TALES AND SKETCHES.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 6362, 17 December 1898, Page 1

TALES AND SKETCHES.

A MIDSHIPMAN'S ROMANCE. (By W. CLARK RUSSELL.) Author of " The Wreck of the Grosvenor," " The Golden Hope," " The Death Ship," "The Frozen Pirate," "An Ocean Tragedy," " A Sea Queen," " My Danish Sweetheart," " The Good Ship Mohock, "Alone on a Wide, Wide Sea," "The Tale of the Ten," etc., etc. [All Rights Reserved.] CHAPTER XIV. THE OPEN BOAT. When we were clear of the reef we felt the power of the sea in a light fold of swell, tut these noiseless movements, that breathed like the breast of a woman, did not crumble in foam about the rocks. Not a br&ith of air came in a single sigh or whisper out of that eternal field of azure, blue and dazzling as the splendour of the halls of the Omnipotent, where the noontide sun was showering his endles3 dart of glory into tho sea. It was about half an hour after noon. 1 did not need to take sights. I had a chart, and those rocks would very exactly tell me where I was, and enable me to take a departure. I did not again hoist the sail, but continued to scull until the fabrics of the wreck looked awash, and by that time the reefs had disappeared, so low-seated were we and they. Never, before had two young hearts entered on an adventure more full of romantic peril than this. All who have tasted of the open boat at sea will know there is no bitterer marine cup. We were leagues and leagues distant from the coast of the Brazils, and indeed from the start I never looked for any better chance than that of being picked up. After all, I could not but remember that in proportion as the reefs receded so should we enter or approach the high road of shipping bound coastwise or from Europe to the several Brazilian ports. We had got heart to look with hope and even with eagerness to this boat voyage, from the knowledge that it released Belle from ih'a men. By this means alone could she have been rescued from a far more terrible fato than had befallen the ether passengers. The sailors were .gloomy, jealous and quarrelsome, of a swinish greediness, and did not want me to stand there and watch them, picking and stealing, and see them take up. any treasure ' that might come ashore, and so we had got away with their very willing consent. But I never doubted that in a few days a change would come over the moods and humours of the rogues. They would be always under the influence of drink, and I was but one of seven, and .when I looked at the fair, sweet, delicate girl I shuddered 5t the horrible thoughts which visited me, and thanked God for the freedom of the mighty breast of- ocean over which I was slowly sculling the boat. I was very anxious to set as wide an interval between us and the men as my arm could measure, and when I was dead beaten at last I " threw in the sweating oar, and said: . .."Til see where we are. This before doing anything else." . •- . I unrolled" the chart, and instantly understood our situation, and tried to make Belle -understand it, by explaining that those small dots were the Rocas, which we had just left, and that long swelling line, filled with names, the" coast of Brazil, to which, in God's good time, we were proceeding. But why, I marvelled, with this chart in his possession, did Bowser shape so westerly a course? I now saw that there was an island called Fernando Noronba, distant west about 34 miles from the Rocas. The headland of Cape San Rogue was about 130 miles away —no laborious sail, but, unfortunately, it was not a port. I determined to have nothing to do with Fernando Noronha. I knew it, indeed, by name, but could not have told you if it was peopled or not, and there was no good in making for what might prove a desert island, when I had a real port, with houses, hotels, and a consul, within reach of three or four days of a breeze of wind. It was blistering hot, and the paint-work of the boat began to bubble and smell. It was like touching fire to rest the hand for an instant upon a thwart or the gunwale. I brought out the compass and placed it on the stern sheets, and saw that the boat's head was due south. "She's bound to Australia, Belle," said L "She's got the scent of Sydney Bay from the old mother she's lost." "I don't know even now where we are," said Belle, who looked very cool, fresh and happy. "I never could understand geography. But wouldn't it be a wonderful thing "for us two in this boat, with this old man to bear us company," said she, pointing to tho monkey, " to make the voyage to Sydney from these remote seas?" "It would indeed," I exclaimed. "But tliis heat is shocking. What, I wonder, is the temperature? In heat of this sort I cease to have any opinions or ideas — I am idiotic." "Keep cool," said Belle, resting her dark, soft eyes steadfastly upon me. "We'll make a shadow, anyhow. Shade and wind. Shade and wind," I repeated, as I pulled out my wonderful knife ; then catching the top of the case I split it into stanchions which I fitted in the thole-holes. I unlaid the rope's end, and with the yarns bound pieces of the wood to my stanchions to make them strong enough to support the sail. This dene, I fitted yarns to the corl'.trs of the canvas and spread it, and I pulled off the poor second mate's heavy cap, and flung it at the monkey, and wiped the sweat that was running in white water from my face, and uttered pious ejaculations of thanks for the refreshing coolness of the shade we now sat in. The swell of the sea ran in a long-drawn gentle heave, and the fragments of the wreck came and went, came and went with sickening iteration past the wide blue curves of brine. It was the black wreck showing like charcoal ; and it was the after part which flashed farewells to us from its windows ; and they came and went as the pendulum swings, and there was nothing else to look at. No, by the unfathomable heaven, not a feather of canvas anywhere, no soft, soiling tinge of smoke. This was a silent sea, and the silence of it was in our ears and in our souls. " How far can one see from a boat of this size?" asked Belle. " A very littJp *•*»*' Two or iirae miles." r - A •in&y, -0A iii "nave to come close to catch siffbt of us, then?" > 0i yes. Quite close. lam going to scull again in a minute. I want to put the boat out of sight of that wreck there. Belle, did you ever think it would have come to this with us?" \ She looked at me fondly, shaking her head. " When we played at* horses ! What are ire playing at now? You know," said I, " that people read about such things as this, but there's not one girl in ten millions, and that's a good average, who has undergone your experience." "They are drowned, like poor Miss Parker," answered Belle ; "and where should I have been but for you? How was my heart supported in that frightful swim by knowing you were close behind me and upholding me." " Young ladies are not saved at sea very often," said I> " because they do not fall in. love with the mates of the ship, and there ,s therefore no special Providence for them. \ wish a little breeze would come on to

blow." and I looked around the horizon for a cloud, for any place for a small wind to come out of. But the dazzle swept in untarnished blue to the lens-like line of the horizon, and I saw no hope of wind in the sky ; all had been consumed in the destruction of the Glendower. Every man's watch stops when he falls into the sea, and it marks the hour of Iris death, or it tells the time of his misfortune. My watch had stopped, and I was sorry I had not brought away one of the Glendower's chronometers and made a clock of it. My mind had been a little overstrained, and then again there was the secret deep anxiety begotten of the voyage we were bound on ; certain it is that at this time I was visited by a morbid terror of the men we had left behind. I looked across this pulsing bed of ocecin, and a fancy came into me that they, would talk over the matter of our going, and agree that they had been fools to part with the girl. I feared they would follow us, and take the girl out of the boat, and when it was time to quit the reef they would cut her throat or abandon her to ths land-crabs. This horrible idea wrought me into a sudden frenzy. I sprang up and scuiled the boat a mile and a half south-west without a pause. Belle bogged me to rest, but I stood v*> and swayed at the oar with the desperation of my fear until I was spent and breathless, and pulled in the oar and fell in the stern sheets. But the remains of the wreck were now out of sight. Once only I thought I caught the film- like vision of a piece of the fabric as we rose to the height of a swell. I believe Belle saw my mind in my face, for her heart looked tremulously in her eyes, and she asked no questions. After 1 had rested I guessed it was about time to get something to eat. We were put to our shifts for crockery and the like, but managed thus ; I knocksd off the head of a champagne bottle and frothed up a bumper I in a tin, and Belle drank and sparkled like a white rose after a shower. I emptied the bottle and chucked it away, then opened a tin of chicken and tongue. The biscuits were large and white, and made good treneliers or plates, and sometimes Belle used my knife, and sometimes I cut my meat ! with it ; and so we dined on that first day of the boat, and the monkey ate biscuit. It will not be supposed that passenger ships in my time went to sea provisioned in the immense abundance of the mail-steamers and carrying liners of these days. But a great deal was put into the lasarette that was very good eating. The list of the things would run to the length of a grocer's \ catalogue. The best food that could be had was chosen for cuddy use. Charges according to accommodation ran high, though competition was scarcely less active than it is now, and the .ship-owner who sought to keep his line of vessels popular with passengers, fed them well, and laid in plenty of wine and- spirits, but they paid for what they asked for^ unless it was Marsala, which they got free. Those fellows a«hore had j found stuff enough to eat and drink to keep them alive for months, and for weeks cargo would continue to wash up, every dawn would disclose a fresh revelation ; it would be ghastly, in the shape of a dead body ; it would be welcome in the form of wine, or spirits or food ; it would prove more gorgeous to the tastes and talent of the men than the upspringing of the glorious sun if ifc were a chest- of sovereigns. Seven men on a desert reef and an open chest of sovereigns burning in th-i light ! Seven men of Ratcliffe Highway, filled with the passions 'of the stews and the argument of the knife that the sailor straps to his hip. I guessed that if money was rolled ashore, it would be by the hand of murder ; indeed, by the dim light of the late moon, whilst the men lay groaning down the drugged breath of sleep, the imagination saw the red demon turning the chest of gold out of the sea before him, and leaving it easily within the reach of those whose souls would be sentenced to the fires of hell for that fatal and perfidious gift. Thus did I moralise whilst I cut some chicken and ham for Belle. • • i A breathless calm still swung along in folds ; the reef had habituated us to the closeness of the sea, and its mighty presence was not shocking. But shocking it will be. even to stout hearts, when they first get away from a tall ship in a small boat ; and float .alone. The awning made a pleasant shade; without it our lot would have been unbearable. It was not only the sun raining down in fire from on high, it was the heat sparkling up off the sea in arrowy light, which blinded the eye like the flash of new itin ; these things combined, and without a shelter, they had roasted us between them. • * . " We have lost all we have," said Belle ; "if even we safely arrive at a port, how shall we manage for money and clothes?" "I hope not to arrive," I answered, "because I want, to be picked up. Should we arrive, there is a consul, whose duty it is to adjust the little difficulties you name." "We ought to arrive soon, if wind would blow," said Belle," and when we get home, Walter, I suppose we shall be the first to report the loss" of the Glendower?" "I have no doubt we shall be," said I. "My uncle will be amazed," she continued ; "he is thinking of me as sailing safely and happily along to Sydney. Well, he will have to buy me more frocks, and take a passage for ineJ in another ship. What will you do?" The monkey seemed to listen attentively. " I don't know," I answered a little heedlessly. " Then I'll answer for you," she exclaimed. " You will sail in the same ship I sail in as a passenger, and so we will go to Sydney together." " I am afraid my father wouldn't fork out," said I ; " and then there will be the expense of a new kit ; and he'd grumble at my dropping my profession." "We will make him see things from our point of view," said Belle, " after our safe arrival in London. Indeed," she continued, with a gravity I found very sweet, "I believe we could not do better than get married in London, so that on our arrival in Sydney I should be able to introduce you as my husband, and my aunt would then be a relation, in honour bound to find you some good position on shore." This seemed strange, idle talk in the mouths of two people in a small boat on a wide sea. But the human nature in men and women will keep on breaking tlirough in all moods and conditions; the gloom overhead thins, and rifts of blue appear, and you hail the sign of the shining of the sun, albeit next moment the shadow has settled more deeply over you. The heart shinßS a3 the sun shines, its ray will pierce dejection and kindle the lamp of hope, and the mental cloud, the expectation, the dread, the da:tc dreary prospect lifts and settles like a curtain of vapour on a mountain side to the flash of the magic light which all men carry in their bosoms. At three o'clock it was still a dead calm, and being seized with another fit of fear of the men, I scullied the boat south-west for about h*lf an hour, then sat down and smoked a pipe. This privilege was mine. I had swum ashore with my pipe in one poefcet and a thick cake of tobacco in the other, and the tobacco was now dry, and I could not liave told you that it had been soaked in brine. The monkey, being old, was quiet. His swim had wearied him, and sometimes he slept. I think I see now the dirty white envelopes of his eyes, making yet more ugly and repellant the most hang-dog-looking monkey I ever saw. I could not but muse upon him as 'I sat sucking my pipe. " A sort of luck, do you know, Belle, ~ W. TSTBANGE AND CO. 'S~good tailoring for fit, style and value is unequalled, j

may attend that beggar," said I, "and perhaps it is as well that he is with us. He was in luck to be the only bsast that was saved from the Anne Bonny . He was in luck to have got ashore from the Glendower. He is in luck to be here. Those men would have left him behind, and the landcrabs would have picked his bones clean. How wise ho looks, although he s&ems to dream," " He may be our good angel," said Belle. " Lord bless me ! " cried I, and my imaginative mind instantly submitted a paradise of monkeys, with some vast enthroned beasrt of the monkey type not yet discovered by man, adored day and night by apes and gorillas, and the rest of them, to the noise of hurdygurdys. " What is that out there ? " said. Belle. She had rings on her fingers, and her white hand flashed as she pointed. " The shadow of wind/ I exclaimed after a look. It was coming along out of the east in a floating violet dye, snatcliing and helping its way forward with antennae, as of the gigantic marine insect. It melted out the biassy clarity of the blue water, and put a life of rejoicing ripples in it. But though it was not far off when we first saw it, it came with provoking slowness. Then the whole of the horizon was dark and livid with an air of wind, and now it was breathing upon vs — a ho*, small wind, and its shadow wps sheeting away on the water on the other side of the boat. I unshipped the awning, hoisted the sail, and shaped a course for Pernambuco. It was sweet and refreshing to the senses to hear the ripple breaking from ths bow and going away in laughter and eddies, and light astern. A few fleeces were showing in th.9 wind, and they enriched the sky, but they were without volume to moderate the potency of the sun's sting. The sail was a lug, and rather large for one man ; indeed, our boat was a large one ; as good and seaworthy a quarter boat as ever hung at a ship's davits. She was bruising through it pleasantly to the drag of her canvas, and Belle sat in the shade made by the sail, and I in the eye of the sun steering for Pernambuco. " If it'll keep at this," said I, " it will be a yachting trip, Belle. I used to be sailing a boat when I was a little boy in a Holland blouse at Bouville. What has become of that little boy? He has continued to sail, and so he has sailed away, and he is out of hail of all that his blouse meant." " You are a fine moralist," said Belle, mockingly. "And what has become of the child I raced round the gardens with? ' said I, keeping my gaze upon her sweet eyes, violet and dairk in the shadow of the sail! " The phantom," I continued, meaning the vision I had seen, "is with me- The real thing — your little self — is as dead and gone as last year's daisy." "No, I disagree. People do not die in that fashion and go on living," exclaimed Belle. "I can trace myself down to the period when I raced with you, and I'm not dead as a, daisy. Are you not rather fanciful and romantic? Do not you love to colour the bubble and paint the rose? Walter, the charm of life lies in its realities ; for the sympathy of existence is lodged in reality.. Your dre<uner is always vide of the mark, arid like a blind man, goes tapping along awkwardly, seeing nothing himself, and when he is led by his dog Prejudice, he is very often in the way." " How clever you are, and what a noble scene this is to hold an argument in," said I-. "We must dream, unless' we would lead '» the life of a figure-head. We must cherish our hopes and gild our imaginations, or life would be as ilat as stale ale. Who are the dreamers, Belle? Are they the men who stand upon the Stock Exchange? Are they the men who have given us in works of immortal poetry such revelations of the truth of life and death as might have been uttered by God Himself?" I was emotional, and spoke with feeling. Belle listened with a quiet smile, but just as I closed my lips there arose within reach of a boat-hook alongside a — what? A thunderstorm? By heaven ! a huge, filthy, grey, whale, covered with hair and weed and parasites, and the air stunk of him. He threw the shadow of a cliff upon us, and the sail flapped under his lee. I instantly put the helm up, and the beast spouted and sent a tremendous gaping fountain through the wind, not a drop of which I am thankful to say touched us. Belle stared as if it was the devil. There was no more argument. Another whale rose a hundred yards off to windward of the first chap, and shook his plume of silver to the sun. Then a third, and a. fourth, and in a little while I found we were on the edge of a whole school. Ths \ creatures seemed to be rolling and spouting away into the south-west. No more rose close to terrify us, but it had been a narrow shave. Had that mountain of blubber floated closer, by the length of a boat-hook only under our keel, and lifted, he would have capsized us, then have sunk and left us floundering. j I shuddered, and Belle was pale as the cloud. | I yazed with no small interest at tha-t wonderful breast of whales. We were safe, \ and I could look and admire. You thought of the magic fountain islands of the Arabian story when you saw those swollen grey or livid shapes solemnly arching their vast bulk upon the languid heave of the sea, and discharging, every one as he emerged, a plume of water to the sky. They continued in sight for about half an hour, but by this time the wind was heading me off my course. It was knocking the boat's head to the north-west ; so I put her about, ii troublesome job with a big lugsail and one man. Belle held the tiller whilst I dipped the sail, and hoisted it afresh, and then we went away about west-south-west, which was not as the crow would lly for Pernambuco, but my real and only hope lay hi being picked up. I got Belle to steer, whilst I swept the horizon with the captain's glass, standing on a thwart with my back to the mast, but it was no gfcod. Had anything been in sight, 1 should have seen it with the naked eye, and the telescope would merely have made a clear submission of it. " Are no slaps ever to be found in theoc seas?" asked Belle, who began to look as if she was tired of sitting. But there was no room to stretch her legs ; it would have endangered her neck and imperilled the safety of the boat had she attempted to jump the thwarts for exercise, and outside that, for her, beyond occasionally standing up or shifting her seat to leeward, no room for putting her limbs in motion was provided by that boat. " Oh, yes," said I ; " ships are in every sea, and they mostly fly the colours of our country. But reflect how big a thing a sea is, and how little a thing a boat is. Half-a--dozen vessels might easily be around us, hull down below the horizon, and we should sail on and exclaim : It is wonderful we see nothing." " I fear the night," said Belle. " Supposing we should be run- down." " Why shouldn't that monkey keep a lookout?" said I ; and here that old executioner stared at me as though he understood English. "We are not likely to be run down, Belle, nor has the night arrived. I fear this wind will fail us at sundown." It happened as I foresaw. We sprang through it aslant for a couple of hours to the brimming guish of the breeze, that, when it had first come on tc blow, had awakened the sea into large violet eyes of light, till the whole ocean was coloured, but when it was about half-past six or seven, for I had no time upon me and was obliged to guess by the sun, tho breeze died out ; a burning sea with a dreamy respiration running through it reflected the magnificence of the sunset. The sun looked four or five times vaster than its usual bulk. It seemed to slide in incandescent ore behind the sea. line. It was a miracle of insipid splendour ; there Avas not a cloud for the light to paint, and the ether turned a dull pale gold. We watched the blood-red shining path he made upon the sea slipping away with the descent of the;.orb- until the glory of the day flashed

out like a sudden upheaval in a great firo, then died, leaving a little redness. But the spirit of night out of the east came sweeping round to clasp her jewelled hands upon the pyre of the sun, and now darkness was upon i the sea. We both felt the awe and the mystery af never could they be felt on board a shipl The mighty ocean was close to us. We could drop our hands over the side and touch 4 And as though the sunset behind the sea was reflected from below, strange shapas, patches, queer configurations of the sea-firt glowed coldly, widening in each heave uf swell and rising like the lack-lustre eye of the drowned to our gunwale as we swayed. <'„. But by this time I had lowered the lug and shipped the awning as a shelter for Bellatio lie under. How was she to lie, and where?* 1 niude a mattress of the captain's coa^> bringing it under the after thwart well iuty) the stern sheets. I rolled up a shawl for a, pillow. " And when you are ready to li& down," said I, "I will cover you up wiJbv this other shawl." r % "Do you intend to remain awake all night?" she asked. " A look-out must be kept," said I. • "Could you trust me to keep a look-out, Walter?" j.v " Yes." • i \ " I think," said she, " that you ought fo-: let me have a hand in the saving of my own. life. You want to get all the glory of ojir} rescue. Now, I have just as good eyes &s] you, and can be as wakeful as a nursi^ sister, -when needful." i"' So we decided to divide ourselves into to^o' wajtches. I would keep a look-out till |Eguessed it was about two o'clock, and thftn she would call me after I had taken about, two hours' rest. That would do, always providing there was no wtather coming along. But of weather I saw no hint. The night was as jjlacid as the f,ace of a dead child. It was a full sky of stars, and no token in their trembling beauty of a change; Belle, however, was not disposed to lie,* down merely because the dusk of the night had drawn around. We got some supper; and she sat by my side, and we talked in low voices, insensibly awed by the mighty spirit-hush that rested like a visionary upr lifted arm- of menace upon the sea. I can. not but think that my romance reached ii '$ highest point this night. I was alone wi i my sweetheart upon the ocean, in the dai * ness of the night, and if it had not been f r the stars, the lonesomeness of that bla k and breathing breast of oil was such th jb God Himself, as the poet says, would ha h scarcely seemed there to be. Did I ma te love to my sweetheart. Did she make lojre to me? You may take my word for it th®e is very little sentiment at sea, and nonejat all in an open boat, when people are thiitking of their lives, and looking over the s|e and imagining themselves drowned. Tjpa spectre of memory, too, was with us. Tnjt demon musfc needs form one of the crew,. Could he forbear to point to the horrors^ the night of shipwreck, to the sudden miserable obliteration of a crowd of people, whose hearts, one instant before the Ship struck, were beating with the tranquitfty of assured safety? . J You cannot make love when memories of death and distress are vivid; when She scene you occupy is a curved plank or two ; when shadowy shapes, gigantic and sti»ce determinable, march tlirough the murki»ss treading the brows of the rolling JwMs, and wl^-.]3?ge. whispers floai'*tlirotip r^e., gloom from, Go 3. Tmows where. We talked of those with whom We had been associated on board ship. I went away, back into the years, and told her of my fantastic dreams when a boy. How I would lie awake in my bed in the moonlight at Dodson's and dream with my eyes open. But did the most ardent movement of my imagination ever carry me to such a scene as this ? "Boys don't think of girls," said Belle, "when they dream as you did." " You slipped very early into my dream, Belle." " You lot me slip out again very quickly. I believe I have thought of you all my life, ever since we met, and you not once of me untdl we met to join the ship." " There is something in you which is beyond nature," said I. " You can be a v i,si on Good heavens, what's that ! " Tt was the monkey, who had caught hold of my leg in a determined effort to whip up on to my knee. " I wish there was some place I could batten this thing down in," said I. " However, I believe ho understands English, and I will give him some good advice." I picked up the old executioner, and got into the bows with him, and then sat him down, and I said, "You infernal hangman, you see that cold sea over the side. You shall be dropped into it if you quit your proper quarters, tlue fo'csle. So, you scoundrel," and I held my clenched fist close to i his nose, gesticulating aft, and then pointing down to let lum know where he was to stop, "if you stir from this place overboard you go." He chattered, he remonstrated. I gave him a thwack over the side of the head and indulged in further pantomime. He was in a violent rage, and spat and danced, but another cuff over the head drove the ugly scoundrel into the bows, and there I left him, confident that we understood each other. It might liave been nine o'clock that night when Belle hinted by a little yawn that she was sleepy. She easily stretched herself upon poor old Bowser's coat, and I threw a shawl over her and pressed my lips to her cheek. There was nothing to hope for in the way of sail whilst this weather lasted, nor in those years was there mudh to expect in the shape of steam. I was cheered by the companionship of Belle, but I own that the loneliness of the ocean in the profound gloom of that long night, the countless cold eyes of the heavens which looked down upon me, the weary respiration running through the heart of the deep, weighed very heavily upon my spirits, so tliat there were times when I could' scarce keep my heart up for lack of hope. Belle slept; she slept as sweetly and calmly as -though she had been an angel A^-ho had alighted upon our little boat from the slues and lain down and slumbered, that we might have faith and be of good cheer. Whether tho monkey understood me or not, I can't say . throughout the night ne kept to Intend of the>boat. (To be continued.)