
+seen them. They've such a naive charm of their own, so innocent
+and sympathetic. They're in the Hopital de St. Jean, you know, where
+Memling put them. And it's so delightful to see great pictures
+like those (though they're tiny little things to look at) in their
+native surroundings, exactly as they were first painted--the 'Chasse
+de Ste. Ursule,' and all those other lovely things, so infantile
+in their simplicity, and yet so exquisitely graceful and pure and
+beautiful. I don't know as I saw anything in Europe to equal them
+for pathos in their own way --except, of course, the Fra Angelicos
+at San Marco in Florence."
+
+"I don't think I've seen them," Lucy murmured, with an uncomfortable
+air. I could see it was just dawning upon her, in spite of her
+patronising, that this Yankee girl, with her imperfect command of
+the English tongue, knew a vast deal more about some things worth
+notice than she herself did. "And where did you go then, dear?"
+
+"Oh, from Bruges we went on to Ghent," Melissa answered, leaning
+back, and looking as pretty as a picture herself in her sweet little
+travelling dress, "to see the great Van Eyck, the 'Adoration of
+the Lamb,' you know--that magnificent panel picture. And then
+we went to Brussels, where we had Dierick Bouts and all the later
+Flemings; and to Antwerp for Rubens and Vandyck and Quentin
+Matsys; and the Hague, after that, for Rembrandt and Paul Potter;
+and Amsterdam, in the end, for Van der Heist and Gerard Dow and the
+late Dutch painters. So, you see, we had quite an artistic tour;
+we followed up the development of Netherlandish art from beginning
+to end in historical order. It was just delightful."
+
+"I went to Antwerp once," Bernard put in, somewhat sheepishly, still
+twirling his moustache; "but it was on my way to Switzerland, and
+I didn't see much, as far as I can recollect, except the cathedral
+and the quay and the hotel I was stopping at."
+
+"Ah, that's all very well for YOU," Melissa answered, with a
+rather envious air. "You can see these things any day. But for us
+the chance comes only once in a lifetime, and we must make the most
+of it."
+
+Well, in such converse as this we reached Liverpool in due time,
+and went next morning on board our steamer. We had a lovely passage
+out, and, all the way, the more we saw of Melissa the more we liked
+her. To be sure, Lucy received a terrible shock the third day out,
+when she asked Melissa what she meant to do when she returned to
+Kansas City. "You won't go into the post-office again, I suppose,
+dear?" she said, kindly, for we had got by that time on most friendly
+terms with our little Melissa.
+
+"I guess not," Melissa answered. "No such luck any more. I'll have
+to go back again to the store as usual."
+
+"The store!" Lucy repeated, bewildered. "I --I don't quite understand
+you."
+
+"Well, the shop, I presume you'd call it," Melissa answered, smiling.
+"My father's gotten a book-store in Kansas City, and before I went
+into the post-office I helped him at the counter; in fact, I was
+his saleswoman."
+
+"I assure you, Vernon," Lucy remarked, in our berth that night,
+"if an Englishwoman had said it to me, I'd have been obliged to
+apologise to her for having forced her to confess it, and I don't
+know what way I should ever have looked to hide my face while she was
+talking about it. But with Melissa it's all so different somehow.
+She spoke as if it was the most natural thing on earth for her
+father to keep a shop, and she didn't seem the least little bit in
+the world ashamed of it, either."
+
+"Why should she?" I answered, with my masculine bluntness. But that
+was perhaps a trifle too advanced for Lucy. Melissa was exercising
+a widening influence on my wife's point of view with astonishing
+rapidity; but still, a perfect lady must always draw a line somewhere.
+
+All the way across, indeed, Melissa's lively talk was a constant
+delight and pleasure to every one of us. She was so taking,--that
+girl,--so confidential, so friendly. We really loved her. Then
+her quaint little Americanisms were as pretty as herself--not only
+her "Yes, sirs," and her "No, ma'ams," her "I guess" and "That's
+so," but her fresh Western ideas, and her infinite play of fancy
+in the queen's English. She turned it as a potter turns his clay.
+In Britain our mother tongue has crystallised long since into set
+forms and phrases. In America it has the plasticity of youth; it is
+fertile in novelty--nay, even in surprises. And Melissa knew how to
+twist it deftly into unexpected quips and incongruous conjunctions.
+Her talk ran on like a limpid brook, with a musical ripple playing
+ever on the surface. As for Bernard, he helped her about the ship
+like a brother, as she moved lightly around, with her sylph-like
+little form, among the ropes and capstans. Melissa Hked to be
+helped, she said; she didn't believe one bit in woman's rights;
+no, indeed; she was a great deal too fond of being taken care of
+for that. And who wouldn't take care of her,--that delicate little
+thing,--like some choice small masterpiece of cunning workmanship?
+Why, she almost looked as if she were made of Venetian glass, and
+a fall on deck would shatter her into a thousand fragments.
+
+And her talk all the way was of the joys of Europe--the castles
+and abbeys she was leaving behind, the pictures and statues she had
+seen and admired, the pictures and statues she had left unvisited.
+"Somebody told me in Paris," she said to me one day, as she hung on
+my arm on deck, and looked up into my face confidingly with that
+childlike smile of hers, "the only happy time in an American woman's
+life is the period when she's just got over the first poignant regret
+at having left Europe, and hasn't just reached the point when she
+makes up her mind that, come what will, she really MUST go back
+again. And I thought, for my part, then my happiness was fairly
+spoiled for life, for I shall never be able again to afford the
+journey."
+
+"Melissa, my child," I said, looking down at those ripe, rich lips,
+"in this world one never knows what may turn up next. I've observed
+on my way down the path of life that, when fruit hangs rosy red
+on the tree by the wall, some passer-by or other is pretty sure in
+the end to pluck it."
+
+But that was too much for Melissa's American modesty. She looked
+down and blushed like a rose herself; but she answered me nothing.
+
+A night or two before we reached New York I was standing in the
+gloom, half hidden by a boat on the davits amidships, enjoying my
+vespertinal cigar in the cool of evening; and between the puffs I
+caught from time to time stray snatches of a conversation going on
+softly in the twilight between Bernard and Melissa. I had noticed
+of late, indeed, that Bernard and Melissa walked much on deck in
+the evening together; but this particular evening they walked long
+and late, and their conversation seemed to me (if I might judge
+by fragments) particularly confidential. The bits of it I caught
+were mostly, it is true, on Melissa's part (when Bernard said
+anything he said it lower). She was talking enthusiastically of
+Venice, Florence, Pisa, Rome, with occasional flying excursions into
+Switzerland and the Tyrol. Once, as she passed, I heard something
+murmured low about Botticelli's "Primavera"; when next she went
+by it was the Alps from Murren; a third time, again, it was the
+mosaics at St. Mark's, and Titian's "Assumption," and the doge's
+palace. What so innocent as art, in the moonlight, on the ocean?
+
+At last Bernard paused just opposite where I stood (for they didn't
+perceive me), and said very earnestly, "Look here, Melissa,"--he
+had called her Melissa almost from the first moment, and she to
+prefer it, it seemed so natural,--"look here, Melissa. Do you know,
+when you talk about things like that, you make me feel so dreadfully
+ashamed of myself."
+
+"Why so, Mr. Hancock?" Melissa asked, innocently.
+
+"Well, when I think what opportunities I've had, and how little I've
+used them," Bernard exclaimed, with vehemence, "and then reflect
+how few you've got, and how splendidly you've made the best of
+them, I just blush, I tell you, Melissa, for my own laziness."
+
+"Perhaps," Melissa interposed, with a grave little air, "if one
+had always been brought up among it all, one wouldn't think quite
+so much of it. It's the novelty of antiquity that makes it so charming
+to people from my country. I suppose it seems quite natural, now,
+to you that your parish church should be six hundred years old,
+and have tombs in the chancel, with Elizabethan ruffs, or its floor
+inlaid with Plantagenet brasses. To us, all that seems mysterious,
+and in a certain sort of way one might almost say magical. Nobody
+can love Europe quite so well, I'm sure, who has lived in it from
+a child. YOU grew up to many things that burst fresh upon us at
+last with all the intense delight of a new sensation."
+
+They stood still as they spoke, and looked hard at one another.
+There was a minute's pause. Then Bernard began again. "Melissa,"
+he faltered out, in a rather tremulous voice, "are you sorry to go
+home again?"
+
+"I just hate it!" Melissa answered, with a vehement burst. Then
+she added, after a second, "But I've enjoyed the voyage."
+
+"You'd like to live in Europe?" Bernard asked.
+
+"I should love it!" Melissa replied. "I'm fond of my folks,
+of course, and I should be sorry to leave them; but I just love
+Europe. I shall never go again, though. I shall come right away
+back to Kansas City now, and keep store for father for the rest of
+my natural existence."
+
+"It seems hard," Bernard went on, musing, "that anybody like you,
+Melissa, with such a natural love of art and of all beautiful
+things,--anybody who can draw such sweet dreams of delight as those
+heads you showed us after Filippo Lippi, anybody who can appreciate
+Florence and Venice and Rome as you do,--should have to live all
+her life in a far Western town, and meet with so little sympathy
+as you're likely to find there."
+
+"That's the rub," Melissa replied, looking up into his face with
+such a confiding look. (If any pretty girl had looked up at ME
+like that, I should have known what to do with her; but Bernard
+was twenty-four, and young men are modest.) "That's the rub, Mr.
+Hancock. I like--well, European society so very much better. Our
+men are nice enough in their own way, don't you know; but they
+somehow lack polish--at least, out West, I mean, in Kansas City.
+Europeans may n't be very much better when you get right at them,
+perhaps; but on the outside, anyway to ME, they're more attractive
+somehow."
+
+There was another long pause, during which I felt as guilty as
+ever eavesdropper before me. Yet I was glued to the spot. I could
+hardly escape. At last Bernard spoke again. "I should like to have
+gone round with you on your tour, Melissa," he said. "I don't know
+Italy; I don't suppose by myself I could even appreciate it. But
+if YOU were by my side, you'd have taught me what it all meant;
+and then I think I might perhaps understand it."
+
+Melissa drew a deep breath. "I wish I could take it all over again,"
+she answered, half sighing. "And I didn't see Naples, either. That
+was a great disappointment. I should like to have seen Naples, I
+must confess, so as to know I could at least in the end die happy."
+
+"Why do you go back?" Bernard asked, suddenly, with a bounce,
+looking down at that wee hand that trembled upon the taffrail.
+
+"Because I can't help myself," Melissa answered, in a quivering
+voice. "I should like--I should like to live always in England."
+
+"Have you any special preference for any particular town?" Bernard
+asked, moving closer to her--though, to be sure, he was very, very
+near already.
+
+"N--no; n--none in particular," Melissa stammered out, faintly,
+half sidling away from him.
+
+"Not Cambridge, for example?" Bernard asked, with a deep gulp and
+an audible effort.
+
+I felt it would be unpardonable for me to hear any more. I had heard
+already many things not intended for me. I sneaked off, unperceived,
+and left those two alone to complete that conversation.
+
+Half an hour later--it was a calm, mooolight night--Bernard rushed
+down eagerly into the saloon to find us. "Father and mother," he
+said, with a burst, "I want you up on deck for just ten minutes.
+There's something up there I should like so much to show you."
+
+"Not whales?" I asked, hypocritically, suppressing a smile.
+
+"No, not whales," he replied; "something much more interesting."
+
+We followed him blindly, Lucy much in doubt what the thing might
+be, and I much in wonder. after Mrs. Wade's letter, how Lucy might
+take it.
+
+At the top of the companion--ladder Melissa stood waiting for us,
+demure, but subdued, with a still timider look than ever upon that
+sweet, shrinking, small face of hers. Her heart beat hard, I could
+see by the movement of her bodice, and her breath came and went;
+but she stood there like a dove, in her dove-coloured travelling
+dress.
+
+"Mother," Bernard began, "Melissa's obliged to come back to America,
+don't you know, without having ever seen Naples. It seems a horrid
+shame she should miss seeing it. She hadn't money enough left, you
+recollect, to take her there."
+
+Lucy gazed at him, unsuspicious. "It does a pity," she answered,
+sympathetically.
+
+"She'd enjoy it so much. I'm sorry she hasn't been able to carry
+out all her programme."
+
+"And, mother," Bernard went on, his eyes fixed hard on hers, "how
+awfully she'd be thrown away on Kansas City! I can't bear to think
+of her going back to 'keep store' there."
+
+"For my part, I think it positively wicked," Lucy answered, with a
+smile, "and I can't think what--well, people in England are about,
+to allow her to do it."
+
+I opened my eyes wide. Did Lucy know what she was saying? Or had
+Melissa, then, fascinated her--the arch little witch!--as she had
+fascinated the rest of us?
+
+But Bernard, emboldened by this excellent opening, took Melissa
+by the hand as if in due form to present her. "Mother," he said,
+tenderly, leading the wee thing forward, "and father, too, THIS is
+what I wanted to show you--the girl I'm engaged to!"
+
+I paused and trembled. I waited for the thunderbolt. But no thunderbolt
+fell. On the contrary, Lucy stepped forward, and, under cover of
+the mast, caught Melissa in her arms and kissed her twice over.
+"My dear child," she cried, pressing her hard, "my dear little
+daughter, I don't know which of you two I ought most to congratulate."
+
+"But I do," Bernard murmured low. And, his father though I am, I
+murmured to myself, "And so do I, also."
+
+"Then you're not ashamed of me, mother dear," Melissa whispered,
+burying her dainty little bead on Lucy's shoulder, "because I kept
+store in Kansas City?"
+
+Lucy rose above herself in the excitement of the moment. "My
+darling wee daughter," she answered, kissing her tenderly again,
+"it's Kansas City alone that ought to be ashamed of itself for
+putting YOU to keep store--such a sweet little gem as you are!"
+
+
+
+
+
+
+VANDERDECKEN'S MESSAGE HOME;
+
+OR,
+
+THE TENACITY OF NATURAL AFFECTION
+
+(ANONYMOUS)
+
+
+
+
+
+Our ship, after touching at the Cape, went out again, and, soon losing
+sight of the Table Mountain, began to be assailed by the impetuous
+attacks of the sea, which is well known to be more formidable there
+than in most parts of the known ocean. The day had grown dull and
+hazy, and the breeze, which had formerly blown fresh, now sometimes
+subsided almost entirely, and then, recovering its strength for
+a short time, and changing its direction, blew with temporary
+violence, and died away again, as if exercising a melancholy caprice.
+A heavy swell began to come from the southeast. Our sails flapped
+against the masts, and the ship rolled from side to side as heavily
+as if she had been water-logged. There was so little wind that she
+would not steer.
+
+At 2 P.M. we had a squall, accompanied by thunder and rain. The
+seamen, growing restless, looked anxiously ahead. They said we would
+have a dirty night of it, and that it would not be worth while to
+turn into their hammocks. As the second mate was describing a gale
+he had encountered off Cape Race, Newfoundland, we were suddenly
+taken all aback, and the blast came upon us furiously. We continued
+to scud under a double-reefed mainsail and foretopsail till dusk;
+but, as the sea ran high, the captain thought it safest to bring
+her to. The watch on deck consisted of four men, one of whom was
+appointed to keep a lookout ahead, for the weather was so hazy
+that we could not see two cables' length from the bows. This man,
+whose name was Tom Willis, went frequently to the bows as if to
+observe something; and when the others called to him, inquiring
+what he was looking at, he would give no definite answer. They
+therefore went also to the bows, and appeared startled, and at
+first said nothing. But presently one of them cried, "William, go
+call the watch."
+
+The seamen, having been asleep in their hammocks, murmured at this
+unseasonable summons, and called to know how it looked upon deck.
+To which Tom Willis replied, "Come up and see. What we are minding
+is not on deck, but ahead."
+
+On hearing this they ran up /vithout putting on their jackets, and
+when they came to the bows there was a whispering.
+
+One of them asked, "Where is she? I do not see her." To which another
+replied, "The last flash of lightning showed there was not a reef
+in one of her sails; but we, who know her history, know that all
+her canvas will never carry her into port."
+
+By this time the talking of the seamen had brought some of the
+passengers on deck. They could see nothing, however, for the ship
+was surrounded by thick darkness and by the noise of the dashing
+waters, and the seamen evaded the questions that were put to them.
+
+At this juncture the chaplain came on deck. He was a man of grave
+and modest demeanor, and was much liked among the seamen, who called
+him Gentle George. He overheard one of the men asking another if
+he had ever seen the Flying Dutchman before, and if he knew the
+story about her. To which the other replied, "I have heard of her
+beating about in these seas. What is the reason she never reaches
+port?"
+
+The first speaker replied, "They give different reasons for it,
+but my story is this: She was an Amsterdam vessel, and sailed from
+that port seventy years ago. Her master's name was Vanderdecken.
+He was a staunch seaman, and would have his own way in spite of
+the devil. For all that, never a sailor under him had reason to
+complain, though how it is on board with them now nobody knows.
+The story is this, that, in doubling the Cape, they were a long
+day trying to weather the Table Bay, which we saw this morning.
+However, the wind headed them, and went against then more and more,
+and Vanderdecken walked the deck, swearing at the wind. Just after
+sunset a vessel spoke him, asking if he did not mean to go into the
+bay that night. Vanderdecken replied, 'May I be eternally d--d if
+I do, though I should beat about here till the day of judgment!'
+And, to be sure, Vanderdecken never did go into that bay; for it
+is believed that he continues to beat about in these seas still,
+and will do so long enough. This vessel is never seen but with
+foul weather along with her."
+
+To which another replied, "We must keep clear of her. They say that
+her captain mans his jolly-boat when a vessel comes in sight, and
+tries hard to get alongside, to put letters on board, but no good
+comes to them who have communication with him."
+
+Tom Willis said, "There is such a sea between us at present as
+should keep us safe from such visits."
+
+To which the other answered, "We cannot trust to that, if Vanderdecken
+sends out his men."
+
+Some of this conversation having been overheard by the passengers,
+there was a commotion among them. In the meantime the noise of the
+waves against the vessel could scarcely be distinguished from the
+sounds of the distant thunder. The wind had extinguished the light
+in the binnacle, where the compass was, and no one could tell
+which way the ship's head lay. The passengers were afraid to ask
+questions, lest they should augment the secret sensation of fear
+which chilled every heart, or learn any more than they already knew.
+For while they attributed their agitation of mind to the state of
+the weather, it was sufficiently perceptible that their alarms also
+arose from a cause which they did not acknowledge.
+
+The lamp at the binnacle being relighted, they perceived that the
+ship lay closer to the wind than she had hitherto done, and the
+spirits of the passengers were somewhat revived.
+
+Nevertheless, neither the tempestuous state of the atmosphere nor
+the thunder had ceased, and soon a vivid flash of lightning showed
+the waves tumbling around us, and, in the distance, the Flying
+Dutchman scudding furiously before the wind under a press of canvas.
+The sight was but momentary, but it was sufficient to remove all
+doubt from the minds of the passengers. One of the men cried aloud,
+"There she goes, topgallants and all."
+
+The chaplain had brought up his prayer-book, in order that he might
+draw from thence something to fortify and tranquillise the minds
+of the rest. Therefore, taking his seat near the binnacle, so that
+the light shone upon the white leaves of the book, he, in a solemn
+tone, read out the service for those distressed at sea. The sailors
+stood round with folded arms, and looked as if they thought it
+would be of little use. But this served to occupy the attention of
+those on deck for a while.
+
+In the meantime the flashes of lightning, becoming less vivid,
+showed nothing else, far or near, but the billows weltering round
+the vessel. The sailors seemed to think that they had not yet seen
+the worst, but confined their remarks and prognostications to
+their own circle.
+
+At this time the captain, who had hitherto remained in his berth,
+came on deck, and, with a gay and unconcerned air, inquired what
+was the cause of the general dread. He said he thought they had
+already seen the worst of the weather, and wondered that his men
+had raised such a hubbub about a capful of wind. Mention being
+made of the Flying Dutchman, the captain laughed. He said he "would
+like very much to see any vessel carrying topgallantsails in such
+a night, for it would be a sight worth looking at." The chaplain,
+taking him by one of the buttons of his coat, drew him aside, and
+appeared to enter into serious conversation with him.
+
+While they were talking together, the captain was heard to say,
+"Let us look to our own ship, and not mind such things;" and,
+accordingly, he sent a man aloft to see if all was right about the
+foretopsail-yard, which was chafing the mast with a loud noise.
+
+It was Tom Willis who went up; and when he came down he said that
+all was tight, and that he hoped it would soon get clearer; and
+that they would see no more of what they were most afraid of.
+
+The captain and first mate were heard laughing loudly together,
+while the chaplain observed that it would be better to repress such
+unseasonable gaiety. The second mate, a native of Scotland, each
+other without offering to do anything. The boat had come very near
+the chains, when Tom Willis called out, "What do you want? or what
+devil has blown you here in such weather?" A piercing voice from
+the boat replied, in English, "We want to speak with your captain."
+The captain took no notice of this, and, Vanderdecken's boat having
+come close alongside, one of the men came upon deck, and appeared
+like a fatigued and weather-beaten seaman holding some letters in
+his hand.
+
+Our sailors all drew back. The chaplain, however, looking steadfastly
+upon him, went forward a few steps, and asked, "What is the purpose
+of this visit?"
+
+The stranger replied, "We have long been kept here by foul weather,
+and Vanderdecken wishes to send these letters to his friends in
+Europe."
+
+Our captain now came forward, and said, as firmly as he could, "I
+wish Vanderdecken would put his letters on board of any other vessel
+rather than mine."
+
+The stranger replied, "We have tried many a ship, but most of them
+refuse our letters."
+
+Upon which Tom Willis muttered, "It will be best for us if we do
+the same, for they say there is sometimes a sinking weight in your
+paper."
+
+The stranger took no notice of this, but asked where we were from.
+On being told that we were from Portsmouth, he said, as if with
+strong feeling, "Would that you had rather been from Amsterdam!
+Oh, that we saw it again! We must see our friends again." When he
+uttered these words, the men who were in the boat below wrung their
+hands, and cried, in a piercing tone, in Dutch, "Oh, that we saw
+it again! We have been long here beating about; but we must see
+our friends again."
+
+The chaplain asked the stranger, "How long have you been at sea?"
+
+He replied, "We have lost our count, for our almanac was blown
+overboard. Our ship, you see, is there still; so why should you
+ask how long we have been at sea? For Vanderdecken only wishes to
+write home and comfort his friends."
+
+To which the chaplain replied, "Your letters, I fear, would be of
+no use in Amsterdam, even if they were delivered; for the persons
+to whom they are addressed are probably no longer to be found there,
+except under very ancient green turf in the churchyard."
+
+The unwelcome stranger then wrung his hands and appeared to weep,
+and replied, "It is impossible; we cannot believe you. We have
+been long driving about here, but country nor relations cannot be
+so easily forgotten. There is not a raindrop in the air but feels
+itself kindred to all the rest, and they fall back into the sea to
+meet with each other again. How then can kindred blood be made to
+forget where it came from? Even our bodies are part of the ground
+of Holland; and Vanderdecken says, if he once were to come to
+Amsterdam, he would rather be changed into a stone post, well fixed
+into the ground, than leave it again if that were to die elsewhere.
+But in the meantime we only ask you to take these letters."
+
+The chaplain, looking at him with astonishment, said, "This is the
+insanity of natural affection, which rebels against all measures
+of time and distance."
+
+The stranger continued, "Here is a letter from our second mate to
+his dear and only remaining friend, his uncle, the merchant who
+lives in the second house on Stuncken Yacht Quay."
+
+He held forth the letter, but no one would approach to take it.
+
+Tom Willis raised his voice and said, "One of our men, here, says
+that he was in Amsterdam last summer, and he knows for certain that
+the street called Stuncken Yacht Quay was pulled down sixty years
+ago, and now there is only a large church at that place."
+
+The man from the Flying Dutchman said, "It is impossible; we cannot
+believe you. Here is another letter from myself, in which I have
+sent a bank-note to my dear sister, to buy some gallant lace to
+make her a high head-dress."
+
+Tom Willis, hearing this, said, "It is most likely that her head
+now lies under a tombstone, which will outlast all the changes of
+the fashion. But on what house is your bank-note?"
+
+The stranger replied, "On the house of Vanderbrucker & Company."
+
+The man of whom Tom Willis had spoken said, "I guess there will
+now be some discount upon it, for that banking house was gone
+to destruction forty years ago; and Vanderbrucker was afterward
+a-missing. But to remember these things is like raking up the
+bottom of an old canal."
+
+The stranger called out, passionately, "It is impossible;
+we cannot believe it! It is cruel to say such things to people in
+our condition. There is a letter from our captain himself, to his
+much-beloved and faithful wife, whom he left at a pleasant summer
+dwelling on the border of the Haarlemer Mer. She promised to have
+the house beautifully painted and gilded before he came back,
+and to get a new set of looking-glasses for the principal chamber,
+that she might see as many images of Vanderdecken as if she had
+six husbands at once."
+
+The man replied, "There has been time enough for her to have had
+six husbands since then; but were she alive still, there is no fear
+that Vanderdecken would ever get home to disturb her."
+
+On hearing this the stranger again shed tears, and said if they would
+not take the letters he would leave them; and, looking around, he
+offered the parcel to the captain, chaplain, and to the rest of
+the crew successively, but each drew back as it was offered, and
+put his hands behind his back. He then laid the letters upon the
+deck, and placed upon them a piece of iron which was lying near,
+to prevent them from being blown away. Having done this, he swung
+himself over the gangway, and went into the boat.
+
+We heard the others speak to him, but the rise of a sudden squall
+prevented us from distinguishing his reply. The boat was seen to
+quit the ship's side, and in a few moments there were no more traces
+of her than if she had never been there. The sailors rubbed their
+eyes as if doubting what they had witnessed; but the parcel still
+lay upon deck, and proved the reality of all that had passed.
+
+Duncan Saunderson, the Scotch mate, asked the captain if he should
+take them up and put them in the letter-bag. Receiving no reply,
+he would have lifted them if it had not been for Tom Willis, who
+pulled him back, saying that nobody should touch them.
+
+In the meantime the captain went down to the cabin, and the chaplain,
+having followed him, found him at his bottle-case pouring out a
+large dram of brandy. The captain, although somewhat disconcerted,
+immediately offered the glass to him, saying, "Here, Charters,
+is what is good in a cold night." The chaplain declined drinking
+anything, and, the captain having swallowed the bumper, they
+both returned to the deck, where they found the seamen giving their
+opinions concerning what should be done with the letters. Tom Willis
+proposed to pick them up on a harpoon, and throw it overboard.
+
+Another speaker said, "I have always heard it asserted that it is
+neither safe to accept them voluntarily, nor, when they are left,
+to throw them out of the ship."
+
+"Let no one touch them," said the carpenter. "The way to do with
+the letters from the Flying Dutchman is to case them up on deck,
+so that, if he sends back for them, they are still there to give
+him."
+
+The carpenter went to fetch his tools. During his absence the ship
+gave so violent a pitch that the piece of iron slid off the letters,
+and they were whirled overboard by the wind, like birds of evil
+omen whirring through the air. There was a cry of joy among the
+sailors, and they ascribed the favourable change which soon took
+place in the weather to our having got quit of Vanderdecken. We
+soon got under way again. The night watch being set, the
+rest of the crew retired to their berths.
+
+
+
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, STORIES BY ENGLISH AUTHORS: THE SEA ***
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