Tales and Sketches.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1037, 15 January 1892, Page 9

Tales and Sketches.

[NOW FIRST PUBLISHED.] Alone on a Wide, Wide Sea! AN OCEAN MYSTERY. BY W. CLARK RUSSELL. Author of * A Sea Queen,’ ‘The Golden Hope,' ‘The Wreck of the GroaTenor,’ ‘ The Death Ship,’ * My Danish Sweetheart,’ &c., &c. / [ALU BIGHTS BESERVED.] CHAPTER Y. Stormy Weather. 1 enjoyed some hours' sleep that night, and awoke refreshed and stronger. I tried to remember if I had dreamt. Before I fell asleep it entered my head to fancy that if I dreamt of even a little bit of my past—that if in a vision the merest corner of the black curtain would rise to enable me to catch a glimpse of what was behind—then by remembering that I should end in remembering all. But when I tried to think if I had dreamt I found that my slumber had been without visions. I dwelt upon those dark hours of sleep, but they had been dreamless, and there was nothing to evoke. It was a fine, bright morning. The vessel was sailing along almost upright with a regular succession of floating' falls and risings of that hinder part of her in which my berth was situated. The glory of the ocean morning was upon the waters ; they flashed in blueish silver windily, and the dazzle rising off them streamed in trembling splendour through the porthole and filled the little coarse and homely berth with ripples of lustre.. Alphonse brought me some soup, biscuit, and a new-laid egg from the hencoop in which were stocked the few hens which the brig carried. When I had finished the repast 1 arcse and dressed myself and entered the cabin or living-room where sat Alphonse playing the fiddle, whilst the mate Henin, seated on one of the chests or lockers, with half a tumbler of claret in one hand and a biscuit in the other Rept time by nodding. ‘Very good, indeed, madame, very good indeed !’ cried Alphonse, putting his fiddle down and clapping his hands. ‘ I did not believe you would get up until the afternoon. Come ! you are better, and you will be well before we arrive at Toulon, where you will find your memory waiting for you.’ ‘ldo not understand,’ exclaimed the fierce-looking Henin, staring at me with gleaming eyes, though he addressed Alphonse and spoke inEiench, ‘ why it is that the lady does not remember. Can she recollect yesterday ? Undoubtedly,’ he exclaimed, with a savage gesture. ‘ Then the brain that can recall yesterday should be able to bring back as many yesterdays as it needs. Let the lady try and she will remember.’

. ‘ Bah !’ said Alphonse. ‘Do not mind this man,’ said he. ‘He does not understand English and I can say what I like. Do not suppose him fierce because lie looks so. He has a tender heart and weeps easily. Yet there is not a more excellent sailor in the French marine ; at least my uncle says so, and my uncle is a very clever man. Shall I now conduct you on deck. V

‘ I should like to go on deck,’ said I. ‘.Let me see, you will want a chair. You are not yet able to stand long or walk very far, and you have no covei’ing for the head.’ I put my hand on my hair and exclaimed : ‘ Was I without covering to my head when you found me V

‘ No. You wore a straw hat. It was crushed by the fall of the mast. When the sailors raised you to bring you on board the hat fell off into the water. One of the men in the bad light saw a dark mark upon the straw and he said it might be blood.’ ‘lt was a straw hat V said I. ‘ A straw hat V and I mused until I began to think myself into one of those black and frightful conflicts of mind which had before prostrated me with their unspeakably anguish. I checked the horrible internal struggle by forcing myself to speak and so diverting my thoughts.

‘ What is there that I can wear to protect my head V The mate Henin, who continued to stare _ at me with fiery eyes, said :

‘ What does the lady say ?’ Alphonse explained. ‘Wait,’ cried Henin fiercely, and putting down his glass and biscuit he went to the ring in the forward wall of the cabin, slided the door open, and disappeared. In a minute he returned with a long cloak hanging over his arm. He ran his eye over my figure, then held up the cloak to compute its size. It was a dark green cloak of a very monkish pattern ; it had a large hood, and was comfortably lined with some sort of delicate fur.

‘ Let the lady wear this,’ exclaimed the man. ‘lt is almost new, and therefore clean She is welcome to it,’ and lie flung it into the outstretched hands of Alphonse and with a fierce" countenance resumed his seat.

I put on the cloak ; it was loose and completely enveloped me. I then drew the hood over my head and assisted by the young Frenchman painfully ascended the steep steps and gained the deck. The first sweep of the sunlit wind almost overpowered me. I reeled and closed my eyes ; but this swooning sensation speedily passed. The huge fat figure of Captain Regnier stood near the wheel. Alphonse called to him to give me the support of his arm until the chair was brought on deck. After the comparative gloom of the cabin the brilliant morning sunshine nearly blinded me and for some while I was forced to keep my eyes half closed. In a few moments Alphonse came up the stairs with the arm-chair, which he placed in the sunshine, but in a part of the deck that was sheltered from the wind by the box or hood that was fitted over the little hatch that conducted to the cabin. And now, my sight having grown used to the dazzle, I looked about me.

I found myself on the deck of a small vessel whose shape resembled that of a box rather than that of a ship. She had two masts, across which were stretched sheets of patched and discoloured canvas. 'On the top of the hinder mast was a small red streamer, surmounted by a little brass ship that shone like a ray of white fire in the air as it pointed with its red fly attached directly in the path along which the brig was being steered. The planks of the deck were dark, and every object that the eye rested upon suggested dirt and neglect. I remarked a boat painted white standing upside down It stood near a little wooden house, like a sen-try-box, whose roof was pierced by a chimney, from which a trail of dark smoke was blowing over the bows. I gazed earnestly at the boat; it seemed a familiar object to me. All else was strange—the tall masts, the wide-spread sails, the straight black lines of rigging, the dingy green paint of the bulwarks, the twenty details of rope hanging in coils, of pumps, of skylight, and I know not what else ; for how should a woman be able to give names to the strange furniture of the sea ? All else was new. I searched my dark mind, and the picture of this brig sailing along with the wind blowing over her stem into her dingy wings was as novel as though she were the only vessel in the world, and I was beholding her for the first time. But the boat seemed familiar, I could not take my eyes off it for some minutes. Why should this be 1 ? I asked; and then my sightless memory began to struggle and 1 addressed the young Frenchman who stood at my side for the relief to be found in speech.

‘ I seem to have seen that boat before. ’

‘ Impossible, madame.’ ‘ What does the lady say V exclaimed Captain Regnier, who leaned against the bulwarks with his hands in his pockets, opposite me. Alphonse repeated my words. The large fat man pulled one hand out of his pocket to emphasise his speech with gestures. ‘My uncle says no. You cannot remember that boat,’ said the young Frenchman. ‘He has owned this brick twenty years, and the boat is twenty years old, and in all that time she has belonged to the brick.’ ‘ Why then should she seem familiar to me V

He reflected and then put his forefinger to the side of his nose. ‘ I think I know. We took you out of a boat ; all your sufferings wore in a boat ; the idea of a boat has been burnt in upon your mind by pain and misery : and now when you see a boat you cry out, “Ah ! Surely I know her.” You will say that of any boat. It is a very good sign. I say Say it is a very good sign that you should think you know that boat.’

He then volubly addressed his uncle, who nodded, and grunted, and shrugged, and appeared to agree.

I remarked two or three men about the deck, in the forepart of the brig. They were ill-clad, lean and yellow, and grim, dark and forbidding for want of the xazor. They stared very hard at me, ceasing in their work to do so, and certainly their curiosity was more than justified, for I can well believe thut I made an extraordinary figure with my plastered and withered face, and white hair showing in the twilight of the large hood, and the rest of me draped by the cloak to the very plank of the deck.

11 was a beautiful morning, the hour about eleven. The ocean was of the colour of sapphire, and it flowed with the brig in long and regular lines, and here and there the froth fitfully flashed and faded. The sky on the left was shaded with a high delicate network of cloud, but elsewhere the firmament was of purest blue, graced and relieved by widely scattered little bodies of peai'l-like vapour, all sailing our way. The wind was sweet and mild, and now every breath that I took of it seemed to give me a new spirit.

‘ Look there, madame,’ exclaimed Alphonse. ‘ You have not yet seen that beautiful sight,’ and directing my eyes over the bulwark on the right I beheld a stately ship, a large, lovely and radiant fabric with sail upon sail of the milk-white softness of sifted snow swelling and diminishing one above another to an altitude that made one think of the little gold/buttons on the top of her masts as stars. She was passing us swiftly. A small white line o( foam throbbed along the white streak that rose up her side a little above the level of the water. Soft flames of white fire broke from many parts of her as she sweet her windows and the glass upon the.deck and many ornaments or furniture of polished brass into the direct flash of the sun.

‘ Oh, that is a beautiful sight, in r deed,’ said I.

‘ Does it give you no idea, madame?’ said the young Frenchman ; then finding that I continued to gaze without answering him he exclaimed : ‘ Look now at sea. Is there not something in the sight of that sea to make you remember ? Figure land yonder and imagine for yourself a town upon it. What sort of town shall it be ? Come, it must be the town you sailed from in the boat with two masts. And see now if we cannot create it. It will have a pier—there will be sands ; or say it has no piers and the cliffs are white ” ‘My heart will break,’ I cried. Another day, and yet another day, passed. And now I had been a little longer than a week on board the French brig. It was Sunday. The day had broken in gloom, and when T arose and dressed myself at ten o’clock I could scarcely see in my cabin. There did not seem to be any wind. The vessel was rolling somewhat heavily, and alternately she plunged the circular window of my cabin under water, and then the cabin turned black with nothing but a green glimmer where the porthole was ; and then as she rolled away on the other side and lifted the little window, weeping and roaring out of the swollen hill of green water there was a noise as of the explosion of guns; but no foam flew about the window whence I judged that the vessel was not making any progress. ,

By this time I had grown accustomed to the motions of a ship at sea. I moved without difficulty, and poised myself to the slanting of the deck under my feet with something of the ease of habit. When I had dressed myself on this Sunday morning I put on the cloak that the mate Henin had lent me, and entered the little state cabin or living room. The young Frenchman, Alphonse, sat at the table with an open book before him. ITe looked up as I approached. ‘ Well,’ said he, ‘is it as bad as you feared V

‘ Yes,’ I answered, fif my hair goes on falling out as it now does I shall be bald before we arrive at Toulon.’

He smiled and said : ‘ Oh, no. You have .a great deal of hair. Many ladies have I seen, but never one with such an abundance of hair as you.’ ‘ I am losing it fast.’ ‘ It will grow again. It is not as if you were very old.’ * Yery old,’ I exclaimed, ‘ what is my age ? What do you think it is ? Tell me. I earnestly wish to know.’ Then observing a certain expression to enter his face I added with vehemence : ‘Do not attempt to flatter me. Tell me

exactly wljat you believe my age to be? Even out of that may come an idea to me. ’

‘lt would not be fair to you for me to guess,’ said the young man with the little French smirk that had entered his face swiftly fading out of it. Look how your forehead is bound up ! Figure yourself in good health—your face entirely visible—bien coiffee besides—but you ask me for the truth, and I will tell you what I suppose. You are, madame, about forty-five years old.’ ‘ It may be so,’ I answered, and my head sank, and for some moments my senses seemed to leave me, so benumbing was the bewilderment that possessed me as I tried to think, wondering why I could not remember my age, wondering why I could not remember my name, wondering whether the sable curtain before which the hand of calamity had placed me would ever rise.

‘The French,’ said Alphonse, ‘are hair-dressers to perfection. There is a hair-dresser of genius at Toulon. He is my friend. I will speak to him, and it will be strange if he does not possess the secret of preventing your hair from falling out.’ He closed his book and continued : ‘ I believe you will not much longer require to wear that plaster, yet I would advise you to keep it on until you are able to consult a physician. A friend of mine at Toulon is an excellent doctor. I will speak to him about 3 r ou. But how gloomy—how gloomy is this day. I hope there will not be a storm. Would you like to go on deck ?’ I mounted the steps and looked about me. The scene of /Ocean was indeed a melancholy one. The sea was running in large hesips of ugly green, and there was not a breath of air to wrinkle the polished slopes. The sea was a wide and sullen shadow of grey, nowhere broken, and the sweeping folds of the water worked and throbbed all round the base of that mighty stretch of shadow as though they washed the foot of a vast circular wall. The vessel rolled from side to side, and at times her canvas slapped the mast with a noise like a sudden clap of thunder. At a distance lay a ship rigged as ours was. She had very little canvas set, but what she showed was white, and it glared out like a breaking head of a sea as she swayed her masts.

Mate Henin was on deck. He stood at the bulwark and supported his rocking figure by holding a rope, and the scowl upon his face as he ran his gleaming eyes over the sea was as dark as the frown upon the sky. ‘ How is this weather to end ?’ called Alphonse to him. ‘ In wind,’ he answered. ‘ Will it be a fair wind V ‘ The devil alone knows. But better a hurricane than this.’ He muttered a malediction. ‘ls it to be Toulon with us ? Or it to bo six months of the Bay of Biscay ? Are we to run short of water and provisions ! I am" no oyster, I. Give me a hurricane sooner than six months of the Bay of Biscay in this- tumbling shell. He uttered another malediction and scowled even yet more fiercely as he looked up at the sky and then around him. Alphonse translated his speech with a smile. ‘Do not mind him,’ he exclaimed, ‘ he has a tender heart, and no man sheds tears more easily.’

It began to rain, and I returned to the cabin. I removed the cloak, seated myself on a locker, and gave myself up to thought. If I could not remember who I was, what was to become of me ? When the brig arrived at Toulon whither should I proceed for shelter and protection ? Captain Regnier had spoken of the British Consul; but I was a stranger to the British Consul. I had nothing whatever to communicate to him about my past, saving that I was found far out at sea in a little sailing boat, and rescued by the people of the brig Notre Dame de Boulogne. Would he house me or elsewhere find shelter and food for me until he had discovered who I was ? But how would he be able to discover who I was ? And when he found that enquiry was futile, would he go on sheltering and protecting me ? My thoughts filled me with terror. I was ignorant of the duties of a Consul, and I could not understand that there might be anything to hope or expect from him. Then, again, my memory being gone, I was much at fault when I reasoned forwards as when I directed the eyes of my mind backwards. I could not conceive, for instance, that on my landing at Toulon and representing my dreadful and and helpless condition to the British Consul lie would take steps to send me home; I could not positively affirm

that I was English; I was in the condition of a mute—nay, I was far worse off than a mute : because a mute has his memory, and can express what is in his mind by writing or dumb show, whereas I had nothing to tell; I could speak, and the words I jß’onounced were English, but that was all. However, my tale might run ifc would be without meaning, and when I thought of myself as landing at Toulon, of arriving at a place where I had not a friend—though if there had been twenty friends there I should not have remembered them—when I thought of the few shillings my purse contained, that all the wearing apparel .1. possessed was upon me, that I should not be able to say who I was, where I came from, in what part of the world my homo was situated—when I thought thus, I trembled in every limb. My heartfelt cold as stone, and 1 strove to ease the agony of my mind by weeping, but no tears flowed. I had wept so often of late, throughout the days and in the dark licurs of the nights, that the source of my tears seemed to have been dried up. The good-natured Alphonse, observing my dreadful and insupportable misery in my face and posture, thought to cheer me up. He sat beside me, entreated me not to fret, and spoke cheerfully of the future. But my inward anguish was too extreme to suffer me to listen to him, and after a while he withdrew to his cabin and played somewhat stealthily upon his fiddle, thinking, perhaps, I could no.t hear him, yet wishing to divert himself.

Shortly before the cabin hour—that is to say, a little before one o’clock—there was a sudden commotion on deck, a noise of ropes hastily flung down, the sounds of men running about, accompanied by Captain Regnier’s bull-like bawling?. In a few minutes I heard a strange hissing, and the vessel leaned over and continued to lean down until she had arrived at so sharp an angle that I was only saved from sliding off the locker by 'pressing at the whole length of my arms against the table. The shouts of the men on deck were confused and incessant. Every man seemed to be roaring out orders on his own account. There was likewise an alarming noise of canvas violently shaken. The vessel was plunging heavily, and every now and then she received a blow from a sea that thrilled through her as a house shakes when a loaded van is passing the door, and every blow was followed by a fierce noise of seething like the sound of water poured on fire. The young Frenchman's cabin door opened, and Alphonse crawled out on his hands and knees. He climbed up the slope of the deck to the side of the table at which I sat, and gazed at me with an ashen countenance. ‘ This is terrible !’ he cried.

‘ What has happened V I asked. ‘ A frightful storm has burst upon us,’ he answered. ‘Blessed Yirgin ! why does not the brick lift herself out of the water ?’ And here he made the sign of . the cross upon his breast ; which led me to suppose that, like many other Frenchman, and like many other people who are not Frenchmen, Alphonse was an infidel only in fine weather.

We remained seated, barkening with terrified ears to the uproar on deck and to the thunderous beating of the sea against the little vessel. After some time the brig grew more upright ; the halloaing above ceased, and nothing was to be heard save the creaking of the old structure as it pitched and wallowed, and a subdued noise of angry, raving, foaming waters. The light in the hatchway was eclipsed, and the immense shapeless mass of Captain Regnier descended the steps. His coat was streaming, and on his gaining the cabin be pulled off his sodden red cap and flung it with a furious gesture into a corner. ‘ Oh, uncle, what is the matter V cried Alphonse, clasping his hands. * Matter!’ answered Captain Regnier, ‘ why there is a dead foul wind blowing strong enough, if it lasts for twentyfour hours, to lose us every league we have gained in the last three days.’ ‘ls there any danger?’ asked Alphonse 1 The lai'ge fat man eyed him in silence for a moment, then pulling > a big silver watch from the waistband 3 of his trousers, he roared out: ‘ Let us dine, or there will be plenty of danger.’ This said, he ascended the steps until his head was in the air above the cover, and having delivered himself of a bull-like shout, he returned, pulled off his great overcoat, and seated himself in his shabby velveteen jacket.

“ But you will tell lire if there is any 'danger V said Alphonse. I will tell you nothing until I have idined,’ answered Captain Regnier. The young man sat with a white (face viewing his uncle wistfully. There was expression enough in the fat Frenchman’s stolid face to reassure me. Moreover, I could not suppose that he would think of his dinner, and apparently of nothing hut his dinner, in a time of danger. Yet had lie informed Alphonse that the brig was in peril I should have listened to the news with indifference. My dejection was heartcrushing. I was wretched to the inmost recesses of my spirit with the despair that is born of hopelessness, and never before had I felt so lonely. The brig’s movements were horribly uncomfortable.', It was blowing very hard, and the sea was growing. Ido not know whether the vessel was sailing—that is to say, whether she was making any progress through the water, but they were steering her so as to cause her side to form an angle with the gulfs of the foaming billows, and the dance of the light structure was «is though she must at any moment go to pieces. Despite the j convulsive, dislocating movements, the grimy French lad who "waited upon, the cabin contrived to place the dinner upon the table. The meal was composed largely *jf soup, and I cannot conceive how the youth managed. I drank a little soup and ate a piece of biscuit, and this, with a small draught of red wine, formed my dinner. Alphonse ate nothing ; he continuously g&'£ed at his uncle, who addressed himself to the meal with both hands, gradually lying back as he drained the contents of a large tin dishful of soup, and then, placing a bottle half full of wine at his lips and emptying it, and grasping a large piece of sausage with one hand and a whole biscuit with the other, rapidly devoured them. 4 This is not a moment to think of knives and forks, 5 ’ said he, 4 if we are to perish let us meet our end well lined.’

* To perish 1’ cried Alphonse. K Bah !’ exclaimed Captain Regnier with his mouth full. ‘ Did you not tell me the other . day that if I were a waiter 1 would know a thing or two 1 “Well, I now imagine myself a waiter, and am talking as one. As a waiter I pronounce that we shall perish, but as a sailor I say No ! no ! we shall not perish this time. There are many napkins remaining for you to fashion into fans and cocked hats before you are drowned by shipwreck.’ The young Frenchman’s vivacity immediately returned to him. 4 lt is inspiriting to even think of napkins at such a time,’ said he. * They awaken fancies of the hotel, the table-d’hote, of a thousand agreeable things. After Toulon—the deluge. You do not catch me returning to Boulogne with you, uncle. Give me the railway. I now detest the sea. Ciel! how the ship leaps. And remark this poor lady. How has the sea served her V He snapped his fingers, and extended his hand for a piece of tbo sausage. Both men spoke in French, but I understood enough of their discourse to enable me to repeat the substance of it.

4 lf this wind holds,’ said Captain Regnier, 4 it will .bo the deluge before Toulon. A thousand thunders ! To think that it shoxxld come on to storm dead ahead ! What virtue is there in patience when there is no end to waiting V 4 Why not sail the ship to a convenient port V said Alphonse, 4 and wait there in comfort and security until the weather changes.’ 4 Go! you are a beast,’ responded Captain Regnier, scowling at him. The motion was so excessive that it pained me to sit upright. I spoke to Alphonse, who addressed his uncle, and the captain, going to my berth, brought the mattress from the sleeping shelf and placed it one of the chests or lockers on what is called the 4 lee side ’ —that is, on the depressed side of the vessel —and when he had fetched the bolster I lay down. - The afternoon slowly passed away. The skylight was shrouded with wet, and the shadow of the storm-coloured sky was upon it, and in the cabin it was so gloomy that Alphonse told the lad who waited at table to light the lamp. I was not sea-sick, but the swift risings and fallings of the brig gave me a dreadful headache, and so dimmed my sight that I could scarcely see.

You whe read this may very well know the sea as it is to be experienced

n large skips. You may have rolled and plunged over mountainous waves in a steam vessel of vast bulk, whose cabin is radiant with mirrors and lamps of polished metal, and with fur- \ niture as sumptuous as that of the drawing-rooms of a palace. You have had a luxnricais berth to withdraw to, attentive stewai'ds or stewardesses to minister to you, and all the while you have been comforted with a sense of of incessant progress, with the aSsui> ance of the pulse in everything that yon touch, in everything that you feel, that the noble engines are magnificently doing their work, and ruthlessly forcing the crushing and shearing stem of the powerful metal structure along the path that leads to your destination. But exchange such a ship as that for a brig of small burthen ; exchange the brilliant interior of the great ship for the dingy, snuff-coloured living room of a little brig with scarcely light to see by and with the air full Or the thunder of the war without. Often the lamp swung SQ violently under the beam from which it dangled that I languidly watched to see it extinguish its own flame against the upper decks. There was a sickening sound of sobbing waters over my head, and there were many furious discharges of spray or wet upon the planks, the noise of which was like the abrubt fall of a terrible hailstorm liberated from the black bi'east of a tropical electric cloud. The afternoon passed and the evening came, and when Captain JRegnier descended from the deck to eat his supper he told his nephew, who had hidden himself in his berth during the afternoon, that the weather was moderating, and that though he expected the night would be very dark, the wind would enable him to make sail. It befel as he had predicted. By seven o’clock the wind was no moi’e than what sailors would term a modern bi’eeze, and the sea was fast going down, though at this hour the brig was still plunging heavily. It was pitch dark, however, on deck. When the mate Henin came into the cabiix to fetch a warm coat to keep his watch in, in or other words to wear whilst he took charge of the brig from eight o’clock until some late hour of the night, he addressed a number of sentences with great vehemence and impetuosity to the young Frenchman, who on the mate withdrawing informed me that Henin declared that in twentyeight years’ experience of the sea he had never remembered such blackness as was at this time upon the ocean. 4 Would you believe it, madame V cried Alphonse. 4 Henin swears that the very foam which bi’eaks close under the side of the brick is not to be seen. What do you think of that I —l will go and look at the night myself.’ He ascended the steps hut speedily returned. 4 It is raining,’ said he, 4 and it is cold, too, I can tell you. And does Henin call it black ? Black is too weak a word. I will tell you what it is like. It is like the blackness of a stormy night when you look at it after your eyes have been fearfully dazzled by a flash of lightning.’ All this whilel l’emained extended on the mattress upon the locker covered by Mate Henin’s cloak, with my head pillowed on the l’ude bolster which had been withdrawn from my sleeping shelf. Soon after the mate had gone on deck Captain Regnier came down the stairs. He took his seao at the table under the lamp, and Alphonse produced a box of dominoes. The captain, who on a previous occasion had learnt that I did not object to the smell of tobacco, filled a strange pipe formed of a great Turk’s head and a long curved stem and smoked. He likewise put his hand into an adjacent locker and mixed himself a tumbler of white liquor which, that it might not I upset, he placed upon a small tray that was oscillating above the table. The two men then played with singular gravity, the fat man smoking with stolid deliberation, whilst the young man watched the game with impassioned intentness. The little brig groaned and pitched and tossed ; the skylight glass overhead lay in panes of ebony and duskily and gleamingly reflected the figux'es of the two dominoe players; through the open hatch that conducted to the deck came the roaring and hissing noise of conflicting waters and the whistling of the wind in the rigging. It was raining hard ; the raindrops lashed the glass of the skylight. I gazed at the two men, but I did not know that I watched them. All the while I was asking myself—what can the letters A.C. stand for ? And I tried to recollect the names of women, bixt in vain. Then I said to myself am I English, or is it likely that the young Frenchman was

light when he said I might be a Gerrnaxi who spoke English with a perfect accent, and who now, by some caprice of the reason cruelly inflicted iby suffering, is compelled to speak in tlie English tongue, forgetting liei 1 own % . , Many extraordinary thoughts or fancies of this kind visited me as I lay \Vatehing those two domino players. Imagine yourself Without memory ; not nierely unable to recollect ifci this or in that direction j no. But imagine your mind without power to suggest a single idea to you, to submit a single image t’o you that had existence previous to an hour compai’atively recent.

At nine o’clock I withdrew to my berth. By this time the two men had finished with their dominoes. Alphonse replaced the mattress and bolster in rnj sleeping shelf, and whilst he was thus occupied l said to him : 4 1 feel a strange horror upon me tonight. There is a sense of loneliness in me that seems to be breaking my heart.’

1 Madame must cheer up. She will find her memory at Toulon.’ 4 My mind is hopelessly dark and silent. I have been all this evening trying to think, and the struggle has made me feel ill.*

4 1 will fetch you some brandy and watei*.’

4 No, thank you. What you gave me half an hour ago is sufficient. It is not that—l dread the darkness of the long night—the fearful solitude —oh, the fearful solitude. Will not Captain Regnier permit me to burn a light.’ 4 He is timid, and very properly timid,* answered Alphonse. 4 Conceive a fii’e breaking out. A fire at sea, and on such a night as this V He shuddered, and then looked xxp at the sti’ango globular lamp that depended from the centre of the ceiling of my cabin. We convei’sed with the door open, and the lamp that burned in the living room shed a faint light upon the interior of my berth. 4 But it is lonely,’ the young Frenchman continued in a voice of pity. 4 1 dare say my uncle will not mind—at all events he need not know.’ He raised his hand to the lamp and with a twist removed the metal bowl or compartment for the oil and mesh out of the globe. 4 1 will fill this and bring it back to you,’ said he. He returned after a short absence, lighted the wick, and turned it down that it might burn dimly, then screwed it into the globe. I felt deeply grateful, and took his hand and held it whilst I thanked him. He left me, and putting on Mate Henin’s cloak to keep me warm, for the atmosphere of the berth struck chilly, I got into my miserable little sleeping shelf and lay down, grateful for the feeling, even soothed by being able to see. (To be continued )