He was right. When I reflected I was quite sure I should not, in my exhausted state, be able to handle one of the big oars for even five minutes at a stretch; andadmitting that Ihadbeen strong enough to row for a couple of hours, yet the result to have been obtained could not have been important enough to justify the serious labour.
The steward all this time sat perfectly quiet in the bottom of the boat, with his back against the mast. He paid no attention to us when we spoke, nor looked around him, though sometimes he would fix his eyes vacantly on the sky as if his shattered mind found relief in contemplating the void. I was heartily glad to find him quiet, though I took care to watch him, for it was difficult to tell whether his imbecility was not counterfeited by his madness, to throw us off our guard, and furnish him with an opportunity to play us and himself some deadly trick.
As some hours had elapsed since we had tasted food, I opened a tin of meat and prepareda meal. The boatswain ate heartily, and so did the steward; but I could not prevail upon Mary to take more than a biscuit and some sherry and water.
Indeed, as the evening approached, our position affected her more deeply, and very often, after she had cast her eyes towards the horizon, I would see her lips whispering a prayer, and feel her hand tightening on mine.
The ship still floated, but she was so low in the water that I every minute expected to see her vanish. The water was above her main-chains, and I could only attribute her obstinacy in not sinking to the great quantity of wood—both in cases and goods—which composed her cargo.
The sun was now quite close to the horizon, branding the ocean with a purple glare, but itself descending into a cloudless sky. I cannot express how majestic andwonderful the great orb looked to us who were almost level with the water. Its disc seemed vaster than I had ever before seen it, and there was something sublimely solemn in the loneliness of its descent. All the sky about it, and far to the south and north, was changed into the colour of gold by its lustre; and over our heads the heavens were an exquisite tender green, which melted in the east into a dark blue.
I was telling Mary that ere the sun sank again we might be on board a ship, and whispering any words of encouragement and hope to her, when I was startled by the boatswain crying, "Now she's gone! Look at her!"
I turned my eyes towards the ship, and could scarcely credit my senses when I found that her hull had vanished, and that nothing was to be seen of her but her spars, which were all aslant sternwards.
I held my breath as I saw the masts sink lower and lower. First the crossjack-yard was submerged, then the gaff with the ensign hanging dead at the peak, then the mainyard; presently only the main-topmast cross-trees were visible, a dark cross upon the water: they vanished; at the same moment the sun disappeared behind the horizon; and now we were alone on the great, breathing deep, with all the eastern sky growing dark as we watched.
"It's all over!" said the boatswain, breaking the silence, and speaking in a hollow tone. "No livin' man'll ever see theGrosvenoragin!"
Mary shivered and leaned against me. I took up a rug and folded it round her, and kissed her forehead.
The boatswain had turned his back upon us, and sat with his hands folded, I believe in prayer. I am sure he was thinking ofJim Cornish, and I would not have interrupted that honest heart's communion with its Maker for the value of the ship that had sunk.
Darkness came down very quickly, and that we might lose no chance of being seen by any distant vessel, I lighted the ship's lantern and hoisted it at the mast-head. I also lighted the bull's-eye lamp and set it in the stern-sheets.
"Mary," I whispered, "I will make you up a bed in the bottom of the boat. Whilst this weather lasts, dearest, we have no cause to be alarmed by our position. It will make me happy to see you sleeping, and be sure that whilst you sleep there will be watchful eyes near you."
"I will sleep as I am, here, by your side. I shall rest better so," she answered. "I could not sleep lying down."
It was too sweet a privilege to forego: Ipassed my arm around her and held her close to me; and she closed her eyes like a child to please me.
Worn out as I was, enfeebled both intellectually and physically by the heavy strain that had been put upon me ever since that day when I had been ironed by Captain Coxon's orders, I say—and I solemnly believe in the truth of what I am about to write—that had it not been for the living reality of this girl, encircled by my arm, with her head supported by my shoulder—had it not been for the deep love I felt for her, which localized my thoughts, and, so to say, humanized them down to the level of our situation, forbidding them to trespass beyond the prosaic limits of our danger, of the precautions to be taken by us, of our chances of rescue, of the course to be steered when the wind should fill our sail: I should have gone mad when the nightcame down upon the sea and enveloped our boat—a lonely speck on the gigantic world of water—in the mystery and fear of darkness. I know this by recalling the fancy that for a few moments possessed me in looking along the water, when I clearly beheld the outline of a coast, with innumerable lights twinkling upon it; by the whirling, dizzy sensation in my head which followed the extinction of the vision; by the emotion of wild horror and unutterable disappointment which overcame me when I detected the cheat. I pressed my darling to me, and looked upon her sweet face, revealed by the light shed by the lantern at the mast-head, and all my misery left me; and the delight which the knowledge that she was my own love and that I held her in my arms, gave me, fell like an exorcism upon the demons of my stricken imagination.
She smiled when I pressed her to my side and when she saw my face close to hers, looking at her; but she did not know then that she had saved me from a fate more dreadful than death, and that I—so strong as I seemed, so earnest as I had shown myself in my conflicts with fate, so resolutely as I had striven to comfort her—had been rescued from madness by her whom I had a thousand times pitied for her helplessness.
She fell asleep at last, and I sat for nearly two hours motionless, that I should not awaken her. The steward slept with his head in his arms, kneeling, a strange, mad posture. The boatswain sat forward, with his face turned aft and his arms folded. I addressed him once, but he did not answer. Probably I spoke too low for him to hear, being fearful of waking Mary; but there was little we had to say. Doubtlesshe found his thoughts too engrossing to suffer him to talk.
Being anxious to "take a star," as we say at sea, and not knowing how the time went, I gently drew out my watch and found the hour a quarter to eleven. In replacing the watch I aroused Mary, who raised her head and looked round her with eyes that flashed in the lantern light.
"Where are we?" she exclaimed, and bent her head to gaze at me, on which she recollected herself. "Poor boy!" she said, taking my hand, "I have kept you supporting my weight. You were more tired than I. But it is your turn now. Rest your head on my shoulder."
"No, it is still your turn," I answered, "and you shall sleep again presently. But since you are awake, I will try to find out where we are. You shall hold the lamp for me while I make my calculations and examine the chart."
Saying which, I drew out my sextant and got across the thwarts to the mast, which I stood up alongside of to lean on, for the swell, though moderate enough to pass without notice on a big vessel, lifted and sunk the boat in such a way as to make it difficult to stand steady.
I was in the act of raising the sextant to my eye, when the boatswain suddenly cried, "Mr. Royle, listen!"
"What do you hear?" I exclaimed.
"Hush! listen now!" he answered, in a breathless voice.
I strained my ear, but nothing was audible to me but the wash of the water against the boat's side.
"Don't you hear it, Mr. Royle?" he cried, in a kind of agony, holding up his finger. "Miss Robertson, don't you hear something?"
There was another interval of silence, andMary answered, "I hear a kind of throbbing!"
"It is so!" I exclaimed. "I hear it now! it is the engines of a steamer!"
"A steamer! Yes! I heard it! where is she?" shouted the boatswain, and he jumped on to the thwart on which I stood.
We strained our ears again.
That throbbing sound, as Mary had accurately described it, closely resembling the rythmical running of a locomotive engine heard in the country on a silent night at a long distance, was now distinctly audible; but so smooth was the water, so breathless the night, that it was impossible to tell how far away the vessel might be; for so fine and delicate a vehicle of sound is the ocean in a calm, that, though the hull of a steamship might be below the horizon, yet the thumping of her engines would be heard.
Once more we inclined our ears, holding our breath as we listened.
"It grows louder!" cries the boatswain. "Mr. Royle, bend your bull's-eye lamp to the end o' one o' the oars and swing it about whilst I dip this mast-head lantern."
Very different was his manner now from what it had been that morning when the Russian hove in sight.
I lashed the lamp by the ring of it to an oar and waved it to and fro. Meanwhile the boatswain had got hold of the mast-head halliards, and was running the big ship's lantern up and down the mast.
"Mary," I exclaimed, "lift up the seat behind you, and in the left-hand corner you will find a pistol."
"I have it," she answered, in a few moments.
"Point it over the stern and fire!" I cried.
She levelled the little weapon and pulled the trigger, the white flame leapt, and a smart report followed.
"Listen now!" I said.
I held the oar steady, and the boatswain ceased to dance the lantern. For the first few seconds I heard nothing, then my ear caught the throbbing sound.
"I see her!" cried the boatswain; and following his finger (my sight being keener than my hearing) I saw not only the shadow of a vessel down in the south-west, but the smoke from her funnel pouring along the stars.
"Mary," I cried, "fire again!"
She drew the trigger.
"Again!"
The clear report whizzed like a bullet passed my ears.
Simultaneously with the second report a ball of blue fire shot up into the sky. Another followed, and another.
A moment after a red light shone clear upon the sea.
"She sees us!" I cried. "God be praised! Mary, darling, she sees us!"
I waved the lamp furiously. But there was no need to wave it any longer. The red light drew nearer and nearer; the throbbing of the engines louder and louder, and the revolutions of the propeller sounded like a pulse beating through the water.
The shadow broadened and loomed larger. I could hear the water spouting out of her side and the blowing off of the safety-valve.
Soon the vessel grew a defined shape against the stars, and then a voice, thinned by the distance, shouted, "What light is that?"
I cried to the boatswain, "Answer, for God's sake! My voice is weak."
He hollowed his hands and roared back,"We're shipwrecked seamen adrift in a quarter-boat!"
Nearer and nearer came the shadow, and now it was a long, black hull, a funnel pouring forth a dense volume of smoke, spotted with fire-sparks, and tapering masts and fragile rigging, with the stars running through them.
"Ease her!"
The sound of the throbbing grew more measured. We could hear the water as it was churned up by the screw.
"Stop her!"
The sounds ceased, and the vessel came looming up slowly, more slowly, until she stopped.
"What is that?—a boat?" exclaimed a strong bass voice.
"Yes!" answered the boatswain. "We've been shipwrecked; we're adrift in a quarter-boat."
"Can you bring her alongside?"
"Aye, aye, sir!"
I threw out an oar, but trembled so violently that it was as much as I could do to work it. We headed the boat for the steamer, and rowed towards her. As we approached I perceived that she was very long, barque-rigged, and raking, manifestly a powerful, iron-built, ocean steamer. They had hung a red light on the forestay, and a white light over her port quarter, and lights flitted about her gangway.
A voice sang out, "How many are there of you?"
The boatswain answered, "Three men and a lady!"
On this the same voice called, "If you want help to bring the boat alongside we'll send to you."
"We'll be alongside in a few minutes," returned the boatswain.
But the fact was the vessel had stopped her engines when further off from us than we had imagined; being deceived by the magnitude of her looming hull, which seemed to stand not a hundred fathoms away from us and by the wonderful distinctness of the voice that had spoken us.
I did not know how feeble I had become until I took the oar, and the violent emotions excited in me by our rescue now to be effected after our long and heavy trials, diminished still the little strength that was left in me, so that the boat moved very slowly through the water, and it was full twenty minutes, starting from the time when we had shipped the oars, before we came up with her.
"We'll fling you a rope's end," said a voice; "look out for it."
A line fell into the boat; the boatswain caught it and sang out "All fast!"
I looked up the high side of the steamer: there was a crowd of men assembled round the gangway, their faces visible in the light shed not only by our own mast-head lantern (which was on a level with the steamer's bulwarks) but by other lanterns which some of them held. In all this light we, the occupants of the boat, were to be clearly viewed from the deck; and the voice that had first addressed ussaid—
"Are you strong enough to get up the ladder? if not we'll sling you on board."
I answered that if a couple of hands would come down into the boat so as to help the lady and a man (who had fallen imbecile) over the ship's side, the other two would manage to get on board without assistance.
On this a short gangway ladder was lowered, and two men descended and got into the boat.
"Take that lady first," I said, pointing to Mary, but holding on as I spoke to the boat's mast, for I felt horribly sick and faint, and knew not, indeed, what was going to happen to me; and I had to exert all my power to steady my voice.
They took her by the arms, and watching the moment when the wash of the swell brought the boat against the ship's side, landed her cleverly on the ladder and helped her on to the deck.
"Bo'sun," I cried huskily, "she ... she is ... saved ... I am dying, I think.... God bless her! and ... and ... your hand, mate...."
I remember uttering these incoherent words and seeing the boatswain spring forward to catch me. Then my senses left me with a flash.
I remained, as I was afterwards informed, insensible for four days, during which time I told and re-told in my delirium the story of the mutiny and our own sufferings, so that, as the ship's surgeon assured me, he became very exactly acquainted with all the particulars of theGrosvenor'svoyage, from the time of her leaving the English Channel to the moment of our rescue from the boat, though I, from whom he learnt the story, was insensible as I related it. My delirium even embraced so remote an incident as the running down of the smack.
When I opened my eyes I found myself in a small, very comfortable cabin, lying in a bunk; and being alone, I had no knowledge of where I was, nor would my memory give me the slightest assistance. That every object my eye rested upon was unfamiliar, and that I was on board a ship, was all that I knew for certain. What puzzled me most was the jarring sound caused by the engines. I could not conceive what this meant nor what produced it; and the vessel being perfectly steady, it was not in my power to realize that I was being borne over the water.
I closed my eyes and lay perfectly still, striving to master the past and inform myself of what had become of me; but so hopelessly muddled was my brain, that had some unseen person, by way of a joke, told me in a sepulchral voice that I was dead and apprehending the things about me onlyby means of my spirit, which had not yet had time to get out of my body, I should have believed him; though I don't say that I should not have been puzzled to reconcile my very keen appetite and thirst with my non-existent condition.
In a few minutes the door of the cabin was opened and a jolly, red-faced man, wearing a Scotch cap, looked in. Seeing me with my eyes open, he came forward and exclaimed in a cheerfulvoice—
"All alive O! Staring about you full of wonderment! Nothing so good as curiosity in a sick man. Shows that the blood is flowing."
He felt my pulse, and asked me if I knew who he was.
I replied that I had never seen him before.
"Well, that's not my fault," said he; "for I've been looking at you a pretty tidywhile on and off since we hoisted you out of the brine.
'Guid speed an' furder to you, Johnny;Guid health, hale han's, an' weather bonnie;May ye ne'er want a stoup o' branyTo clear your head!'
'Guid speed an' furder to you, Johnny;Guid health, hale han's, an' weather bonnie;May ye ne'er want a stoup o' branyTo clear your head!'
Hungry?"
"Very," said I.
"Thirsty?"
"Yes."
"How do you feel in yourself?"
"I have been trying to find out. I don't know. I forget who I am."
"Raise your arm and try your muscles."
"I can raise my arm," I said, doing so.
"How's your memory?"
"If you'll give me a hint or two, I'll see."
He looked at me very earnestly and with much kindness in the expression of his jovial face, and debated some matter in his own mind.
"I'll send you in some beef-tea," he said, "by a person who'll be able to do you more good than I can. But don't excite yourself. Converse calmly, and don't talk too much."
So saying he went away.
I lay quite still and my memory remained as helpless as though I had just been born.
After an interval of about ten minutes the door was again opened and Mary came in. She closed the door and approached me, holding a cup of beef-tea in her hand, but however she had schooled herself to behave, her resolution forsook her; she put the cup down, threw her arms round my neck, and sobbed with her cheek against mine.
With my recognition of her my memory returned to me.
"My darling," I cried, in a weak voice, "is it you indeed! Oh, God is very merciful to have spared us. I rememberednothing just now; but all has come back to me with your dear face."
She was too overcome to speak for some moments, but raising herself presently she said in brokentones—
"I thought I should never see you again, never be able to speak to you more. But I am wicked to give way to my feelings when I have been told that any excitement must be dangerous to my darling. Drink this, now—no, I will hold the cup to your lips. Strength has been given me to bear the sufferings we have gone through, that I may nurse you and bring you back to health."
I would not let go her hand; but when I attempted to prop myself up, I found my elbow would not sustain me; so I lay back and drank from the cup which she held to my mouth.
"How long is it," I asked her, "since we were taken on board this vessel?"
"Four days. Do you know that you fell down insensible in the boat the moment after I had been carried on to the deck of this ship? The men crowded around me and held their lanterns to my face, and I found that most of them were Scotch by their exclamations. A woman took me by the hand to lead me away, but I refused to move one step until I saw that you were on board. She told me that you had fainted in the boatswain's arms, and others cried out that you were dead. I saw them bring you up out of the boat, and told the woman that I must go with you and see where they put you, and asked if there was a doctor on board. She said yes, and that he was that man in the Scotch cap and greatcoat, who was helping the others to take you downstairs. I took your poor senseless hands and cried bitterly over them, and told the doctor I would go onmy knees to him if he would save your life. But he was very kind—very kind and gentle."
"And you, Mary? I saw you keep up your wonderful courage to the last."
"I fainted when the doctor took me away from you," she answered, with one of her sweet, wistful smiles. "I slept far into the next day, and I rose quite well yesterday morning, and have been by your side nearly ever since. It is rather hard upon me that your consciousness should have returned when I had left the cabin for a few minutes."
I made her turn her face to the light that I might see her clearly, and found that though her mental and physical sufferings had left traces on her calm and beautiful face, yet on the whole she looked fairly well in health; her eyes bright, her complexion clear, and her lips red, with a firm expressionon them. I also took notice that she was well dressed in a black silk, though probably I was not good critic enough just then in such matters to observe that it fitted her ill, and did no manner of justice to her lovely shape.
She caught me looking at the dress, and told me with a smile that it had been lent to her by a lady passenger.
"Why do you stand?" I said.
"The doctor only allowed me to see you on condition that I did not stay above five minutes."
"That is nonsense. I cannot let you go now you are here. Your dear face gives me back all the strength I have lost. How came I to fall down insensible? I am ashamed of myself! I, a sailor, supposed to be inured to all kinds of privation, to be cut adrift from my senses by a shipwreck! Mary, you are fitter to be a sailor than I.After this, let me buy a needle and thread, and advertise for needlework."
"You are talking too much. I shall leave you."
"You cannot while I hold your hand."
"Am I not stronger than you?"
"In all things stronger, Mary. You have been my guardian angel. You interceded for my life with God, and He heard you when He would not have heard me."
She placed her hand on my mouth.
"You are talking too much, I say. You reproach yourself for your weakness, but try to remember what you have gone through: how you had to baffle the mutineers—to take charge of the ship—to save our lives from their terrible designs. Remember, too, that for days together you scarcely closed your eyes in sleep, that you did the work of a whole crew during the storm—dearest, what you have gone through wouldhave broken many a man's heart or driven him mad. It has left you your own true self for me to love and cherish whilst God shall spare us to each other."
She kissed me on the mouth, drew her hand from mine, and with a smile full of tender affection left the cabin.
I was vexed to lose her even for a short time; and still chose to think myself a poor creature for falling ill and keeping to my bed, when I might be with her about the ship and telling the people on board the story of her misfortunes and beautiful courage.
It was a mistake of the doctor's to suppose thatherconversation could hurt me.
I had no idea of the time, and stared hard at the bull's-eye over my head, hoping to discover by the complexion of the light that it was early in the day, so that I might again see Mary before the night came. I waseven rash enough to imagine that I had the strength to rise, and made an effort to get out of the bunk, which gave me just the best illustration I could wish that I was as weak as a baby. So I tumbled back with a groan of disappointment, and after staring fixedly at the bull's-eye, I fell asleep.
This sleep lasted some hours. I awoke, not as I had first awakened from insensibility, with tremors and bewilderment, but easily, with a delicious sense of warmth and rest and renewing vigour in my limbs.
I opened my eyes upon three persons standing near the bunk; one was Mary, the other the doctor, and the third a thin, elderly, sunburnt man, in a white waistcoat with gold buttons and a blue cloth loose coat.
The doctor felt my pulse, and letting fall my hand, said toMary—
"Now, Miss Robertson, Mr. Royle willdo. If you will kindly tell the steward to give you another basin of broth, you will find our patient able to make a meal."
She kissed her hand to me behind the backs of the others, and went out with a beaming smile.
"This is Captain Craik, Mr. Royle," continued the doctor, motioning to the gentleman in the white waistcoat, "commanding this vessel, thePeri."
I at once thanked him earnestly for his humanity, and the kindness he was showing me.
"Indeed," he replied, "I am very pleased with my good fortune in rescuing so brave a pair of men as yourself and your boatswain, and happy to have been the instrument of saving the charming girl to whom you are betrothed from the horror of exposure in an open boat. I have had the whole of your story from Miss Robertson, and I can onlysay that you have acted very heroically and honourably."
I replied that I was very grateful to him for his kind words; but I assured him that I only deserved a portion of his praise. The man who truly merited admiration was the boatswain.
"You shall divide the honours," he said, smiling. "The bo'sun is already a hero. My crew seem disposed to worship him. If you have nothing better for him in your mind, you may hand him over to me. I know the value of such men now-a-days, when so much is left to the crimp."
Saying this, he went to the door and called; and immediately my old companion, the boatswain, came in. I held out my hand, and it was clutched by the honest fellow and held with passionate cordiality.
"Mr. Royle, sir," he exclaimed, in a faltering voice, "this is a happy momentfor me. There wos a time when I never thought I should ha' seen you alive agin, and it went to my heart, and made me blubber like any old woman when I thought o' your dyin' arter all the trouble you've seen, and just when, if I may be so bold as to say it, you might be hopin' to marry the brave, high-sperrited gell as you saved from drownin', and who belongs to you by the will o' God Almighty. Captain Craik, sir—I speak by your favour, and ax pardon for the liberty—this gen'man and me has seen some queer starts together since we fust shipped aboard theGrosvenorin the West Hindie Docks, and," he cried with vehemence, "I'd sooner ha' lost the use o' my right arm an' leg—yes, an' you may chuck my right eye in along with them—than Mr. Royle should ha' died just as he was agoin' to live properly and set down on the bench o' matrimony an' happiness with a bold and handsome wife!"
This eloquent harangue he delivered with a moist eye, addressing us all three in turn. I thanked him heartily for what he had said, but limited my reply to this: for though I could have complimented him more warmly than he had praised me, I considered that it would be more becoming to hold over all mutual admiration and you-and-me glorification until we should be alone.
I observed that he wore a velvet waistcoat, and carried a shiny cloth cap with a brilliant peak, very richly garnished with braid; and as such articles of raiment could only emanate from the forecastle, I concluded that they were gifts from the crew, and that Captain Craik had reason in thinking that the boatswain had become a hero.
The doctor shortly after this motioned him to go, whereon he gave a shipshapesalute, by tweaking an imaginary curl on his forehead, and went away.
I now asked what had become of the steward. Captain Craik answered that the man was all right so far as his health went; that he wandered about the decks very harmlessly, smiling in the faces of the men, and seldom speaking.
"One peculiarity of the poor creature," said he, "is that he will not taste any kind of food but what is served out to the crew. I have myself tried him with dishes from the saloon table, but could not induce him to touch a mouthful. The first time I tried him in this way he fell from me as though I had offered to cut his throat; the perspiration poured from his forehead, and he eyed me with looks of the utmost horror and aversion. Can you account for this?"
"Yes, sir," I replied. "The steward was in the habit of serving out the ship's storesto the crew of theGrosvenor. He rather sided with the captain, and tried to make the best of what was outrageously bad. When the men mutinied they threatened to hang him if he touched any portion of the cuddy stores, and I dare say they would have executed their threat. He was rather a coward before he lost his reason, and the threat affected him violently. I myself never could induce him to taste any other food than the ship's rotten stores whilst the men remained in the vessel, and I dare say the memory of the threat still lives in his broken mind."
"Thanks for your explanation," said the doctor, "I shall sleep the better for it; for, upon my word, the man's unnatural dislike of good food—ofentrées, man, and curried fowl and roast goose, for I tried him myself—has kept me awake bothering my head to understand."
"May I ask what vessel this is?" I said, addressing Captain Craik.
"ThePeri, of Glasgow, homeward-bound from Jamaica," he answered.
"I know the ship now, sir. She belongs to the —— Line."
"Quite right. We shall hope to put you ashore in seven days hence. It is curious that I should have known Mr. Robertson, your lady's father. I called upon him a few years since in Liverpool, on business, and had a long conversation with him. Little could I have dreamt that his end would be so sad, and that it should be reserved for me to rescue his daughter from an open boat, in mid-Atlantic!"
"Ah, sir," I exclaimed, "no one but I can ever know the terrible trials this poor girl has passed through. She has been twice shipwrecked within three weeks; she has experienced all the horrors of a mutiny;she has lost her father under circumstances which would have killed many girls with grief; she has been held in terror of her life, and yet never once has her noble courage flagged, her splendid spirit failed her."
"Yes," answered Captain Craik, "I have read her character in her story and in her way of relating it. You are to be congratulated on having won the love of a woman whose respect alone would do a man honour."
"He deserves what he has got," said the doctor, laughing. "Findings keepings."
"I did find her and I mean to keep her," I exclaimed.
"Well, you have picked up a fortune," observed Captain Craik. "It is not every man who finds a shipwreck a good investment."
"I know nothing about her fortune," I answered. "She did indeed tell me thather father was a ship-owner; but I have asked no questions, and only know her as Mary Robertson, a sweet, brave girl, whom I love, and, please God, mean to marry, though she possessed nothing more in the world than the clothes I found her in."
"Come, come," said the doctor.
"You're not a sailor, doctor," remarked Captain Craik, drily.
"But, my dear sir, you'll not tell me that a gold pound's not better than a silver sixpence?" cried the doctor. "Did you never sing this song?—
'Awa wi' your witchcraft o' beauty's alarms,The slender bit beauty you grasp in your arms;Oh, gie me the lass that has acres o' charms,Oh, gie me the lass wi' the weel-stockit farms.Then hey for a lass wi' a tocher; then hey for a lass wi' a tocher;Then hey for a lass wi' a tocher; the nice yellow guineas for me.'
'Awa wi' your witchcraft o' beauty's alarms,The slender bit beauty you grasp in your arms;Oh, gie me the lass that has acres o' charms,Oh, gie me the lass wi' the weel-stockit farms.Then hey for a lass wi' a tocher; then hey for a lass wi' a tocher;Then hey for a lass wi' a tocher; the nice yellow guineas for me.'
Is not an heiress better than a poor wench?"
"I don't see how your simile of the pound and the sixpence applies," answered Captain Craik. "A good woman is a good woman all the world over, and a gift that every honest man will thank God for.
'Mark yonder pomp of costly fashionRound the wealthy titled bride;But when compared with real passion,Poor is all that princely pride.'
'Mark yonder pomp of costly fashionRound the wealthy titled bride;But when compared with real passion,Poor is all that princely pride.'
That's one of Robbie's too, doctor, and I commend your attention to the whole song as a wholesome purge."
As the conversation was rather too personal to be much to my liking, I was very glad when it was put an end to by Mary coming in with a basin of soup for me.
Thanks to my darling's devotion, to her unwearied attentions, to her foresight and care of me, I was strong enough to leave my cabin on the third day following my restoration to consciousness.
During that time many inquiries were made after my health by the passengers, and Mary told me that the greatest curiosity prevailed fore and aft to see me. So misfortune had made a little ephemeral hero of me, and this, perhaps, was one stroke of compensation which I should have been very willing to dispense with.
The second officer of the ship, a man of about my height and build, had very kindly placed his wardrobe at my disposal, but all that I had chosen to borrow from him was some linen, which, indeed, I stood greatly in need of; but my clothes, though rather the worse for salt water, were, in my opinion, quite good enough for me to wear until I should be able to buy a new outfit ashore.
At twelve o'clock, then, on the third day I rose and leisurely dressed myself, and then sat waiting for Mary, whose arm to lean on I preferred to any one's else.
She came to the cabin presently, and when she had entered I folded her in my arms with so deep a feeling of happiness and love and gratitude in me, that I had no words to speak to her.
It was when I released her that she said—"Since God has heard our prayers,dearest, and mercifully preserved us from death, shall we thank Him now that we are together, and say one prayer for my dear father, who, I firmly believe, looks down upon us and has still the power to bless us?"
I took her hand and we knelt together, and first thanking her for reminding me of my bounden duty, I lifted up my heart to Almighty God, Father of all men, who had guarded us amid our perils, who had brought us to the knowledge and love of Him and of each other, by the lesson of hard trials and sorrowful privation.
And I would ask you to believe that I do not relate such circumstances as these from any ostentatious wish to parade my piety, of which God knows I have not so large a store that I need be vain of showing it; but that I may in some poor fashion justify many good men in my own profession who,because they are scandalised by persons among us that are bad, are confounded with these by people ashore who imagine the typical sailor to be a loose, debauched fellow, with his mouth full of bad language and his head full of drink. I say earnestly that this is not so; that a large and generous soul animates many sailors; that they love God, pray to Him, and in many ways too rough, maybe, to commend them to fastidious piety, but not surely the less honest for the roughness, strive to act up to a just standard of goodness; and that even among the bad—bad, I mean, through the looseness of their morals and the insanity of their language—there is often found a hidden instinctive religion and veneration and fear of God not to be discovered in the classes ashore to which you may parallel them. Nor, indeed, do I understand how this can fail to be; for no familiarity withthe mighty deep can lessen its ever-appealing grandeur to them as a symbol of heavenly power and majesty; and the frequent fear of their lives in which sailors go—the fury of tempests, the darkness of stormy nights, the fragility of the ship in comparison with the mountainous waves which menace her, the horror of near and iron coasts—I say that such things, which are daily presented to them, must inevitably excite and sustain contemplations which very few events that happen on shore are calculated to arouse in the minds of the ignorant classes with whom such sailors as I am speaking of are on a level.
When I quitted the cabin, supported by Mary, I found myself in a very spacious saloon, most handsomely furnished and decorated, and striking me the more by the contrast it offered to the plain and small interior of theGrosvenor'scabin.
The table was being prepared for lunch: smartly dressed stewards and under-stewards trotted to and fro; there were flowers on the table, vases of gold fish swinging from the deck, a rich thick carpet underfoot, comfortable and handsome sofas; a pianoforte stood against the mizzen-mast, which was covered with a mahogany skin and gilded; two rows of lamps went the length of the saloon; and what with the paintings on the cabin doors, the curtains, the rich brasswork about the spacious skylights, the bright sunshine streaming in upon the whole scene and kindling a brilliance in the polished woodwork, the crystal on the table, the looking-glasses at the fore end of the saloon—I fairly paused with amazement, scarcely conceiving it possible that this airy, sunshiny, sumptuous drawing-room was actually the interior of a ship, and that we were on the sea, steaming at therate of so many miles an hour towards England.
There were a couple of well-dressed women sewing or doing some kind of needlework and conversing on one of the sofas, and on another sofa a gentleman sat reading. These, with the stewards, were all the people in the saloon.
The gentleman and the ladies looked at us when we approached, and all three of them rose.
The ladies came and shook hands with Mary, who introduced me to them; but I forget their names.
They began to praise me; the gentleman struck in, and asked permission to shake me by the hand. They had heard my story: it was a beautiful romance; in short, they overpowered me with civilities, and made me so nervous that I had scarcely the heart to go on deck.
Of course it was all very kindly meant; but then what were my exploits? Nothing to make money out of, nothing to justify my appearance on the boards of a London theatre, nothing to furnish a column of wild writing to a newspaper, nothing to merit even the honour of a flattering request from a photographic company. I very exactly knew what Ihaddone, and was keenly alive to the absurdity of any heroizing process.
However, I had sense enough to guess that what blushing honours were thrust upon me would be very short-lived. Who does not thank God at some time or other in his life that thereissuch a thing as oblivion?
So we went on deck; I overhearing one of the ladies talk some nonsense about her never having read or heard of anything more deliciously romantic and exciting thanthe young sailor rescuing a pretty girl from a wreck and falling in love with her.
"Did you hear that, Mary?" I whispered.
"Yes," she answered.
"Was it romantic?"
"I think so."
"And exciting?"
"Dreadfully."
"And did they live happily ever afterwards?"
"We shall see."
"Darling, itisromantic, and itisexciting, to us, and to no one else. Yes, very romantic now that I come to think of it; but all has come about so gradually that I have never thought of the romance that runs through our story. What time did we have to think? Mutineers out of Wapping are no polite garnishers to a love story; and romance must be pretty stoutly bolt-ropednot to be blown to smithereens by a hurricane."
There were a number of passengers on deck, men, women, and children, and when I ran my eye along the ship (theGrosvenorwould have made a neat long-boat for her) and observed her dimensions, I thought that a city might have gone to sea in her without any inconvenience arising from overcrowding. In a word, she was a magnificent Clyde-built iron boat of some four thousand tons burden, and propelled by eight hundred horse-power engines; her decks white as a yacht's, a shining awning forward and aft; a short yellow funnel, towering masts and broad yards, and embodying every conceivable "latest improvement" in compasses, capstans, boat-lowering gear, blocks, gauges, logs, windlass, and the rest of it. She was steaming over a smooth sea and under a glorious blue sky atthe rate of thirteen knots, or nearly fifteen miles an hour. Cool draughts of air circled under the awning and fanned my hollow cheeks, and invigorated and refreshed me like cordials.
The captain was on deck when we arrived, and the moment he saw me he came forward and shook my hand, offering me many kindly congratulations on my recovery; and with his own hands placed chairs for me and Mary near the mizzen-mast. Then the chief officer approached, and most, indeed I think all, of the passengers; and I believe that had I been as cynical as old Diogenes I should have been melted into a hearty faith in human nature by the sympathy shown me by these kind people.
They illustrated their goodness best, perhaps, by withdrawing, after a generous salutation, and resuming their various employmentsor discussions, so as to put me at my ease. The doctor and the chief officer stayed a little while talking to us; and then presently the tiffin-bell rang, and all the passengers went below, the captain having previously suggested that I should remain on deck, so as to get the benefit of the air, and that he would send a steward to wait upon me. Mary would not leave my side; and the officer in charge taking his station on the bridge before the funnel, we, to my great satisfaction, had the deck almost to ourselves.
"You predicted, Mary," I said, "that our lives would be spared. Your dream has come true."
"Yes; I knew my father would not deceive me. Would to God he had been spared!"
"Yet God has been very good to us, Mary. What a change is this, from thedeck of theGrosvenor—the seas beating over us, the ship labouring as though at any moment she must go to pieces—ourselves fagged to death, and each of us in our hearts for hours and hours beholding death face to face. I feel as though I had no right to be alive after so much hard work. It is a violation of natural laws and an impertinent triumphing of vitality over the whole forces of Nature."
"But you are alive, dear, and that is all I care about."
I pressed her hand, and after looking around me asked her if she knew whether this vessel went direct to Glasgow.
"Yes."
"Have you any friends there?"
"None. But I have friends here. The captain has asked me to stay with his wife until I hear from home."
"To whom shall you write?"
"To my aunt in Leamington. She will come to Glasgow and take me home. And you?"
"I?"
I looked at her and smiled.
"I! Why, your question puts a matter into my head that I must think over."
"You are not strong enough to think. If you begin to think I shall grow angry."
"But I must think, Mary."
"Why?"
"I must think how I am to get to London, and what I am to do when I get there."
"When we were on theGrosvenor," she said, "you did all the thinking for me, didn't you? And now that we are on thePeriI mean to do all the thinking for you. But I need not say that. I have thought my thoughts out. I have done with them."
"Look here, Mary, I am going to be candid——"
"Here comes one of the stewards to interrupt you."
A very civil fellow came with a tray, which he placed on the skylight, and stood by to wait on us. I told him he need not stay, and, addressing Mary, Iexclaimed—
"This recalls our farewell feast on theGrosvenor."
"Yes; and there is the boatswain watching us, as if he would like to come to us again and congratulate us on having found each other out. Do catch his eye, dear, and wave your hand. He dare not come here."
I waved my hand to him and he flourished his cap in return, and so did three or four men who were around him.
"I am going——" I began.
"You will eat your lunch first," she interrupted.
"But why will you not listen?"
"Because I have made my arrangements."
"But I wish to speak of myself, dear."
"I am speaking of you—my arrangements concern you—and me."
I looked at her uneasily, for somehow the sense of my own poverty came home to me very sharply, and I had a strong disinclination to hear what my foolish pride might smart under as a mortification.
She read my thoughts in my eyes; and blushing, yet letting me see her sweet face, she said in a low voice, "I thought we were to be married?"
"I hope so. It is my dearest wish, Mary. I have told you I love you. It would break up my life to lose you now."
"You shall not lose me—but neither will I lose you. I shall never release you more."
"Mary,dolet me speak my thoughts out.I am very poor. The little that I had has gone down in theGrosvenor. I could not marry you as I am. I could not offer you the hand of a pauper. Let me tell you my plans. I shall write, on reaching Glasgow, to the owners of theGrosvenor, relate the loss of the ship, and ask for payment of the wages that are due to me. With this money I will travel to London and go to work at once to obtain a berth on another ship. Perhaps, when the owners of theGrosvenorhear my story, they will give me a post on board one of their other vessels. At all events I must hope for the best. I will work very hard——"
"No, no, I cannot listen!" she exclaimed, impetuously. "You are going to tell me that you will work very hard to become captain and save a little money; and you will then say that several years must pass before your pride will suffer youto think yourself in a proper position to make me your wife."
"Yes, I was going to say that."
"Oh, where is your clever head which enabled you to triumph over the mutineers? Has the shipwreck served you as it has the poor steward?"
"My darling——"
"Were you to work twenty years, what money could you save out of this poor profession of the sea that would justify your pride—your cruel pride?"
I was about to speak.
"What money could you save that would be of service when you know that I am rich, when you know that what is mine is yours?"
"Not much," said I.
"Would you have loved me the less had you known me to be poor? Would you not have risked your life to save mine though Ihad been a beggar? You loved me because—because I am Mary Robertson; and I love you because you are Edward Royle—dear to me for your own dear sake, for my poor dead father's sake, because of my love for you. Would you go away and leave me because you are too proud to make us both happy? I will give you all I have—I will be a beggar and you shall be rich that you need not leave me. Oh, do not speak of being poor! Who is poor that acts as you have done? Who is poor that can enrich a girl's heart as you have enriched mine?"
She had raised her voice unconsciously, and overhearing herself, as it were, she stopped on a sudden, and bowed her head with a sob.
"Mary," I whispered, "I will put my pride away. Let no man judge me wrongly. I talk idly—God knows how idly—when I speak of leaving you. Yes, I could leaveyou—but at what cost? at what cost to us both? What you have said—that I loved you as Mary Robertson—is true. I know in my own heart that my love cannot dishonour us—that it cannot gain nor lose by what the future may hold in store for me with you, dear one, as my wife."
"Now you are my own true sailor boy!" was all she said.