Table of Contents

R.M. Ballantyne

"The Battle and the Breeze"

Chapter One.

Touches on our Hero’s Early Life, Experiences, and Adventures.

Chapter Two.

Commences the Story.

Chapter Three.

Bill is Initiated into the Duties of his new Station.

Chapter Four.

Our Hero and his Friends see Service.

Chapter Five.

Nelson Hunts the French.

Chapter Six.

The Battle of the Nile.

English Ships.

French Ships.

Chapter Seven.

Battle of the Nile—continued.

Chapter Eight.

Our Hero and his Messmate get into Trouble.

Chapter Nine.

Bill and Ben set their Brains to Steep with Unconquerable Perseverance.

R.M. Ballantyne

"The Battle and the Breeze"

Chapter One.

Touches on our Hero’s Early Life, Experiences, and Adventures.

Bill Bowls was the most amiable, gentle, kindly, and modest fellow that ever trod the deck of a man-of-war. He was also one of the most lion-hearted men in the Navy.

When Bill was a baby—a round-faced, large-eyed, fat-legged baby, as unlike to the bronzed, whiskered, strapping seaman who went by the name of “Fighting Bill” as a jackdaw is to a marlinespike—when Bill was a baby, his father used to say he was just cut out for a sailor; and he was right, for the urchin was overflowing with vigour and muscular energy. He was utterly reckless, and very earnest—we might almost say desperately earnest. Whatever he undertook to do he did “with a will.” He spoke with a will, listened with a will, laughed, yelled, ate, slept, wrought, and fought with a will. In short, he was a splendid little fellow, and therefore, as his father wisely said, was just cut out for a sailor.

Bill seemed to hold the same opinion, for he took to the water quite naturally from the very commencement of life. He laughed with glee when his mother used to put him into the washtub, and howled with rage when she took him out. Dancing bareheaded under heavy rain was his delight, wading in ponds and rivers was his common practice, and tumbling into deep pools was his most ordinary mishap. No wonder, then, that Bill learned at an early age to swim, and also to fear nothing whatever, except a blowing-up from his father. He feared that, but he did not often get it, because, although full of mischief as an egg is full of meat, he was good-humoured and bidable, and, like all lion-hearted fellows, he had little or no malice in him.

He began his professional career very early in life. When in after years he talked to his comrades on this subject, he used to say—

“Yes, mates, I did begin to study navigation w’en I was about two foot high—more or less—an’ I tell ’e what it is, there’s nothin’ like takin’ old Father Time by the forelock. I was about four year old when I took my first start in the nautical way; and p’r’aps ye won’t believe it, but it’s a fact, I launched my first ship myself; owned her; commanded and navigated her, and was wrecked on my first voyage. It happened this way; my father was a mill-wright, he was, and lived near a small lake, where I used to splutter about a good deal. One day I got hold of a big plank, launched it after half an hour o’ the hardest work I ever had, got on it with a bit of broken palm for an oar, an’ shoved off into deep water. It was a splendid burst! Away I went with my heart in my mouth and my feet in the water tryin’ to steady myself, but as ill luck would have it, just as I had got my ship on an even keel an’ was beginnin’ to dip my oar with great caution, a squall came down the lake, caught me on the starboard quarter, and threw me on my beam-ends. Of coorse I went sowse into the water, and had only time to give out one awful yell when the water shut me up. Fortnitly my father heard me; jumped in and pulled me out, but instead of kicking me or blowin’ me up, he told me that I should have kept my weather-eye open an’ met the squall head to wind. Then he got hold of the plank and made me try it again, and didn’t leave me till I was able to paddle about on that plank almost as well as any Eskimo in his skin canoe. My good old dad finished the lesson by tellin’ me to keep always in shoal water till I could swim, and to look out for squalls in future! It was lucky for me that I had learned to obey him, for many a time I was capsized after that, when nobody was near me, but bein’ always in shoal water, I managed to scramble ashore.”

As Bill Bowls began life so he continued it. He went to sea in good earnest when quite a boy and spent his first years in the coasting trade, in which rough service he became a thorough seaman, and was wrecked several times on various parts of our stormy shores. On reaching man’s estate he turned a longing eye to foreign lands, and in course of time visited some of the most distant parts of the globe, so that he may be said to have been a great traveller before his whiskers were darker than a lady’s eyebrows.

During these voyages, as a matter of course, he experienced great variety of fortune. He had faced the wildest of storms, and bathed in the beams of the brightest sunshine. He was as familiar with wreck as with rations; every species of nautical disaster had befallen him; typhoons, cyclones, and simooms had done their worst to him, but they could not kill him, for Bill bore a sort of charmed life, and invariably turned up again, no matter how many of his shipmates went down. Despite the rough experiences of his career he was as fresh and good-looking a young fellow as one would wish to see.

Before proceeding with the narrative of his life, we shall give just one specimen of his experiences while he was in the merchant service.

Having joined a ship bound for China, he set sail with the proverbial light heart and light pair of breeches, to which we may add light pockets. His heart soon became somewhat heavier when he discovered that his captain was a tyrant, whose chief joy appeared to consist in making other people miserable. Bill Bowls’s nature, however was adaptable, so that although his spirits were a little subdued, they were not crushed. He was wont to console himself, and his comrades, with the remark that this state of things couldn’t last for ever, that the voyage would come to an end some time or other, and that men should never say die as long as there remained a shot in the locker!

That voyage did come to an end much sooner than he or the tyrannical captain expected!

One evening our hero stood near the binnacle talking to the steersman, a sturdy middle-aged sailor, whose breadth appeared to be nearly equal to his length.

“Tom Riggles,” said Bill, somewhat abruptly, “we’re goin’ to have dirty weather.”

“That’s so, lad, I’m not goin’ to deny it,” replied Tom, as he turned the wheel a little to windward:

Most landsmen would have supposed that Bill’s remark should have been, “We have got dirty weather,” for at the time he spoke the good ship was bending down before a stiff breeze, which caused the dark sea to dash over her bulwarks and sweep the decks continually, while thick clouds, the colour of pea-soup, were scudding across the sky; but seafaring men spoke of it as a “capful of wind,” and Bill’s remark was founded on the fact that, for an hour past, the gale had been increasing, and the appearance of sea and sky was becoming more threatening.

That night the captain stood for hours holding on to the weather-shrouds of the mizzen-mast without uttering a word to any one, except that now and then, at long intervals, he asked the steersman how the ship’s head lay. Dark although the sky was, it did not seem so threatening as did the countenance of the man who commanded the vessel.

Already the ship was scudding before the wind, with only the smallest rag of canvas hoisted, yet she rose on the great waves and plunged madly into the hollows between with a violence that almost tore the masts out of her. The chief-mate stood by the wheel assisting the steersman; the crew clustered on the starboard side of the forecastle, casting uneasy glances now at the chaos of foaming water ahead, and then at the face of their captain, which was occasionally seen in the pale light of a stray moonbeam. In ordinary circumstances these men would have smiled at the storm, but they had unusual cause for anxiety at that time, for they knew that the captain was a drunkard, and, from the short experience they had already had of him, they feared that he was not capable of managing the ship.

“Had we not better keep her a point more to the south’ard, sir?” said the mate to the captain, respectfully touching his cap; “reefs are said to be numerous here about.”

“No, Mister Wilson,” answered the captain, with the gruff air of a man who assumes and asserts that he knows what he is about, and does not want advice.

“Keep her a point to the west,” he added, turning to the steersman.

There was a cry at that moment—a cry such as might have chilled the blood in the stoutest heart—

“Rocks ahead!”

“Port! port! hard-a-port!” shouted the men. Their hoarse voices rose above the gale, but not above the terrible roar of the surf, which now mingled with the din of the storm.

The order was repeated by the mate, who sprang to the wheel and assisted in obeying it. Round came the gallant ship with a magnificent sweep, and in another moment she would have been head to wind, when a sudden squall burst upon her broadside and threw her on her beam-ends.

When this happened the mate sprang to the companion-hatch to get an axe, intending to cut the weather-shrouds so that the masts might go overboard and allow the ship to right herself, for, as she then lay, the water was pouring into her. Tom Riggles was, when she heeled over, thrown violently against the mate, and both men rolled to leeward. This accident was the means of saving them for the time, for just then the mizzen rigging gave way, the mast snapped across, and the captain and some of the men who had been hastening aft were swept with the wreck into the sea.

A few minutes elapsed ere Tom and the mate gained a place of partial security on the poop. The scene that met their gaze there was terrible beyond description. Not far ahead the sea roared in irresistible fury on a reef of rocks, towards which the ship was slowly drifting. The light of the moon was just sufficient to show that a few of the men were still clinging to the rail of the forecastle, and that the rigging of the main and foremasts still held fast.

“Have you got the hatchet yet?” asked Tom of the mate, who clung to a belaying-pin close behind him.

“Ay, but what matters it whether we strike the rocks on our beam-ends or an even keel?”

The mate spoke in the tones of a man who desperately dares the fate which he cannot avoid.

“Here! let me have it!” cried Tom.

He seized the hatchet as he spoke and clambered to the gangway. A few strokes sufficed to cut the overstrained ropes, and the mainmast snapped off with a loud report, and the ship slowly righted.

“Hold on!” shouted Tom to a man who appeared to be slipping off the bulwarks into the sea.

As no reply was given, the sailor boldly leapt forward, caught the man by the collar, and dragged him into a position of safety.

“Why, Bill, my boy, is’t you?” exclaimed the worthy man in a tone of surprise, as he looked at the face of our hero, who lay on the deck at his feet; but poor Bill made no reply, and it was not until a glass of rum had been poured down his throat by his deliverer that he began to recover.

Several of the crew who had clung to different parts of the wreck now came aft one by one, until most of the survivors were grouped together near the wheel, awaiting in silence the shock which they knew must inevitably take place in the course of a few minutes, for the ship, having righted, now drifted with greater rapidity to her doom.

It was an awful moment for these miserable men! If they could have only vented their feelings in vigorous action it would have been some relief, but this was impossible, for wave after wave washed over the stern and swept the decks, obliging them to hold on for their lives.

At last the shock came. With a terrible crash the good ship struck and recoiled, quivering in every plank. On the back of another wave she was lifted up, and again cast on the cruel rocks. There was a sound of rending wood and snapping cordage, and next moment the foremast was in the sea, tossing violently, and beating against the ship’s side, to which it was still attached by part of the rigging. Three of the men who had clung to the shrouds of the foremast were swept overboard and drowned. Once more the wreck recoiled, rose again on a towering billow, and was launched on the rocks with such violence that she was forced forward and upwards several yards, and remained fixed.

Slight although this change was for the better, it sufficed to infuse hope into the hearts of the hitherto despairing sailors. The dread of being instantly dashed to pieces was removed, and with one consent they scrambled to the bow to see if there was any chance of reaching the shore.

Clinging to the fore-part of the ship they found the cook, a negro, whose right arm supported the insensible form of a woman—the only woman on board that ship. She was the wife of the carpenter. Her husband had been among the first of those who were swept overboard and drowned.

“Hold on to her, massa,” exclaimed the cook; “my arm a’most brok.”

The mate, to whom he appealed, at once grasped the woman, and was about to attempt to drag her under the lee of the caboose, when the vessel slipped off the rocks into the sea, parted amidships, and was instantly overwhelmed.

For some minutes Bill Bowls struggled powerfully to gain the shore, but the force of the boiling water was such that he was as helpless as if he had been a mere infant; his strength, great though it was, began to fail; several severe blows that he received from portions of the wreck nearly stunned him, and he felt the stupor that preceded death overpowering him, when he was providentially cast upon a ledge of rock. Against the same ledge most of his shipmates were dashed by the waves and killed, but he was thrown upon it softly. Retaining sufficient reason to realise his position, he clambered further up the rocks, and uttered an earnest “Thank God!” as he fell down exhausted beyond the reach of the angry waves.

Soon, however, his energies began to revive, and his first impulse, when thought and strength returned, was to rise and stagger down to the rocks, to assist if possible, any of his shipmates who might have been cast ashore. He found only one, who was lying in a state of insensibility on a little strip of sand. The waves had just cast him there, and another towering billow approached, which would infallibly have washed him away, had not Bill rushed forward and dragged him out of danger.

It proved to be his friend Tom Riggles. Finding that he was not quite dead, Bill set to work with all his energy to revive him, and was so successful that in half-an-hour the sturdy seaman was enabled to sit up and gaze round him with the stupid expression of a tipsy man.

“Come, cheer up,” said Bill, clapping him on the back; “you’ll be all right in a short while.”

“Wot’s to do?” said Tom, staring at his rescuer.

“You’re all right,” repeated Bill. “One good turn deserves another, Tom. You saved my life a few minutes ago, and now I’ve hauled you out o’ the water, old boy.”

The sailor’s faculties seemed to return quickly on hearing this. He endeavoured to rise, exclaiming—

“Any more saved?”

“I fear not,” answered Bill sadly, shaking his head.

“Let’s go see,” cried Tom, staggering along the beach in search of his shipmates; but none were found; all had perished, and their bodies were swept away far from the spot where the ship had met her doom.

At daybreak it was discovered that the ship had struck on a low rocky islet on which there was little or no vegetation. Here for three weeks the two shipwrecked sailors lived in great privation, exposed to the inclemency of the weather, and subsisting chiefly on shell-fish. They had almost given way to despair, when a passing vessel observed them, took them off, and conveyed them in safety to their native land.

Such was one of the incidents in our hero’s career.

Chapter Two.

Commences the Story.

About the beginning of the present century, during the height of the war with France, the little fishing village of Fairway was thrown into a state of considerable alarm by the appearance of a ship of war off the coast, and the landing therefrom of a body of blue-jackets. At that time it was the barbarous custom to impress men, willing or not willing, into the Royal Navy. The more effective, and at the same time just, method of enrolling men in a naval reserve force had not occurred to our rulers, and, as a natural consequence, the inhabitants of sea-port towns and fishing villages were on the constant look-out for the press-gang.

At the time when the man-of-war’s boat rowed alongside of the little jetty of Fairway, an interesting couple chanced to be seated in a bower at the back of a very small but particularly neat cottage near the shore. The bower was in keeping with its surroundings, being the half of an old boat set up on end. Roses and honeysuckle were trained up the sides of it, and these, mingling their fragrance with the smell of tar, diffused an agreeable odour around. The couple referred to sat very close to each other, and appeared to be engaged in conversation of a confidential nature. One was a fair and rather pretty girl of the fishing community. The other was a stout and uncommonly handsome man of five-and-twenty, apparently belonging to the same class, but there was more of the regular sailor than the fisherman in his costume and appearance. In regard to their conversation, it may be well, perhaps, to let them speak for themselves.

“I tell ’ee wot it is, Nelly Blyth,” said the man, in a somewhat stern tone of voice; “it won’t suit me to dilly-dally in this here fashion any longer. You’ve kept me hanging off and on until I have lost my chance of gettin’ to be mate of a Noocastle collier; an’ here I am now, with nothin’ to do, yawin’ about like a Dutchman in a heavy swell, an’ feelin’ ashamed of myself.”

“Don’t be so hasty, Bill,” replied the girl, glancing up at her lover’s face with an arch smile; “what would you have?”

“What would I have?” repeated the sailor, in a tone of mingled surprise and exasperation. “Well, I never—no, I never did see nothin’ like you women for bamboozlin’ men. It seems to me you’re like ships without helms. One moment you’re beatin’ as hard as you can to wind’ard; the next you fall off all of a sudden and scud away right before the breeze; or, whew! round you come into the wind’s eye, an’ lay to as if you’d bin caught in the heaviest gale that ever blow’d since Admiral Noah cast anchor on Mount Ararat. Didn’t you say, not three weeks gone by, that you’d be my wife? and now you ask me, as cool as an iceberg, what I would have! Why, Nelly, I would have our wedding-day fixed, our cottage looked after, our boat and nets bought; in fact, our home and business set a-goin’. And why not at once, Nelly? Surely you have not repented—”

“No, Bill Bowls,” said Nelly, blushing, and laying her hand on the arm of her companion, “I have not repented, and never will repent, of having accepted the best man that ever came to Fairway; but—”

The girl paused and looked down.

“There you go,” cried the sailor: “the old story. I knew you would come to that ‘but,’ and that you’d stick there. Why don’t you go on? If I thought that you wanted to wait a year or two, I could easily find work in these times; for Admiral Nelson is glad to get men to follow him to the wars, an’ Tom Riggles and I have been talkin’ about goin’ off together.”

“Don’t speak of that, Bill,” said the girl earnestly. “I dread the thought of you going to the wars; but—but—the truth is, I cannot make up my mind to quit my mother.”

“You don’t need to quit her,” said Bill; “bring her with you. I’ll be glad to have her at my fireside, for your sake, Nell.”

“But she won’t leave the old house.”

“H’m! well, that difficulty may be got over by my comin’ to the old house, since the old ’ooman won’t come to the noo one. I can rent it from her, and buy up the furniture as it stands; so that there will be no occasion for her to move out of her chair.—Why, what’s the objection to that plan?” he added, on observing that Nelly shook her head.

“She would never consent to sell the things,—not even to you, Bill; and she has been so long the head of the house that I don’t think she would like to—to—”

“To play second fiddle,” put in the sailor. “Very good, but I won’t ask to play first fiddle. In fact, she may have first, second, and third, and double bass and trombone, all to herself as far as I am concerned. Come, Nelly, don’t let us have any more ‘buts’; just name the day, and I’ll bear down on the parson this very afternoon.”

Leaving them to continue the discussion of this interesting point, we will turn into the cottage and visit the old woman who stood so much in the way of our hero’s wishes.

Mrs Blyth was one of those unfortunates who, although not very old, have been, by ill-health, reduced to the appearance of extreme old age. Nevertheless, she had been blessed with that Christian spirit of calm, gentle resignation, which is frequently seen in aged invalids, enabling them to bear up cheerfully under heavy griefs and sufferings. She was very little, very thin, very lame, very old-looking (ninety at least, in appearance), very tremulous, very subdued, and very sweet. Even that termagant gossip, Mrs Hard-soul, who dwelt alone in a tumble-down hut near the quay, was heard upon one occasion to speak of her as “dear old Mrs Blyth.”

Beside Mrs Blyth, on a stool, engaged in peeling potatoes, sat a young woman who was in all respects her opposite. Bessy Blunt was tall, broad, muscular, plain-looking, masculine, and remarkably unsubdued. She was a sort of maid-of-all-work and companion to the old woman. Mrs Blyth lived in the hope of subduing her attendant—who was also her niece—by means of kindness.

“Who came into the garden just now?” asked Mrs Blyth in a meek voice.

“Who would it be but William Bowls? sure he comes twice every day, sometimes oftener,” replied Bessy; “but what’s the use? nothing comes of it.”

“Something may come of it, Bessy,” said Mrs Blyth, “if William settles down steadily to work, but I am anxious about him, for he seems to me hasty in temper. Surely, Bessy, you would not like to see our Nell married to an angry man?”

“I don’t know about that,” replied the girl testily, as she cut a potato in two halves with unnecessary violence; “all I know is that I would like to see her married to Bill Bowls. He’s an able, handsome man. Indeed, I would gladly marry him myself if he asked me!”

Mrs Blyth smiled a little at this. Bessy frowned at a potato and said “Humph!” sternly.

Now it happened just at that moment that the press-gang before referred to arrived in front of the cottage. Bessy chanced to look through the window, and saw them pass. Instantly she ran to the back door and screamed “Press-gang,” as a warning to Bill to get out of the way and hide himself as quickly as possible, then, hastening back, she seized one of old Mrs Blyth’s crutches, ran to the front door, and slammed it to, just as the leader of the gang came forward.

Meanwhile William Bowls, knowing that if he did not make his escape, his hopes of being married speedily would be blasted, turned to leap over the garden wall, but the leader of the press-gang had taken care to guard against such a contingency by sending a detachment round to the rear.

“It’s all up with me!” cried Bill, with a look of chagrin, on observing the men.

“Come, hide in the kitchen; quick! I will show you where,” cried Nelly, seizing his hand and leading him into the house, the back door of which she locked and barred.

“There, get in,” cried the girl, opening a low door in the wall, which revealed the coal-hole of the establishment.

Bill’s brow flushed. He drew back with a proud stern look and hesitated.

“Oh, do! for my sake,” implored Nell.

A thundering rap on the front door resounded through the cottage; the sailor put his pride in his pocket, stooped low and darted in. Nelly shut the door, and leaned a baking-board against it.

“Let us in!” said a deep voice outside.

“Never!” replied Bessy, stamping her foot.

“You had better, dear,” replied the voice, in a conciliatory tone; “we won’t do you any harm.”

“Go along with you—brutes!” said the girl.

“We’ll have to force the door if you don’t open it, my dear.”

“You’d better not!” cried Bessy through the keyhole.

At the same time she applied her eye to that orifice, and instantly started back, for she saw the leader of the gang retire a few paces preparatory to making a rush. There was short time for action, nevertheless Bessy was quick enough to fling down a large stool in front of the door and place herself in an attitude of defence. Next moment the door flew open with a crash, and a sailor sprang in, cutlass in hand. As a matter of course he tripped over the stool, and fell prostrate at Bessy’s feet, and the man who followed received such a well-delivered blow from the crutch that he fell on the top of his comrade. While the heroine was in the act of receiving the third she felt both her ankles seized by the man who had fallen first. A piercing yell followed. In attempting to free herself she staggered back and fell, the crutch was wrenched from her grasp, and the whole gang poured over her into the kitchen, where they were met by their comrades, who had just burst in the back door.

“Search close,” cried one of these; “there’s a big fellow in the house; we saw him run into it.”

“You may save yourselves the trouble; there’s no man in this house,” cried Bessy, who had risen and followed her conquerors, and who now stood, with dishevelled locks, flushed countenance, and gleaming eyes, vowing summary vengeance on the first man she caught off his guard!

As the men believed her, they took care to keep well on their guard while engaged in the search. Poor old Mrs Blyth looked absolutely horror-stricken at this invasion of her cottage, and Nelly stood beside her, pale as marble and trembling with anxiety.

Every hole and corner of the house was searched without success; the floors were examined for trap-doors, and even the ceilings were carefully looked over, but there was no sign of any secret door, and the careless manner in which the bake-board had been leaned against the wall, as well as its small size, prevented suspicion being awakened in that direction. This being the case, the leader of the gang called two of his men aside and engaged in a whispered conversation.

“It’s quite certain that he is here,” said one, “but where they have stowed him is the puzzle.”

“Well, it is indeed a puzzle,” replied the leader, “but I’ve thought of a plan. He may be the father, or brother, or cousin of the household, d’ye see, and it strikes me if we were to pretend to insult the women, that would draw him out!”

“But I don’t half like that notion,” said one of the men.

“Why not?” asked the other, who wore a huge pair of whiskers, “it’s only pretence, you know. Come, I’ll try it.”

Saying this he went towards old Mrs Blyth and whispered to Nelly—“Don’t be frightened, my ducky, we’re only a-goin’ to try a dodge, d’ye see. Stand by, we won’t do you no harm.”

The man winked solemnly several times with the view of reassuring Nelly, and then raising his voice to a loud pitch exclaimed—

“Come now, old ’ooman, it’s quite plain that there’s a feller in this here house, an’ as we can’t find him nowheres, we’ve come to the conclusion he must be under your big chair. In coorse we must ask you to git up, an’ as ye don’t seem to be able to do that very well, we’ll have to lift you. So here goes.”

The man seized the old woman’s chair and shuffled with his feet as though he were about to lift it. Nelly screamed. Bessy uttered a howl of indignation, and rushed upon the foe with teeth and nails ready, but being arrested by a powerful man in the rear, she vented her wrath in a hideous yell.

The success of the scheme was great—much greater, indeed, than had been anticipated. The bake-board fell flat down, the door of the coal-hole burst open, and our hero, springing out, planted a blow on the nose of the big-whiskered man that laid him flat on the floor. Another blow overturned the man who restrained Bessy, and a third was about to be delivered when a general rush was made, and Bill Bowls, being overpowered by numbers, was finally secured.

“Now, my fine fellow,” said the leader of the gang, “you may as well go with us quietly, for ye see resistance is useless, an’ it only frightens the old woman.”

This latter part of the remark had more effect on the unfortunate Bill than the former. He at once resigned himself into the hands of his captors. As he was about to be led away, he turned towards Mrs Blyth, intending to speak, but the poor old woman had fainted, and Nelly’s fears for her lover were lost for the moment in her anxiety about her mother. It was not until the party had left the room that the poor girl became fully aware of what was going on.

Uttering a loud cry she rushed towards the outer door. Bill heard the cry, and, exerting himself to the utmost, almost succeeded in overturning the five men who held him.

“Make your mind easy,” said one of them; “no harm will come to the women. We ain’t housebreakers or thieves. All fair an’ above board we are—true-blue British tars, as would rather swing at the yard-arm than hurt the feelin’s of a woman, pretty or ugly, young or old. It’s all in the way of dooty, d’ye see? The King’s orders, young man so belay heavin’ about like that, else we’ll heave ye on your beam-ends, lash you hand and futt to a handspike, and carry you aboord like a dead pig.”

“Hold on!” cried the man with the big whiskers, who, after having been knocked down, had become emphatically the man with the big nose, “I’ll go back an’ comfort them a bit: don’t you take on so. I know all about it—see through it like a double patent hextromogriphal spy-glass. Only goin’ on a short cruise, d’ye see? Come back soon with lots o’ prize-money; get spliced right off, buy a noo gown with big flowers all over it for the old mother, pension off the stout gal wi’ the crutch—all straight; that’s the thing ain’t it?”

“Don’t, don’t,” entreated Bill earnestly; “don’t go for to—to—”

“No fear, young man,” replied the sailor, seeing that Bill hesitated; “Ben Bolter ain’t the man to do anything that would bring discredit on His Majesty’s service, and I bear you no grudge for this,” he added, pointing to his swelled nose; “it was given in a good cause, and received in the reg’lar way o’ business.”

Saying this Ben Bolter ran back to the cottage, where he tried to comfort the women to the best of his power. How he accomplished his mission does not remain on record, but it is certain that he rejoined his party, in little more than five minutes, with sundry new marks of violence on his huge honest face, and he was afterwards heard to remark that some creatures of the tiger species must have been born women by mistake, and that stout young females who had a tendency to use crutches, had better be pensioned off—or, “drownded if possible.”

Thus was William Bowls impressed into the Royal Navy. On hearing that his old shipmate had been caught, Tom Riggles at once volunteered into the service, and they were both sent on board a man-of-war, and carried off to fight the battles of their country.

Chapter Three.

Bill is Initiated into the Duties of his new Station.

At the time of which we write, England’s battles and troubles were crowding pretty thick upon one another. About this period, Republican France, besides subduing and robbing Switzerland, Italy, Sardinia, and other States, was busily engaged in making preparation for the invasion of England,—Napoleon Bonaparte being in readiness to take command of what was styled the “army of England.” Of course great preparations had to be made in this country to meet the invading foe. The British Lion was awakened, and although not easily alarmed or stirred up, he uttered a few deep-toned growls, which showed pretty clearly what the Frenchmen might expect if they should venture to cross the Channel. From John o’ Groats to the Land’s End the people rose in arms, and in the course of a few weeks 150,000 volunteers were embodied and their training begun.

Not satisfied with threatening invasion, the Directory of France sought by every means to corrupt the Irish. They sent emissaries into the land, and succeeded so well that in May 1798 the rebellion broke out. Troops, supplies, and munitions of war were poured into Ireland by France; but the troops were conquered and the rebellion crushed.

Finding at length that the invasion of England could not be carried out, this pet projection was abandoned, and Napoleon advised the Directory to endeavour to cripple her resources in the East. For the accomplishment of this purpose, he recommended the establishment on the banks of the Nile of a French colony, which, besides opening a channel for French commerce with Africa, Arabia, and Syria, might form a grand military depôt, whence an army of 60,000 men could be pushed forward to the Indus, rouse the Mahrattas to a revolt, and excite against the British the whole population of those vast countries.

To an expedition on so grand a scale the Directory objected at first, but the master-spirit who advised them was beginning to feel and exert that power which ultimately carried him to the throne of the Empire. He overcame their objections, and the expedition to Egypt was agreed to.

With characteristic energy and promptitude Napoleon began to carry out his plans, and Great Britain, seeing the storm that was brewing, commenced with equal energy to thwart him. Accordingly, the great Sir Horatio Nelson, at that time rear-admiral, was employed with a squadron to watch the movements and preparations of the French in the Mediterranean.

Such was the state of matters when our hero, Bill Bowls, was conveyed on board the Waterwitch, a seventy-four gun frigate, and set to work at once to learn his duty.

Bill was a sensible fellow. He knew that escape from the service, except in a dishonourable manner, was impossible, so he made up his mind to do his duty like a man, and return home at the end of the war (which he hoped would be a short one), and marry Nelly Blyth. Poor fellow, he little imagined what he had to go through before—but hold, we must not anticipate the story.

Well, it so happened that Bill was placed in the same mess with the man whose nose he had treated so unceremoniously on the day of his capture. He was annoyed at this, but the first time he chanced to be alone with him, he changed his mind, and the two became fast friends. It happened thus:—

They were standing on the weather-side of the forecastle in the evening, looking over the side at the setting sun.

“You don’t appear to be easy in your mind,” observed Ben Bolter, after a prolonged silence.

“You wouldn’t be if you had left a bride behind you,” answered Bill shortly.

“How d’ye know that?” said Ben; “p’r’aps I have left one behind me. Anyhow, I’ve left an old mother.”

“That’s nothin’ uncommon,” replied Bill; “a bride may change her mind and become another man’s wife, but your mother can’t become your aunt or your sister by any mental operation that I knows of.”

“I’m not so sure o’ that, now,” replied Ben, knitting his brows, and gazing earnestly at the forebrace, which happened to be conveniently in front of his eyes; “see here, s’pose, for the sake of argiment, that you’ve got a mothers an’ she marries a second time—which some mothers is apt to do, you know,—and her noo husband has got a pretty niece. Nothin’ more nat’ral than that you should fall in love with her and get spliced. Well, wot then? why, your mother is her aunt by vartue of her marriage with her uncle, and so your mother is your aunt in consikence of your marriage with the niece—d’ye see?”

Bill laughed, and said he didn’t quite see it, but he was willing to take it on credit, as he was not in a humour for discussion just then.

“Very well,” said Ben, “but, to return to the p’int—which is, if I may so say, a p’int of distinkshun between topers an’ argifiers, for topers are always returnin’ to the pint, an’ argifiers are for ever departin’ from it—to return to it, I say: you’ve no notion of the pecoolier sirkumstances in which I left my poor old mother. It weighs heavy on my heart, I assure ye, for it’s only three months since I was pressed myself, an’ the feelin’s ain’t had time to heal yet. Come, I’ll tell ’e how it was. You owe me some compensation for that crack on the nose you gave me, so stand still and listen.”

Bill, who was becoming interested in his messmate in spite of himself, smiled and nodded his head as though to say, “Go on.”

“Well, you must know my old mother is just turned eighty, an’ I’m thirty-six, so, as them that knows the rule o’ three would tell ye, she was just forty-four when I began to trouble her life. I was a most awful wicked child, it seems. So they say at least; but I’ve no remembrance of it myself. Hows’ever, when I growed up and ran away to sea and got back again an’ repented—mainly because I didn’t like the sea—I tuk to mendin’ my ways a bit, an’ tried to make up to the old ’ooman for my prewious wickedness. I do believe I succeeded, too, for I got to like her in a way I never did before; and when I used to come home from a cruise—for, of course, I soon went to sea again—I always had somethin’ for her from furrin’ parts. An’ she was greatly pleased at my attentions an’ presents—all except once, when I brought her the head of a mummy from Egypt. She couldn’t stand that at all—to my great disappointment; an’ what made it wuss was, that after a few days they had put it too near the fire, an’ the skin it busted an’ the stuffin’ began to come out, so I took it out to the back-garden an’ gave it decent burial behind the pump.

“Hows’ever, as I wos goin’ to say, just at the time I was nabbed by the press-gang was my mother’s birthday, an’ as I happened to be flush o’ cash, I thought I’d give her a treat an’ a surprise, so off I goes to buy her some things, when, before I got well into the town—a sea-port it was—down comed the press-gang an’ nabbed me. I showed fight, of course, just as you did, an floored four of ’em, but they was too many for me an’ before I knowed where I was they had me into a boat and aboord this here ship, where I’ve bin ever since. I’m used to it now, an’ rather like it, as no doubt you will come for to like it too; but it was hard on my old mother. I begged an’ prayed them to let me go back an’ bid her good-bye, an’ swore I would return, but they only laughed at me, so I was obliged to write her a letter to keep her mind easy. Of all the jobs I ever did have, the writin’ of that letter was the wust. Nothin’ but dooty would iver indooce me to try it again; for, you see, I didn’t get much in the way of edication, an’ writin’ never came handy to me.

“Hows’ever,” continued Ben, “I took so kindly to His Majesty’s service that they almost look upon me as an old hand, an’ actooally gave me leave to be the leader o’ the gang that was sent to Fairway to take you, so that I might have a chance o’ sayin’ adoo to my old mother.”

“What!” exclaimed Bowls, “is your mother the old woman who stops at the end o’ Cow Lane, where Mrs Blyth lives, who talks so much about her big-whiskered Ben?”

“That same,” replied Ben, with a smile: “she was always proud o’ me, specially after my whiskers comed. I thought that p’r’aps ye might have knowed her.”

“I knows her by hearsay from Nelly Blyth, but not bein’ a native of Fairway, of course I don’t know much about the people.—Hallo! Riggles, what’s wrong with ’e to-day?” said Bill, as his friend Tom came towards him with a very perplexed expression on his honest face, “not repenting of havin’ joined the sarvice already, I hope?”

“No, I ain’t troubled about that,” answered Riggles, scratching his chin and knitting his brows; “but I’ve got a brother, d’ye see—”

“Nothin’ uncommon in that,” said Bolter, as the other paused.

“P’r’aps not,” continued Tom Riggles; “but then, you see, my brother’s such a preeplexin’ sort o’ feller, I don’t know wot to make of him.”

“Let him alone, then,” suggested Ben Bolter.

“That won’t do neither, for he’s got into trouble; but it’s a long story, an’ I dessay you won’t care to hear about it.”

“You’re out there, Tom,” said Bowls; “come, sit down here and let’s have it all.”

The three men sat down on the combings of the fore-hatch, and Tom Riggles began by telling them that it was of no use bothering them with an account of his brother Sam’s early life.

“Not unless there’s somethin’ partikler about it,” said Bolter.

“Well, there ain’t nothin’ very partikler about it, ’xcept that Sam was partiklerly noisy as a baby, and wild as a boy, besides bein’ uncommon partikler about his wittles, ’specially in the matter o’ havin’ plenty of ’em. Moreover, he ran away to sea when he was twelve years old, an’ was partiklerly quiet after that for a long time, for nobody know’d where he’d gone to, till one fine mornin’ my mother she gets a letter from him sayin’ he was in China, drivin’ a great trade in the opium line. We niver felt quite sure about that, for Sam wornt over partikler about truth. He was a kindly sort o’ feller, hows’ever, an’ continued to write once or twice a year for a long time. In these letters he said that his life was pretty wariable, as no doubt it was, for he wrote from all parts o’ the world. First, he was clerk, he said, to the British counsel in Penang, or some sich name, though where that is I don’t know; then he told us he’d joined a man-o’-war, an’ took to clearin’ the pirates out o’ the China seas. He found it a tough job appariently, an’ got wounded in the head with a grape-shot, and half choked by a stink-pot, after which we heard no more of him for a long time, when a letter turns up from Californy, sayin’ he was there shippin’ hides on the coast; and after that he went through Texas an’ the States, where he got married, though he hadn’t nothin’ wotever, as I knows of, to keep a wife upon—”

“But he may have had somethin’ for all you didn’t know it,” suggested Bill Bowls.

“Well, p’r’aps he had. Hows’ever, the next we heard was that he’d gone to Canada, an’ tuk a small farm there, which was all well enough, but now we’ve got a letter from him sayin’ that he’s in trouble, an’ don’t see his way out of it very clear. He’s got the farm, a wife, an’ a sarvant to support, an’ nothin’ to do it with. Moreover, the sarvant is a boy what a gentleman took from a Reformation-house, or somethin’ o’ that sort, where they put little thieves, as has only bin in quod for the fust time. They say that many of ’em is saved, and turns out well, but this feller don’t seem to have bin a crack specimen, for Sam’s remarks about him ain’t complimentary. Here’s the letter, mates,” continued Riggles, drawing a soiled epistle from his pocket; “it’ll give ’e a better notion than I can wot sort of a fix he’s in, Will you read it, Bill Bowls?”

“No, thankee,” said Bill; “read it yerself, an’ for any sake don’t spell the words if ye can help it.”

Thus admonished, Tom began to read the following letter from his wild brother, interrupting himself occasionally to explain and comment thereon, and sometimes, despite the adjuration of Bill Bowls, to spell. We give the letter in the writer’s own words:—

“‘My dear mother (it’s to mother, d’ye see; he always writes to her, an’ she sends the letters to me),—My dear mother, here we are all alive and kicking. My sweet wife is worth her weight in gold, though she does not possess more of that precious metal than the wedding-ring on her finger—more’s the pity for we are sadly in want of it just now. The baby, too, is splendid. Fat as a prize pig, capable of roaring like a mad bull, and, it is said, uncommonly like his father. We all send our kind love to you, and father, and Tom. By the way, where is Tom? You did not mention him in your last. I fear he is one of these roving fellows whom the Scotch very appropriately style ne’er-do-weels. A bad lot they are. Humph! you’re one of ’em, Mister Sam, if ever there was, an’ my only hope of ye is that you’ve got some soft places in your heart.’”

“Go on, Tom,” said Ben Bolter; “don’t cut in like that on the thread of any man’s story.”

“Well,” continued Riggles, reading with great difficulty, “Sam goes on for to say—”

“‘We thank you for your good wishes, and trust to be able to send you a good account of our proceedings ere long. (You see Sam was always of a cheery, hopeful natur, he was.) We have now been on the place fifteen days, but have not yet begun the house, as we can get no money. Two builders have, however, got the plans, and we are waiting for their sp–s–p–i–f– oh! spiflication; why, wot can that be?’”

“It ain’t spiflication, anyhow,” said Bolter. “Spell it right through.”

“Oh! I’ve got him, it’s specification,” cried Riggles; “well—”

“‘Specification. Many things will cost more than we anticipated. We had to turn the family out who had squatted here, at two days’ notice, as we could not afford to live at Kinmonday—that’s the nearest town, I s’pose. How they managed to live in the log cabin I do not know, as, when it rained—and it has done so twice since we came, furiously—the whole place was deluged, and we had to put an umbrella up in bed. We have had the roof raised and newly shingled, and are as comfortable as can be expected. Indeed, the hut is admirably adapted for summer weather, as we can shake hands between the logs.

“‘The weather is very hot, although there has been much more rain this season than usual. There can be no doubt that this is a splendid country, both as regards soil and climate, and it seems a pity to see such land lying waste and unimproved for so many years. It far surpasses my expectations, both in natural beauty and capabilities. We have a deal of work to do in the way of fencing, for at present everybody’s livestock is running over a large part of our land; but we haven’t got money to buy fencing! Then we ought to have two horses, for the boy that was sent to me from the Reformatory can plough; but again, we haven’t a rap wherewith to buy them. One reason of this is that in a new place a fellow is not trusted at first, and the last two hundred dollars we had went in tools, household furniture, utensils, etcetera. We have been living on credit for an occasional chicken or duck from our neighbours, which makes but a poor meal for three—not to mention baby, being very small—and George, that’s the boy, having a tremendous appetite!

“‘I walked into town twice to try to get some meat, but although there are ostensibly two butchers, I failed to get any. They actually wanted payment for it! Heigho! how I wish that money grew on the trees—or bread. By the way, that reminds me that there are bread-fruit trees in the South Sea Islands. I think I’ll sell the farm and go there. One day I had the good luck to rescue a fine young chicken from the talons of a big hawk, upon which we all made a good meal. I really don’t know what we should have done had it not been for the great abundance of blackberries here. They are fine and large, and so plentiful that I can gather a bucketful in an hour. We have made them into jam and pies, and are now drying them for winter use. We have also hazel-nuts and plums by the cart-load, and crab-apples in numbers almost beyond the power of figures to express. There is also a fruit about the size of a lime, which they call here the “May apple,” but which I have named “omnifruct,” as it combines the flavour of apples, pears, peaches, pine-apples, gooseberries, strawberries, rasps—in fact, it is hard to tell what it does not resemble. But after all, this is rather light food, and although very Eden-like living—minus the felicity—it does not quite satisfy people who have been used most part of their lives to beefsteak and stout.

“‘George came to me a week ago. The little rascal would have been here sooner, but first of all the stage-coach upset, and then he fell asleep and was carried ten miles beyond our clearing, and had to walk back as best he could with a big bundle on his shoulder. He is an uncommonly silent individual. We can hardly get him to utter a word. He does what he is told, but I have first to show him how, and generally end by doing it myself. He appears to be a remarkably dead boy, but my excellent wife has taken him in hand, and will certainly strike some fire out of him if she can’t put it into him! She has just gone into town on a foraging expedition, and I fondly hope she may succeed in making a raise of some edibles.

“‘I have distinguished myself lately by manufacturing a sideboard and dresser, as well as a table and bench for the female authority, and expect to accomplish a henhouse and a gate next week. You see we work in hope. I fervently wish we could live on the same. However, I’m pretty jolly, despite a severe attack of rheumatism, which has not been improved by my getting up in the night and rushing out in my shirt to chase away trespassing cows and pigs, as we have not got a watch-dog yet.

“‘When my wife shuts her eyes at night her dreams are of one invariable subject—blackberries! She cannot get rid of the impression, and I have serious fears that we shall all break out in brambles. There are not so many mosquitoes here as I had expected; just enough to keep us lively. How I shall rejoice when we have got a cow! It will be a great saving in butter and milk to our neighbours, who at present supply us with such things on credit! We can raise here wheat, oats, Indian corn, etcetera. The only difficulties are the want of seed and money! But it is unkind in me writing to you, mother, in this strain, seeing that you can’t help me in my difficulties. However, don’t take on about me. My motto is, “Never give in.” Give our love to father, also to Tom. He’s a good-hearted fellow is Tom, though I fear he’ll never come to much good.—Believe me, your affectionate son, Sam. Riggles.’”

“There,” said Tom, folding up the letter; “what d’ye think o’ that, mates?”

Tom did not at that time get an answer to his question, for just as he spoke the order was given to beat to quarters for exercise, and in a few minutes the decks were cleared, and every man at his post.

But the order which had been given to engage in mimic warfare, for the sake of training the new hands, was suddenly changed into the command to clear for action in earnest, when the look-out reported a French vessel on the weather-bow. Sail was immediately crowded on the Waterwitch, and all was enthusiasm and expectation as they gave chase to the enemy.

Chapter Four.

Our Hero and his Friends see Service.

The Waterwitch was commanded at this time by Captain Ward, a man possessed of great energy and judgment, united to heroic courage. He had received orders to join that portion of the British fleet which, under Nelson, was engaged in searching for the French in the Mediterranean, and had passed Cape St. Vincent on his way thither, when he fell in with the French vessel.

During the morning a thick fog had obscured the horizon, concealing the enemy from view. When the rising sun dispersed it he was suddenly revealed. Hence the abrupt order on board the Waterwitch to prepare for action. As the fog lifted still more, another French vessel was revealed, and it was soon found that the English frigate had two Frenchmen of forty-four guns each to cope with.

“Just as it should be!” remarked Captain Ward, when this was ascertained. “There would have been no glory in conquering one Frenchman equal to my own ship in size!”

The Waterwitch was immediately steered towards the ship that was nearest, in the expectation that she would show fight at once, but the French commander, probably wishing to delay the engagement until his other vessel could join him, made sail, and bore down on her. Captain Ward, on perceiving the intention, put on a press of canvas, and endeavoured to frustrate the enemy’s design. In this he was only partially successful.

“Surely,” said Bill Bowls to his friend Ben Bolter, with whom he was stationed at one of the starboard guns on the main deck, “surely we are near enough now to give ’em a shot.”

“No, we ain’t,” said Tom Riggles, who was also stationed at the same gun; “an’ depend on it Cap’n Ward is not the man to throw away his shot for nothin’.”

Ben Bolter and some of the other men at the gun agreed with this opinion, so our hero, whose fighting propensities were beginning to rouse up, had to content himself with gazing through the port-hole at the flying enemy, and restrained his impatience as he best could.

At last the order was given to fire, and for an hour after that a running fight was maintained, but without much effect. When, however, the two ships of the enemy succeeded in drawing sufficiently near to each other, they hove to, and awaited the advance of the Waterwitch, plying her vigorously with shot as she came on.

Captain Ward only replied with his bow chasers at first. He walked the deck with his hands behind his back without speaking, and, as far as his countenance expressed his feelings, he might have been waiting for a summons to dinner, instead of hastening to engage in an unequal contest.

“Cap’n Ward niver growls much before he bites,” said Patrick Flinn, an Irishman, who belonged to Bowls’s mess. “He minds me of a spalpeen of a dog I wance had, as was uncommon fond o’ fightin’ but niver even showed his teeth till he was within half a yard of his inemy, but, och! he gripped him then an’ no mistake. You’ll see, messmates, that we won’t give ’em a broadside till we’re within half pistol-shot.”

“Don’t take on ye the dooties of a prophet, Paddy,” said Ben Bolter, “for the last time ye tried it ye was wrong.”

“When was that?” demanded Flinn.

“Why, no longer ago than supper-time last night, when ye said ye had eaten such a lot that ye wouldn’t be able to taste another bite for a month to come, an’ didn’t I see ye pitchin’ into the wittles this mornin’ as if ye had bin starvin’ for a week past?”

“Git along wid ye,” retorted Flinn; “yer jokes is as heavy as yerself, an’ worth about as much.”

“An’ how much may that be?” asked Ben, with a grin.

“Faix, it’s not aisy to tell. I would need to work it out in a algibrabical calkilation, but if ye divide the half o’ what ye know by the double o’ what ye don’t know, an’ add the quarter o’ what ye might have know’d—redoocin’ the whole to nothin’, by means of a compound o’ the rule o’ three and sharp practice, p’r’aps you’ll—”

Flinn’s calculation was cut short at that moment by the entrance of a round shot, which pierced the ship’s side just above his head, and sent splinters flying in all directions, one of which killed a man at the next gun, and another struck Bill Bowls on the left arm, wounding him slightly.

The exclamations and comments of the men at the gun were stopped abruptly by the orders to let the ship fall off and fire a broadside.

The Waterwitch trembled under the discharge, and then a loud cheer arose, for the immediate result was that the vessel of the enemy which had hit them was partially disabled—her foretopmast and flying jibboom having been shot away.

The Waterwitch instantly resumed her course and while Bill Bowls was busily employed in assisting to reload his gun, he could see that the two Frenchmen were close on their lee bow.

Passing to windward of the two frigates, which were named respectively La Gloire and the St. Denis, Captain Ward received a broadside from the latter, without replying to it, until he had crossed her bow within musket range, when he delivered a broadside which raked her from stem to stern. He then wore ship, and, passing between the two, fired his starboard broadside into the Gloire, and, almost immediately after, his port broadside into the St. Denis.

The effect on the two ships was tremendous.

Their sails and rigging were terribly cut up, and several of the yards came rattling down on their decks. The Gloire, in particular, had her rudder damaged. Seeing this, and knowing that in her crippled state she could do him no further damage, Captain Ward passed on, sailed round the stern of the St. Denis, and, when within six yards of her, sent a broadside right in at her cabin windows. Then he ranged alongside and kept up a tremendous fire.

The Frenchmen stuck to their guns admirably, but the British fired quicker. At such close quarters every shot told on both sides. The din and crash of such heavy artillery was terrific; and it soon became almost impossible to see what was going on for smoke.

Up to this point, although many of the men in the Waterwitch had been killed or wounded, only one of those who manned the gun at which Bill Bowls served had been hit.

“It’s too hot to last long,” observed Flinn, as he thrust home a ball and drew out the ramrod; “run her out, boys.”

The men obeyed, and were in the act of pulling at the tackle, when a shot from the enemy struck the gun on the muzzle, tore it from its fastenings, and hurled it to the other side of the deck.

Strange to say, only one of the men who worked it was hurt by the gun; but in its passage across the deck it knocked down and killed three men, and jammed one of the guns on the other side in such a way that it became for a time unserviceable. Ben Bolter and his comrades were making desperate efforts to clear the wreck, when they heard a shout on deck for the boarders. The bowsprit of the Waterwitch had by that time been shot away; her rigging was dreadfully cut up, and her wheel smashed; and Captain Ward felt that, if the St. Denis were to get away, he could not pursue her. He therefore resolved to board.

“Come along, lads,” cried Tom Riggles, on hearing the order; “let’s jine ’em.”

He seized his cutlass as he spoke, and dashed towards the ladder, followed by Bowls, Bolter, Flinn, and others; but it was so crowded with men carrying the wounded down to the cockpit that they had to pause at the foot.

At that moment a handsome young midshipman was carried past, apparently badly wounded.

“Och!” exclaimed Flinn, in a tone of deep anxiety, “it’s not Mister Cleveland, is it? Ah! don’t say he’s kilt!”

“Not quite,” answered the midshipman, rousing himself, and looking round with flashing eyes as he endeavoured to wave his hand in the air. “I’ll live to fight the French yet.”

The poor boy almost fainted from loss of blood as he spoke; and the Irishman, uttering a wild shout, ran towards the stern, intending to gain the deck by the companion-hatch, and wreak his vengeance on the French. Bill Bowls and Ben Bolter followed him. As they passed the cabin door Bowls said hastily to Bolter, “I say, Ben, here, follow me; I’ll show ye a dodge.”

He ran into the cabin as he spoke and leaped out upon the quarter gallery, which by that time was so close to the quarter of the St. Denis that it was possible to jump from one to the other.

Without a moment’s hesitation he sprang across, dashed in one of the windows, and went head foremost into the enemy’s cabin, followed by Bolter. Finding no one to oppose them there, they rushed upon deck and into the midst of a body of marines who were near the after-hatchway.

“Down with the frog-eaters!” cried Ben Bolter, discharging his pistol in the face of a marine with one hand, and cleaving down another with his cutlass.

The “frog-eaters,” however, were by no means despicable men; for one of them clubbed his musket and therewith hit Ben such a blow on the head that he fell flat on the deck. Seeing this, Bill Bowls bestrode his prostrate comrade, and defended him for a few seconds with the utmost fury.

Captain Ward, who had leaped into the mizzen chains of the enemy, leading the boarders, beheld with amazement two of his own men on the quarter-deck of the St. Denis attacking the enemy in rear. Almost at the same moment he observed the fall of one of them. His men also saw this, and giving an enthusiastic cheer they sprang upon the foe and beat them back. Bill Bowls was borne down in the rush by his friends, but he quickly regained his legs. Ben Bolter also recovered and jumped up. In five minutes more they were masters of the ship—hauled down the colours, and hoisted the Union Jack at the Frenchman’s peak.

During the whole course of this action the Gloire, which had drifted within range, kept up a galling fire of musketry from her tops on the deck of the Waterwitch. Just as the St. Denis was captured, a ball struck Captain Ward on the forehead, and he fell dead without a groan.

The first lieutenant, who was standing by his side at the moment, after hastily calling several men to convey their commander below, ordered the starboard guns of the prize to be fired into the Gloire. This was done with such effect that it was not found necessary to repeat the dose. The Frenchman immediately hauled down his colours, and the fight was at an end.

It need scarcely be said that the satisfaction with which this victory was hailed was greatly modified by the loss of brave Captain Ward, who was a favourite with his men, and one who would in all probability have risen to the highest position in the service, had he lived. He fell while his sun was in the zenith, and was buried in the ocean, that wide and insatiable grave, which has received too many of our brave seamen in the prime of life.

The first lieutenant, on whom the command temporarily devolved, immediately set about repairing damages, and, putting a prize crew into each of the French ships, sailed with them to the nearest friendly port.

The night after the action Bill Bowls, Ben Bolter, and Tom Riggles sat down on the heel of the bowsprit to have a chat.

“Not badly hit?” asked Ben of Bill, who was examining the bandage on his left arm.

“Nothin’ to speak of,” said Bill; “only a scratch. I’m lucky to have got off with so little; but I say, Ben, how does your head feel? That Mounseer had a handy way o’ usin’ the handspike. I do believe he would have cracked any man’s skull but your own, which must be as thick as the head of an elephant. I see’d it comin’, but couldn’t help ye. Hows’ever, I saved ye from a second dose.”

“It wos pritty hardish,” said Ben, with a smile, an’ made the stars sparkle in my brain for all the world like the rory borailis, as I’ve see’d so often in the northern skies; but it’s all in the way o’ trade, so I don’t grumble; the only thing as bothers me is that I can’t git my hat rightly on by reason of the bump.

“You’ve no cause to complain—neither of ye,” said Tom Riggles, whose left hand was tied up and in a sling, “for you’ve lost nothin’ but a little blood an’ a bit o’ skin, whereas I’ve lost the small finger o’ my right hand.”

“Not much to boast of, that,” said Ben Bolter contemptuously; “why, just think of poor Ned Summers havin’ lost an arm and Edwards a leg—not to mention the poor fellows that have lost their lives.”

“A finger is bad enough,” growled Tom.

“Well, so it is,” said Bowls. “By the way, I would advise you to try a little of that wonderful salve invented by a Yankee for such cases.”

“Wot salve wos that?” asked Tom gruffly, for the pain of his wound was evidently pretty severe.

“Why, the growin’ salve, to be sure,” replied Bill. “Everybody must have heard of it.”

“I never did,” said Tom. “Did you, Ben?”

“No, never; wot is it?”

“It’s a salve for growin’ on lost limbs,” said Bill. “The Yankee tried it on a dog that had got its tail cut off. He rubbed a little of the salve on the end of the dog, and a noo tail grow’d on next mornin’!”

“Gammon!” ejaculated Tom Riggles.

“True, I assure ye, as was proved by the fact that he afterwards rubbed a little of the salve on the end of the tail, and a noo dog growed on it in less than a week!”

“H’m! I wonder,” said Tom, “if he was to rub some of it inside o’ your skull, whether he could grow you a noo set o’ brains.”

“I say, Bill,” interposed Ben Bolter, “did you hear the first lieutenant say where he intended to steer to?”

“I heard somethin’ about Gibraltar, but don’t know that he said we was goin’ there. It’s clear, hows’ever, that we must go somewhere to refit before we can be of any use.”

“Ay; how poor Captain Ward would have chafed under this delay!” said Bill Bowls sadly. “He would have been like a caged tiger. That’s the worst of war; it cuts off good and bad men alike. There’s not a captain in the fleet like the one we have lost, Nelson alone excepted.”

“Well, I don’t know as to that,” said Ben Bolter; “but there’s no doubt that Admiral Nelson is the man to lick the French, and I only hope that he may find their fleet, and that I may be there to lend a hand.”

“Ditto,” said Bill Bowls.

“Do,” added Tom Riggles.

Having thus expressed their sentiments, the three friends separated. Not long afterwards the Waterwitch sailed with her prizes into Gibraltar.

Here was found a portion of the fleet which had been forwarded by Earl St. Vincent to reinforce Nelson. It was about to set sail, and as there was every probability that the Waterwitch would require a considerable time to refit, some of her men were drafted into other ships. Among others, our friends Bill Bowls, Ben Bolter, and Tom Riggles, were sent on board the Majestic, a seventy-four gun ship of the line, commanded by Captain Westcott, one of England’s most noted captains.

This vessel, with ten line-of-battle ships, set sail to join Nelson, and assist him in the difficult duty of watching the French fleet.

Chapter Five.

Nelson Hunts the French.

At this time Sir Horatio Nelson had been despatched to the Mediterranean with a small squadron to ascertain the object of the great expedition which was fitting out, under Napoleon Bonaparte, at Toulon.

Nelson had for a long time past been displaying, in a series of complicated and difficult operations in the Mediterranean, those splendid qualities which had already won for him unusual honours and fame, and which were about to raise him to that proud pinnacle which he ultimately attained as England’s greatest naval hero. His address and success in matters of diplomacy had filled his superiors and the Government with sentiments of respect; his moral courage in risking reputation and position, with unflinching resolution, by disobeying orders when by so doing the good and credit of his country could be advanced, made him an object of dread to some, of admiration to others, while his lion-like animal courage and amiability endeared him to his officers and men. Sailors had begun to feel that where Nelson led the way victory was certain, and those who were ordered to join his fleet esteemed themselves most fortunate.

The defeat of the French armament was considered by the English Government a matter of so great importance, that Earl St. Vincent, then engaged in blockading the Spanish fleet, was directed, if he thought it necessary, to draw off his entire fleet for the purpose, and relinquish the blockade. He was, however, told that, if he thought a detachment sufficient, he was to place it under the command of Sir Horatio Nelson. The Earl did consider a detachment sufficient, and had already made up his mind to give the command to Nelson, being thoroughly alive to his great talents and other good qualities. He accordingly sent him to the Mediterranean with three ships of the line, four frigates, and a sloop of war.

This force was now, by the addition to which we have referred, augmented so largely that Nelson found himself in possession of a fleet with which he might not only “watch” the enemy, but, if occasion should offer, attack him.

He was refitting after a storm in the Sardinian harbour of St. Pietro, when the reinforcements hove in sight. As soon as the ships were seen from the masthead of the Admiral’s vessel, Nelson immediately signalled that they should put to sea. Accordingly the united fleet set sail, and began a vigorous search for the French armament, which had left Toulon a short time before.

The search was for some time unsuccessful. No tidings could be obtained of the destination of the enemy for some time, but at length it was learned that he had surprised Malta.

Although his fleet was inferior in size to that of the French, Nelson—and indeed all his officers and men—longed to meet with and engage them. The Admiral, therefore, formed a plan to attack them while at anchor at Gozo, but he received information that the French had left that island the day after their arrival. Holding very strongly the opinion that they were bound for Egypt, he set sail at once in pursuit, and arrived off Alexandria on the 28th of June 1798.

There, to his intense disappointment, he found that nothing had been seen or heard of the enemy. Nelson’s great desire was to meet with Napoleon Bonaparte and fight him on the sea. But this wish was not to be gratified. He found, however, that the governor of Alexandria was endeavouring to put the city in a state of defence, for he had received information from Leghorn that the French expedition intended to proceed against Egypt after having taken Malta.

Leaving Alexandria, Nelson proceeded in various directions in search of the French, carrying a press of sail night and day in his anxiety to fall in with them, but being baffled in his search, he was compelled to return to Sicily to obtain fresh supplies in order to continue the pursuit.

Of course Nelson was blamed in England for his want of success in this expedition, and Earl St. Vincent was severely censured for having sent so young an officer on a service so important. Anticipating the objection, that he ought not to have made so long a voyage without more certain information, Nelson said, in vindication of his conduct:—

“Who was I to get such information from? The Governments of Naples and Sicily either knew not, or chose to keep me in ignorance. Was I to wait patiently until I heard certain accounts? If Egypt were their object, before I could hear of them, they would have been in India. To do nothing was disgraceful; therefore I made use of my understanding. I am before your lordships’ judgment; and if, under all circumstances, it is decided that I am wrong, I ought, for the sake of our country, to be superseded; for at this moment, when I know the French are not in Alexandria, I hold the same opinion as off Cape Passaro—that, under all circumstances, I was right in steering for Alexandria; and by that opinion I must stand or fall.”

It was ere long proved that Nelson was right, and that Earl St. Vincent had made no mistake in sending him on a service so important; for we now know that in all the British fleet there was not another man so admirably adapted for the duty which was assigned to him, of finding, fighting, and conquering, the French, in reference to whom he wrote to the first lord of the Admiralty, “Be they bound to the antipodes, your lordship may rely that I will not lose a moment in bringing them to action!”

Re-victualled and watered, the British fleet set sail on the 25th of July from Syracuse. On the 28th, intelligence was received that the enemy had been seen about four weeks before, steering to the South East from Candia.

With characteristic disregard of the possible consequences to his own fame and interest, in his determination to “do the right,” Nelson at once resolved to return to Alexandria. Accordingly, with all sail set, the fleet stood once more towards the coast of Egypt.

Perseverance was at length rewarded. On the 1st of August 1798, about ten in the morning, they sighted Alexandria, and saw with inexpressible delight that the port was crowded with the ships of France.

And here we venture to say that we sympathise with the joy of the British on this occasion, and shall explain why we do so.

Not every battle that is fought—however brilliant in military or naval tactics it may be, or in exhibitions of personal prowess—deserves our sympathy. Only that war which is waged against oppression is entitled to respect, and this, we hold, applies to the war in which the British were engaged at that time.

France, under the Directory, had commenced a career of unwarrantable conquest, for the simple purpose of self-aggrandisement, and her great general, Bonaparte, had begun that course of successful warfare in which he displayed those brilliant talents which won for him an empire, constituted him, in the ordinary acceptation of the word, a hero, and advanced France to a high position of tyrannical power. But brilliant talents and success could not free him from the charge of being a wholesale murderer.

To oppose such pretentions and practices was a bounden duty on the part of those who loved justice, just as much as it is the duty of every one who has the power to thwart the designs of, and forcibly overcome, a highwayman or a pirate.

Observe, reader, that we do not intend here to imply an invidious comparison. We have no sympathy with those who hold that England was and always is in favour of fair play, while France was bent on tyranny. On the contrary, we believe that England has in some instances been guilty of the sin which we now condemn, and that, on the other hand, many Frenchmen of the present day would disapprove of the policy of France in the time of Napoleon the First. Neither do we sympathise with the famous saying of Nelson that “one Englishman is equal to three Frenchmen!” The tendency to praise one’s-self has always been regarded among Christian nations as a despicable, or at least a pitiable, quality, and we confess that we cannot see much difference between a boastful man and a boastful nation. Frenchmen have always displayed chivalrous courage, not a whit inferior to the British, and history proves that in war they have been eminently successful. The question whether they could beat us or we could beat them, if tested in a fair stand-up fight with equal numbers, besides being an unprofitable one, is not now before us. All that we are concerned about at present is, that in the war now under consideration the British did beat the French, and we rejoice to record the fact solely on the ground that we fought in a righteous cause.

With these remarks we proceed to give an account of one of the greatest naval victories ever achieved by British arms.

Chapter Six.

The Battle of the Nile.

After Napoleon Bonaparte had effected his landing in Egypt, the French fleet was permitted to remain at Alexandria for some time, and thus afforded Nelson the opportunity he had sought for so long.

For many previous days he had been almost unable, from anxiety, to take sleep or food, but now he ordered dinner to be served, while preparations were being made for battle, and when his officers rose to leave the table, he said to them:—

“Before this time to-morrow, I shall have gained a peerage or Westminster Abbey.”

The French had found it impossible to enter the neglected and ruined port of Alexandria. Admiral Brueys had, by command of Napoleon, offered a reward of 10,000 livres to any native pilot who would safely convey the squadron in, but not one was found who would venture to take charge of a single vessel that drew more than twenty feet. The gallant admiral was compelled, therefore, to anchor in Aboukir Bay, and chose the strongest position that was possible in the circumstances. He ranged his ships in a compact line of battle, in such a manner that the leading vessel lay close to a shoal, while the remainder of the fleet formed a curve along the line of deep water so that it was thought to be impossible to turn it by any means in a South Westerly direction, and some of the French, who were best able to judge, said that they held a position so strong that they could bid defiance to a force more than double their own. The presumption was not unreasonable, for the French had the advantage of the English in ships, guns, and men, but they had omitted to take into their calculations the fact that the English fleet was commanded by one whose promptitude in action, readiness and eccentricity of resource, and utter disregard of consequences when what he deemed the path to victory lay before him, might have been equalled; but certainly could not have been surpassed, by Bonaparte himself.

The French force consisted of thirteen ships of the line and four frigates, carrying in all 1196 guns and 11,230 men. The English had thirteen ships of the line and a fifty-gun ship, carrying in all 1012 guns and 8068 men. All the English line-of-battle ships were seventy-fours. Three of the French ships carried eighty-eight guns, and one, L’Orient, was a monster three-decker with 120 guns.

In order to give the reader a better idea of the forces engaged on both sides, we give the following list of ships. It is right, however, to add that one of those belonging to the English (the Culloden) ran aground on a shoal when about to go into action, and took no part in the fight.

English Ships.

Names

Commanders

Guns

Men

1.

Vanguard

Admiral Nelson, Captain Berry

74

595

2.

Minotaur

Thos. Louis

74

640

3.

Theseus

R.W. Millar

74

590

4.

Alexander

A.J. Ball

74

590

5.

Swiftsure

B Hallowell

74

590

6.

Audacious

D Gould

74

590

7.

Defence

J Peyton

74

590

8.

Zealous

S Hood

74

590

9.

Orion

Sir James Saumarez

74

590

10.

Goliath

Thomas Foley

74

590

11.

Majestic

G.B. Westcott

74

590

12.

Bellerophon

H.D.E. Darby

74

590

13.

Culloden

T Trowbridge

74

590

Not engaged

14.

Leander

T.B. Thomson

50

343

15.

La Mutine, Brig

French Ships.

Names

Commanders

Guns

Men

1.

L'Orient

Admiral Brueys

120

1010

Burnt

2.

Le Franklin

80

800

Taken

3.

Le Tonnant

80

800

Taken

4.

Le Guillaume Tell

80

800

Escaped

5.

Le Conquerant

74

700

Taken

6.

Le Spartiate

74

700

Taken

7.

L'Aquilon

74

700

Taken

8.

Le Souverain Peuple

74

700

Taken

9.

L'Heureux

74

700

Taken

10.

Le Timoleon

74

700

Burnt

11.

Le Mercure

74

700

Taken

12.

Le Genereux

74

700

Escaped

13.

Le Guerrier

74

600

Taken

14.

La Diane (Frigate)

48

300

Escaped

15.

La Justice (Frigate)

44

300

Escaped

16.

L'Artemise (Frigate)

36

250

Burnt

17.

La Serieux (Frigate)

36

250

Dismasted, sunk

Such were the forces that met to engage in deadly conflict on the 1st of August 1798, with not only national but world-wide interest pending on the issue, for the battle of the Nile was one of the leading battles of the world.

When Nelson perceived the position of the enemy, his fertile and active mind at once evolved a characteristic course of action. Where there was room, he said, for an enemy’s ship to swing, there was room for one of his to anchor. He therefore at once formed the plan of doubling on the French ships, stationing one of his ships on the bow and another on the quarter of each of the enemy.

Nelson immediately explained his intended course to his officers. It had been his custom during the whole time he was engaged in searching for the French fleet, to have his captains as frequently as possible on board the Vanguard, when he explained to them his opinions as to the best mode of attack in all the various positions in which it was possible or probable that the enemy might be found. Hence they knew their commander’s tactics so well, that when the hour for action arrived, no time was lost in the tedious operation of signalling orders. He had such confidence in all his officers, that after thoroughly explaining his intended plan of attack, he merely said to them, “Form as is most convenient for mutual support, and anchor by the stern. First gain the victory, and then make the best use of it you can.”

When Captain Berry, perceiving the boldness of the plan, said, “If we succeed, what will the world say?” Nelson replied, “There is no if in the case; that we shall succeed is certain: who may live to tell the story is a very different question!”

Nelson possessed in an eminent degree the power of infusing into his men the irresistible confidence that animated his own bosom. There was probably not a man in the British fleet who did not sail into Aboukir Bay on that memorable day with a feeling of certainty that the battle was as good as gained before it was begun. The cool, quiet, self-possessed manner in which the British tars went to work at the beginning must have been very impressive to the enemy; for, as they advanced, they did not even condescend to fire a shot in reply to the storm of shot and shell to which the leading ships were treated by the batteries on an island in the bay, and by the broadsides of the whole French fleet at half gunshot-range, the men being too busily engaged in furling the sails aloft, attending to the braces below, and preparing to cast anchor!

Nelson’s fleet did not all enter the bay at once, but each vessel lost no time in taking up position as it arrived; and as, one after another, they bore down on the enemy, anchored close alongside, and opened fire, the thunder of the French fleet was quickly and increasingly augmented by the British, until the full tide of battle was reached, and the shores of Egypt trembled under the incessant rolling roar of dreadful war; while sheets of flame shot forth and rent the thick clouds which enwrapped the contending fleets, and hung incumbent over the bay.

An attempt was made by a French brig to decoy the English ships towards a shoal before they entered Aboukir Bay, but it failed because Nelson either knew the danger or saw through the device.

It seemed as if the Zealous (Captain Hood) was to have the honour of commencing the action, but Captain Foley passed her in the Goliath, and successfully accomplished that feat which the French had deemed impossible, and had done their best to guard against. Instead of attacking the leading ship—the Guerrier—outside, he sailed round her bows, passed between her and the shore, and cast anchor. Before he could bring up, however, he had drifted down to the second ship of the enemy’s line—the Conquerant—and opened fire. It had been rightly conjectured that the landward guns of the enemy would not be manned, or even ready for action. The Goliath, therefore, made short and sharp work of her foe. In ten minutes the masts of the Conquerant were shot away! The Zealous was laid alongside the Guerrier, and in twelve minutes that vessel was totally disabled. Next came the Orion (Sir J. Saumarez), which went into action in splendid style. Perceiving that a frigate lying farther inshore was annoying the Goliath, she sailed towards her, giving the Guerrier a taste of her larboard guns as long as they would bear upon her, then dismasted and sunk the frigate, hauled round towards the French line, and anchoring between the Franklin and the Souverain Peuple, received and returned the fire of both.

In like manner the Audacious (Captain Gould) justified her name by attacking the Guerrier and Conquerant at once, and, when the latter struck passed on to the Souverain Peuple.

The unfortunate Guerrier was also worthy of her title, for she bore the brunt of the battle. Every ship that passed her appeared to deem it a duty to give her a broadside before settling down to its particular place in the line, and finding its own special antagonist or antagonists—for several of the English ships engaged two of the enemy at once. The Theseus (Captain Miller), after bringing down the main and mizzen-masts of the Guerrier, anchored inside the Spartiate and engaged her.

Meanwhile, on the other side of this vessel, Nelson’s ship, the Vanguard, bore down on the foe with six flags flying in different parts of the rigging, to guard against the possibility of his colours being shot away! She opened a tremendous fire on the Spartiate at half pistol-range. The muscular British tars wrought with heroic energy at the guns. In a few minutes six of these guns, which stood on the fore-part of the Vanguard’s deck, were left without a man, and three times afterwards were these six guns cleared of men—so terrific was the fire of the enemy.

Other four of the British vessels sailed ahead of the Vanguard and got into action. One of these—the Bellerophon (Captain Darby)—engaged the gigantic L’Orient, which was so disproportionately large that the weight of ball from her lower deck alone exceeded that from the whole broadside of her assailant. The result was that the Bellerophon was overpowered, 200 of her men were killed or wounded, all her masts and cables were shot away, and she drifted out of the line. Her place, however, was taken by the Swiftsure, which not only assailed the L’Orient on the bow, but at the same time opened a steady fire on the quarter of the Franklin.

Before this time, however, the shades of night had fallen on the scene. The battle began at half-past six in the evening—half-an-hour afterwards daylight was gone, and the deadly fight was lighted only by the lurid and fitful flashing of the guns.

Those vessels of the English squadron which happened to be in rear were some leagues astern when the fight began, and it was so dark when they entered that extreme difficulty was experienced in getting in. One of these—the Culloden (Captain Trowbridge)—sounded carefully as she went, but got aground, where she remained helpless during the action, despite the efforts of the Leander and La Mutine brig to get her off. She served, however, as a beacon to the Alexander and Swiftsure.

The latter ship, on entering the bay, fell in with the drifting and disabled Bellerophon, which was at first supposed to be one of the enemy, because she did not show the signal ordered by Nelson to be hoisted by his ships at the mizzen peak. This arose, of course, from the masts having been shot away. Captain Hallowell wisely refrained from firing on her, saying that, if she was an enemy, she was too much disabled to escape. He passed on, therefore, and, as we have said, took the station and the duty from which the other had been driven.

The huge L’Orient was now surrounded. Captain Ball, in the Alexander, anchored on her larboard quarter, and, besides raking her with his guns, kept up a steady fire of musketry on her decks. Captain Thomson also, in the Leander, took up such a position that he could fire into her and the Franklin at the same time.

Standing in the midst of death and destruction, the hero of the Nile did not escape scathless. He remained unhurt, however, until he knew that victory was certain. The first and second ships of the enemy’s line were disabled, as we have said, at the commencement of the action, and the third, fourth, and fifth were taken between eight and nine; so that Nelson could not have much, if any, doubt as to the issue of the battle.

Suddenly he received a wound on the head from a piece of langridge shot, and fell into the arms of Captain Berry. A large flap of skin was cut from the bone and fell over his sound eye,—the other having been lost in a previous engagement. The flow of blood was very great, and, being thus totally blinded, he thought that he had received a mortal wound. He was immediately carried down to the cockpit.

The cockpit of a man-of-war lies in that part of the ship which is below water, and is never visited by the light of day. Being safe also from the visitation of shot or shell, it has been selected as the place to which the wounded are conveyed during an action to have their wounds dressed and limbs amputated by the surgeons—whose hands at such seasons are, as may easily be supposed, much too full. No pen can describe adequately the horrors of that dimly-lighted place, with its flickering lights, glittering knives, bloody tables and decks, and mangled men, whose groans of agony burst forth in spite of their utmost efforts to repress them. Here, in the midst of dead, dying, and suffering men, the great Admiral sat down to wait his turn.

The surgeon was engaged in dressing the wounds of a sailor when he was brought down. On learning who it was that required his services, he quitted the man who was under his hands. “No,” said Nelson, refusing his proffered assistance, “no; I will take my turn with my brave fellows.” Accordingly, there he remained, persistently refusing aid, until every man who had been previously wounded had been attended to! When his turn came, it was found that his wound was merely superficial and heartfelt was the joy expressed by the wounded men and the crew of the Vanguard when this was made known.

But before this had been ascertained, and while he believed himself to be dying, Nelson called the chaplain, and gave him his last remembrance to Lady Nelson, appointed a successor to Captain Berry, who was to go to England with the news of the victory, and made other arrangements in anticipation of his death. But his hour had not yet come. When the surgeon pronounced his hurt to be superficial, he refused to take the rest which was recommended, and at once sent for his secretary to write despatches.

While he was thus engaged, a cry was heard which rose above the din of battle, proclaiming that the L’Orient was on fire. In the confusion that followed, Nelson found his way upon deck unassisted, and, to the astonishment of every one, appeared on the quarter-deck, and gave orders to lower the boats, and send relief to the enemy.

But before describing the scene that followed, we shall turn aside for a little to watch more closely the proceedings of Captain Westcott in the Majestic, and the personal deeds of Bill Bowls and his messmates.

Chapter Seven.

Battle of the Nile—continued.

The Majestic was one of the four ships which sailed into action in the wake of the Admiral. Our hero, Bill Bowls, and his friend Ben Bolter, were stationed at one of the guns on the larboard side of the main deck. Flinders stood near them. Everything was prepared for action. The guns were loaded, the men, stripped to the waist, stood ready, and the matches were lighted, but as yet no order had been given to fire. The men on the larboard side of the ship stood gazing anxiously through the portholes at the furious strife in which they were about to engage.

“Ah, then! but it’s hot work is goin’ on,” said Flinders, turning to Ben Bolter just after a crash of artillery somewhat louder than usual.

“It’s hotter work ye’ll see soon, when the Admiral gits into action,” said Ben.

“True for ye,” answered Flinders; “he’s a broth of a boy for fightin’. It’s an Irishman he should have been born. Hooroo, my hearties! look out!”

This latter exclamation was drawn forth by the crashing of a stray shot, which entered the ship close to the spot where they stood, and passed out on the starboard side, sending splinters of wood flying in all directions, without hurting any one.

“There goes the first!” said Bill Bowls, looking up at the ragged hole that was left.

“Faix, but it’s not the last!” cried Flinders, as another stray shot hit the ship, wounding one of the men, and sending a splinter so close past the Irishman that it grazed his cheek. “Hooroo, boys! come on, the more the merrier! Sure it’s death or victory we’ll be havin’ in half-an-hour.”

At this moment of intense excitement and expectation, when every man’s nerves tingled to be called into vigorous action, Ben Bolter saw fit to give Flinders a lecture.

“Ye shouldn’t ought to speak misrespectful of death, boy,” said he gravely. “He’s a rough customer when he gits hold of ’e, an’ is sartin sure to have the upper hand. It’s my opinion that he’ll pay this ship a pretty stiff visit to-night, so you’d better treat him with respect, an’ belay yer jokin’—of which yer countrymen are over fond.”

To this Flinders listened with a humorous expression about the corners of his eyes, while he stroked his chin, and awaited a pause in order to make a suitable reply, but an exclamation from Bill Bowls changed the subject abruptly.

“Ho! boys,” he cried, “there goes the Admiral.”

A tremendous crash followed his words, and the Vanguard was seen to pour a broadside into the Spartiate—as before related.

The men of the Majestic gazed eagerly at the Admiral’s ship, which was almost enveloped in thick smoke as they passed ahead, but an order from Captain Westcott to be ready for action called the attention of every man on his duty. Whatever might have been, at that moment, the thoughts of the hundreds of men on board the Majestic, the whole soul and body of every man appeared to be concentrated on his own gun, as he awaited in stern silence the order to act.

It came at last, but somewhat differently from what had been expected. A sudden and peculiar motion was felt in the ship, and it was found that she had got entangled with the main rigging of one of the French vessels astern of the L’Orient. Instantly men were sent aloft to cut clear, but before this could be accomplished a perfect storm of shot and shell was sent into them from the towering sides of the three-decker. Men fell on all sides before they had an opportunity of firing a shot; again and again the crushing shower of metal came; spars and masts fell; the rigging was cut up terribly, and in a short time the Majestic would certainly have been sunk had she not fortunately managed to swing clear. A moment afterwards Captain Westcott, finding himself close alongside the Heureux—the ninth ship of the enemy’s line—gave the word to open fire, and Bill Bowls had at last the satisfaction of being allowed to apply a light to the touch-hole of his gun. Seventy-four men had for some time past felt their fingers itching with an almost irresistible desire to do this, and now upwards of thirty of them were allowed to gratify their wish. Instantly the good ship received a shock that caused her to quiver from the trucks to the keel, as her broadside went crashing into the Heureux.

No longer was there impatient inaction on board the Majestic, for not only did the Heureux reply vigorously, but the Tonnant—the eighth of the enemy’s line—opened fire on their other side. The Majestic therefore fought on both sides. Throughout the whole ship the stalwart, half-naked men heaved at the huge guns. Everywhere, from stem to stern, was exhibited in full swing the active processes of sponging out, passing along powder and ball, ramming home the charges, running out, working the handspikes, stepping aside to avoid the recoil—and the whole operation of working the guns, as only British seamen know how to work them! All this was done in the midst of smoke, flame, crashing shot, and flying splinters, while the decks were slippery with human blood, and strewn with dead men, from amongst whom the wounded were raised as tenderly as the desperate circumstances in which they were placed would admit of, and carried below. Many of those who were thus raised never reached the cockpit, but again fell, along with those who bore them.

One of the men at the gun where Bill Bowls was at work was in the act of handing a round shot to Bill, when a ball entered the port-hole and hit him on the head, scattering his brains over the gun. Bill sprang forward to catch him in his arms, but slipped on the bloody deck and fell. That fall saved his life, for at the same moment a musket ball entered the port and passed close over his head, shattering the arm of a poor boy—one of those brave little fellows called powder-monkeys—who was in the act of carrying a cartridge to Ben Bolter. Ben could not delay the loading of the piece to assist the little fellow, who used his remaining strength to stagger forward and deliver the cartridge before he fell, but he shouted hastily to a passing shipmate—

“Here, Davis, carry this poor little chap to the cockpit.”

Davis turned and took the boy in his arms. He had almost reached the main hatchway when a shell entered the ship and burst close to him. One fragment killed the boy, and another almost cut Davis in two. They fell and died together.

For a long time this terrible firing at short range went on, and many men fell on both sides. Among others, Captain Westcott was killed. He was the only captain who fell in that battle, and was one who, had his life been spared, would certainly have risen to the highest rank in the service. He had “risen from the ranks,” having been the son of a baker in Devonshire, and gained the honourable station in which he lost his life solely through his conspicuous abilities and courage.

Up to this point none of those who are principally concerned in this tale had received any hurt, beyond a few insignificant scratches, but soon after the death of the little boy, Tom Riggles received a severe wound in the leg from a splinter. He was carried below by Bill and Ben.

“It’s all over with me,” he said in a desponding tone as they went slowly down the ladders; “I knows it’ll be a case o’ ampitation.”

“Don’t you go for to git down-hearted, Tom,” said Ben earnestly. “You’re too tough to be killed easy.”

“Well, I is tough, but wot’ll toughness do for a feller agin iron shot. I feels just now as if a red-hot skewer wos rumblin’ about among the marrow of my back-bone, an’ I’ve got no feelin’ in my leg at all. Depend upon it, messmates, it’s a bad case.”

His comrades did not reply, because they had reached the gloomy place where the surgeons were engaged at their dreadful work. They laid Tom down on a locker.

“Good-bye, lads,” said Tom, as they were about to turn away, “p’r’aps I’ll not see ye again, so give us a shake o’ yer flippers.”

Bill and Ben silently squeezed their comrade’s hand, being unable to speak, and then hastened back to their stations.

It was about this time that the L’Orient caught fire, and when Bill and his friend reached the deck, sheets of flame were already leaping out at the port-holes of the gigantic ship. The sides of the L’Orient had been recently painted, and the paint-buckets and oil-jars which stood on the poop soon caught, and added brilliancy to the great conflagration which speedily followed the first outbreak of fire. It was about nine o’clock when the fire was first observed. Before this the gallant French Admiral had perished. Although three times wounded, Brueys refused to quit his post. At length a shot almost cut him in two, but still he refused to go below, and desired to be left to die on his quarter-deck. He was spared the pain of witnessing the destruction of his vessel.

Soon the flames got the mastery, and blazing upward like a mighty torch, threw a strong and appropriate light over the scene of battle. The greater part of the crew of the L’Orient displayed a degree of courage which could not be surpassed, for they stuck to their guns to the very last; continuing to fire from the lower deck while the fire was raging above them, although they knew full well the dire and instantaneous destruction that must ensue when the fire reached the magazine.

The position and flags of the two fleets were now clearly seen, for it was almost as light as day, and the fight went on with unabated fury until about ten o’clock, when, with a terrific explosion, the L’Orient blew up. So tremendous was the shock that it seemed to paralyse the combatants for a little, for both fleets ceased to fire, and there ensued a profound silence, which continued for some time. The first sound that broke the solemn stillness was the splash of the falling spars of the giant ship as they descended from the immense height to which they had been shot!

Of the hundreds of human beings who manned that ship, scarcely a tithe were saved. About seventy were rescued by English boats. The scattered and burning fragments fell around like rain, and there was much fear lest these should set some of the neighbouring vessels on fire. Two large pieces of burning wreck fell into the Swiftsure, and a port fire into the Alexander, but these were quickly extinguished.

On board the Majestic also, some portions of burning material fell. While these were being extinguished, one of the boats was ordered out to do all that was possible to save the drowning Frenchmen. Among the first to jump into this boat were Bill Bowls and Ben Bolter. Bill took the bow oar, Ben the second, and in a few moments they were pulling cautiously amid the débris of the wreck, helping to haul on board such poor fellows as they could get hold of. The work was difficult, because comparative darkness followed the explosion, and as the fight was soon resumed, the thunder of heavy guns, together with the plunging of ball, exploding of shell, and whizzing of chain-shot overhead, rendered the service one of danger as well as difficulty.

It was observed by the men of the Majestic’s boat that several French boats were moving about on the same errand of mercy with themselves, and it was a strange as well as interesting sight to see those who, a few minutes before, had been bent on taking each other’s lives, now as earnestly engaged in the work of saving life!

“Back your starboard oars,” shouted Ben, just as they passed one of the French boats; “there’s a man swimming on the port bow—that’s it; steady; lend a hand, Bill; now then, in with him.”

A man was hoisted over the gunwale as he spoke, and the boat passed onward. Just then a round shot from one of the more distant ships of the fleet—whether English or French they could not tell—struck the water a few yards from them, sending a column of spray high into the air. Instead of sinking, the shot ricochetted from the water and carried away the bow of the boat in passing, whirling it round and almost overturning it. At the same moment the sea rushed in and swamped it, leaving the crew in the water.

Our hero made an involuntary grasp at the thing that happened to be nearest him. This was the head of his friend Ben Bolter, who had been seated on the thwart in front of him. Ben returned the grasp promptly, and having somehow in the confusion of the plunge, taken it into his head that he was in the grasp of a Frenchman, he endeavoured to throttle Bill. Bill, not being easily throttled, forthwith proceeded to choke Ben, and a struggle ensued which might have ended fatally for both, had not a piece of wreck fortunately touched Ben on the shoulder. He seized hold of it, Bill did the same, and then they set about the fight with more precision.

“Come on, ye puddock-eater!” cried Ben, again seizing Bill by the throat.

“Hallo, Ben!”

“Why, wot—is’t you, Bill? Well, now, if I didn’t take ’e for a Mounseer!”

Before more could be said a boat was observed rowing close past them. Ben hailed it.

“Ho!” cried a voice, as the men rested on their oars and listened.

“Lend a hand, shipmates,” cried Ben, “on yer port bow.”

The oars were dipped at once, the boat ranged up, and the two men were assisted into it.

“It’s all well as ends well, as I’ve heerd the play-actors say,” observed Ben Bolter, as he shook the water from his garments. “I say, lads, what ship do you belong to?”

“Ve has de honair to b’long to Le Guillaume Tell,” replied one of the men.

“Hallo, Bill!” whispered Ben, “it’s a French boat, an’ we’re nabbed. Prisoners o’ war, as sure as my name’s BB! Wot’s to be done?”

“I’ll make a bolt, sink or swim,” whispered our hero.

“You vill sit still,” said the man who had already spoken to them, laying a hand on Bill’s shoulder.

Bill jumped up and made a desperate attempt to leap overboard, but two men seized him. Ben sprang to the rescue instantly, but he also was overpowered by numbers, and the hands of both were tied behind their backs. A few minutes later and they were handed up the side of the French ship.

When day broke on the morning of the 2nd of August, the firing still continued, but it was comparatively feeble, for nearly every ship of the French fleet had been taken. Only the Guillaume Tell and the Genereux—the two rear ships of the enemy—had their colours flying.

These, with two frigates, cut their cables and stood out to sea. The Zealous pursued, but as there was no other British ship in a fit state to support her, she was recalled; the four vessels, therefore, escaped at that time, but they were captured not long afterwards. Thus ended the famous battle of the Nile, in regard to which Nelson said that it was a “conquest” rather than a victory.

Of thirteen sail of the line, nine were taken and two burnt; and two of their four frigates were burnt. The British loss in killed and wounded amounted to 896; that of the French was estimated at 2000.

The victory was most complete. The French fleet was annihilated. As might be supposed, the hero of the Nile was, after this, almost worshipped as a demigod. It is worthy of remark here that Nelson, as soon as the conquest was completed, sent orders through the fleet that thanksgiving should be returned, in every ship, to Almighty God, for the victory with which He had blessed His Majesty’s arms.

Chapter Eight.

Our Hero and his Messmate get into Trouble.

On the night after the battle, Bill Bowls and Ben Bolter were sent on board a French transport ship.

As they sat beside each other, in irons, and securely lodged under hatches, these stout men of war lamented their hard fate thus—

“I say, Bill, this is wot I calls a fix!”

“That’s so, Ben—a bad fix.”

There was silence for a few minutes, then Ben resumed—

“Now, d’ye see, this here war may go on for ever so long—years it may be—an’ here we are on our way to a French prison, where we’ll have the pleasure, mayhap, of spendin’ our youth in twirlin’ our thumbs or bangin’ our heads agin the bars of our cage.”

“There ain’t a prison in France as’ll hold me,” said Bill Bowls resolutely.

“No? how d’ye ’xpect to git out—seein’ that the walls and doors ain’t made o’ butter, nor yet o’ turnips?” inquired Ben.

“I’ll go up the chimbley,” said Bill savagely, for his mind had reverted to Nelly Blyth, and he could not bear to think of prolonged imprisonment.

“But wot if they’ve got no chimbleys?”

“I’ll try the winders.”

“But if the winders is tight barred, wot then?”

“Why, then, I’ll bust ’em, or I’ll bust myself, that’s all.”

“Humph!” ejaculated Ben.

Again there was a prolonged silence, during which the friends moodily meditated on the dark prospects before them.

“If we could only have bin killed in action,” said Bill, “that would have been some comfort.”

“Not so sure o’ that, messmate,” said Ben. “There’s no sayin’ wot may turn up. P’r’aps the war will end soon, an’ that’s not onlikely, for we’ve whipped the Mounseers on sea, an’ it won’t be difficult for our lobsters to lick ’em on land. P’r’aps there’ll be an exchange of prisoners, an’ we may have a chance of another brush with them one o’ these days. If the wust comes to the wust, we can try to break out o’ jail and run a muck for our lives. Never say die is my motto.”

Bill Bowls did not assent to these sentiments in words, but he clenched his fettered hands, set his teeth together, and gave his comrade a look which assured him that whatever might be attempted he would act a vigorous part.

A few days later the transport entered a harbour, and a guard came on board to take charge of the prisoners, of whom there were about twenty. As they were being led to the jail of the town, Bill whispered to his comrade—

“Look out sharp as ye go along, Ben, an’ keep as close to me as ye can.”

“All right, my lad,” muttered Ben, as he followed the soldiers who specially guarded himself.

Ben did not suppose that Bill intended then and there to make a sudden struggle for freedom, because he knew that, with fettered wrists, in a strange port, the very name of which they did not know, and surrounded by armed enemies, such an attempt would be utterly hopeless; he therefore concluded, correctly, that his companion wished him to take the bearings (as he expressed it) of the port, and of the streets through which they should pass. Accordingly he kept his “weather-eye open.”

The French soldiers who conducted the seamen to prison, although stout athletic fellows, and, doubtless, capable of fighting like heroes, were short of stature, so that the British tars looked down on them with a patronising expression of countenance, and one or two even ventured on a few facetious remarks. Bill Bowls and Ben Bolter, who both measured above six feet in their stockings, towered above the crowd like two giants.

“It’s a purty place intirely,” said an Irish sailor, with a smiling countenance, looking round upon the houses, and nodding to a group of pretty girls who were regarding the prisoners with looks of pity. “What may be the name of it, av I may make bowld to inquire?”

The question was addressed to the soldier on his right, but the man paid no attention. So the Irishman repeated it, but without drawing forth a reply.

“Sure, yer a paltry thing that can’t give a civil answer to a civil question.”

“He don’t understand Irish, Pat, try him with English,” said Ben Bolter.

“Ah, then,” said Pat, “ye’d better try that yersilf, only yer so high up there he won’t be able to hear ye.”

Before Ben had an opportunity of trying the experiment, however, they had arrived at the jail. After they had passed in, the heavy door was shut with a clang, and bolted and barred behind them.

It is probable that not one of the poor fellows who heard the sound, escaped a sensation of sinking at the heart, but certain it is that not one condescended to show his feelings in his looks.

They were all put into a large empty room, the window of which looked into a stone passage, which was itself lighted from the roof; the door was shut, locked, bolted, and barred, and they were left to their meditations.

They had not remained long there, however, when the bolts and bars were heard moving again.

“What say ’e to a rush, lads?” whispered one of the men eagerly.

“Agreed,” said Bill Bowls, starting forward; “I’ll lead you, boys.”

“No man can fight with his hands tied,” growled one of the others. “You’ll only be spoilin’ a better chance, mayhap.”

At that moment the last bolt was withdrawn, and the door swung open, revealing several files of soldiers with muskets, and bayonets fixed, in the passage. This sight decided the question of a rush!

Four of the soldiers entered with the turnkey. The latter, going up to Bill Bowls and Ben Bolter, said to them in broken English:—

“You follows de soldat.”

Much surprised, but in silence, they obeyed the command.

As they were going out, one of their comrades said, “Good-bye, mates: it’s plain they’ve taken ye for admirals on account o’ yer size!”

“Niver a taste,” said the Irishman before mentioned, “’tis bein’ led, they are, to exekooshion—”

The remainder of this consolatory suggestion was cut off by the shutting of the door.

After traversing several passages, the turnkey stopped before a small door studded with iron nails, and, selecting one of his huge keys, opened it, while the soldiers ranged up on either side.

The turnkey, who was a tall, powerful man, stepped back, and, looking at Bill, pointed to the cell with his finger, as much as to say, “Go in.”

Bill looked at him and at the soldiers for a moment, clenched his fists, and drew his breath short, but as one of the guard quietly brought his musket to the charge, he heaved a sigh, bent his head, and, passing under the low doorway, entered the cell.

“Are we to stop long here, Mister Turnkey?” asked Ben, as he was about to follow.

The man vouchsafed no reply, but again pointed to the cell.

“I’ve always heered ye wos a purlite nation,” said Ben, as he followed his messmate; “but there’s room for improvement.”

The door was shut, and the two friends stood for a few minutes in the centre of their cell, gazing in silence around the blank walls.

The appearance of their prison was undoubtedly depressing, for there was nothing whatever in it to arrest the eye, except a wooden bench in one corner, and the small grated window which was situated near the top of one of the walls.

“What d’ye think o’ this?” asked Ben, after some time, sitting down on the bench.

“I think I won’t be able to stand it,” said Bill, flinging himself recklessly down beside his friend, and thrusting his hands deep into his trouser pockets.

“Don’t take on so bad, messmate,” said Ben, in a reproving tone. “Gittin’ sulky with fate ain’t no manner o’ use. As our messmate Flinders used to say, ‘Be aisy, an’ if ye can’t be aisy, be as aisy as ye can.’ There’s wot I calls sound wisdom in that.”

“Very true, Ben; nevertheless the sound wisdom in that won’t avail to get us out o’ this.”

“No doubt, but it’ll help us to bear this with equablenimity while we’re here, an’ set our minds free to think about the best way o’ makin’ our escape.”

At this Bill made an effort to throw off the desperate humour which had taken possession of him, and he so far succeeded that he was enabled to converse earnestly with his friend.

“Wot are we to do?” asked Bill gloomily.

“To see, first of all, what lies outside o’ that there port-hole,” answered Ben. “Git on my shoulders, Bill, an’ see if ye can reach it.”

Ben stood against the wall, and his friend climbed on his shoulders, but so high was the window, that he could not reach to within a foot of it. They overcame this difficulty, however, by dragging the bench to the wall, and standing upon it.

“I see nothin’,” said Bill, “but the sky an’ the sea, an’ the prison-yard, which appears to me to be fifty or sixty feet below us.”

“That’s not comfortin’,” observed Ben, as he replaced the bench in its corner.

“What’s your advice now?” asked Bill.

“That we remain on our good behaviour a bit,” replied Ben, “an’ see wot they means to do with us, an’ whether a chance o’ some sort won’t turn up.”

“Well, that’s a good plan—anyhow, it’s an easy one to begin with—so we’ll try it for a day or two.”

In accordance with this resolve, the two sailors called into play all the patience, prudence, and philosophy of which they were possessed, and during the three days that followed their incarceration, presented such a meek, gentle, resigned aspect; that the stoniest heart of the most iron-moulded turnkey ought to have been melted; but the particular turnkey of that prison was made of something more or less than mortal mould, for he declined to answer questions,—declined even to open his lips, or look as if he heard the voices of his prisoners, and took no notice of them farther than to fetch their food at regular intervals and take away the empty plates. He, however, removed their manacles; but whether of his own good-will or by order they did not know.

“Now, Ben,” said Bill on the evening of the third day, as they sat beside each other twirling their thumbs, “this here sort o’ thing will never do. I mean for to make a dash when the turnkey comes in the mornin’; will you help me?”

“I’m yer man,” said Ben; “but how d’ye mean to set about it?”

“Well, somewhat in this fashion:— W’enever he opens the door I’ll clap my hand on his mouth to stop his pipe, and you’ll slip behind him, throw yer arms about him, and hold on till I tie a handkerchief over his mouth. Arter that we’ll tie his hands and feet with whatever we can git hold of—his own necktie, mayhap—take the keys from him, and git out the best way we can.”

“H’m; but wot if we don’t know the right turnin’s to take, an’ run straight into the jaws of other turnkeys, p’r’aps, or find other doors an’ gates that his bunch o’ keys won’t open?”

“Why, then, we’ll just fail, that’s all; an’ if they should scrag us for it, no matter.”

“It’s a bad look-out, but I’ll try,” said Ben.

Next morning this plan was put in execution. When the turnkey entered the cell, Bill seized him and clapped his hand on his mouth. The man struggled powerfully, but Ben held him in a grasp so tight that he was as helpless as an infant.

“Keep yer mind easy, Mounseer, we won’t hurt ’e,” said Ben, while his comrade was busy gagging him.

“Now, then, lift him into the corner,” whispered Bill.

Ben and he carried the turnkey, whom they had tied hand and foot with handkerchiefs and neckties, into the interior of the cell, left him there, locked the door on him, and immediately ran along the passage, turned a corner, and came in sight of an iron grating, on the other side of which sat a man in a dress similar to that of the turnkey they had left behind them. They at once drew back and tried to conceal themselves, but the man had caught sight of them, and gave the alarm.

Seeing that their case was desperate, Bill rushed at the grating with all his force and threw himself heavily against it. The whole building appeared to quiver with the shock; but the caged tiger has a better chance of smashing his iron bars than poor Bill Bowls had. Twice he flung his whole weight against the barrier, and the second time Ben helped him; but their efforts were in vain. A moment later and a party of soldiers marched up to the grating on the outside. At the same time a noise was heard at the other end of the passage. Turning round, the sailors observed that another gate had been opened, and a party of armed men admitted, who advanced with levelled muskets.

Seeing this, Bill burst into a bitter laugh, and flung down the keys with a force that caused the long passage to echo again, as he exclaimed—

“It’s all up with us, Ben. We may as well give in at once.”

“That’s so,” said Ben sadly, as he suffered himself to be handcuffed, after which he and his companion in misfortune were conducted back to their cell.

Chapter Nine.

Bill and Ben set their Brains to Steep with Unconquerable Perseverance.

In its slow but steady revolution, the wheel of fortune had now apparently brought Bill Bowls and Ben Bolter to the lowest possible point; and the former of these worthies consoled himself with the reflection that, as things could scarcely get worse with them, it was probable they would get better. His friend disputed this point.

“It’s all very well,” said Ben, crossing his legs and clasping his hands over his knees, as he swayed himself to and fro, “to talk about havin’ come to the wust; but we’ve not got to that p’int by a long way. Why, suppose that, instead o’ bein’ here, sound in wind and limb, though summat unfort’nate in regard to the matter o’ liberty,—suppose, I say, that we wos lyin’ in hospital with our right legs an’ mayhap our left arms took off with a round shot.”

“Oh, if you go for to supposin’,” said Bill, “you may suppose anything. Why not suppose at once that we was lyin’ in hospital with both legs and arms took off by round shot, an’ both eyes put out with canister, an’ our heads an’ trunks carried away by grape-shot?”

“I didn’t suppose that,” said Ben quietly, “because that would be the best instead o’ the wust state we could come to, seein’ that we’d know an’ care nothin’ about it. Hows’ever, here we are, low enough, an’ havin’ made an assault on the turnkey, it’s not likely we’ll get much favour at the hands of the Mounseers; so it comes to this, that we must set our brains to steep, an’ see if we can’t hit upon some dodge or other to escape.”

“That’s what we must do,” assented Bill Bowls, knitting his brows, and gazing abstractedly at the blank wall opposite. “To git out o’ this here stone jug is what I’ve set my heart on, so the sooner we set about it the better.”

“Just so,” said Ben. “Well, then, let’s begin. Wot d’ye propose fust?”

To this Bill replied that he must think over it. Accordingly, he did think over it, and his comrade assisted him, for the space of three calendar months, without any satisfactory result. But the curious thing about it was that, while these men revolved in their minds every conceivable plan with unflagging eagerness, and were compelled to give up each, after brooding over it for a considerable time, finding that it was unworkable, they were not dispirited, but rather became more intense in their meditations, and ingenious as well as hopeful in their devisings.

“If we could only git hold of a file to cut a bar o’ the winder with, an’ a rope to let ourselves down with, I think we could manage to git over the walls somehow.”

“If we was to tear our jackets, trousers, vests, and shirts into strips, an’ make a rope of ’em, it might be long enough,” suggested Bill.

“That’s so, boy, but as we would be stark naked before we got it finished, I fear the turnkey would suspec’ there wos somethin’ wrong somehow.”

Ben Bolter sighed deeply as he spoke, because at that moment a ray of sunshine shot through the little window, and brought the free fresh air and the broad blue sea vividly to his remembrance. For the first time he experienced a deep sinking of the heart, and he looked at his comrade with an expression of something like despair.

“Cheer up,” said Bill, observing and thoroughly understanding the look. “Never say die, as long as there’s a—shot—in—”

He was too much depressed and listless to finish the sentence.

“I wonder,” resumed Ben, “if the Mounseers treat all their prisoners of war as bad as they treat us.”

“Don’t think they do,” replied Bill. “I’ve no doubt it’s ’cause we sarved ’em as we did when they first put us in quod.”

“Oh, if they would only give us summat to do!” exclaimed Ben, with sudden vehemence.

It seemed as if the poor fellow’s prayer were directly answered, for at that moment the door opened, and the governor, or some other official of the prison, entered the cell.

“You must vork,” he said, going up to Bill.

“We’ll be only too glad to work, yer honour, if you’ll give us work to do.”

“Ver’ good; fat can you vork?”

“We can turn handy to a’most anything, yer honour,” said Ben eagerly.

It turned out, however, after a considerable amount of talk, that, beyond steering a ship, reefing topsails, splicing ropes, tying every species of complex knot, and other nautical matters, the two seamen could not claim to be professionally acquainted with any sort of handicraft. Somewhat discomfited, Ben at last said with a perplexed air—

“Well, yer honour, we’ll try anything ye choose to put us at. I had a brother once who was a sort of tinker to trade, an’ great at mendin’ pots, pans, old umbrellas, and the like. I wos used to help him when a boy. P’r’aps if yer honour, now, has got a old umbrella as wants refittin’, I might try my hand on that.”

The governor smiled. “Vell, I do tink I have von old omberilla. You sall try for to mend him.”

Next day saw Bill and Ben surrounded by tools, scraps of wood and whalebone, bits of brass and tin, etcetera, busy as bees, and as happy as any two children who have invented a new game.

Ben mended the umbrella admirably. At the same time, Bill fashioned and carved two or three paper-knives of wood with great neatness. But when it was discovered that they could sew sail-cloth expeditiously and well, a quantity of that material was given to them, and they were ordered to make sacks. They set to work accordingly, and made sack after sack until they grew so wearied of the monotonous work that Ben said it made him wish to sit down in sackcloth and ashes; whereupon Bill remarked that if the Mounseers would only give them the sack altogether, it would be very much to their credit.

Soon the imprisoned mariners began again to plot and plan their escape. Of course they thought of making ropes of the sail-cloth and twine with which they wrought, but as the turnkey took the material away every night, and brought it back every morning, they gave up this idea, as they had given up many other ideas before.

At last, one afternoon, Bill looked up from his work, hit his thigh a slap which produced a pistol-shot crack that echoed up into the high ceiling of the cell, as he exclaimed, “I’ve got it!”

“I hope you’ll give us a bit of it, then,” said Ben, “if it’s worth havin’.”

“I’ll give you the benefit of it, anyhow,” said Bill, throwing down his tools and eagerly beginning to expound the new plan which had struck him and caused him to strike his thigh. It was to this effect:—

That they should beg the turnkey to let them have another old umbrella to work at by way of recreation, as the sack-making was rather monotonous; that, if they should be successful in prevailing on him to grant their request, they should work at the umbrella very slowly, so as to give them time to carry out their plan, which was to form a sort of parachute by adding sail-cloth round the margin of the umbrella so as to extend it to twice its circumference. After it should be finished they were to seize a fitting opportunity, cut the bars of their window, and, with the machine, leap down into the yard below.

“Wot!” exclaimed Ben, “jump together!”

“Ay, why not, Ben? Sink or swim, together, boy.”

“Very true, but I’ve got my doubts about flyin’ together. Better do it one at a time, and send the umbrella up by means of a piece of twine.”

“Well, we might do it in that way,” said Bill; “but what d’ye think o’ the plan?”

“Fuss rate,” said Ben, “we’ll try it at once.”

In accordance with this resolution, Ben made his petition that night, very humbly, to the turnkey, who at first turned a deaf ear to him, but was finally prevailed on to fetch them one of his own umbrellas to be repaired. It happened to be a very large one of the good old stout and bulgy make, and in this respect was the better suited to their purpose. All the tools necessary for the work of repair were supplied except a file. This, however, was brought to them, when Ben pointed out, with much earnestness, that if he had such an implement he could clean up and beautify the ivory handle to such an extent that its owner would not recognise it.

This device of improving the ivory handle turned out to be a happy hit, for it enabled Ben to keep the umbrella much longer by him than would otherwise have been possible, for the purpose of covering it with elaborate and really beautiful carving, the progress of which was watched by the turnkey with much interest from day to day.

Having gained their end the sailors wrought with indefatigable zeal, and resolutely overcame the difficulties that met them from time to time. Each day they dragged the bench under the window. Ben got upon it, and Bill climbed on his shoulders, by which means he could just reach the iron grating of the window, and there, for half-an-hour at a time, he cautiously used the file. They thought this enough of time to bestow on the work, because the bars could be easily filed through before the parachute was ready.

In the preparation of the umbrella, the first difficulty that met them was how they were to conceal their private work when the turnkey came in the evenings to take away their materials for sack-making. After some examination they discovered a plank in the floor, in the corner where they were wont to sleep, which was loose and easily forced up with one of Bill’s unfinished paper-knives, which he made very strong for this special purpose! Beneath there was sufficient room to stow away the cloth with which they fashioned the additional breadth to the umbrella. To have cabbaged at one time all the sail-cloth that was required would have risked discovery; they therefore appropriated small scraps each day, and sewed these neatly together until they had enough. Soon they had a ring of canvas formed, into the centre of which the umbrella fitted exactly, and this ring was so cut and sewn in gores that it formed a continuation of the umbrella, which was thus made to spread out and cover a space of about nine or ten feet in diameter. All round the extremity or margin of the ring, cords of twisted twine were fixed, at intervals of about six inches. There were about sixty of these cords or stays, all of which met and were fastened at the end of the handle. A stout line, made of four-ply twine, was fastened at the top of the umbrella, and passing through a small hole in it was tied round the whalebones inside, and twisted down the stick to the handle, to which it was firmly secured. By this means the whole machine was, as it were, bound together.

All these additionals and fixings had, however, to be so constructed that they could be removed, or affixed with some rapidity, for there was always before the sailors the chance that the turnkey might look in to observe how their work was progressing.

Indeed one afternoon they were almost discovered at work on the parachute. The turnkey was heard coming along the passage when Ben was in the act of fitting on the new appendages, and the key was actually in the door before the last shred of them was thrust into the hole in the floor, and the loose plank shut down! Ben immediately flung several of the sacks over the place, and then turning suddenly round on his comrade began to pommel him soundly by way of accounting for the flushed condition of his countenance.

Thus taken by surprise, Bill returned the blows with interest, and the combatants were separated by the turnkey when in a rather breathless condition!

“If you do so more agin, you sall go separate,” said the turnkey.

The mere thought of separation at such a moment struck like a chill to the hearts of the sailors, who forthwith shook hands, and vowed earnestly that they would “never do it again.” In order to conciliate the man, Ben took up the umbrella, and pointing to the beautifully carved handle said—

“You see it’s all but finished, and I’m very anxious to git it done, so if you’ll let me keep it by me all to-night, I’ll work as long as I can see, and be at it the first thing in the morning.”

The man, pleased at the unusual interest which Ben took in the worn-out piece of goods, agreed to let him keep it by him. After carrying away all the other materials, and looking round to see that all was right, he locked them up for the night.

Left to themselves, they at once began to prepare for action. They drew forth all the different parts of the parachute (for such it really was, although the machine so named had never been seen, but only heard of, by the seamen), and disposed them in such a manner beside the hole in the floor as to be ready at a moment’s notice, either to be fitted on to the umbrella or thrust back into the place of concealment.

Their manacles had been taken off at the time they began to work, so that these were no longer impediments in the way.

“Now, Bill, are the bars sure to give way, d’ye think?”

“Sartin sure,” said Bill; “they’re holdin’ by nothin’ thicker than a pin.”

“Very good, then, let’s go to work. In an hour or so it will be dark enough to try our flyin’ machine, and then good-bye to France—or to the world. It’s neck or nothin’, d’ye see?”

“All right,” answered Bill.

They sat down to work in good earnest. The spreading rim of canvas, instead of being tagged on as on former occasions, was now sewn securely to the umbrella, and when the latter was expanded, the canvas hung down all round it, and the numerous stays hung quite loose. Ben expected that the rapidity of the descent would suddenly expand this appendage, and check the speed. The ends of the loose cords were gathered up and fastened to the handle, as was also the binding-cord before referred to—all of which was done with that thoroughness of workmanship for which sailors are celebrated.

Then a stout cord was fastened to one of the stanchions of the window, which had been left uncut for the purpose.

When everything was ready the adventurous sailors began to experience all the anxiety which is inseparable from an action involving much danger, liability to frustration, and requiring the utmost caution combined with energy.

They waited until they thought the night was at its darkest. When all sounds around them had ceased, they took off their shoes and carefully lifted the bench to the wall under the window. Ben went up first by mounting on Bill’s shoulders. With one powerful wrench he pulled the iron framework of the window into the room, and handed it down to Bill, who stooped a little and placed it gently against the wall. His comrade then thrust his head and shoulders out at the window, and while in that awkward position spread his jacket over the sill. This was intended to protect the cord which was fastened to the top of the umbrella, and by which it was to be drawn up after his descent.

When this was done, Bill clambered up by the cord which hung from the uncut stanchion, and pushed the umbrella past Ben’s body until he got hold of the end of it, and drew it out altogether. Bill then descended into the cell, having the small cord in his hand, and watched the motions of his comrade with intense anxiety.

The window was so small that Ben could barely get his head and shoulders through it. There was no possibility of his getting on his feet or his knees to make a leap. The only course that remained for him, therefore, was to expand the umbrella, hold on tight, and then wriggle out until he should lose his balance and fall head foremost! It was an awful position. Bold though the seaman was, and desperate the circumstances, his strong frame quivered when he gazed down and felt himself gradually toppling. The height he knew to be little short of sixty feet, but in the dark night it appeared an abyss of horrible profundity. A cold sweat broke out upon him, and for one moment he felt an almost irresistible tendency to let go the umbrella and clutch the window-sill, but he was too late. Like lightning he shot down for a couple of yards; then the parachute expanded and checked him with such violence, as he swung round, that he nearly lost his hold and was thrown into a horizontal position—first on one side, then on the other. Finally, he reached the ground with a shock that almost took away his breath. He sat still for a moment or two, then rose slowly and shook himself, to ascertain whether he were still alive and sound! Immediately after he examined the parachute, found it all right, and gave his comrade the signal—a couple of tugs at the cord—to haul up.

Bill was scarcely less agitated than his friend. He had seen Ben’s legs disappear with a suddenness that told eloquently of his having taken flight, and stood in the cell above listening intently, while large drops of perspiration coursed down his face. On feeling the tug at the string, a mountain appeared to be lifted off his chest. Carefully he pulled up the umbrella. When it showed its point above the window-sill he clambered up and went through the same terrible ordeal. He was not, however, so fortunate as his friend, for, when he jumped, three of the stays gave way, which had the effect of slightly deranging the motion of the umbrella, and he came to the ground with such violence that he lay stunned and motionless, leading his horrified comrade to fear that he was killed. In a few minutes, however, he revived, and, on examination, found that no bones had been broken.

“Now, Ben, what next?” said Bill, getting up, and giving himself a shake.

“The wall,” said Ben, “can’t be far from where we stand. If there wos only a bit of moonshine it would help us.”

“Better as it is,” whispered Bill, groping about, for the night was so intensely dark that it was scarcely possible to see a yard. “I knows the way to the harbour, if we only manage to get out.—Ah, here’s the wall, but it’s an oncommon high one!”

This was indeed too true. The top of the wall was faintly visible like a black line across the dark sky, and when Ben mounted on Bill’s shoulders, it was found that he could only reach to within three feet of the bristling iron spikes with which it was surmounted. For half-an-hour they groped about, and made the discovery that they were in a small enclosure with bare walls of fifteen feet in height around them, and not a projection of any kind large enough for a mouse to lay hold of! In these circumstances many men would have given way to despair; but that was a condition of mind which neither of our tars ever thought of falling into. In the course of their explorations they came against each other, and immediately began an animated conversation in whispers, the result of which was that they groped for the umbrella, and, having found it, cut off all the cords about it, with which they proceeded to plait a rope strong enough to bear their weight. They sat down in silence to the work, leaning against the prison wall, and wrought for a full hour with the diligence of men whose freedom depends on their efforts. When finished, the rope was found to be about a yard too short for their purpose; but this defect was remedied by means of the canvas of their parachute, which they tore up into strips, twisted into an additional piece of rope, and spliced it to the other. A large loop was made on the end of it. Going once more to the wall, Ben mounted on Bill’s shoulders, and threw the loop over the top of the wall; it caught, as had been expected, on one of the iron spikes. Ben then easily hauled himself up, hand over hand, and, getting hold of two spikes, raised himself so that he could see over the wall. Immediately after he descended.

“I sees nothin’, Bill, so we must just go over and take our chance.”

Bill agreed. Ben folded his coat, and ascending again, spread it over the spikes, so that he could lean on them with his chest without being pierced. Having re-ascended, Bill followed; the rope was then hauled up, and lowered on the other side. In another moment they slipped down, and stood on the ground.

“Now, the question is, where are we!” whispered Bill. “P’r’aps we’re only in another yard after all.”

The sound of footsteps pacing slowly towards them was heard at that moment.

“I do believe,” whispered Bill, in an excited tone, “that we’ve got into the street, an’ that’s the sentry. Let’s bolt.”

“We can’t bolt,” said Ben, “’cause, if I took my bearin’s right, he’s between us an’ the shore, an’ it would be of no manner o’ use boltin’ into the country to be hunted down like a couple of foxes.”

“Then we’ll floor him to begin with,” whispered Bill.

“That’s so,” said Ben.

The sentry approached, and the sailors drew up close against the wall. Presently his dark form became faintly visible. Bill rushed at him at once, and delivered a blow that might have felled an ox at the spot where he supposed his chest was, sending the man back almost heels over head, while his arms rattled on the pavement. Instantly there were heard the sounds of opening locks, bolts, and bars. The two friends fled, and shouts were heard behind them, while lights flashed in various directions.

“This way, Bill,” cried Ben, turning down a narrow lane to avoid a lamp which came in sight when they turned a corner. A couple of belated and drunken French fishermen happened to observe them, and gave chase. “Hold on, Ben, let’s drop, and trip ’em up,” said Bill.

“All right,” replied Ben; “down with ’e.”

They stopped suddenly, and squatted as low as possible. The lane was very narrow; the fishermen were close behind; they tumbled right over them, and fell heavily on their faces. While they were rising, our heroes knocked them both insensible, and hastily appropriating their coats and red caps put them on as they ran. By this time a crowd of fishermen, sailors, and others, among whom were a few soldiers and turnkeys with lanterns, were pursuing the fugitives as fast as was possible in so dark a night. Bill suggested that they should turn into a dark corner, and dodge them. The suggestion was acted on at once. They dashed round the first corner they came to, and then, instead of continuing their flight, turned sharp to the left, and hid in a doorway. The pursuers came pouring round the corner, shouting wildly. When the thickest of the crowd was opposite their place of concealment, Bill and Ben rushed into the midst of them with a shout, imitating the tones of the Frenchmen as nearly as possible, but taking care to avoid the use of word, and thus they joined in the pursuit! Gradually they fell behind, as if out-run, and, when they found themselves in rear, turned about, and made off in the opposite direction, then, diverging to the left, they headed again towards the shore, ran down to the beach, and leaped into the first boat they came to.

It happened to be a very small one,—a sort of dinghy. Ben thought it was too small, and was about to leap out and search for a larger, when lights suddenly appeared, and the shouts of the pursuers—who had discovered the ruse—were heard as they approached.

“Shove off, Ben!”

“Hurrah, my hearties!” cried the seaman with a stentorian shout as he seized an oar.

Next moment the little boat was flying over the smooth water of the port, the silence of which was now broken by exclamations and cries from the shipping in reply to those from the shore; while the splashing of oars were heard in all directions as men leaped into boats and rowed about at random. Darkness favoured the Englishmen, but it also proved the cause of their being very nearly re-captured; for they were within two yards of the battery at the mouth of the harbour before they observed it, and swerved aside just in time to avoid a collision. But they had been seen, and a random discharge of musketry followed. This was succeeded by the sudden blaze of a blue light, which revealed the whole port swarming with boats and armed men,—a sight which acted so powerfully on the warlike spirits of the sailors that they started up simultaneously, flung their red caps into the air, and gave vent to a hearty British cheer, which Ben Bolter followed up as they resumed the oars, with “Old England for ever! farewell, Mounseers!”

The blue light went out and left everything in darkness thicker than ever, but not before a rapid though ineffective discharge of musketry had been made from the battery. Another blue light, however, showed that the fugitives were getting rapidly out to sea beyond the range of musketry, and that boats were leaving the port in chase. Before the light expired a cloud of smoke burst from the battery, and the roar of a heavy gun rushed over the sea. An instant later and the water was torn up by grape-shot all round the little boat; but not a ball touched them save one, which struck Bill Bowls on the left hand and cut off his thumb.

“I think there’s a mast and sail in the bottom of the boat, and here comes a breeze,” said Ben; “give me your oar, and try to hoist it, Bill.”

Without mentioning his wound, our hero did as he was bid; and not until the boat was leaping over the ruffled sea did he condescend to bind up the wounded hand with his necktie. Soon they were beyond the range of blue lights and artillery.

“Have ’e any notion what course we’re steerin’?” inquired Bill.

“None wotsomediver,” answered Ben.

Soon after that, however, the sky cleared a little, and Bill got sight of part of the constellation of the Great Bear. Although the pole-star was not visible, he guessed pretty nearly its position, and thus ascertained that the breeze came from the south-west. Trimming the lug-sail accordingly, the tars turned the prow of the little craft to the northward, and steered for the shores of old England.

About a year after this stirring incident, a remarkably noisy party was assembled at tea in the prim little parlour of Mrs Blyth’s cottage in Fairway. Besides the meek old soul herself, there were present on that occasion our old friends Ben Bolter and Tom Riggles, the latter of whom flourished a wooden stump instead of a right leg, and wore the garb of a Greenwich pensioner. His change of circumstances did not appear to have decreased his love for tobacco. Ben had obtained leave of absence from his ship for a day or two, and, after having delighted the heart of his old mother by a visit, had called at the cottage to pay his respects to his old messmate, little thinking that he would find Tom Riggles there before him. Miss Bessy Blunt was also present; and it was plain, from the expression of her speaking countenance, that she had not forgiven Ben, but tolerated him under protest. Our hero and sweet Nelly Blyth were not of the party, however, because they happened just then to prefer a quiet chat in the summer-house in the back-garden. We will not presume to detail much of the conversation that passed between them. One or two of the concluding sentences must suffice.

“Yes, Bill,” said Nelly, in reply to something that her companion had whispered in her ear, “you know well enough that I am glad to-morrow is our wedding-day. I have told you so already, fifty times at least.”

“Only thrice, Nell, if so often,” said Bill. “Well, that was the luckiest shot the Frenchmen ever fired at me; for if I hadn’t had my thumb took off I couldn’t have left the sarvice, d’ye see; and that would have delayed my marriage with you, Nell. But now, as the old song says—

“‘No more I’ll roam

Away from home,

Across the stormy sea.

I’ll anchor here,

My Nelly dear,

And live for love and thee.’”

R.M. Ballantyne

Black Ivory

Table of Contents

- Preface.

- Chapter One.

- Chapter Two.

- Chapter Three.

- Chapter Four.

- Chapter Five.

- Chapter Six.

- Chapter Seven.

- Chapter Eight.

- Chapter Nine.

- Chapter Ten.

- Chapter Eleven.

- Chapter Twelve.

- Chapter Thirteen.

- Chapter Fourteen.

- Chapter Fifteen.

- Chapter Sixteen.

- Chapter Seventeen.

- Chapter Eighteen.

- Chapter Nineteen.

- Chapter Twenty.

- Chapter Twenty One.

- Chapter Twenty Two.

- Chapter Twenty Three.

- Chapter Twenty Four.

- Chapter Twenty Five.

Preface.

In writing this book, my aim has been to give a true picture in outline of the Slave Trade as it exists at the present time on the east coast of Africa.

In order to do this I have selected from the most trustworthy sources what I believe to be the most telling points of “the trade,” and have woven these together into a tale, the warp of which is composed of thick cords of fact; the woof of slight lines of fiction, just sufficient to hold the fabric together. Exaggeration has easily been avoided, because—as Dr Livingstone says in regard to the slave-trade—“exaggeration is impossible.”

If the reader’s taste should be offended by finding the tragic and comic elements in too close proximity I trust that he will bear in remembrance that “such is life,” and that the writer who would be true to life must follow, not lead, nature.

I have to acknowledge myself indebted to Dr Ryan, late Bishop of Mauritius; to the Rev. Charles New, interpreter to the Livingstone Search Expedition; to Edward Hutchinson, Esquire, Lay Secretary to the Church Missionary Society, and others, for kindly furnishing me with information in connexion with the slave trade.

Besides examining the Parliamentary Blue-books which treat of this subject, I have read or consulted, among others, the various authoritative works to which reference is made in the foot-notes sprinkled throughout this book,—all of which works bear the strongest possible testimony to the fact that the horrible traffic in human beings is in all respects as bad at the present time on the east coast of Africa as it ever was on the west coast in the days of Wilberforce.

I began my tale in the hope that I might produce something to interest the young (perchance, also, the old) in a most momentous cause,—the total abolition of the African slave-trade. I close it with the prayer that God may make it a tooth in the file which shall eventually cut the chains of slavery, and set the black man free.

R.M. Ballantyne.

1873

Chapter One.

Shows that a Good Beginning may Sometimes be Followed by a Bad Ending.

“Six feet water in the hold, sir!”

That would not have been a pleasant announcement to the captain of the ‘Aurora’ at any time, but its unpleasantness was vastly increased by the fact that it greeted him near the termination of what had been, up to that point of time, an exceedingly prosperous voyage.

“Are you sure, Davis?” asked the captain; “try again.”

He gave the order under the influence of that feeling which is styled “hoping against hope,” and himself accompanied the ship’s carpenter to see it obeyed.

“Six feet two inches,” was the result of this investigation.

The vessel, a large English brig, had sprung a leak, and was rolling heavily in a somewhat rough sea off the east coast of Africa. It was no consolation to her captain that the shores of the great continent were visible on his lee, because a tremendous surf roared along the whole line of coast, threatening destruction to any vessel that should venture to approach, and there was no harbour of refuge nigh.

“She’s sinking fast, Mr Seadrift,” said the captain to a stout frank-looking youth of about twenty summers, who leant against the bulwarks and gazed wistfully at the land; “the carpenter cannot find the leak, and the rate at which the water is rising shows that she cannot float long.”

“What then do you propose to do?” inquired young Seadrift, with a troubled expression of countenance.

“Abandon her,” replied the captain.

“Well, you may do so, captain, but I shall not forsake my father’s ship as long as she can float. Why not beach her somewhere on the coast? By so doing we might save part of the cargo, and, at all events, shall have done the utmost that lay in our power.”

“Look at the coast,” returned the captain; “where would you beach her? No doubt there is smooth water inside the reef, but the channels through it, if there be any here, are so narrow that it would be almost certain death to make the attempt.”

The youth turned away without replying. He was sorely perplexed. Just before leaving England his father had said to him, “Harold, my boy, here’s your chance for paying a visit to the land you’ve read and talked so much about, and wished so often to travel through. I have chartered a brig, and shall send her out to Zanzibar with a cargo of beads, cotton cloth, brass wire, and such like: what say you to go as supercargo? Of course you won’t be able to follow in the steps of Livingstone or Mungo Park, but while the brig is at Zanzibar you will have an opportunity of running across the channel, the island being only a few miles from the main, and having a short run up-country to see the niggers, and perchance have a slap at a hippopotamus. I’ll line your pockets, so that you won’t lack the sinews of war, without which travel either at home or abroad is but sorry work, and I shall only expect you to give a good account of ship and cargo on your return.—Come, is it fixed?”

Need we say that Harold leaped joyfully at the proposal? And now, here he was, called on to abandon the ‘Aurora’ to her fate, as we have said, near the end of a prosperous voyage. No wonder that he was perplexed.

The crew were fully aware of the state of matters. By the captain’s orders they stood ready to lower the two largest boats, into which they had put much of their worldly goods and provisions as they could hold with safety.

“Port, port your helm,” said the captain to the man at the wheel.

“Port it is, sir,” replied the man at the wheel, who was one of those broad-shouldered, big-chested, loose-garmented, wide-trousered, bare-necked, free-and-easy, off-hand jovial tars who have done so much, in years gone by, to increase the wealth and prosperity of the British Empire, and who, although confessedly scarce, are considerately allowed to perish in hundreds annually on our shores for want of a little reasonable legislation. But cheer up, ye jolly tars! There is a glimmer of sunrise on your political horizon. It really does seem as if, in regard to you, there were at last “a good time coming.”

“Port, port,” repeated the captain, with a glance at the compass and the sky.

“Port it is, sir,” again replied the jovial one.

“Steady! Lower away the boat, lads.—Now, Mr Seadrift,” said the captain, turning with an air of decision to the young supercargo, “the time has come for you to make up your mind. The water is rising in the hold, and the ship is, as you see, settling fast down. I need not say to you that it is with the utmost regret I find it necessary to abandon her; but self-preservation and the duty I owe to my men render the step absolutely necessary. Do you intend to go with us?”

“No, captain, I don’t,” replied Harold Seadrift firmly. “I do not blame you for consulting your own safety, and doing what you believe to be your duty, but I have already said that I shall stick by the ship as long as she can float.”

“Well, sir, I regret it but you must do as you think best,” replied the captain, turning away— “Now, lads, jump in.”

The men obeyed, but several of those who were last to quit the ship looked back and called to the free-and-easy man who still stood at the wheel— “Come along, Disco; we’ll have to shove off directly.”

“Shove off w’en you please,” replied the man at the wheel, in a deep rich voice, whose tones were indicative of a sort of good-humoured contempt; “wot I means for to do is to stop where I am. It’ll never be said of Disco Lillihammer that he forsook the owner’s son in distress.”

“But you’ll go to the bottom, man, if you don’t come.”

“Well, wot if I do? I’d raither go to the bottom with a brave man, than remain at the top with a set o’ fine fellers like you!”

Some of the men received this reply with a laugh, others frowned, and a few swore, while some of them looked regretfully at their self-willed shipmate; for it must not be supposed that all the tars who float upon the sea are of the bold, candid, open-handed type, though we really believe that a large proportion of them are so.

Be this as it may, the boats left the brig, and were soon far astern.

“Thank you, Lillihammer,” said Harold, going up and grasping the horny hand of the self-sacrificing sea-dog. “This is very kind of you, though I fear it may cost you your life. But it is too late to talk of that; we must fix on some plan, and act at once.”

“The werry thing, sir,” said Disco quietly, “that wos runnin’ in my own mind, ’cos it’s werry clear that we hain’t got too many minits to spare in confabilation.”

“Well, what do you suggest?”

“Arter you, sir,” said Disco, pulling his forelock; “you are capting now, an’ ought to give orders.”

“Then I think the best thing we can do,” rejoined Harold, “is to make straight for the shore, search for an opening in the reef, run through, and beach the vessel on the sand. What say you?”

“As there’s nothin’ else left for us to do,” replied Disco, “that’s ’zactly wot I think too, an’ the sooner we does it the better.”

“Down with the helm, then,” cried Harold, springing forward, “and I’ll ease off the sheets.”

In a few minutes the ‘Aurora’ was surging before a stiff breeze towards the line of foam which indicated the outlying reef, and inside of which all was comparatively calm.

“If we only manage to get inside,” said Harold, “we shall do well.”

Disco made no reply. His whole attention was given to steering the brig, and running his eyes anxiously along the breakers, the sound of which increased to a thunderous roar as they drew near.

“There seems something like a channel yonder,” said Harold, pointing anxiously to a particular spot in the reef.

“I see it, sir,” was the curt reply.

A few minutes more of suspense, and the brig drove into the supposed channel, and struck with such violence that the foremast snapped off near the deck, and went over the side.

“God help us, we’re lost!” exclaimed Harold, as a towering wave lifted the vessel up and hurled her like a plaything on the rocks.

“Stand by to jump, sir,” cried Disco. Another breaker came roaring in at the moment, overwhelmed the brig, rolled her over on her beam-ends, and swept the two men out of her. They struggled gallantly to free themselves from the wreck, and, succeeding with difficulty, swam across the sheltered water to the shore, on which they finally landed.

Harold’s first exclamation was one of thankfulness for their deliverance, to which Disco replied with a hearty “Amen!” and then turning round and surveying the coast, while he slowly thrust his hands into his wet trouser-pockets, wondered whereabouts in the world they had got to.

“To the east coast of Africa, to be sure,” observed the young supercargo, with a slight smile, as he wrung the water out of the foot of his trousers, “the place we were bound for, you know.”

“Werry good; so here we are—come to an anchor! Well, I only wish,” he added, sitting down on a piece of driftwood, and rummaging in the pockets before referred to, as if in search of something—“I only wish I’d kep’ on my weskit, ’cause all my ’baccy’s there, and it would be a rael comfort to have a quid in the circumstances.”

It was fortunate for the wrecked voyagers that the set of the current had carried portions of their vessel to the shore, at a considerable distance from the spot where they had landed, because a band of natives, armed with spears and bows and arrows, had watched the wreck from the neighbouring heights, and had hastened to that part of the coast on which they knew from experience the cargo would be likely to drift. The heads of the swimmers being but small specks in the distance, had escaped observation. Thus they had landed unseen. The spot was near the entrance to a small river or creek, which was partially concealed by the formation of the land and by mangrove trees.

Harold was the first to observe that they had not been cast on an uninhabited shore. While gazing round him, and casting about in his mind what was best to be done, he heard shouts, and hastening to a rocky point that hid part of the coast from his view looked cautiously over it and saw the natives. He beckoned to Disco, who joined him.

“They haven’t a friendly look about ’em,” observed the seaman, “and they’re summat scant in the matter of clothin’.”

“Appearances are often deceptive,” returned his companion, “but I so far agree with you that I think our wisest course will be to retire into the woods, and there consult as to our future proceedings, for it is quite certain that as we cannot live on sand and salt water, neither can we safely sleep in wet clothes or on the bare ground in a climate like this.”

Hastening towards the entrance to the creek, the unfortunate pair entered the bushes, through which they pushed with some difficulty, until they gained a spot sufficiently secluded for their purpose, when they observed that they had passed through a belt of underwood, beyond which there appeared to be an open space. A few steps further and they came out on a sort of natural basin formed by the creek, in which floated a large boat of a peculiar construction, with very piratical-looking lateen sails. Their astonishment at this unexpected sight was increased by the fact that on the opposite bank of the creek there stood several men armed with muskets, which latter were immediately pointed at their breasts.

The first impulse of the shipwrecked friends was to spring back into the bushes—the second to advance and hold up their empty hands to show that they were unarmed.

“Hold on,” exclaimed Disco, in a free and easy confidential tone; “we’re friends, we are; shipwrecked mariners we is, so ground arms, my lads, an’ make your minds easy.”

One of the men made some remark to another, who, from his Oriental dress, was easily recognised by Harold as one of the Arab traders of the coast. His men appeared to be half-castes.

The Arab nodded gravely, and said something which induced his men to lower their muskets. Then with a wave of his hand he invited the strangers to come over the creek to him.

This was rendered possible by the breadth of the boat already mentioned being so great that, while one side touched the right bank of the creek, the other was within four or five feet of the left.

Without hesitation Harold Seadrift bounded lightly from the bank to the half-deck of the boat, and, stepping ashore, walked up to the Arab, closely followed by his companion.

“Do you speak English?” asked Harold.

The Arab shook his head and said, “Arabic, Portuguese.”

Harold therefore shook his head;—then, with a hopeful look, said “French?” interrogatively.

The Arab repeated the shake of his head, but after a moments’ thought said, “I know littil Engleesh; speak, where comes you?”

“We have been wrecked,” began Harold (the Arab glanced gravely at his dripping clothes, as if to say, I had guessed as much), “and this man and I are the only survivors of the crew of our ship—at least the only two who swam on shore, the others went off in a boat.”

“Come you from man-of-war?” asked the Arab, with a keen glance at the candid countenance of the youth.

“No, our vessel was a trader bound for Zanzibar. She now lies in fragments on the shore, and we have escaped with nothing but the clothes on our backs. Can you tell us whether there is a town or a village in the neighbourhood? for, as you see, we stand sadly in need of clothing, food, and shelter. We have no money, but we have good muscles and stout hearts, and could work our way well enough, I doubt not.”

Young Seadrift said this modestly, but the remark was unnecessary, for it would have been quite obvious to a man of much less intelligence than the Arab that a youth who, although just entering on the age of manhood, was six feet high, deep-chested, broad-shouldered, and as lithe as a kitten, could not find any difficulty in working his way, while his companion, though a little older, was evidently quite as capable.

“There be no town, no village, for fifty miles from where you stand,” replied the Arab.

“Indeed!” exclaimed Harold in surprise, for he had always supposed the East African coast to be rather populous.

“That’s a blue look-out anyhow,” observed Disco, “for it necessitates starvation, unless this good gentleman will hire us to work his craft. It ain’t very ship-shape to be sure, but anything of a seagoin’ craft comes more or less handy to an old salt.”

The trader listened with the politeness and profound gravity that seems to be characteristic of Orientals, but by no sign or expression showed whether he understood what was said.

“I go to Zanzibar,” said he, turning to Harold, “and will take you,—so you wish.”

There was something sinister in the man’s manner which Harold did not like, but as he was destitute, besides being in the Arab’s power, and utterly ignorant of the country, he thought it best to put a good face on matters, and therefore thanked him for his kind offer, and assured him that on reaching Zanzibar he would be in a position to pay for his passage as well as that of his friend.

“May I ask,” continued Harold, “what your occupation is?”

“I am trader.”

Harold thought he would venture another question:—

“In what sort of goods do you trade?”

“Ivory. Some be white, an’ some be what your contrymans do call black.”

“Black!” exclaimed Harold, in surprise.

“Yees, black,” replied the trader. “White ivory do come from the elephant—hims tusk; Black Ivory do come,”—he smiled slightly at this point—“from the land everywheres. It bees our chef artikil of trade.”

“Indeed! I never heard of it before.”

“No?” replied the trader; “you shall see it much here. But I go talk with my mans. Wait.”

Saying this, in a tone which savoured somewhat unpleasantly of command, the Arab went towards a small hut near to which his men were standing, and entered into conversation with them.

It was evident that they were ill pleased with what he said at first for there was a good deal of remonstrance in their tones, while they pointed frequently in a certain direction which seemed to indicate the coast-line; but by degrees their tones changed, and they laughed and chuckled a good deal, as if greatly tickled by the speech of the Arab, who, however, maintained a look of dignified gravity all the time.

“I don’t like the looks o’ them fellers,” remarked Disco, after observing them in silence for some time. “They’re a cut-throat set, I’m quite sure, an’ if you’ll take my advice, Mister Seadrift, we’ll give ’em the slip, an’ try to hunt up one o’ the native villages. I shouldn’t wonder, now, if that chap was a slave-trader.”

“The same idea has occurred to myself, Disco,” replied Harold, “and I would willingly leave him if I thought there was a town or village within twenty miles of us; but we are ignorant on that point and I have heard enough of the African climate to believe that it might cost us our lives if we were obliged to spend a night in the jungle without fire, food, or covering, and with nothing on but a wet flannel shirt and pair of canvas breeches. No, no, lad, we must not risk it. Besides, although some Arabs are slave-traders, it does not follow that all are. This fellow may turn out better than he looks.”

Disco Lillihammer experienced some sensations of surprise on hearing his young friend’s remarks on the climate, for he knew nothing whatever about that of Africa, having sailed chiefly in the Arctic Seas as a whaler,—and laboured under the delusion that no climate under the sun could in any degree affect his hardy and well-seasoned frame. He was too respectful, however, to let his thoughts be known.

Meanwhile the Arab returned.

“I sail this night,” he said, “when moon go down. That not far before midnight. You mus keep by boat here—close. If you go this way or that the niggers kill you. They not come here; they know I is here. I go look after my goods and chattels—my Black Ivory.”

“Mayn’t we go with ’ee, mister—what’s your name?”

“My name?—Yoosoof,” replied the Arab, in a tone and with a look which were meant to command respect.

“Well, Mister Yoosoof,” continued Disco, “if we may make bold to ax leave for to go with ’ee, we could lend ’ee a helpin’ hand, d’ye see, to carry yer goods an’ chattels down to the boat.”

“There is no need,” said Yoosoof, waving his hand, and pointing to the hut before mentioned. “Go; you can rest till we sail. Sleep; you will need it. There is littil rice in hut—eat that, and make fire, dry youselfs.”

So saying, the Arab left them by a path leading into the woods, along which his men, who were Portuguese half-castes, had preceded him.

“Make fire indeed!” exclaimed Disco, as he walked with his companion to the hut; “one would think, from the free-and-easy way in which he tells us to make it, that he’s in the habit himself of striking it out o’ the point o’ his own nose, or some such convenient fashion.”

“More likely to flash it out of his eyes, I should think,” said Harold; “but, see here, the fellow knew what he was talking about. There is fire among these embers on the hearth.”

“That’s true,” replied Disco, going down on his knees, and blowing them carefully.

In a few minutes a spark leaped into a flame, wood was heaped on, and the flame speedily became a rousing fire, before which they dried their garments, while a pot of rice was put on to boil.

Scarcely had they proceeded thus far in their preparations, when two men, armed with muskets, were seen to approach, leading a negro girl between them. As they drew nearer, it was observable that the girl had a brass ring round her neck, to which a rope was attached.

“A slave!” exclaimed Disco vehemently, while the blood rushed to his face; “let’s set her free!”

The indignant seaman had half sprung to his legs before Harold seized and pulled him forcibly back.

“Be quiet man,” said Harold quickly. “If we could free her by fighting, I would help you, but we can’t. Evidently we have got into a nest of slavers. Rashness will only bring about our own death. Be wise; bide your time, and we may live to do some good yet.”

He stopped abruptly, for the new comers had reached the top of the winding path that led to the hut.

A look of intense surprise overspread the faces of the two men when they entered and saw the Englishmen sitting comfortably by the fire, and both, as if by instinct threw forward the muzzles of their muskets.

“Oh! come in, come in, make your minds easy,” cried Disco, in a half-savage tone, despite the warning he had received; “we’re all friends here—leastwise we can’t help ourselves.”

Fortunately for our mariner the men did not understand him, and before they could make up their minds what to think of it, or how to act Harold rose, and, with a polite bow, invited them to enter.

“Do you understand English?” he asked.

A frown, and a decided shake of the head from both men, was the reply. The poor negro girl cowered behind her keepers, as if she feared that violence were about to ensue.

Having tried French with a like result, Harold uttered the name, “Yoosoof,” and pointed in the direction in which the trader had entered the woods.

The men looked intelligently at each other, and nodded.

Then Harold said “Zanzibar,” and pointed in the direction in which he supposed that island lay.

Again the men glanced at each other, and nodded. Harold next said “Boat—dhow,” and pointed towards the creek, which remark and sign were received as before.

“Good,” he continued, slapping himself on the chest, and pointing to his companion, “I go to Zanzibar, he goes, she goes,” (pointing to the girl), “you go, and Yoosoof goes—all in the dhow together to Zanzibar—to-night—when moon goes down. D’ee understand? Now then, come along and have some rice.”

He finished up by slapping one of the men on the shoulder, and lifting the kettle off the fire, for the rice had already been cooked and only wanted warming.

The men looked once again at each other, nodded, laughed, and sat down on a log beside the fire, opposite to the Englishmen.

They were evidently much perplexed by the situation, and, not knowing what to make of it, were disposed in the meantime to be friendly.

While they were busy with the rice, Disco gazed in silent wonder, and with intense pity, at the slave-girl, who sat a little to one side of her guardians on a mat, her small hands folded together resting on one knee, her head drooping, and her eyes cast down. The enthusiastic tar found it very difficult to restrain his feelings. He had heard, of course, more or less about African slavery from shipmates, but he had never read about it, and had never seriously given his thoughts to it, although his native sense of freedom, justice, and fair-play had roused a feeling of indignation in his breast whenever the subject chanced to be discussed by him and his mates. But now, for the first time in his life, suddenly and unexpectedly, he was brought face to face with slavery. No wonder that he was deeply moved.

“Why, Mister Seadrift,” he said, in the confidential tone of one who imparts a new discovery, “I do honestly confess to ’ee that I think that’s a pretty girl!”

“I quite agree with you,” replied Harold, smiling.

“Ay, but I mean really pretty, you know. I’ve always thought that all niggers had ugly flat noses an’ thick blubber lips. But look at that one: her lips are scarce a bit thicker than those of many a good-looking lass in England, and they don’t stick out at all, and her nose ain’t flat a bit. It’s quite as good as my Nancy’s nose, an’ that’s sayin’ a good deal, I tell ’ee. Moreover, she ain’t black—she’s brown.”

It is but justice to Disco to say that he was right in his observations, and to explain that the various negro tribes in Africa differ very materially from each other; some of them, as we are told by Dr Livingstone, possessing little of what, in our eyes, seems the characteristic ugliness of the negro—such as thick lips, flat noses, protruding heels, etcetera,—but being in every sense handsome races of humanity.

The slave-girl whom Disco admired and pitied so much belonged to one of these tribes, and, as was afterwards ascertained, had been brought from the far interior. She appeared to be very young, nevertheless there was a settled expression of meek sorrow and suffering on her face; and though handsomely formed, she was extremely thin, no doubt from prolonged hardships on the journey down to the coast.

“Here, have somethin’ to eat,” exclaimed Disco, suddenly filling a tin plate with rice, and carrying it to the girl, who, however, shook her head without raising her eyes.

“You’re not hungry, poor thing,” said the seaman, in a disappointed tone; “you look as if you should be. Come, try it,” he added, stooping, and patting her head.

The poor child looked up as if frightened, and shrank from the seaman’s touch, but on glancing a second time in his honest face, she appeared to feel confidence in him. Nevertheless, she would not touch the rice until her guardians said something to her sternly, when she began to eat with an appetite that was eloquent.

“Come, now, tell us what your name is, lass,” said Disco, when she had finished the rice.

Of course the girl shook her head, but appeared to wish to understand the question, while the Portuguese laughed and seemed amused with the Englishman’s eccentricities.

“Look here, now,” resumed the tar, slapping his own chest vigorously, “Disco, Disco, Disco, that’s me—Disco. And this man,” (patting his companion on the breast) “is Harold, Harold, that’s him—Harold. Now, then,” he added, pointing straight at the girl, “you—what’s you name, eh?”

A gleam of intelligence shot from the girl’s expressive eyes, and she displayed a double row of beautiful teeth as in a low soft voice she said— “Azinté.”

“Azinté? come, that’s not a bad name; why, it’s a capital one. Just suited to ’ee. Well, Azinté, my poor girl,” said Disco, with a fresh outburst of feeling, as he clenched his horny right hand and dashed it into the palm of his left, “if I only knew how to set you free just now, my dear, I’d do it—ay, if I was to be roasted alive for so doin’. I would!”

“You’ll never set anybody free in this world,” said Harold Seadrift, with some severity, “if you go on talking and acting as you have done to-day. If these men had not, by good fortune, been ignorant of our language, it’s my opinion that they would have blown our brains out before this time. You should restrain yourself, man,” he continued, gradually dropping into a remonstrative and then into an earnestly confidential tone; “we are utterly helpless just now. If you did succeed in freeing that girl at this moment, it would only be to let her fall into the hands of some other slave-owner. Besides, that would not set free all the other slaves, male and female, who are being dragged from the interior of Africa. You and I may perhaps do some small matter in the way of helping to free slaves, if we keep quiet and watch our opportunity, but we shall accomplish nothing if you give way to useless bursts of anger.”

Poor Lillihammer was subdued.

“You’re right Mister Seadrift, you’re right, sir, and I’m a ass. I never could keep my feelings down. It’s all along of my havin’ bin made too much of by my mother, dear old woman, w’en I was a boy. But I’ll make a effort, sir; I’ll clap a stopper on ’em—bottle ’em up and screw ’em down tight, werry tight indeed.”

Disco again sent his right fist into the palm of his left hand, with something like the sound of a pistol-shot to the no small surprise and alarm of the Portuguese, and, rising, went out to cool his heated brow in the open air.

Chapter Two.

Yoosoof’s “Black Ivory.”

When Yoosoof entered the woods, as before stated, for the purpose of looking after his property, he followed a narrow footpath for about half a mile, which led him to another part of the same creek, at the entrance of which we introduced him to the reader. Here, under the deep shadow of umbrageous trees, floated five large Arab boats, or dhows, similar to the one which has been already referred to. They were quite empty, and apparently unguarded, for when Yoosoof went down the bank and stood on a projecting rock which overlooked them, no one replied to his low-toned hail. Repeating it once, and still receiving no answer, he sat quietly down on the rocks, lighted a small pipe, and waited patiently.

The boats, as we have said, were empty, but there were some curious appliances in them, having the appearance of chains, and wristlets, and bars of iron running along and fixed to their decks, or rather to the flooring of their holds. Their long yards and sails were cleared and ready for hoisting.

After the lapse of ten or fifteen minutes, Yoosoof raised his head—for he had been meditating deeply, if one might judge from his attitude—and glanced in the direction of an opening in the bushes whence issued a silent and singular train of human beings. They were negroes, secured by the necks or wrists—men, women, and children,—and guarded by armed half-caste Portuguese. When a certain number of them, about a hundred or so, had issued from the wood, and crowded the banks of the creek, they were ordered to stand still, and the leader of the band advanced towards his master.

These were some of Yoosoof’s “goods and chattels,” his “cattle,” his “black ivory.”

“You have been long in coming, Moosa,” said the Arab trader, as the man approached.

“I have,” replied Moosa, somewhat gruffly, “but the road was rough and long, and the cattle were ill-conditioned, as you see.”

The two men spoke in the Portuguese tongue, but as the natives and settlers on that coast speak a variety of languages and dialects, we have no alternative, good reader, but to render all into English.

“Make the more haste now,” said Yoosoof; “get them shipped at once, for we sail when the moon goes down. Pick out the weakest among the lot, those most likely to die, and put them by themselves in the small dhow. If we must sacrifice some of our wares to these meddling dogs the English, we may as well give them the refuse.”

Without remark, Moosa turned on his heel and proceeded to obey orders.

Truly, to one unaccustomed to such scenes, it would have appeared that all the negroes on the spot were “most likely to die,” for a more wretched, starved set of human beings could scarcely be imagined. They had just terminated a journey on foot of several hundreds of miles, with insufficient food and under severe hardships. Nearly all of them were lean to a degree,—many so reduced that they resembled nothing but skeletons with a covering of black leather. Some of the children were very young, many of them mere infants, clinging to the backs of the poor mothers, who had carried them over mountain and plain, through swamp and jungle, in blistering sunshine and pelting rain for many weary days. But prolonged suffering had changed the nature of these little ones. They were as silent and almost as intelligently anxious as their seniors. There were no old pieces of merchandise there. Most were youthful or in the prime of life; a few were middle-aged.

Difficult though the task appeared to be, Moosa soon selected about fifty men and women and a few children, who were so fearfully emaciated that their chance of surviving appeared but small. These were cast loose and placed in a sitting posture in the hold of the smallest dhow, as close together as they could be packed.

Their removal from the bank made room for more to issue from the wood, which they did in a continuous stream. Batch after batch was cast loose and stowed away in the manner already described, until the holds of two of the large boats were filled, each being capable of containing about two hundred souls. This was so far satisfactory to Yoosoof, who had expended a good deal of money on the venture—satisfactory, even although he had lost a large proportion of the goods—four-fifths at least if not more, by death and otherwise, on the way down to the coast; but that was a matter of little consequence. The price of black ivory was up in the market just at that time, and the worthy merchant could stand a good deal of loss.

The embarkation was effected with wonderful celerity, and in comparative silence. Only the stern voices of the half-caste Portuguese were heard as they ordered the slaves to move, mingled with the occasional clank of a chain, but no sounds proceeded from the thoroughly subdued and worn-out slaves louder than a sigh or a half-suppressed wail, with now and then a shriek of pain when some of the weaker among them were quickened into activity by the lash.

When all had been embarked, two of the five boats still remained empty, but Yoosoof had a pretty good idea of the particular points along the coast where more “cattle” of a similar kind could be purchased. Therefore, after stationing some of his men, armed with muskets, to guard the boats, he returned with the remainder of them to the hut in which the Englishmen had been left.

There he found Azinté and her guardians. He seemed angry with the latter at first, but after a few minutes’ thought appeared to recover his equanimity, and ordered the men to remove the ropes with which the girl was tethered; then bidding her follow him he left the hut without taking any notice of the Englishmen further than to say he would be back shortly before the time of sailing.

Yoosoof’s motions were usually slow and his mien somewhat dignified, but, when occasion required, he could throw off his Oriental dignity and step out with the activity of a monkey. It was so on this occasion, insomuch that Azinté was obliged occasionally to run in order to keep up with him. Proceeding about two miles in the woods along the shore without halt, he came out at length on the margin of a bay, at the head of which lay a small town. It was a sorry-looking place, composed of wretchedly built houses, most of which were thatched with the leaves of the cocoa-nut palm.

Nevertheless, such as it was, it possessed a mud fort, an army of about thirty soldiers, composed of Portuguese convicts who had been sent there as a punishment for many crimes, a Governor, who was understood to be honourable, having been placed there by his Excellency the Governor-General at Mozambique, who had been himself appointed by His Most Faithful Majesty the King of Portugal.

It was in quest of this Governor that Yoosoof bent his rapid steps. Besides all the advantages above enumerated, the town drove a small trade in ivory, ebony, indigo, orchella weed, gum copal, cocoa-nut oil, and other articles of native produce, and a very large (though secret) trade in human bodies and—we had almost written—souls, but the worthy people who dwelt there could not fetter souls, although they could, and very often did, set them free.

Senhor Francisco Alfonso Toledo Bignoso Letotti, the Governor, was seated at the open window of his parlour, just before Yoosoof made his appearance, conversing lightly with his only daughter, the Senhorina Maraquita, a beautiful brunette of about eighteen summers, who had been brought up and educated in Portugal.

The Governor’s wife had died a year before this time in Madrid, and the Senhorina had gone to live with her father on the east coast of Africa, at which place she had arrived just six weeks previous to the date of the opening of our tale.

Among the various boats and vessels at anchor in the bay, were seen the tapering masts of a British war-steamer. The Senhorina and her sire were engaged in a gossiping criticism of the officers of this vessel when Yoosoof was announced. Audience was immediately granted.

Entering the room, with Azinté close behind him, the Arab stopped abruptly on beholding Maraquita, and bowed gravely.

“Leave us, my child,” said the Governor, in Portuguese; “I have business to transact with this man.”

“And why may not I stay to assist you, father, in this wonderful man-mystery of transacting business?” asked Maraquita, with an arch smile.

“Whenever you men want to get rid of women you frighten them away with business! If you wish not to explain something to us, you shake your wise heads, and call it business! Is it not so?—Come, Arab,” she added, turning with a sprightly air to Yoosoof, “you are a trader, I suppose; all Arabs are, I am told. Well, what sort of wares have you got to sell?”

Yoosoof smiled slightly as he stepped aside and pointed to Azinté.

The speaking countenance of the Portuguese girl changed as if by magic. She had seen little and thought little about slavery during the brief period of her residence on the coast, and had scarcely realised the fact that Sambo, with the thick lips—her father’s gardener—or the black cook and house-maids, were slaves. It was the first entrance of a new idea with something like power into her mind when she saw a delicate, mild-looking, and pretty negro girl actually offered for sale.

Before she could bethink herself of any remark the door opened, and in walked, unannounced, a man on whose somewhat handsome countenance villainy was clearly stamped.

“Ha! Marizano,” exclaimed Senhor Letotti, rising, “you have thought better of it, I presume?”

“I have, and I agree to your arrangement,” replied Marizano, in an off-hand, surly tone.

“There is nothing like necessity,” returned the Governor, with a laugh. “’Twere better to enjoy a roving life for a short time with a lightish purse in one’s pocket, than to attempt to keep a heavy purse with the addition of several ounces of lead in one’s breast! How say you?”

Marizano smiled and shrugged his broad shoulders, but made no reply, for just then his attention had been attracted to the slave-girl.

“For sale?” he inquired of the Arab carelessly.

Yoosoof bowed his head slightly.

“How much?”

“Come, come, gentlemen,” interposed the Governor, with a laugh and a glance at his daughter, “you can settle this matter elsewhere. Yoosoof has come here to talk with me on other matters.—Now, Maraquita dear, you had better retire for a short time.”

When the Senhorina had somewhat unwillingly obeyed, the Governor turned to Yoosoof: “I presume you have no objection to Marizano’s presence during our interview, seeing that he is almost as well acquainted with your affairs as yourself?”

As Yoosoof expressed no objection, the three drew their chairs together and sat down to a prolonged private and very interesting palaver.

We do not mean to try the reader’s patience by dragging him through the whole of it; nevertheless, a small portion of what was said is essential to the development of our tale.

“Well, then, be it as you wish, Yoosoof,” said the Governor, folding up a fresh cigarette; “you are one of the most active traders on the coast, and never fail to keep correct accounts with your Governor. You deserve encouragement but I fear that you run considerable risk.”

“I know that; but those who make much must risk much.”

“Bravo!” exclaimed Marizano, with hearty approval; “nevertheless those who risk most do not always make most. Contrast yourself with me, now. You risk your boats and cattle, and become rich. I risk my life, and behold! I am fleeced. I have little or nothing left, barely enough to buy yonder girl from you—though I think I have enough for that.”

He pointed as he spoke to Azinté, who still stood on the spot where she had been left near the door.

“Tell me,” resumed Senhor Letotti, “how do you propose to elude the English cruiser? for I know that her captain has got wind of your whereabouts, and is determined to watch the coast closely—and let me tell you, he is a vigorous, intelligent man.”

“You tell me he has a number of captured slaves already in his ship?” said Yoosoof.

“Yes, some hundreds, I believe.”

“He must go somewhere to land these, I presume?” rejoined the Arab.

Yoosoof referred here to the fact that when a British cruiser engaged in the suppression of the slave-trade on the east coast of Africa has captured a number of slaves, she is under the necessity of running to the Seychelles Islands, Aden, or some other British port of discharge, to land them there as free men, because, were she to set them free on any part of the coast of Africa, belonging either to Portugal or the Sultan of Zanzibar, they would certainly be recaptured and again enslaved. When therefore the cruisers are absent—it may be two or three weeks on this duty, the traders in human flesh of course make the most of their opportunity to run cargoes of slaves to those ports in Arabia and Persia where they always find a ready market.

On the present occasion Yoosoof conceived that the captain of the ‘Firefly’ might be obliged to take this course to get rid of the negroes already on board, who were of course consuming his provisions, besides being an extremely disagreeable cargo, many of them being diseased and covered with sores, owing to their cruel treatment on board the slave-dhows.

“He won’t go, however, till he has hunted the coast north and south for you, so he assures me,” said the Governor, with a laugh.

“Well, I must start to-night, therefore I shall give him a small pill to swallow which will take him out of the way,” said Yoosoof, rising to leave the room.

“I wish you both success,” said the Governor, as Marizano also rose to depart, “but I fear that you will find the Englishman very troublesome.—Adieu.”

The Arab and the half-caste went out talking earnestly together, and followed by Azinté, and immediately afterwards the Senhorina Maraquita entered hurriedly.

“Father, you must buy that slave-girl for me. I want a pretty slave all to myself,” she said, with unwonted vehemence.

“Impossible, my child,” replied the Governor kindly, for he was very fond as well as proud of his daughter.

“Why impossible? Have you not enough of money?”

“Oh yes, plenty of that, but I fear she is already bespoken, and I should not like to interfere—”

“Bespoken! do you mean sold?” cried Maraquita, seizing her father’s hands, “not sold to that man Marizano?”

“I think she must be by this time, for he’s a prompt man of business, and not easily thwarted when he sets his mind to a thing.”

The Senhorina clasped her hands before her eyes, and stood for a moment motionless, then rushing wildly from the room she passed into another apartment the windows of which commanded a view of a considerable part of the road which led from the house along the shore. There she saw the Arab and his friend walking leisurely along as if in earnest converse, while Azinté followed meekly behind.

The Senhorina stood gazing at them with clenched hands, in an agony of uncertainty as to what course she ought to pursue, and so wrapt up in her thoughts that she failed to observe a strapping young lieutenant of H.M.S. steamer ‘Firefly,’ who had entered the room and stood close to her side.

Now this same lieutenant happened to be wildly in love with Senhorina Maraquita. He had met her frequently at her father’s table, where, in company with his captain, he was entertained with great hospitality, and on which occasions the captain was assisted by the Governor in his investigations into the slave-trade.

Lieutenant Lindsay had taken the romantic plunge with all the charming enthusiasm of inexperienced youth, and entertained the firm conviction that, if Senhorina Maraquita did not become “his,” life would thenceforth be altogether unworthy of consideration; happiness would be a thing of the past, with which he should have nothing more to do, and death at the cannon’s mouth, or otherwise, would be the only remaining gleam of comfort in his dingy future.

“Something distresses you, I fear,” began the lieutenant, not a little perplexed to find the young lady in such a peculiar mood.

Maraquita started, glanced at him a moment, and then, with flashing eyes and heightened colour, pointed at the three figures on the road.

“Yes, Senhor,” she said; “I am distressed—deeply so. Look! do you see yonder two men, and the girl walking behind them?”

“I do.”

“Quick! fly after them and bring them hither—the Arab and the girl I mean—not the other man. Oh, be quick, else they will be out of sight and then she will be lost; quick, if you—if—if you really mean what you have so often told me.”

Poor Lindsay! It was rather a sudden and severe test of fidelity to be sent forth to lay violent hands on a man and woman and bring them forcibly to the Governor’s house, without any better reason than that a self-willed girl ordered him so to do; at the same time, he perceived that, if he did not act promptly, the retreating figures would soon turn into the town, and be hopelessly beyond his power of recognition.

“But—but—” he stammered, “if they won’t come—?”

“They must come. Threaten my father’s high displeasure.—Quick, Senhor,” cried the young lady in a commanding tone.

Lindsay flung open the casement and leapt through it as being the shortest way out of the house, rushed with undignified speed along the road, and overtook the Arab and his friend as they were about to turn into one of the narrow lanes of the town.

“Pardon me,” said the lieutenant laying his hand on Yoosoof’s shoulder in his anxiety to make sure of him, “will you be so good as to return with me to the Governor’s residence?”

“By whose orders?” demanded Yoosoof with a look of surprise.

“The orders of the Senhorina Maraquita.”

The Arab hesitated, looked somewhat perplexed, and said something in Portuguese to Marizano, who pointed to the slave-girl, and spoke with considerable vehemence.

Lindsay did not understand what was said, but, conjecturing that the half-caste was proposing that Azinté should remain with him, he said:— “The girl must return with you—if you would not incur the Governor’s displeasure.”

Marizano, on having this explained to him, looked with much ferocity at the lieutenant and spoke to Yoosoof in wrathful tones, but the latter shook his head, and the former, who disliked Marizano’s appearance excessively, took not the least notice of him.

“I do go,” said Yoosoof, turning back. Motioning to Azinté to follow, he retraced his steps with the lieutenant and the slave—while Marizano strode into the town in a towering rage.

We need scarcely say that Maraquita, having got possession of Azinté, did not find it impossible to persuade her father to purchase her, and that Yoosoof, although sorry to disappoint Marizano, who was an important ally and assistant in the slave-trade, did not see his way to thwart the wishes of the Governor, whose power to interfere with his trade was very great indeed, and to whom he was under the necessity of paying head-money for every slave that was exported by him from that part of the coast.

Soon after Azinté had been thus happily rescued from the clutches of two of the greatest villains on the East African coast—where villains of the deepest dye are by no means uncommon—Lindsay met Captain Romer of the ‘Firefly’ on the beach, with his first lieutenant Mr Small, who, by the way, happened to be one of the largest men in his ship. The three officers had been invited to dine that day with the Governor, and as there seemed no particular occasion for their putting to sea that night, and a fresh supply of water had to be taken on board, the invitation had been accepted, all the more readily, too, that Captain Romer thought it afforded an opportunity for obtaining further information as to the movements of certain notorious slavers who were said to be thereabouts at that time. Lieutenant Lindsay had been sent ashore at an earlier part of the day, accompanied by one of the sailors who understood Portuguese, and who, being a remarkably intelligent man, might, it was thought, acquire some useful information from some of the people of the town.

“Well, Mr Lindsay, has Jackson been of any use to you?” inquired the captain.

“Not yet,” replied the lieutenant; “at least I know not what he may have done, not having met him since we parted on landing; but I have myself been so fortunate as to rescue a slave-girl under somewhat peculiar circumstances.”

“Truly, a most romantic and gallant affair,” said the captain, laughing, when Lindsay had related the incident, “and worthy of being mentioned in despatches; but I suspect, considering the part that the Senhorina Maraquita played in it and the fact that you only rescued the girl from one slaveholder in order to hand her over to another, the less that is said about the subject the better!—But here comes Jackson. Perhaps he may have learned something about the scoundrels we are in search of.”

The seaman referred to approached and touched his cap.

“What news?” demanded the captain, who knew by the twinkle in Jack’s eye that he had something interesting to report.

“I’ve diskivered all about it sir,” replied the man, with an ill-suppressed chuckle.

“Indeed! come this way. Now, let’s hear what you have to tell,” said the captain, when at a sufficient distance from his boat to render the conversation quite private.

“Well, sir,” began Jackson, “w’en I got up into the town, arter leavin’ Mr Lindsay, who should I meet but a man as had bin a messmate o’ mine aboard of that there Portuguese ship w’ere I picked up a smatterin’ o’ the lingo? Of course we hailed each other and hove-to for a spell, and then we made sail for a grog-shop, where we spliced the main-brace. After a deal o’ tackin’ and beatin’ about, which enabled me to find out that he’d left the sea an’ taken to business on his own account, which in them parts seems to mean loafin’ about doin’ little or nothin’, I went slap into the subject that was uppermost in my mind, and says I to him, says I, they does a deal o’ slavin’ on this here coast, it appears—Black Ivory is a profitable trade, ain’t it? W’y, sir, you should have seen the way he grinned and winked, and opened out on ’em.—‘Black Ivory!’ says he, ‘w’y, Jackson, there’s more slaves exported from these here parts annooally than would fill a good-sized city. I could tell you—but,’ says he, pullin’ up sudden, ‘you won’t split on me, messmate?’ ‘Honour bright,’ says I, ‘if ye don’t call tellin’ my captain splittin’.’ ‘Oh no,’ says he, with a laugh, ‘it’s little I care what he knows, or does to the pirates—for that’s their true name, and murderers to boot—but don’t let it come to the Governor’s ears, else I’m a ruined man.’ I says I wouldn’t and then he goes on to tell me all sorts of hanecdots about their doin’s—that they does it with the full consent of the Governor, who gets head-money for every slave exported; that nearly all the Governors on the coast are birds of the same feather, and that the Governor-General himself, (See Consul McLeod’s Travels in Eastern Africa, volume one page 306.) at Mozambique, winks at it and makes the subordinate Governors pay him tribute. Then he goes on to tell me more about the Governor of this here town, an’ says that, though a kind-hearted man in the main, and very good to his domestic slaves, he encourages the export trade, because it brings him in a splendid revenue, which he has much need of, poor man, for like most, if not all, of the Governors on the coast, he do receive nothin’ like a respectible salary from the Portuguese Government at home, and has to make it up by slave-tradin’.” (See McLeod’s Travels, volume one page 293.)

It must be explained here that British cruisers were, and still are, kept on the east coast of Africa, for the purpose of crushing only the export slave-trade. They claim no right to interfere with “domestic slavery,” an institution which is still legal in the dominions of the Sultan of Zanzibar and in the so-called colonies of Portugal on that coast.

“But that is not the best of it, sir,” continued Jackson, with a respectful smile, “after we’d had our jaw out I goes off along the road by the beach to think a bit what I’d best do, an’ have a smoke—for that’s wot usually sets my brain to work full-swing. Bein’ hot I lay down in the lee of a bush to excogitate. You see, sir, my old messmate told me that there are two men here, the worst characters he ever know’d—ashore or afloat. One they calls Yoosoof—an Arab he is; the other Marizano—he’s a slave-catcher, and an outlaw just now, havin’ taken up arms and rebelled against the Portuguese authorities. Nevertheless these two men are secretly hand and glove with the Governor here, and at this moment there are said to be a lot o’ slaves ready for shipment and only waitin’ till the ‘Firefly’ is out of the way. More than this my friend could not tell, so that’s w’y I went to excogitate.—I beg parding, sir, for being so long wi’ my yarn, but I ain’t got the knack o’ cuttin’ it short, sir, that’s w’ere it is.”

“Never mind, lad; go on to the end of it,” replied the captain. “Did you excogitate anything more?”

“I can’t say as I did, sir, but it was cooriously enough excogitated for me. W’en I was lying there looking through the bush at the bay, I sees two men comin’ along, arm in arm. One of ’em was an Arab. W’en they was near I saw the Arab start; I thought he’d seen me, and didn’t like me. No more did I like him or his comrade. However, I was wrong, for after whisperin’ somethin’ very earnest-like to his friend, who laughed very much; but said nothin’, they came and sat down not far from the bush where I lay. Now, thinks I, it ain’t pleasant to be an eavesdropper, but as I’m here to find out the secrets of villains, and as these two look uncommon like villains, I’ll wait a bit; if they broach business as don’t consarn me or her Majesty the Queen, I’ll sneeze an’ let ’em know I’m here, before they’re properly under weigh; but if they speaks of wot I wants to know, I’ll keep quiet. Well, sir, to my surprise, the Arab—he speaks in bad English, whereby I came to suppose the other was an Englishman, but, if he is, the climate must have spoiled him badly, for I never did see such a ruffian to look at. But he only laughed, and didn’t speak, so I couldn’t be sure. Well, to come to the pint, sir, the Arab said he’d got hold of two shipwrecked Englishmen, whom he meant to put on board of his dhow, at that time lyin’ up a river not three miles off, and full of slaves, take ’em off the coast, seize ’em when asleep, and heave ’em overboard; the reason bein’ that he was afraid, if they was left ashore here, they’d discover the town, which they are ignorant of at present, and give the alarm to our ship, sir, an’ so prevent him gettin’ clear off, which he means to attempt about midnight just after the moon goes down.”

This unexpected information was very gratifying to Captain Romer, who immediately gave orders to get steam up and have everything in readiness to start the moment he should make his appearance on board, at the same time enjoining absolute silence on his lieutenants and Jackson, who all returned to the ‘Firefly,’ chuckling inwardly.

If they had known that the Arab’s information, though partly true, was a ruse; that Jackson had indeed been observed by the keen-eyed Oriental, who had thereupon sat down purposely within earshot, and after a whispered hint to his companion, gave forth such information as would be likely to lead the British cruiser into his snares—speaking in bad English, under the natural impression that the sailor did not understand Portuguese, to the immense amusement of Marizano, who understood the ruse, though he did not understand a single word of what his companion said—had they known all this, we say, it is probable that they would have chuckled less, and—but why indulge in probabilities when facts are before us? The sequel will show that the best-laid plans may fail.

Chapter Three.

Relates the Further Adventures of Harold and Disco, and Lifts the Curtain a Little Higher in Regard to the Slave-Trade.

So Captain Romer and his lieutenants went to dine with the worthy Governor Senhor Francisco Alfonso Toledo Bignoso Letotti, while Yoosoof returned to the creek to carry out his deep-laid plans.

In regard to the dinner, let it suffice to observe that it was good, and that the Governor was urbane, hospitable, communicative, and every way agreeable. It is probable that if he had been trained in another sphere and in different circumstances he might have been a better man. As things stood, he was unquestionably a pleasant one, and Captain Romer found it hard to believe that he was an underhand schemer.

Nothing could exceed the open way in which Senhor Letotti condemned the slave-trade, praised the English for their zeal in attempting to suppress it, explained that the King of Portugal and the Sultan of Zanzibar were equally anxious for its total extinction, and assured his guests that he would do everything that lay in his power to further their efforts to capture the guilty kidnappers, and to free the poor slaves!

“But, my dear sir,” said he, at the conclusion of an emphatic declaration of sympathy, “the thing is exceedingly difficult. You are aware that Arab traders swarm upon the coast, that they are reckless men, who possess boats and money in abundance, that the trade is very profitable, and that, being to some extent real traders in ivory, palm-oil, indigo, and other kinds of native produce, these men have many ruses and methods—what you English call dodges—whereby they can deceive even the most sharp-sighted and energetic. The Arabs are smart smugglers of negroes—very much as your people who live in the Scottish land are smart smugglers of the dew of the mountain—what your great poet Burns speaks much of—I forget its name—it is not easy to put them down.”

After dinner, Senhor Letotti led the officers into his garden, and showed them his fruit-trees and offices, also his domestic slaves, who looked healthy, well cared for, and really in some degree happy.

He did not, however, tell his guests that being naturally a humane man, his slaves were better treated than any other slaves in the town. He did not remind them that, being slaves, they were his property, his goods and chattels, and that he possessed the right and the power to flay them alive if so disposed. He did not explain that many in the town were so disposed; that cruelty grows and feeds upon itself; that there were ladies and gentlemen there who flogged their slaves—men, women, and children—nearly to the death; that one gentleman of an irascible disposition, when irritated by some slight oversight on the part of the unfortunate boy who acted as his valet, could find no relief to his feelings until he had welted him first into a condition of unutterable terror, and then into a state of insensibility. Neither did he inform them that a certain lady in the town, who seemed at most times to be possessed of a reasonably quiet spirit, was roused once to such a degree by a female slave that she caused her to be forcibly held, thrust a boiling hot egg into her mouth, skewered her lips together with a sail-needle, and then striking her cheeks, burst the egg, and let the scalding contents run down her throat. (See Consul McLeod’s Travels, volume two page 32.)

No, nothing of all this did the amiable Governor Letotti so much as hint at. He would not for the world have shocked the sensibilities of his guests by the recital of such cruelties. To say truth, the worthy man himself did not like to speak or think of them. In this respect he resembled a certain class among ourselves, who, rather than submit to a little probing of their feelings for a few minutes, would prefer to miss the chance of making an intelligently indignant protest against slavery, and would allow the bodies and souls of their fellow-men to continue writhing in agony through all time.

It was much more gratifying to the feelings of Senhor Letotti to convey his guests to the drawing-room, and there gratify their palates with excellent coffee, while the graceful, and now clothed, Azinté brought a Spanish guitar to the Senhorina Maraquita, whose sweet voice soon charmed away all thoughts of the cruel side of slavery. But duty ere long stepped in to call the guests to other scenes.

“What a sweet girl the Senhorina is!” remarked Captain Romer, while on his way to the beach.

“Ay, and what a pretty girl Azinté is, black though she be,” observed Lieutenant Small.

“Call her not black; she is brown—a brunette,” said the captain.

“I wonder how we should feel,” said Lindsay, “if the tables were turned, and our women and children, with our stoutest young men, were forcibly taken from us by thousands every year, and imported into Africa to grind the corn and hoe the fields of the black man. Poor Azinté!”

“Do you know anything of her history?” inquired Mr Small.

“A little. I had some conversation in French with the Senhorina just before we left—”

“Yes, I observed that,” interrupted the captain, with a quiet smile.

“And,” continued Lindsay, “she told me that she had discovered, through an interpreter, that the poor girl is married, and that her home is far away in the interior. She was caught, with many others, while out working in the fields one day several months ago, by a party of slave-traders, under an Arab named Yoosoof and carried off. Her husband was absent at the time; her infant boy was with its grandmother in their village, and she thinks may have escaped into the woods, but she has not seen any of them again since the day of her capture.”

“It is a sad case,” said the captain, “and yet bad though it be, it might be far worse, for Azinté’s master and mistress are very kind, which is more than can be said of most slave-owners in this region.”

In a few minutes the captain’s gig was alongside the “Firefly,” and soon afterwards that vessel quietly put to sea. Of course it was impossible that she should depart unobserved, but her commander took the precaution to run due south at first, exactly opposite to the direction of his true course, intending to make a wide sweep out to sea, and thus get unobserved to the northward of the place where the slaver’s dhow was supposed to be lying, in time to intercept it.

Yoosoof, from a neighbouring height watched the manoeuvre, and thoroughly understood it. When the vessel had disappeared into the shades of night that brooded over the sea, he smiled calmly, and in a placid frame of mind betook himself to his lair in the creek beside the mangrove trees.

He found Harold Seadrift and Disco Lillihammer in the hut, somewhat impatient of his prolonged absence, and a dozen of his men looking rather suspiciously at the strangers.

“Is all ready, Moosa?” he inquired of a powerful man, half-Portuguese, half-negro in appearance, who met him outside the door of the hut.

“All ready,” replied the half-caste, in a gruff tone of voice, “but what are you going to do with these English brutes?”

“Take them with us, of course,” replied Yoosoof.

“For what end?”

“For our own safety. Why, don’t you see, Moosa, that if we had set them free, they might have discovered the town and given information to the cruiser about us, which would have been awkward? We might now, indeed, set them free, for the cruiser is gone, but I still have good reason for wishing to take them with me. They think that we have but one boat in this creek, and I should like to make use of them for the purpose of propagating that false idea. I have had the good luck while in the town to find an opportunity of giving one of the sailors of the cruiser a little information as to my movements—some of it true, some of it false—which will perhaps do us a service.”

The Arab smiled slightly as he said this.

“Do these men know our trade?” asked Moosa.

“I think they suspect it,” answered Yoosoof.

“And what if they be not willing to go with us?” demanded Moosa.

“Can twelve men not manage two?” asked the Arab. Dark though the night had become by that time, there was sufficient light to gleam on the teeth that Moosa exposed on receiving this reply.

“Now, Moosa, we must be prompt,” continued Yoosoof; “let some of you get round behind the Englishmen, and have the slave-chains handy. Keep your eye on me while I talk with them; if they are refractory, a nod shall be the signal.”

Entering the hut Yoosoof informed Harold that it was now time to set sail.

“Good, we are ready,” said Harold, rising, “but tell me one thing before my comrade and I agree to go with you,—tell us honestly if you are engaged in the slave-trade.”

A slight smile curled the Arab’s thin lip as he replied—“If I be a slave-trader, I cannot speak honestly, so you Engleesh think. But I do tell you—yes, I am.”

“Then, I tell you honestly,” said Harold, “that I won’t go with you. I’ll have nothing to do with slavers.”

“Them’s my sentiments to a tee,” said Disco, with emphasis, thumping his left palm as usual with his right fist, by way of sheating his remark home—to use his own words.

“But you will both perish on this uninhabited coast,” said Yoosoof.

“So be it,” replied Harold; “I had rather run the risk of starving than travel in company with slave-traders. Besides, I doubt the truth of what you say. There must be several villages not very far off, if my information in regard to the coast be not altogether wrong.”

Yoosoof waited for no more. He nodded to Moosa, who instantly threw a noose round Harold’s arms, and drew it tight. The same operation was performed for Disco, by a stout fellow who stood behind him, and almost before they realised what had occurred, they were seized by a number of men.

It must not be supposed that two able-bodied Englishmen quietly submitted at once to this sort of treatment. On the contrary, a struggle ensued that shook the walls of the little hut so violently as almost to bring it down upon the heads of the combatants. The instant that Harold felt the rough clasp of Moosa’s arms, he bent himself forward with such force as to fling that worthy completely over his head, and lay him flat on the floor, but two of the other slavers seized Harold’s arms, a third grasped him round the waist, and a fourth rapidly secured the ropes that had been thrown around him. Disco’s mode of action, although somewhat different was quite as vigorous. On being grasped he uttered a deep roar of surprise and rage, and, raising his foot, struck out therewith at a man who advanced to seize him in front. The kick not only tumbled the man over a low bench and drove his head against the wall, but it caused the kicker himself to recoil on his foes behind with such force that they all fell on the floor together, when by their united weight the slavers managed to crush the unfortunate Disco, not, indeed, into submission, but into inaction.

His tongue, however, not being tied, continued to pour forth somewhat powerful epithets, until Harold very strongly advised him to cease.

“If you want to retain a whole skin,” he said, “you had better keep a quiet tongue.”

“P’raps you’re right sir,” said Disco, after a moment’s consideration, “but it ain’t easy to shut up in the succumstances.”

After they had thoroughly secured the Englishmen, the traders led them down the bank of the creek to the spot where the dhow was moored. In the dark it appeared to Harold and his companion to be the same dhow, but this was not so. The boat by which they had crossed the creek had been removed up the water, and its place was now occupied by the dhow into which had been put the maimed and worn-out slaves of the band whose arrival we have described. The hold of the little vessel was very dark, nevertheless there was light enough to enable the Englishmen to guess that the rows of black objects just perceptible within it were slaves. If they had entertained any uncertainty on this point, the odour that saluted them as they passed to the stern would have quickly dispelled their doubts.

It was evident from the manner of the slavers that they did not now fear discovery, because they talked loudly as they pushed off and rowed away. Soon they were out of the creek, and the roar of breakers was heard. Much caution was displayed in guiding the dhow through these, for the channel was narrow, and darkness rendered its position almost indiscernible. At last the sail was hoisted, the boat bent over to a smart breeze, and held away in a north-easterly direction. As the night wore on this breeze became lighter, and, most of the crew being asleep, deep silence prevailed on board the slave-dhow, save that, ever and anon, a pitiful wail, as of a sick child, or a convulsive sob, issued from the hold.

Harold and Disco sat beside each other in the stern, with an armed half-caste on each side, and Yoosoof in front. Their thoughts were busy enough at first, but neither spoke to the other. As the night advanced both fell into an uneasy slumber.

When Harold awoke, the grey dawn was beginning to break in the east and there was sufficient light to render objects dimly visible. At first he scarcely recollected where he was, but the pain caused by the ropes that bound him soon refreshed his memory. Casting his eyes quickly towards the hold, his heart sank within him at the sight he there beheld. Yoosoof’s Black Ivory was not of the best quality, but there was a good deal of it, which rendered judicious packing necessary. So many of his gang had become worthless as an article of trade, through suffering on the way down to the coast, that the boat could scarce contain them all. They were packed sitting on their haunches in rows each with his knees close to his chin, and all jammed so tightly together that none could rise up or lie down. Men, women, and little children sat in this position with an expression of indescribable hopelessness and apathy on their faces. The infants, of which there were several, lay motionless on their mothers’ shrunken breasts. God help them! they were indeed utterly worthless as pieces of merchandise. The long journey and hard treatment had worn all of them to mere skin and bone, and many were suffering from bad sores caused by the slave-irons and the unmerciful application of the lash. No one knew better than Yoosoof that this was his “damaged stock”—hopelessly damaged, and he meant to make the best use he could of it.

The sun arose in all its splendour, and revealed more clearly to the horrified Englishmen all the wretchedness of the hold, but for a considerable time they did not speak. The circumstances in which they found themselves seemed to have bereft them of the faculty of speech. The morning advanced, and Yoosoof with his men, took a frugal breakfast, but they did not offer any to Harold or Disco. As these unfortunates had, however, supped heartily, they did not mind that. So much could not have been said for the slaves. They had received their last meal of uncooked rice and water, a very insufficient one, about thirty-six hours before, and as they watched the traders at breakfast, their glaring eyes told eloquently of their sufferings.

Had these been Yoosoof’s valuable stock, his undamaged goods, he would have given them a sufficiency of food to have kept them up to condition as long as he possessed them; but being what they were, a very little drop of water and a few grains of raw rice at noon was deemed sufficient to prevent absolute starvation.

“How can you have the heart,” said Harold at last turning to Yoosoof, “to treat these poor creatures so cruelly?”

Yoosoof shrugged his shoulders.

“My fader treat them so; I follow my fader’s footsteps.”

“But have you no pity for them? Don’t you think they have hearts and feelings like ourselves?” returned Harold earnestly.

“No,” replied the Arab coldly. “They have no feelings. Hard as the stone. They care not for mother, or child, or husband. Only brutes—cattle.”

Harold was so disgusted with this reply that he relapsed into silence.

Towards the afternoon, while the dhow was running close in-shore, a vessel hove in sight on the horizon. A few minutes sufficed to show that it was a steamer. It was of course observed and closely watched by the slave-dealers as well as by Harold Seadrift and Disco Lillihammer, who became sanguinely hopeful that it might turn out to be a British man-of-war. Had they known that Yoosoof was equally anxious and hopeful on that point they would have been much surprised; but the wily Arab pretended to be greatly alarmed, and when the Union Jack became clearly visible his excitement increased. He gave some hurried orders to his men, who laughed sarcastically as they obeyed them.

“Yoosoof,” said Harold, with a slight feeling of exultation, “your plans seem about to miscarry!”

“No, they not miscarry yet,” replied the Arab, with a grim smile.

“Tell me, Yoosoof,” resumed Harold, prompted by strong curiosity, “why have you carried us off bound in this fashion?”

Another smile, more grim than the former, crossed the Arab’s visage as he replied—“Me carry you off ’cause that sheep,” pointing to the steamer, “lie not two mile off, near to town of Governor Letotti, when I first met you. We not want you to let thems know ’bout us, so I carry you off, and I bind you ’cause you strong.”

“Ha! that’s plain and reasonable,” returned Harold, scarce able to restrain a laugh at the man’s cool impudence. “But it would appear that some one else has carried the news; so, you see, you have been outwitted after all.”

“Perhaps. We shall see,” replied the Arab, with something approaching to a chuckle.

Altering the course of the boat, Yoosoof now ran her somewhat off the shore, as if with a view to get round a headland that lay to the northward. This evidently drew the attention of the steamer—which was none other than the “Firefly”—for she at once altered her course and ran in-shore, so as to intercept the dhow. Seeing this, Yoosoof turned back and made for the land at a place where there was a long line of breakers close to the shore. To run amongst these seemed to be equivalent to running on certain destruction, nevertheless the Arab held on, with compressed lips and a frowning brow. Yoosoof looked quite like a man who would rather throw away his life than gratify his enemy, and the Englishmen, who were fully alive to their danger, began to feel rather uneasy—which was a very pardonable sensation, when it is remembered that their arms being fast bound, rendered them utterly unable to help themselves in case of the boat capsizing.

The “Firefly” was by this time near enough to hold converse with the dhow through the medium of artillery. Soon a puff of white smoke burst from her bow, and a round-shot dropped a few yards astern of the boat.

“That’s a broad hint, my lad, so you’d better give in,” said Lillihammer, scarce able to suppress a look of triumph.

Yoosoof paid not the slightest attention to the remark, but held on his course.

“Surely you don’t intend to risk the lives of these poor creatures in such a surf?” said Harold anxiously; “weak and worn as they are, their doom is sealed if we capsize.”

Still the Arab paid no attention, but continued to gaze steadily at the breakers.

Harold, turning his eyes in the same direction, observed something like a narrow channel running through them. He was enough of a seaman to understand that only one who was skilled in such navigation could pass in safety.

“They’re lowering a boat,” said Disco, whose attention was engrossed by the manoeuvres of the “Firefly.”

Soon the boat left the side of the vessel, which was compelled to check her speed for fear of running on the reef. Another gun was fired as she came round, and the shot dropped right in front of the dhow, sending a column of water high into the air. Still Yoosoof held on until close to the breakers, when, to the surprise of the Englishmen, he suddenly threw the boat’s head into the wind.

“You can steer,” he said sternly to Disco. “Come, take the helm an’ go to your ship; or, if you choose, go on the breakers.”

He laughed fiercely as he said this, and next moment plunged into the sea, followed by his crew.

Disco, speechless with amazement, rose up and sprang to the helm. Of course he could not use his bound hands, but one of his legs answered almost as well. He allowed the boat to come round until the sail filled on the other tack, and then looking back, saw the heads of the Arabs as they swam through the channel and made for the shore. In a few minutes they gained it, and, after uttering a shout of defiance, ran up into the bushes and disappeared.

Meanwhile the “Firefly’s” boat made straight for the dhow, and was soon near enough to hail.

“Heave-to,” cried an interpreter in Arabic.

“Speak your own mother tongue and I’ll answer ye,” replied Disco.

“Heave-to, or I’ll sink you,” shouted Mr Small, who was in charge.

“I’m just agoin’ to do it, sir,” replied Disco, running the dhow into the wind until the sail shook.

Another moment and the boat was alongside. “Jump aboard and handle the sail, lads; I can’t help ’ee no further,” said Disco.

The invitation was unnecessary. The moment the two boats touched, the blue-jackets swarmed on board, cutlass in hand, and took possession.

“Why, what!—where did you come from?” asked the lieutenant, looking in profound astonishment at Harold and his companion.

“We are Englishmen, as you see,” replied Harold, unable to restrain a smile; “we have been wrecked and caught by the villains who have just escaped you.”

“I see—well, no time for talking just now; cut them loose, Jackson. Make fast the sheet—now then.”

In a few minutes the dhow ranged up alongside the “Firefly,” and our heroes, with the poor slaves, were quickly transferred to the man-of-war’s deck, where Harold told his tale to Captain Romer.

As we have already stated, there were a number of slaves on board the “Firefly,” which had been rescued from various Arab dhows. The gang now received on board made their numbers so great that it became absolutely necessary to run to the nearest port to discharge them.

We have already remarked on the necessity that lies on our cruisers, when overladen with rescued slaves, to run to a distant port of discharge to land them; and on the readiness of the slave-traders to take advantage of their opportunity, and run north with full cargoes with impunity when some of the cruisers are absent; for it is not possible for a small fleet to guard upwards of a thousand miles of coast effectually, or even, in any degree, usefully. If we possessed a port of discharge—a British station and settlement—on the mainland of the east coast of Africa, this difficulty would not exist. As it is, although we place several men-of-war on a station, the evil will not be cured, for just in proportion as these are successful in making captures, will arise the necessity of their leaving the station for weeks at a time unguarded.

Thus it fell out on the occasion of which we write. The presence of the large slave-freight on board the man-of-war was intolerable. Captain Romer was compelled to hurry off to the Seychelles Islands. He sailed with the monsoon, but had to steam back against it. During this period another vessel, similarly freighted, had to run to discharge at Aden. The seas were thus comparatively clear of cruisers. The Arabs seized their opportunity, and a stream of dhows and larger vessels swept out from the various creeks and ports all along the East African coast, filled to overflowing with slaves.

Among these were the four large dhows of our friend Yoosoof. Having, as we have seen, made a slight sacrifice of damaged and unsaleable goods and chattels, in order to clear the way, he proceeded north, touching at various ports where he filled up his living cargo, and finally got clear off, not with goods damaged beyond repair, but with thousands of the sons and daughters of Africa in their youthful prime.

In the interior each man cost him about four yards of cotton cloth, worth a few pence; each woman three yards, and each child two yards, and of course in cases where he stole them, they cost him nothing. On the coast these would sell at from 8 pounds to 12 pounds each, and in Arabia at from 20 pounds to 40 pounds.

We mention this to show what strong inducement there was for Yoosoof to run a good deal of risk in carrying on this profitable and accursed traffic.

But you must not fancy, good reader, that what we have described is given as a specimen of the extent to which the slave-trade on that coast is carried. It is but as a specimen of the manner thereof. It is certainly within the mark to say that at least thirty thousand natives are annually carried away as slaves from the east coast of Africa.

Sir Bartle Frere, in addressing a meeting of the chief native inhabitants of Bombay in April 1873, said,—“Let me assure you, in conclusion, that what you have heard of the horrors of the slave-trade is in no way exaggerated. We have seen so much of the horrors which were going on that we can have no doubt that what you read in books, which are so often spoken of as containing exaggerations, is exaggerated in no respect. The evil is much greater than anything you can conceive. Among the poorer class of Africans there is nothing like security from fathers and mothers being put to death in order that their children may be captured;”—and, referring to the east coast alone, he says that—“thirty thousand, or more, human beings, are exported every year from Africa.”

Dr Livingstone tells us that, on the average, about one out of every five captured human beings reaches the coast alive. The other four perish or are murdered on the way, so that the thirty thousand annually exported, as stated by Sir Bartle Frere, represents a loss of 150,000 human beings annually from the east coast alone, altogether irrespective of the enormous and constant flow of slaves to the north by way of the White Nile and Egypt.

Yoosoof’s venture was therefore but a drop in the vast river of blood which is drained annually from poor Africa’s veins—blood which flows at the present time as copiously and constantly as it ever did in the days of old—blood which cries aloud to God for vengeance, and for the flow of which we, as a nation, are far from blameless.

Chapter Four.

In Which Our Heroes See Strange Sights at Zanzibar, and Resolve Upon Taking a Bold Step.

Before proceeding to the Seychelles, the ‘Firefly’ touched at the island of Zanzibar, and there landed our hero Harold Seadrift and his comrade in misfortune, Disco Lillihammer.

Here, one brilliant afternoon, the two friends sat down under a palm-tree to hold what Disco called a palaver. The spot commanded a fine view of the town and harbour of Zanzibar.

We repeat that the afternoon was brilliant, but it is right to add that it required an African body and mind fully to appreciate the pleasures of it. The sun’s rays were blistering, the heat was intense, and the air was stifling. Harold lay down and gasped, Disco followed his example, and sighed. After a few minutes spent in a species of imbecile contemplation of things in general, the latter raised himself to a sitting posture, and proceeded slowly to fill and light his pipe. Harold was no smoker, but he derived a certain dreamy enjoyment from gazing at Disco, and wondering how he could smoke in such hot weather.

“We’ll get used to it I s’pose, like the eels,” observed Disco, when the pipe was in full blast.

“Of course we shall,” replied Harold; “and now that we have come to an anchor, let me explain the project which has been for some days maturing in my mind.”

“All right; fire away, sir,” said the sailor, blowing a long thin cloud from his lips.

“You are aware,” said Harold, “that I came out here as supercargo of my father’s vessel,” (Disco nodded), “but you are not aware that my chief object in coming was to see a little of the world in general, and of the African part of it in particular. Since my arrival you and I have seen a few things, which have opened up my mind in regard to slavery; we have now been a fortnight in this town, and my father’s agent has enlightened me still further on the subject, insomuch that I now feel within me an intense desire to make an excursion into the interior of Africa; indeed, I have resolved to do so, for the purpose of seeing its capabilities in a commercial point of view, of observing how the slave-trade is conducted at its fountain-head, and of enjoying a little of the scenery and the sport peculiar to this land of Ham.”

“W’y, you speaks like a book, sir,” said Disco, emitting a prolonged puff, “an’ it ain’t for the likes me to give an opinion on that there; but if I may make bold to ax, sir, how do you mean to travel—on the back of a elephant or a ry-noceris?—for it seems to me that there ain’t much in the shape o’ locomotives or ’busses hereabouts—not even cabs.”

“I shall go in a canoe,” replied Harold; “but my reason for broaching the subject just now is, that I may ask if you are willing to go with me.”

“There’s no occasion to ax that sir; I’m your man—north or south, east or west, it’s all the same to me. I’ve bin born to roll about the world, and it matters little whether I rolls ashore or afloat—though I prefers the latter.”

“Well, then, that’s settled,” said Harold, with a look of satisfaction; “I have already arranged with our agent here to advance me what I require in the way of funds, and shall hire men and canoes when we get down to the Zambesi—”

“The Zam-wot, sir?”

“The Zambesi; did you never hear of it before?”

“Never, nor don’t know wot it is, sir.”

“It is a river; one of the largest on the east coast, which has been well described by Dr Livingstone, that greatest of travellers, whose chief object in travelling is, as he himself says, to raise the negroes out of their present degraded condition, and free them from the curse of slavery.”

“That’s the man to my mind,” said Disco emphatically; “good luck to him.—But w’en d’you mean to start for the Zambizzy, sir?”

“In a few days. It will take that time to get everything ready, and our money packed.”

“Our money packed!” echoed the sailor, with a look of surprise, “w’y, wot d’ye mean!”

“Just what I say. The money current in the interior of Africa is rather cumbrous, being neither more nor less than goods. You’ll never guess what sort—try.”

“Rum,” said Disco.

“No.”

“Pipes and ’baccy.”

Harold shook his head.

“Never could guess nothin’,” said Disco, replacing the pipe, which he had removed for a few moments from his lips; “I gives it up.”

“What would you say to cotton cloth, and thick brass wire, and glass beads, being the chief currency in Central Africa?” said Harold.

“You don’t mean it, sir?”

“Indeed I do, and as these articles must be carried in large quantities, if we mean to travel far into the land, there will be more bales and coils than you and I could well carry in our waistcoat pockets.”

“That’s true, sir,” replied Disco, looking earnestly at a couple of negro slaves who chanced to pass along the neighbouring footpath at that moment, singing carelessly. “Them poor critters don’t seem to be so miserable after all.”

“That is because the nigger is naturally a jolly, light-hearted fellow,” said Harold, “and when his immediate and more pressing troubles are removed he accommodates himself to circumstances, and sings, as you hear. If these fellows were to annoy their masters and get a thrashing, you’d hear them sing in another key. The evils of most things don’t show on the surface. You must get behind the scenes to understand them. You and I have already had one or two peeps behind the scenes.”

“We have indeed, sir,” replied Disco, frowning, and closing his fists involuntarily, as he thought of Yoosoof and the dhow.

“Now, then,” said Harold, rising, as Disco shook the ashes out of his little black pipe, and placed that beloved implement in the pocket of his coat, “let us return to the harbour, and see what chance there is of getting a passage to the Zambesi, in an honest trading dhow—if there is such a thing in Zanzibar.”

On their way to the harbour they had to pass through the slave-market. This was not the first time they had visited the scene of this iniquitous traffic, but neither Harold nor Disco could accustom themselves to it. Every time they entered the market their feelings of indignation became so intense that it was with the utmost difficulty they could control them. When Disco saw handsome negro men and good-looking girls put up for public sale,—their mouths rudely opened, and their teeth examined by cool, calculating Arabs, just as if they had been domestic cattle—his spirit boiled within him, his fingers tingled, and he felt a terrible inclination to make a wild attack, single-handed, on the entire population of Zanzibar, though he might perish in the execution of vengeance and the relief of his feelings! We need scarcely add that his discretion saved him. They soon reached the small square in which the market was held. Here they saw a fine-looking young woman sold to a grave elderly Arab for a sum equal to about eight pounds sterling. Passing hastily on, they observed another “lot,” a tall stalwart man, having his various “points” examined, and stopped to see the result. His owner, thinking, perhaps, that he seemed a little sluggish in his movements, raised his whip and caused it to fall upon his flank with such vigour that the poor fellow, taken by surprise, leaped high into the air, and uttered a yell of pain. The strength and activity of the man were unquestionable, and he soon found a purchaser.

But all the slaves were not fine-looking or stalwart like the two just referred to. Many of them were most miserable objects. Some stood, others were seated as if incapable of standing, so emaciated were they. Not a few were mere skeletons, with life and skin. Near the middle of the square, groups of children were arranged—some standing up to be inspected, others sitting down. These ranged from five years and upwards, but there was not one that betrayed the slightest tendency to mirth, and Disco came to the conclusion that negro children do not play, but afterwards discovered his mistake, finding that their exuberant jollity “at home” was not less than that of the children of other lands. These little slaves had long ago been terrified, and beaten, and starved into listless, apathetic and silent creatures.

Further on, a row of young women attracted their attention. They were ranged in a semicircle, all nearly in a state of nudity, waiting to be sold. A group of Arabs stood in front of them, conversing. One of these women looked such a picture of woe that Disco felt irresistibly impelled to stop. There were no tears in her eyes; the fountain appeared to have been dried up, but, apparently, without abating the grief which was stamped in deep lines on her young countenance, and which burst frequently from her breast in convulsive sobs. Our Englishmen were not only shocked but surprised at this woman’s aspect, for their experience had hitherto gone to show that the slaves usually became callous under their sufferings. Whatever of humanity might have originally belonged to them seemed to have been entirely driven out of them by the cruelties and indignities they had so long suffered at the hands of their captors. (See Captain Sulivan’s Dhow-chasing in Zanzibar Waters, page 252.)

“Wot’s the matter with her, poor thing?” asked Disco of a half-caste Portuguese, dressed in something like the garb of a sailor.

“Oh, notting,” answered the man in broken English, with a look of indifference, “she have lose her chile, dat all.”

“Lost her child? how—wot d’ee mean?”

“Dey hab sole de chile,” replied the man; “was good fat boy, ’bout two-yer ole. S’pose she hab carry him for months troo de woods, an’ over de hills down to coast, an’ tink she keep him altogether. But she mistake. One trader come here ’bout one hour past. He want boy—not want modder; so he buy de chile. Modder fight a littil at first, but de owner soon make her quiet. Oh, it notting at all. She cry a littil—soon forget her chile, an’ get all right.”

“Come, I can’t stand this,” exclaimed Harold, hastening away.

Disco said nothing, but to the amazement of the half-caste, he grasped him by the collar, and hurled him aside with a degree of force that caused him to stagger and fall with stunning violence to the ground. Disco then strode away after his friend, his face and eyes blazing with various emotions, among which towering indignation predominated.

In a few minutes they reached the harbour, and, while making inquiries as to the starting of trading dhows for the south, they succeeded in calming their feelings down to something like their ordinary condition.

The harbour was crowded with dhows of all shapes and sizes, most of them laden with slaves, some discharging cargoes for the Zanzibar market, others preparing to sail, under protection of a pass from the Sultan, for Lamoo, which is the northern limit of the Zanzibar dominions, and, therefore, of the so-called “domestic” slave-trade.

There would be something particularly humorous in the barefacedness of this august Sultan of Zanzibar, if it were connected with anything less horrible than slavery. For instance, there is something almost amusing in the fact that dhows were sailing every day for Lamoo with hundreds of slaves, although that small town was known to be very much overstocked at the time. It was also quite entertaining to know that the commanders of the French and English war-vessels lying in the harbour at the time were aware of this, and that the Sultan knew it, and that, in short, everybody knew it, but that nobody appeared to have the power to prevent it! Even the Sultan who granted the permits or passes to the owners of the dhows, although he professed to wish to check the slave-trade, could not prevent it. Wasn’t that strange—wasn’t it curious? The Sultan derived by far the largest portion of his revenue from the tax levied on the export of slaves—amounting to somewhere about 10,000 pounds a year—but that had nothing to do with it of course not, oh dear no! Then there was another very ludicrous phase of this oriental, not to say transcendental, potentate’s barefacedness. He knew, and probably admitted, that about 2000, some say 4000, slaves a year were sufficient to meet the home-consumption of that commodity, and he also knew, but probably did not admit, that not fewer than 30,000 slaves were annually exported from Zanzibar to meet this requirement of 4000! These are very curious specimens of miscalculation which this barefaced Sultan seems to have fallen into. Perhaps he was a bad arithmetician. (See Captain Sulivan’s Dhow-chasing in Zanzibar Water; page 111.) We have said that this state of things was so at the time of our story, but we may now add that it still is so in this year of grace 1873. Whether it shall continue to be so remains to be seen!

Having spent some time in fruitless inquiry, Harold and Disco at last to their satisfaction, discovered an Arab dhow of known good character, which was on the point of starting for the Zambesi in the course of a few days, for the purpose of legitimate traffic. It therefore became necessary that our hero should make his purchases and preparations with all possible speed. In this he was entirely guided by his father’s agent, a merchant of the town, who understood thoroughly what was necessary for the intended journey.

It is not needful here to enter into full details, suffice it to say that among the things purchased by Harold, and packed up in portable form, were a number of bales of common unbleached cotton, which is esteemed above everything by the natives of Africa as an article of dress—if we may dignify by the name of dress the little piece, about the size of a moderate petticoat, which is the only clothing of some, or the small scrap round the loins which is the sole covering of other, natives of the interior! There were also several coils of thick brass wire, which is much esteemed by them for making bracelets and anklets; and a large quantity of beads of various colours, shapes, and sizes. Of beads, we are told, between five and six hundred tons are annually manufactured in Great Britain for export to Africa.

Thus supplied, our two friends embarked in the dhow and set sail. Wind and weather were propitious. In few days they reached the mouths of the great river Zambesi, and landed at the port of Quillimane.

Only once on the voyage did they fall in with a British cruiser, which ordered them to lay-to and overhauled them, but on the papers and everything being found correct, they were permitted to pursue their voyage.

The mouths of the river Zambesi are numerous; extending over more than ninety miles of the coast. On the banks of the northern mouth stands—it would be more appropriate to say festers—the dirty little Portuguese town of Quillimane. Its site is low, muddy, fever-haunted, and swarming with mosquitoes. No man in his senses would have built a village thereon were it not for the facilities afforded for slaving. At spring or flood tides the bar may be safely crossed by sailing vessels, but, being far from land, it is always dangerous for boats.

Here, then, Harold and Disco landed, and remained for some time for the purpose of engaging men. Appearing in the character of independent travellers, they were received with some degree of hospitality by the principal inhabitants. Had they gone there as simple and legitimate traders, every possible difficulty would have been thrown in their way, because the worthy people, from the Governor downwards, flourished,—or festered,—by means of the slave-trade, and legitimate commerce is everywhere found to be destructive to the slave-trade.

Dr Livingstone and others tell us that thousands upon thousands of negroes have, of late years, gone out from Quillimane into slavery under the convenient title of “free emigrants,” their freedom being not quite equal to that of a carter’s horse, for while that animal, although enslaved, is usually well fed, the human animal is kept on rather low diet lest his spirit should rouse him to deeds of desperate violence against his masters. All agricultural enterprise is also effectually discouraged here. When a man wants to visit his country farm he has to purchase a permit from the Governor. If he wishes to go up the river to the Portuguese towns of Senna or Tette, a pass must be purchased from the Governor. In fact it would weary the reader were we to enumerate the various modes in which every effort of man to act naturally, legitimately, or progressively, is hampered, unless his business be the buying and selling of human beings.

At first Harold experienced great difficulty in procuring men. The master of the trading dhow in which he sailed from Zanzibar intended to remain as short a time as possible at Quillimane, purposing to visit ports further south, and as Harold had made up his mind not to enter the Zambesi by the Quillimane mouth, but to proceed in the dhow to one of the southern mouths, he felt tempted to give up the idea of procuring men until he had gone further south.

“You see, Disco,” said he, in a somewhat disconsolate tone, “it won’t do to let this dhow start without us, because I want to get down to the East Luavo mouth of this river, that being the mouth which was lately discovered and entered by Dr Livingstone; but I’m not sure that we can procure men or canoes there, and our Arab skipper either can’t or won’t enlighten me.”

“Ah!” observed Disco, with a knowing look, “he won’t—that’s where it is, sir. I’ve not a spark o’ belief in that man, or in any Arab on the coast. He’s a slaver in disguise, he is, an’ so’s every mother’s son of ’em.”

“Well,” continued Harold, “if we must start without them and take our chance, we must; there is no escaping from the inevitable; nevertheless we must exert ourselves to-day, because the dhow does not sail till to-morrow evening, and there is no saying what luck may attend our efforts before that time. Perseverance, you know, is the only sure method of conquering difficulties.”

“That’s so,” said Disco; “them’s my sentiments ’xactly. Never say die—Stick at nothing—Nail yer colours to the mast: them’s the mottoes that I goes in for—always s’posin’ that you’re in the right.”

“But what if you’re in the wrong, and the colours are nailed?” asked Harold, with a smile.

“W’y then, sir, of course I’d have to tear ’em down.”

“So that perhaps, it would be better not to nail them at all, unless you’re very sure—eh?”

“Oh, of course, sir,” replied Disco, with solemn emphasis. “You don’t suppose, sir, that I would nail ’em to the mast except I was sure, wery sure, that I wos right? But, as you wos a sayin’, sir, about the gittin’ of them ’ere men.”

Disco had an easy way of changing a subject when he felt that he was getting out of his depth.

“Well, to return to that. The fact is, I would not mind the men, for it’s likely that men of some sort will turn up somewhere, but I am very anxious about an interpreter. Without an interpreter we shall get on badly, I fear, for I can only speak French, besides a very little Latin and Greek, none of which languages will avail much among niggers.”

Disco assumed a severely thoughtful expression of countenance.

“That’s true,” he said, placing his right fist argumentatively in his left palm, “and I’m afeard I can’t help you there, sir. If it wos to steer a ship or pull a oar or man the fore-tops’l yard in a gale o’ wind, or anything else in the seafarin’ line, Disco Lillihammer’s your man, but I couldn’t come a furrin’ lingo at no price. I knows nothin’ but my mother tongue,—nevertheless, though I says it that shouldn’t, I does profess to be somewhat of a dab at that. Once upon a time I spent six weeks in Dublin, an’ havin’ a quick ear for moosic, I soon managed to get up a strong dash o’ the brogue; but p’raps that wouldn’t go far with the niggers.”

About two hours after the above conversation, while Harold Seadrift was walking on the beach, he observed his faithful ally in the distance grasping a short thickset man by the arm, and endeavouring to induce him to accompany him, with a degree of energy that fell little short of main force. The man was evidently unwilling.

As the pair drew nearer, Harold overheard Disco’s persuasive voice:— “Come now, Antonio, don’t be a fool; it’s the best service you could enter. Good pay and hard work, and all the grub that’s goin’—what could a man want more? It’s true there’s no grog, but we don’t need that in a climate where you’ve only got to go out in the sun without yer hat an’ you’ll be as good as drunk in ten minutes, any day.”

“No, no, not possibil,” remonstrated the man, whose swarthy visage betrayed a mixture of cunning, fun, and annoyance. He was obviously a half-caste of the lowest type, but with more pretensions to wealth than many of his fellows, inasmuch as he wore, besides his loin-cloth, a white cotton shooting-coat, very much soiled, beneath the tails of which his thin black legs protruded ridiculously.

“Here you are, sir,” cried Disco, as he came up; “here’s the man for lingo: knows the native talkee, as well as Portuguese, English, Arabic, and anything else you like, as far as I know. Antonio’s his name. Come, sir, try him with Greek, or somethin’ o’ that sort!”

Harold had much ado to restrain a smile, but, assuming a grave aspect, he addressed the man in French, while Disco listened with a look of profound respect and admiration.

“W’y, wot’s wrong with ’ee, man,” exclaimed Disco, on observing the blank look of Antonio’s countenance; “don’t ’ee savay that?”

“I thought you understood Portuguese?” said Harold in English.

“So me do,” replied Antonio quickly; “but dat no Portigeese—dat Spanaish, me ’spose.”

“What can you speak, then?” demanded Harold sternly.

“Portigeese, Arbik, Fengleesh, an’ two, tree, four, nigger lungwiches.”

It was very obvious that, whatever Antonio spoke, he spoke nothing correctly, but that was of no importance so long as the man could make himself understood. Harold therefore asked if he would join his party as interpreter, but Antonio shook his head.

“Why not man—why not?” asked Harold impatiently, for he became anxious to secure him, just in proportion as he evinced disinclination to engage.

“Speak up, Antonio, don’t be ashamed; you’ve no need to,” said Disco. “The fact is, sir, Antonio tells me that he has just bin married, an’ he don’t want to leave his wife.”

“Very natural,” observed Harold. “How long is it since you were married?”

“Von veek since I did bought her.”

“Bought her!” exclaimed Disco, with a broad grin; “may I ax wot ye paid for her?”

“Paid!” exclaimed the man, starting and opening his eyes very wide, as if the contemplation of the vast sum were too much for him; “lat me zee—me pay me vife’s pairyints sixteen yard ob cottin clothe, an’ for me’s hut four yard morer.”

“Ye don’t say that?” exclaimed Disco, with an extended grin. “Is she young an’ good-lookin’?”

“Yonge!” replied Antonio; “yis, ver’ yonge; not mush more dan baby, an’ exiquitely bootiful.”

“Then, my good feller,” said Disco, with a laugh, “the sooner you leave her the better. A week is a long time, an’ absence, you know, as the old song says, makes the heart grow fonder; besides, Mr Seadrift will give you enough to buy a dozen wives, if ’ee want ’em.”

“Yes, I’ll pay you well,” said Harold; “that is, if you prove to be a good interpreter.”

Antonio pricked up his ears at this.

“How mush vill ’oo gif?” he asked.

“Well, let me think; I shall probably be away three or four months. What would you say, Antonio, to twenty yards of cotton cloth a month, and a gun into the bargain at the end, if you do your work well?”

The pleased expression of Antonio’s face could not have been greater had he been offered twenty pounds sterling a month. The reader may estimate the value of this magnificent offer when we say that a yard of cotton cloth was at that time sevenpence-halfpenny, so that Antonio’s valuable services were obtained for about 12 shillings, 6 pence a month, and a gun which cost Harold less than twenty shillings in Zanzibar.

We may remark here that Antonio afterwards proved to be a stout, able, willing man, and a faithful servant, although a most arrant coward.

From this time Harold’s difficulties in regard to men vanished. With Antonio’s able assistance nine were procured, stout, young, able-bodied fellows they were, and all more or less naked. Two of these were half-caste brothers, named respectively José and Oliveira; two were half-wild negroes of the Somali tribe named Nakoda and Conda; three were negroes of the Makololo tribe, who had accompanied Dr Livingstone on his journey from the far interior of Africa to the East Coast, and were named respectively Jumbo, Zombo, and Masiko; and finally two, named Songolo and Mabruki, were free negroes of Quillimane. Thus the whole band, including Disco and the leader, formed a goodly company of twelve stout men.

Of course Harold armed them all with guns and knives. Himself and Disco carried Enfield rifles; besides which, Harold took with him a spare rifle of heavy calibre, carrying large balls, mingled with tin to harden them. This latter was intended for large game. Landing near the East Luavo mouth of the Zambesi, our hero was fortunate enough to procure two serviceable canoes, into which he transferred himself, his men, and his goods, and, bidding adieu to the Arab skipper of the dhow, commenced his journey into the interior of Africa.

Chapter Five.

In which the Travellers Enjoy Themselves Extremely, and Disco Lillihammer Sees Several Astonishing Sights.

Behold our travellers, then, fairly embarked on the waters of the great African river Zambesi, in two canoes, one of which is commanded by Harold Seadrift, the other by Disco Lillihammer.

Of course these enterprising chiefs were modest enough at first to allow two of the Makololo men, Jumbo and Zombo, to wield the steering-oars, but after a few days’ practice they became sufficiently expert, as Disco said, to take the helm, except when strong currents rendered the navigation difficult, or when the weather became so “piping hot” that none but men clad in black skins could work.

We must however guard the reader here from supposing that it is always piping hot in Africa. There are occasional days when the air may be styled lukewarm, when the sky is serene, and when all nature seems joyful and enjoyable,—days in which a man opens his mouth wide and swallows down the atmosphere; when he feels his health and strength, and rejoices in them, and when, if he be not an infidel, he also feels a sensation of gratitude to the Giver of all good.

On such a day, soon after entering the East Luavo mouth of the Zambesi, the explorers, for such we may almost venture to style them, ascended the smooth stream close to the left bank, Harold leading, Disco following closely in his wake.

The men rowed gently, as if they enjoyed the sweet calm of early morning, and were unwilling to disturb the innumerable flocks of wild-fowl that chuckled among the reeds and sedges everywhere. Harold sat in the stern, leaning back, and only dipping the steering-oar lazily now and then to keep the canoe from running on the bank, or plunging into a forest of gigantic rushes. Disco, having resolved to solace himself with a whiff of his darling pipe, had resigned “the helm” to Jumbo, and laid himself in a position of comfort which admitted of his resting his head on the gunwale in such a manner that, out of the corners of his eyes, he could gaze down into the water.

The part of the river they had reached was so perfectly still that every cloud in the sky, every mangrove, root and spray, and every bending bulrush, was perfectly reproduced in the reflected world below. Plaintive cries of wild-fowl formed appropriate melody, to which chattering groups of monkeys and croaking bull-frogs contributed a fine tenor and bass.

“Hallo, Disco!” exclaimed Harold in a subdued key, looking over his shoulder.

“Ay, ay, sir?” sighed the seaman, without moving his position.

“Range up alongside; I want to speak to you.”

“Ay, ay, sir.—Jumbo, you black-faced villain, d’ee hear that? give way and go ’longside.”

Good-humoured Jumbo spoke very little English, but had come to understand a good deal during his travels with Dr Livingstone. He wrinkled his visage and showed his brilliant teeth on receiving the order. Muttering a word to the men, and giving a vigorous stroke, he shot up alongside of the leader’s canoe.

“You seem comfortable,” said Harold, with a laugh, as Disco’s vast visage appeared at his elbow.

“I is.”

“Isn’t this jolly?” continued Harold.

“No, sir, ’taint.”

“Why, what d’you mean?”

“I means that jolly ain’t the word, by a long way, for to express the natur’ o’ my feelin’s. There ain’t no word as I knows on as ’ud come up to it. If I wor a fylosipher, now, I’d coin a word for the occasion. P’raps,” continued Disco, drawing an unusually long whiff from his pipe, “p’raps, not bein’ a fylosipher, I might nevertheless try to coin one. Wot’s the Latin, now, for heaven?”

“Caelum,” replied Harold.

“Sailum, eh? An’ wot’s the ’arth?”

“Terra.”

“Terra? well now, wot rediklous names to give to ’em,” said Disco, shaking his head gravely, “I can’t see why the ancients couldn’t ha’ bin satisfied with the names that we’d given ’em. Hows’ever, that’s neither here nor there. My notion o’ the state o’ things that we’ve got into here, as they now stand, is, that they are sailumterracious, which means heaven-upon-earth, d’ee see?”

As Disco pronounced the word with a powerful emphasis on the u-m part of it the sound was rather effective, and seemed to please him.

“Right; you’re right, or nearly so,” replied Harold; “but don’t you think the word savours too much of perfection, seeing that breakfast would add to the pleasure of the present delightful state of things, and make them even more sailumterracious than they are?”

“No, sir, no; the word ain’t too parfect,” replied Disco, with a look of critical severity; “part of it is ’arth, and ’arth is imparfect, bein’ susceptible of a many improvements, among which undoubtedly is breakfast, likewise dinner an’ supper, to say nothin’ of lunch an’ tea, which is suitable only for babbies an’ wimen; so I agrees with you, sir, that the state o’ things will be sailumterraciouser if we goes ashore an’ has breakfast.”

He tapped the head of his very black little pipe on the edge of the canoe, and heaved a sigh of contentment as he watched the ash-ball that floated away on the stream; then, rousing himself, he seized the steering-oar and followed Harold into a small creek, which was pleasantly overshadowed by the rich tropical foliage of that region.

While breakfast was being prepared by Antonio, whose talents as chef-de-cuisine were of the highest order, Harold took his rifle and rambled into the bush in search of game—any kind of game, for at that time he had had no experience whatever of the sport afforded by the woods of tropical Africa, and, having gathered only a few vague ideas from books, he went forth with all the pleasurable excitement and expectation that we may suppose peculiar to discoverers.

Disco Lillihammer having only consumed his first pipe of tobacco, and holding it to be a duty which he owed to himself to consume two before breakfast, remained at the camp-fire to smoke and chaff Antonio, whose good-nature was only equalled by his activity.

“Wot have ’ee got there?” inquired Disco, as Antonio poured a quantity of seed into a large pot.

“Dis? vy, hims be mapira,” replied the interpreter, with a benignant smile. “Hims de cheef food ob dis konterie.”

It must be remarked here that Antonio’s English, having been acquired from all sorts of persons, in nearly every tropical part of the globe, was somewhat of a jumble, being a compound of the broken English spoken by individuals among the Germans, French, Portuguese, Arabs, and Negroes, with whom he had at various times associated, modified by his own ignorance, and seasoned with a dash of his own inventive fancy.

“Is it good?” asked Disco.

“Goot!” exclaimed Antonio. Being unable to find words to express himself, the enthusiastic cook placed his hand on the region which was destined ere long to become a receptacle for the mapira, and rolled his eyes upwards in rapture. “Hah! oo sall see behind long.”

“Before long, you mean,” observed the seaman.

“Dat all same ting, s’long’s you onerstand him,” replied Antonio complacently.—“Bring vatter now, Jumbo. Put him in careful. Not spill on de fire—zo—goot.”

Jumbo filled up the kettle carefully, and a broad grin overspread his black visage, partly because he was easily tickled into a condition of risibility by the cool off-hand remarks of Disco Lillihammer, and partly because, having acquired his own small smattering of English from Dr Livingstone, he was intelligent enough to perceive that in regard to Antonio’s language there was something peculiar.

“Now, go fitch noder kittle—queek.”

“Yis, sar—zo—goot,” replied Jumbo, mimicking the interpreter, and going off with a vociferous laugh at his little joke, in which he was joined by his sable clansmen, Masiko and Zombo.

“Hims got ’nuff of impoodidence,” said the interpreter, as he bustled about his avocations.

“He’s not the only one that’s got more than enough impoodidence,” said Disco, pushing a fine straw down the stem of his “cutty,” to make it draw better. “I say, Tony,” (our regardless seaman had already thus mutilated his name), “you seem to have plenty live stock in them parts.”

“Plenty vat?” inquired the interpreter, with a perplexed expression.

“Why, plenty birds and beasts,—live stock we calls it, meanin’ thereby livin’ creeturs.” He pointed towards an opening in the mangroves, through which were visible the neighbouring mud and sand flats, swarming with wild-fowl, and conspicuous among which were large flocks of pelicans, who seemed to be gorging themselves comfortably from an apparently inexhaustible supply of fish in the pools left by the receding tide.

“Ho, yis, me perceive; yis, plenty bird and beast—fishes too, and crawbs—look dare.”

He pointed to a part of the sands nearest to their encampment which appeared to be alive with some small creatures.

“That’s coorious,” said Disco, removing his pipe, and regarding the phenomenon with some interest.

“No, ’taint koorous, it’s crawbs,” replied Antonio.

“Crabs, is it?” said Disco, rising and sauntering down to the sands; for he possessed an inquiring mind, with a special tendency to investigate the habits (pranks, as he called them) of the lower animals, which, in other circumstances, might have made him a naturalist.

Muttering to himself—he was fond of muttering to himself, it felt companionable,—“coorious, very coorious, quite ’stroanary,” he crept stealthily to the edge of the mangroves, and there discovered that the sands were literally alive with myriads of minute crabs, which were actively engaged—it was supposed by those who ought to know best—in gathering their food. The moment the tide ebbed from any part of the sands, out came these crablets in swarms, and set to work, busy as bees, ploughing up the sand, and sifting it, apparently for food, until the whole flat was rendered rough by their incessant labours. Approaching cautiously, Disco observed that each crab, as he went along sidewise, gathered a round bit of moist sand at his mouth, which was quickly brushed away by one of his claws, and replaced by another, and another, as fast as they could be brushed aside.

“Eatin’ sand they are!” muttered Disco in surprise; but presently the improbability of sand being very nutritious food, even for crabs, forced itself on him, and he muttered his conviction that they “was scrapin’ for wittles.”

Having watched the crabs a considerable time, and observed that they frequently interrupted their labours to dart suddenly into their holes and out again—for the purpose, he conjectured, of “havin’ a drop o’ summat to wet their whistles,”—Disco thrust the cutty into his vest pocket, and walked a little further out on the flat in the hope of discovering some new objects of interest. Nor was he disappointed. Besides finding that the pools left by the tide swarmed with varieties of little fish—many of them being “coorious,”—he was fortunate enough to witness a most surprising combat.

It happened thus:— Perceiving, a little to his right, some small creature hopping about on the sand near to a little pool, he turned aside to observe it more closely. On his drawing near, the creature jumped into the pool. Disco advanced to the edge, gazed intently into the water, and saw nothing except his own reflected image at the bottom. Presently the creature reappeared. It was a small fish—a familiar fish, too—which he had known in the pools of his native land by the name of blenny. As the blenny appeared to wish to approach the edge of the pool, Disco retired, and, placing a hand on each knee, stooped, in order to make himself as small as possible. He failed, the diminution in his height being fully counterbalanced by the latitudinal extension of his elbows!

Presently the blenny put its head out of the water, and looked about. We speak advisedly. The blenny is altogether a singular, an exceptional fish. It can, and does, look sidewise, upwards and downwards, with its protruding eyes, as knowingly, and with as much vivacity, as if it were a human being. This power in a fish has something of the same awesome effect on an observer that might possibly result were a horse to raise its head and smile at him.

Seeing that the coast was clear, for Disco stood as motionless as a mangrove tree, blenny hopped upon the dry land. The African blenny is a sort of amphibious animal, living nearly as much out of the water as in it. Indeed its busiest time, we are told, (See Dr Livingstone’s Zambesi and its Tributaries, page 843.) is at low water, when, by means of its pectoral fins it crawls out on the sand and raises itself into something of a standing attitude, with its bright eyes keeping a sharp look-out for the light-coloured flies on which it feeds.

For several seconds Disco gazed at the fish, and the fish gazed around, even turning its head a little, as well as its eyes, on this side and on that. Presently a small fly, with that giddy heedlessness which characterises the race, alighted about two inches in front of blenny’s nose. Instantly the fish leaped that vast space, alighted with its underset mouth just over the fly, which immediately rose into it and was entombed.

“Brayvo!” passed through Disco’s brain, but no sound issued from his lips.

Presently another of the giddy ones alighted in front of blenny about a foot distant. This appeared to be much beyond his leaping powers, for, with a slow, stealthy motion, like a cat, he began deliberately to stalk his victim. The victim appeared to be blind, for it took no notice of the approaching monster. Blenny displayed marvellous powers of self-control, for he moved on steadily without accelerating his speed until within about two inches of his prey—then he leapt as before, and another fly was entombed.

“Well done!” exclaimed Disco, mentally, but still his lips and body were motionless as before.

At this point an enemy, in the shape of another blenny, appeared on the scene. It came up out of a small pool close at hand, and seemed to covet the first blenny’s pool, and to set about taking possession of it as naturally as if it had been a human being; for, observing, no doubt, that its neighbour was busily engaged, it moved quietly in the direction of the coveted pool. Being a very little fish, it was not observed by Disco, but it was instantly noticed by the first blenny, which, being rather the smaller of the two, we shall style the Little one.

Suddenly Big Blenny threw off all disguise, bounded towards the pool, which was about a foot square, and plunged in. No mortal blenny could witness this unwarrantable invasion of its hearth and home without being stirred to indignant wrath. With eyes that seemed to flash fire, and dorsal fin bristling up with rage, Little Blenny made five tremendous leaps of full three inches each, and disappeared. Another moment and a miniature storm ruffled the pool: for a few seconds the heavings of the deep were awful; then, out jumped Big Blenny and tried to flee, but out jumped Little Blenny and caught him by the tail; round turned the big one and caught the other by the jaw.

“Hallo, Disco! breakfast’s ready—where are you?” shouted Harold from the woods.

Disco replied not. It is a question whether he heard the hail at all, so engrossed was he in this remarkable fight.

“Brayvo!” he exclaimed aloud, when Little Blenny shook his big enemy off and rolled over him.

“Cleverly done!” he shouted, when Big Blenny with a dart took refuge in the pool.

“I knowed it,” he cried approvingly, when Little Blenny forced him a second time to evacuate the premises, “Go in an’ win, little ’un,” thought Disco.

Thus the battle raged furiously, now in the water, now on the sand, while the excited seaman danced round the combatants—both of whom appeared to have become deaf and blind with rage—and gave them strong encouragement, mingled with appropriate advice and applause. In fact Disco’s delight would have been perfect, had the size of the belligerents admitted of his patting the little blenny on the back; but this of course was out of the question!

At last having struck, worried, bitten, and chased each other by land and sea for several minutes, these pugnacious creatures seized each other by their respective throats, like two bull-dogs, and fell exhausted on the sand.

“It’s a draw!” exclaimed Disco, rather disappointed.

“No, ’tain’t,” he said, as Little Blenny, reviving, rose up and renewed the combat more furiously than ever; but it was soon ended, for Big Blenny suddenly turned and fled to his own pool. Little Blenny did not crow; he did not even appear to be elated. He evidently felt that he had been called on to perform a disagreeable but unavoidable duty, and deemed it quite unnecessary to wave banners, fire guns, or ring bells in celebration of his victory, as he dived back into his pool amid the ringing cheers of Disco Lillihammer.

“Upon my word, if you have not gone stark mad, you must have had a sunstroke,” said Harold, coming forward, “what’s the matter?”

“Too late! too late!” cried Disco, in a mingled tone of amusement and regret.

“D’ye think it is? Are you incurable already?” asked his friend.

“Too late to see the most a-stonishin’ scrimmage I ever did behold in my life,” said Disco.

The description of this scrimmage gave the worthy seaman a subject for conversation and food for meditation during the greater part of the time spent over the morning meal, and there is no saying how long he would have kept referring to and chuckling over it—to the great admiration and sympathy of the black fellows, who are, as a race, excessively fond of jocularity and fun—had not another of the denizens of the mangrove jungle diverted his attention and thoughts rather suddenly.

This was a small monkey, which, seated on a branch overhead, peered at the breakfast-party from among the leaves, with an expression of inquiry and of boundless astonishment that it is quite impossible to describe. Surprise of the most sprightly nature, if we may say so, sat enthroned on that small monkey’s countenance, an expression which was enhanced by the creature’s motions, for, not satisfied with taking a steady look at the intruders from the right side of a leaf, it thrust forward its little black head on the left side of it, and then under it, by way of variety; but no additional light seemed to result from these changes in the point of observation, for the surprise did not diminish.

In one of its intent stares it caught the eye of Disco. The seaman’s jaws stopped, as if suddenly locked, and his eyes opened to their widest.

The monkey seemed to feel uneasily that it had attracted attention, for it showed the smallest possible glimpse of its teeth. The action, coupled with the leafy shadows which fell on its countenance, had the effect of a smile, which caused Disco to burst into a loud laugh and point upwards. To bound from its position to a safer retreat, and thence stare at Disco with deep indignation, and a threatening display of all its teeth and gums, in addition to its looks of surprise, was the work of a moment on the part of the small monkey, whereat Disco burst into a renewed roar of laughter, in which he was joined by the whole party.

“Are there many o’ them fellows hereabouts?” inquired the seaman of Antonio.

“Ho, yis, lots ob ’em. T’ousands ebery whars; see, dare am morer.”

He pointed to another part of the umbrageous canopy overhead, where the face of a still smaller monkey was visible, engaged, like the previous one, in an earnest scrutiny of the party, but with a melancholy, rather than a surprised, expression of visage.

“Wot a miserable, broken-hearted thing!” said Disco, grinning, in which act he was immediately copied by the melancholy monkey, though from different motives.

Disco was very fond of monkeys. All his life he had felt a desire to pat and fondle those shivering creatures which he had been accustomed to see on barrel-organs in his native land, and the same strong impulse came over him now.

“Wot a pity the creeturs smell so bad, and ain’t cleanly,” he remarked, gazing affectionately up among the leaves, “they’d make such capital pets; why, there’s another.”

This remark had reference to a third monkey, of large dimensions and fierce countenance, which at that moment rudely thrust the melancholy monkey aside, and took its place. The latter, with a humble air and action, took up a new position, somewhat nearer to the fire, where its sad countenance was more distinctly seen.

“Well, it does seem a particularly sorrowful monkey, that,” said Harold, laughing, as he helped himself to another canful of tea.

“The most miserable objic’ I ever did see,” observed Disco.

The negroes looked at each other and laughed. They were accustomed to monkeys, and took little notice of them, but they were mightily tickled by Disco’s amusement, for he had laid down his knife and fork, and shook a good deal with internal chuckling, as he gazed upwards.

“One would suppose, now,” he said softly, “that it had recently seen its father and mother, and all its brothers and sisters, removed by a violent death, or sold into slavery.”

“Ha! they never see that,” said Harold; “the brutes may fight and kill, but they never enslave each other. It is the proud prerogative of man to do that.”

“That’s true, sir, worse luck, as Paddy says,” rejoined Disco. “But look there: wot’s them coorious things round the creetur’s waist—a pair o’ the werry smallest hands—and, hallo! a face no bigger than a button! I do believe that it’s—”

Disco did not finish the sentence, but he was right. The small melancholy monkey was a mother!

Probably that was the cause of its sorrow. It is a touching thought that anxiety for its tiny offspring perhaps had furrowed that monkey’s visage with the wrinkles of premature old age. That danger threatened it on every side was obvious, for no sooner had it taken up its new position, after its unceremonious ejection by the fierce monkey, than the sprightly monkey, before referred to, conceived a plot which it immediately proceeded to carry into execution. Observing that the tail of the sad one hung down in a clear space below the branch on which it sat, the sprightly fellow quickly, but with intense caution and silence, crept towards it, and when within a yard or so sprang into the air and caught the tail!

A wild shriek, and what Disco styled a “scrimmage,” ensued, during which the mother monkey gave chase to him of the lively visage, using her arms, legs, and tail promiscuously to grasp and hold on to branches, and leaving her extremely little one to look out for itself. This it seemed quite capable of doing, for no limpet ever stuck to a solid rock with greater tenacity than did that infant to the maternal waist throughout the chase. The hubbub appeared to startle the whole monkey race, revealing the fact that troops of other monkeys had, unobserved, been gazing at the strangers in silent wonder, since the time of their landing.

Pleasant however, though this state of things undeniably was, it could not be expected to last. Breakfast being concluded, it became necessary that Disco should tear himself from the spot which, having first solaced himself with a pipe, he did with a good grace, remarking, as he re-embarked and “took the helm” of his canoe, that he had got more powerful surprises that morning than he had ever before experienced in any previous twelvemonth of his life.

Before long he received many more surprises, especially one of a very different and much less pleasant nature, an account of which will be found in the next chapter.

Chapter Six.

Describes Several New and Surprising Incidents, which must be Read to be Fully Appreciated.

To travel with one’s mouth and eyes opened to nearly their utmost width in a state of surprised stupefaction, may be unavoidable, but it cannot be said to be either becoming or convenient. Attention in such a case is apt to be diverted from the business in hand, and flies have a tendency to immolate themselves in the throat.

Nevertheless, inconvenient though the condition was, our friend Disco Lillihammer was so afflicted with astonishment at what he heard and saw in this new land, that he was constantly engaged in swallowing flies and running his canoe among shallows and rushes, insomuch that he at last resigned the steering-oar until familiarity with present circumstances should tone him down to a safe condition of equanimity.

And no wonder that Disco was surprised; no wonder that his friend Harold Seadrift shared in his astonishment and delight, for they were at once, and for the first time in their lives, plunged into the very heart of jungle life in equatorial Africa! Those who have never wandered far from the comparatively tame regions of our temperate zone, can form but a faint conception of what it is to ramble in the tropics, and therefore can scarcely be expected to sympathise fully with the mental condition of our heroes as they ascended the Zambesi. Everything was so thoroughly strange; sights and sounds so vastly different from what they had been accustomed to see and hear, that it seemed as though they had landed on another planet. Trees, shrubs, flowers, birds, beasts, insects, and reptiles, all were unfamiliar, except indeed, one or two of the more conspicuous trees and animals, which had been so imprinted on their minds by means of nursery picture-books that, on first beholding them, Disco unconsciously paid these books the compliment of saying that the animals “wos uncommon like the picturs.”

Disco’s mental condition may be said, for the first two or three days, to have been one of gentle ever-flowing surprise, studded thickly with little bursts of keen astonishment.

The first part of the river ran between mangrove jungle, in regard to which he remarked that “them there trees had legs like crabs,” in which observation he was not far wrong, for, when the tide was out, the roots of the mangroves rose high out of the mud, forming supports, as it were, for the trees to stand on.

But it was the luxuriance of the vegetation that made the most powerful impression on the travellers. It seemed as if the various groups and families of the vegetable kingdom had been warmed by the sun into a state of unwonted affection, for everything appeared to entertain the desire to twine round and embrace everything else. One magnificent screw-palm in particular was so overwhelmed by affectionate parasites that his natural shape was almost entirely concealed. Others of the trees were decked with orchilla weed. There were ferns so gigantic as to be almost worthy of being styled trees, and palm-bushes so sprawling as to suggest the idea of huge vegetable spiders. Bright yellow fruit gleamed among the graceful green leaves of the mangroves; wild date-palms gave variety to the scene, if that had been needed, which it was not, and masses of umbrageous plants with large yellow flowers grew along the banks, while, down among the underwood, giant roots rose in fantastic convolutions above ground, as if the earth were already too full, and there wasn’t room for the whole of them. There was an antediluvian magnificence, a prehistoric snakiness, a sort of primeval running-to-seedness, which filled Harold and Disco with feelings of awe, and induced a strange, almost unnatural tendency to regard Adam and Eve as their contemporaries.

Animal life was not wanting in this paradise. Frequently did our seaman give vent to “Hallo!” “There they go!” “Look out for the little ’un wi’ the long tail!” and similar expressions, referring of course to his favourite monkeys, which ever and anon peered out upon the strangers with looks of intensity, for whatever their expression might be—sadness, grief, interrogation, wrath, surprise—it was always in the superlative degree. There were birds also, innumerable. One, styled the “king-hunter,” sang wild exultant airs, as if it found king-hunting to be an extremely exhilarating occupation, though what sort of kings it hunted we cannot tell. Perhaps it was the king of beasts, perhaps the kingfisher, a bright specimen of which was frequently seen to dart out from the banks, but we profess ignorance on this point. There were fish-hawks also, magnificent fellows, which sat in regal dignity on the tops of the mangrove trees, and the glossy ibis, with others of the feathered tribe too numerous to mention.

Large animals also were there in abundance, though not so frequently seen as those which have been already mentioned. Disco occasionally made known the fact that such, or something unusual, had transpired, by the sudden and violent exclamation of “What’s that?” in a voice so loud that “that,” whatever it might be, sometimes bolted or took to flight before any one else caught sight of it.

“Hallo!” he exclaimed, on one such occasion, as the canoes turned a bend of the river.

“What now?” demanded Harold, looking at his companion to observe the direction of his eyes.

“I’m a Dutchman,” exclaimed Disco in a hoarse whisper that might have been heard half a mile off, “if it’s not a zebra!”

“So it is; my rifle—look sharp!” said Harold eagerly.

The weapon was handed to him, but before it could be brought to bear, the beautiful striped creature had tossed its head, snorted, whisked its tail, kicked up its heels, and dashed into the jungle.

“Give way, lads; let’s after him,” shouted Disco, turning the canoe’s bow to shore.

“Hold on,” cried Harold; “you might as well go after a needle in a haystack, or a locomotive.”

“So I might,” admitted Disco, with a mortified air, resuming his course; “but it ain’t in reason to expect a feller to keep quiet w’en he sees one o’ the very picturs of his child’ood, so to speak, come alive an’ kick up its heels like that.”

Buffaloes were also seen in the grassy glades, but it proved difficult to come within range of them; also wart-hogs, and three different kinds of antelope.

Of these last Harold shot several, and they were found to be excellent food.

Human beings were also observed, but those first encountered fled at the sight of the white men, as if they had met with their worst foes; and such was in very truth the case,—if we may regard the Portuguese half-castes of that coast as white men,—for these negroes were runaway slaves, who stood the chance of being shot, or drowned, or whipped to death, if recaptured.

Other animals they saw—some queer, some terrible, nearly all strange—and last, though not least, the hippopotamus.

When Disco first saw this ungainly monster he was bereft of speech for some minutes. The usual “Hallo!” stuck in his throat and well-nigh choked him. He could only gasp, and point.

“Ay, there goes a hippopotamus,” said Harold, with the easy nonchalance of a man who had been to the Zoological Gardens, and knew all about it. Nevertheless it was quite plain that Harold was much excited, for he almost dropped his oar overboard in making a hasty grasp at his rifle. Before he could fire, the creature gaped wide, as if in laughter, and dived.

“Unfortunate!” said Harold, in a philosophically careless tone; “never mind, we shall see lots more of them.”

“Ugliness embodied!” said Disco, heaving a deep sigh.

“But him’s goot for eat,” said Antonio, smacking his lips.

“Is he?” demanded Disco of Jumbo, whose enjoyment of the sailor’s expressive looks was so great, that, whenever the latter opened his lips, the former looked back over his shoulder with a broad grin of expectation.

“Ho yis; de hiputmus am fust-rate grub for dis yer boy,” replied the negro, rolling his red tongue inside his mouth suggestively.

“He never eats man, does he?” inquired Disco.

“Nevair,” replied Antonio.

“He looks as if he might,” returned the seaman; “anyhow, he’s got a mouth big enough to do it. You’re quite sure he don’t, I ’spose?”

“Kite sure an’ sartin; but me hab seen him tak mans,” said Antonio.

“Tak mans, wot d’ee mean by that?”

“Tak him,” repeated Antonio. “Go at him’s canoe or boat—bump with him’s head—dash in de timbers—capsize, so’s man hab to swim shore—all as got clear ob de crokidils.”

While Disco was meditating on this unpleasant trait of character in the hippopotamus, the specimen which they had just seen, or some other member of his family, having compassion, no doubt, on the seaman’s ignorance, proceeded to illustrate its method of attack then and there by rising suddenly under the canoe with such force, that its head and shoulders shot high out of the water, into which it fell with a heavy splash. Harold’s rifle being ready, he fired just as it was disappearing.

Whether he hit or not is uncertain, but next moment the enraged animal rose again under Disco’s canoe, which it nearly lifted out of the water in its efforts to seize it in its mouth. Fortunately the canoe was too flat for its jaws to grip; the monster’s blunt teeth were felt, as well as heard, to grind across the planks; and Disco being in the stern, which was raised highest, was almost thrown overboard by the jerk.

Rising about two yards off, the hippopotamus looked savagely at the canoe, and was about to dive again when Harold gave it a second shot. The large gun being fortunately ready, had been handed to him by one of the Makololo men. The heavy ball took effect behind the eye, and killed the animal almost instantaneously. The hippopotamus usually sinks when shot dead, but in this case they were so near that, before it had time to sink, Zombo, assisted by his friend Jumbo, made a line fast to it, and it was finally dragged to the shore. The landing, however, was much retarded by the crocodiles, which now showed themselves for the first time, and kept tugging and worrying the carcase much as a puppy tugs and worries a ladies’ muff; affording Disco and his friend strong reason to congratulate themselves that the canoe had not been overturned.

The afternoon was pretty well advanced when the landing was accomplished on a small sandy island, and as the spot was suitable for encamping, they determined to remain there for the night, and feast.

There are many points of resemblance between savage and civilised festivities. Whether the performers be the black sons of Africa, or the white fathers of Europe, there is the same powerful tendency to eat too much, and the same display of good-fellowship; for it is an indisputable fact that feeding man is amiable, unless, indeed, he be dyspeptic. There are also, however, various points of difference. The savage, owing to the amount of fresh air and exercise which he is compelled to take, usually eats with greater appetite, and knows nothing of equine dreams or sleepless nights. On the whole, we incline to the belief that, despite his lack of refinement and ceremony, the savage has the best of it in this matter.

Disco Lillihammer’s visage, during the progress of that feast, formed a study worthy of a physiognomist. Every new achievement, whether trifling or important, performed by the Makololo triad, Jumbo, Zombo, and Masiko—every fresh hippopotamus steak skewered and set up to roast by the half-caste brothers José and Oliveira—every lick bestowed on their greasy fingers by the Somali negroes Nakoda and Conda, and every sigh of intense satisfaction heaved by the so-called “freemen” of Quillimane, Songolo and Mabruki, was watched, commented on, and, if we may say so, reflected in the animated countenance of the stout seaman, with such variety of expression, and such an interesting compound of grin and wrinkle, that poor Jumbo, who gazed at him over hippopotamus ribs and steaks, and tried hard not to laugh, was at last compelled to turn away his eyes, in order that his mouth might have fair-play.

But wonderful, sumptuous, and every way satisfactory though that feast was, it bore no comparison whatever to another feast carried on at the same time by another party, about fifty yards off, where the carcase of the hippopotamus had been left half in and half out of the water—for, of course, being fully more than a ton in weight, only a small portion of the creature was appropriated by the canoe-men. The negroes paid no attention whatever to this other festive party; but in a short time Disco turned his head to one side, and said—“Wy, wot’s that splashin’ I hears goin’ on over there?”

“I suspect it must be some beast or other that has got hold of the carcase,” replied Harold, who was himself busy with a portion of the same.

“Yis, dat am krokidils got ’im,” said Antonio, with his mouth full—very full.

“You don’t say so?” said Disco, washing down the steak with a brimming cup of tea.

No one appeared to think it worth while to asseverate the fact, for it was self-evident. Several crocodiles were supping, and in doing so they tore away at the carcase with such violence, and lashed the water so frequently with their powerful tails, as to render it clear that their feast necessitated laborious effort, and seemed less a recreation than a duty. Moreover, they sat at their meat like insatiable gourmands, so long into the night that supper became transmuted into breakfast, and Harold’s rest was greatly disturbed thereby. He was too sleepy and lazy, however, to rise and drive them away.

Next morning the travellers started early, being anxious to pass, as quietly as possible, a small Portuguese town, near to which it was said a party of runaway slaves and rebels against the Government were engaged in making depredations.

When grey dawn was beginning to rise above the tree-tops, they left their encampment in profound silence, and rowed up stream as swiftly as possible. They had not advanced far, when, on turning a point covered with tall reeds, Zombo, who was bowman in the leading canoe, suddenly made a sign to the men to cease rowing.

“What’s the matter?” whispered Harold.

The negro pointed through the reeds, and whispered the single word “Canoe.”

By this time the other canoe had ranged up alongside, and after a brief consultation between Harold and Disco, it was decided that they should push gently into the reeds, and wait till the strange canoe should pass; but a few seconds sufficed to show that the two men who paddled it did not intend to pass down the river, for they pushed straight out towards the deepest part of the stream. They were, however, carried down so swiftly by the current that they were brought quite near to the point of rushes where our travellers lay concealed—so near that their voices could be distinctly heard. They talked in Portuguese.

Antonio muttered a few words, and Harold observed that there was a good deal of excitement in the looks of his men.

“What’s the matter?” he asked anxiously.

Antonio shook his head. “Dat nigger goin’ to be drownded,” he said; “bad nigger—obstropolous nigger, suppose.”

“Wot!” exclaimed Disco in a whisper, “goin’ to be drownded! wot d’ee mean?”

Antonio proceeded to explain that it was a custom amongst the Portuguese slave-owners there, when they found any of their slaves intractable or refractory, to hire some individuals who, for a small sum, would bind and carry off the incorrigible for the purpose of making away with him. One method of effecting this was to tie him in a sack and throw him into the river, the crocodiles making quite sure that the unfortunate being should never again be seen, either alive or dead. But before Antonio had finished his brief explanation he was interrupted by an exclamation from the horrified Englishmen, as they beheld the two men in the canoe raise something between them which for a moment appeared to struggle violently.

“Shove off! give way!” shouted Harold and Disco in the same breath, each thrusting with his paddle so vigorously that the two canoes shot out like arrows into the stream.

At the same instant there was a heavy plunge in the water beside the strange canoe, and the victim sank. Next moment one end of the sack rose to the surface. Both Harold and Disco made straight towards it, but it sank again, and the two murderers paddled to the shore, on which they drew up their canoe, intending to take to the bush, if necessary, for safety.

Once again the sack rose not more than three yards from Disco’s canoe. The bold seaman knew that if it disappeared a third time there would be little chance of its rising again. He was prompt in action, and daring to recklessness. In one moment he had leaped overboard, dived, caught the sack in his powerful grasp, and bore it to the surface. The canoe had been steered for him. The instant he appeared, strong and ready hands laid hold of him and his burden, and dragged them both inboard.

“Cut the lashin’s and give him air,” cried Disco, endeavouring to find his clasp-knife; but one of the men quickly obeyed the order, and opened the sack.

A groan of horror and pity burst from the seaman when he beheld the almost insensible form of a powerful negro, whose back was lacerated with innumerable ragged cuts, and covered with clotted blood.

“Where are the—”

He stopped short on looking round, and, observing that the two men were standing on the shore, seized a double-barrelled gun. The stream had carried the canoe a considerable distance below the spot where the murder had been attempted, but they were still within range. Without a moment’s hesitation Disco took deliberate aim at them and fired.

Fortunately for him and his party Disco was a bad shot—nevertheless the bullet struck so close to the feet of the two men that it drove the sand and pebbles into their faces. They turned at once and fled, but before they reached the cover of the bushes the second barrel was fired, and the bullet whistled close enough over their heads greatly to accelerate their flight.

The negroes opened their great round eyes, and appeared awe-struck at this prompt display of a thirst for vengeance on the part of one who had hitherto shown no other disposition than hilarity, fun, and good-humour.

Harold was greatly relieved to observe Disco’s failure, for, if he had hit either of the fugitives, the consequences might have been very disastrous to their expedition.

On being partially revived and questioned, it turned out that the poor fellow had been whipped almost to death for refusing to be the executioner in whipping his own mother. This was a refinement in cruelty on the part of these professedly Christian Portuguese, which our travellers afterwards learned was by no means uncommon.

We are told by those who know that region well, and whose veracity is unquestionable, that the Portuguese on the east coast of Africa live in constant dread of their slaves rising against them. No wonder, considering the fiendish cruelties to which they subject them! In order to keep them in subjection they underfeed them, and if any of them venture to steal cocoa-nuts from the trees the owners thereof are at liberty to shoot them and throw them into the sea. Slaves being cheap there, and plentiful, are easily replaced, hence a cruel owner never hesitates. If a slave is refractory, and flogging only makes him worse, his master bids the overseer flog him until “he will require no more.” Still further to keep them in subjection, the Portuguese then endeavour to eradicate from them all sympathy with each other, and all natural affection, by the following means. If a woman requires to be flogged, her brother or son is selected to do it. Fathers are made to flog their daughters, husbands their wives, and, if two young negroes of different sexes are observed to show any symptoms of growing attachment for each other, these two are chosen for each other’s executioners. (See Travels in Eastern Africa, by Lyons McLeod, Esquire, FRGS, and late Her Britannic Majesty’s Consul at Mozambique, volume one pages 274 to 277, and volume two page 27.)

The poor wretch whom we have just described as having been saved from death, to which he had been doomed for refusing to become the executioner of his own mother, was placed as tenderly and comfortably as circumstances would admit of in the bottom of the canoe, and then our travellers pushed on with all haste—anxious to pass the town before the two fugitives could give the alarm.

They were successful in this, probably because the two men may have hid themselves for some time in the jungle, under the impression that the exasperated Englishmen might be searching for them on shore.

Giving themselves time only to take a hurried meal in the middle of the day, our travellers rowed continuously till sunset when, deeming it probable that pursuit, if undertaken at all, must have been abandoned, they put ashore on the right bank of the river and encamped.

When the sufferer had been made as comfortable as circumstances would allow—for he was much weakened by loss of blood as well as agonised with pain—and after he had been refreshed with food and some warm tea, Harold questioned him, through the interpreter, as to his previous history.

At first the man was brusque in his manner, and inclined to be sulky, for a long course of cruelty had filled him with an intense hatred of white men. Indeed, an embittered and desperate spirit had begun to induce callous indifference to all men, whether white or black. But kind treatment, to which he was evidently unaccustomed, and generous diet, which was obviously new to him, had a softening influence, and when Harold poured a small glass of rum into his tea, and Antonio added a lump of sugar, and Disco pressed him tenderly to drink it off—which he did—the effect was very decided; the settled scowl on his face became unsettled, and gradually melting away, was replaced by a milder and more manly look. By degrees he became communicative, and, bit by bit, his story was drawn from him. It was brief, but very sorrowful.

His name, he said, was Chimbolo. He belonged to a tribe which lived far inland, beyond the Manganja country, which latter was a country of hills. He was not a Manganja man, but he had married a Manganja woman. One night he, with his wife and mother, was paying a visit to the village of his wife’s relations, when a band of slave-hunters suddenly attacked the village. They were armed with guns, and at once began to murder the old people and capture the young. Resistance was useless. His relatives were armed only with bows and spears. Being taken by surprise, they all fled in terror, but were pursued and few escaped. His wife, he said—and a scowl of terrible ferocity crossed Chimbolo’s face as he said it—was about to become a mother at the time. He seized her in his arms on the first alarm, and fled with her into the bush, where he concealed her, and then hurried back to aid his relations, but met them—old and young, strong and feeble—flying for their lives. It was not possible to rally them; he therefore joined in the flight. While running, a bullet grazed his head and stunned him. Presently he recovered and rose, but in a few minutes was overtaken and captured. A slave-stick was put on his neck, and, along with a number of Manganja men, women, and children, he was driven down to the coast, and sold, with a number of other men and women, among whom was his own mother, to a Portuguese merchant on the coast, near the East Luavo mouth of the Zambesi. There he was found to be of a rebellious spirit, and at last on positively refusing to lash his mother, his master ordered him to be whipped to death, but, changing his mind before the order had been quite carried out he ordered him to be bound hand and foot and taken away in a sack. As to his wife, he had never heard of her since that night which was about two years past. He knew that she had not been found, because he had not seen her amongst the other captives. If they had found her they would have been sure to carry her off, because—here Chimbolo’s visage again grew diabolical—she was young, he said, and beautiful.

When all this had been translated into bad English by Antonio, Harold asked if Chimbolo thought it probable that his wife was still alive in the Manganja highlands. To this the former said that he thought it likely.

“W’y, then,” said Disco, giving his right thigh a powerful slap, which was his favourite method of emphasising a remark, “wot d’ye say, sir, to lay our course for these same highlands, and try for to find out this poor critter?”

“Just what was running in my own mind, Disco,” said Harold, musing over his supper. “It does not make much difference what part of this country we go to, being all new to us; and as Antonio tells me the Manganja highlands are up the Shire river, which was explored by Dr Livingstone not long ago, and is not distant many days’ journey from this, I think we can’t do better than go there. We shall have a good as well as a definite object in view.”

“Wery good, sir; I’m agreeable,” returned Disco, reaching forth his pewter plate; “another hunk o’ that pottimus, Jumbo; it’s better than salt-junk any day; and I say, Jumbo, don’t grin so much, else ye’ll enlarge yer pretty little mouth, which ’ud be a pity.”

“Yis, saar,” replied Jumbo, becoming very grave all of a sudden, but on receiving a nod and an expressive wink from the seaman, he exploded again, and rolled backward on the grass, in the performance of which act he capsized Zombo’s can of tea, whereupon Zombo leaped upon him in wrath, and Masiko, as in duty bound, came to the rescue.

“Clap a stopper on yer noise, will ’ee?” cried Disco sternly, “else you’ll be bringin’ all the wild beasts in these parts down on us to see wot it’s all about.”

“That reminds me,” said Harold, when quiet was restored, “that we must now organise ourselves into something of a fighting band—a company, as it were, of soldiers,—and take our regular spell of watching by night, for, from all that I hear of the disturbed state of the country just now, with these runaway slaves and rebels, it will be necessary to be on our guard. Of course,” he added, smiling, “I suppose I must be captain of the company, and you, Disco, shall be lieutenant.”

“Not at all,” replied the seaman, shaking his head, and frowning at Jumbo, whose brilliant teeth at once responded to the glance, “not at all, none of your sodgerin’ for me. I never could abide the lobsters. Fust-mate, sir, that’s wot I am, if I’m to be expected to do my dooty.”

“Well then, first-mate be it,” rejoined Harold, “and Antonio shall be serjeant-major—”

“Bo’s’n—bo’s’n,” suggested Disco; “keep up appearances wotiver ye do, an’ don’t let the memory of salt water go down.”

“Very good,” said Harold, laughing; “then you shall be boatswain, Antonio, as well as cook, and I will instruct you in the first part of your duty, which will be to keep watch for an hour while the rest of us sleep. My first-mate will teach you the whistling part of a boatswain’s duty, if that should be required—”

“Ah, and the roar,” interrupted Disco, “a bo’s’n would be nothin’ without his roar—”

At that moment the woods around them were filled with a tremendous and very unexpected roar, which caused the whole party to spring up, and induced the new bo’s’n to utter a yell of terror that would have done credit to the whistle of the most violent bo’s’n on the sea. Next moment the travellers were surrounded by a large and excited band of armed negroes.

Chapter Seven.

Enemies are Changed into Friends—Our Travellers Penetrate into the Interior of the Land.

To possess the power of looking perfectly calm and unconcerned when you are in reality considerably agitated and rather anxious, is extremely useful in any circumstances, but especially so when one happens to be in the midst of grinning, gesticulating, naked savages.

Our hero, Harold Seadrift possessed that power in an eminent degree, and his first-mate, Disco Lillihammer, was not a whit behind him. Although both had started abruptly to their legs at the first alarm, and drawn their respective revolvers, they no sooner found themselves surrounded by overwhelming numbers than they lowered their weapons, and, turning back to back, faced the intruders with calm countenances.

“Sit down, men, every one of you except Antonio,” said Harold, in a quiet, but clear and decided voice.

His men, who, having left their guns in the canoe, were utterly helpless, quietly obeyed.

“Who are you, and what do you want?” demanded Antonio, by Harold’s order.

To this a tall negro, who was obviously the leader of the band, replied in the native tongue,—“It matters little who we are; you are in our power.”

“Not quite,” said Harold, slightly moving his revolver. “Tell him that he may overcome us, but before he does so my friend and I carry the lives of twelve of his men in our pistols.”

The negro chief, who quite understood the powers of a revolver, replied— “Tell your master, that before he could fire two shots, he and his friend would have each twelve bullets in his body. But I have not time to palaver here. Who are you, and where are you going?”

“We are Englishmen, travelling to see the country,” replied Harold.

The chief looked doubtfully at him, and seemed to waver, then suddenly making up his mind, he frowned and said sternly— “No; that is a lie. You are Portuguese scoundrels. You shall all die. You have robbed us of our liberty, our wives, our children, our homes; you have chained, and tortured, and flogged us!”—he gnashed his teeth at this point, and his followers grew excited. “Now we have got free, and you are caught. We will let you know what it is to be slaves.”

As the negro chief stirred up his wrath by thus recounting his wrongs, and advanced a step, Harold begged Disco, in a low, urgent voice, not to raise his pistol. Then looking the savage full in the face, without showing a trace of anxiety, he said— “You are wrong. We are indeed Englishmen, and you know that the English detest slavery, and would, if they could, put a stop to it altogether.”

“Yes, I know that,” said the chief. “We have seen one Englishman here, and he has made us to know that not all men with white faces are devils—like the Portuguese and Arabs. But how am I to know you are English?”

Again the chief wavered a little, as if half-inclined to believe Harold’s statement.

“Here is proof for you,” said Harold, pointing to Chimbolo, who, being scarcely able to move, had remained all this time beside the fire leaning on his elbow and listening intently to the conversation. “See,” he continued, “that is a slave. Look at him.”

As he said this, Harold stepped quickly forward and removed the blanket, with which he had covered his lacerated back after dressing it.

A howl of execration burst from the band of negroes, who pointed their spears and guns at the travellers’ breasts, and would have made a speedy end of the whole party if Antonio had not exclaimed “Speak, Chimbolo, speak!”

The slave looked up with animation, and told the rebels how his Portuguese owner had ordered him to be flogged to death, but changed his mind and doomed him to be drowned,—how that in the nick of time, these white men had rescued him, and had afterwards treated him with the greatest kindness.

Chimbolo did not say much, but what he did say was uttered with emphasis and feeling. This was enough. Those who would have been enemies were suddenly converted into warm friends, and the desperadoes, who would have torn their former masters, or any of their race, limb from limb, if they could have got hold of them, left our adventurers undisturbed in their bivouac, after wishing them a prosperous journey.

It was nevertheless deemed advisable to keep watch during the night. This was done faithfully and conscientiously as far as it went. Harold took the first hour by way of example. He sat over the fire, alternately gazing into its embers while he meditated of home, and round upon the dark forest while he thought of Africa. True to time, he called Disco, who, equally true to his sense of duty, turned out at once with a deep “Ay, ay, sir.” The self-styled first-mate placed his back against a tree, and, endeavouring to believe it to be a capstan, or binnacle, or any other object appertaining to the sea, stared at the ghostly stems of the forest-trees until they began to dance hornpipes for his special gratification, or glowered at the shadows until they became instinct with life, and all but induced him to rouse the camp twenty times in the course of his hour’s vigil. True to time also, like his predecessor, Disco roused Antonio and immediately turned in.

The vivacious chef de cuisine started up at once, took up his position at the foot of the tree which Disco had just left, leaned his back against it, and straightway went to sleep, in which condition he remained till morning, leaving the camp in unprotected felicity and blissful ignorance.

Fortunately for all parties, Disco awoke in time to catch him napping, and resolved to punish him. He crept stealthily round to the back of the tree against which the faithless man leaned, and reached gently round until his mouth was close to Antonio’s cheek, then, collecting all the air that his vast lungs were capable of containing, he poured into Antonio’s ear a cumulative roar that threw the camp and the denizens of the wilderness far and near into confusion, and almost drove the whole marrow in Antonio’s body out at his heels. The stricken man sprang up as if earth had shot him forth, uttered a yell of terror such as seldom greets the ear, and rushed blindly forward. Repeating the roar, Disco plunged after him. Antonio tumbled over the fire, recovered himself, dashed on, and would certainly have plunged into the river, if not into the jaws of a crocodile, had not Jumbo caught him in his arms, in the midst of a chorus of laughter from the other men.

“How dare ’ee go to sleep on dooty?” demanded Disco, seizing the culprit by the collar, “eh! we might have bin all murdered by rebels or eaten by lions, or had our eyes picked out by gorillas, for all that you would have done to prevent it—eh?” giving him a shake.

“Oh, pardon, forgif. Nevair doot more again,” exclaimed the breathless and trembling Antonio.

“You’d better not!” said Disco, giving him another shake and releasing him.

Having done so, he turned on his heel and bestowed a quiet look, in passing, on Jumbo, which of course threw that unfortunate man into convulsions.

After this little incident a hasty breakfast was taken, the canoes were launched, and the voyage was continued.

It is not necessary to trace the course of our explorers day by day as they ascended the Zambesi, or to recount all the adventures or misadventures that befell them on their journey into the interior. It is sufficient for the continuity of our tale to say that many days after leaving the coast they turned into the Shire river, which flows into the Zambesi about 150 miles from the coast.

There are many fountain-heads of slavery in Africa. The region of the interior, which gives birth to the head-waters of the Shire river, is one of the chief of these. Here lies the great lake Nyassa, which was discovered and partly explored by Dr Livingstone, and hence flows a perennial stream of traffic to Kilwa, on the coast—which traffic, at the present time, consists almost exclusively of the two kinds of ivory, white and black, the former (elephants’ tusks) being carried by the latter (slaves), by which means the slave-trade is rendered more profitable.

Towards this populous and fertile region, then, our adventurers directed their course, when they turned out of the great river Zambesi and began to ascend the Shire.

And here, at the very outset of this part of the journey, they met with a Portuguese settler, who did more to open their eyes to the blighting and withering influence of slavery on the land and on its people than anything they had yet seen.

Towards the afternoon of the first day on the Shire, they landed near the encampment of the settler referred to, who turned out to be a gentleman of a Portuguese town on the Zambesi.

Harold found, to his delight, that he could speak English fluently, and was, moreover, an exceedingly agreeable and well-informed man. He was out at the time on a hunting expedition, attended by a party of slaves.

Harold spent the evening in very pleasant intercourse with Senhor Gamba, and at a later hour than usual returned to his camp, where he entertained Disco with an account of his new acquaintance.

While thus engaged, he was startled by the most appalling shrieks, which proceeded from the neighbouring encampment. Under the impression that something was wrong, both he and Disco leaped up and ran towards it. There, to his amazement and horror, Harold beheld his agreeable friend Senhor Gamba thrashing a young slave unmercifully with a whip of the most formidable character. Only a few lashes from it had been given when Harold ran up, but these were so powerful that the unhappy victim dropped down in a state of insensibility just as he reached the spot.

The Portuguese “gentleman” turned away from the prostrate slave with a scowl, but betrayed a slight touch of confusion on meeting the gaze of Harold Seadrift.

“Senhor!” exclaimed the latter sternly, with mingled remonstrance and rebuke in his tone, “how can you be so cruel? What has the boy done to merit such inhuman chastisement?”

“He has neglected my orders,” answered the Portuguese, as though he resented the tone in which Harold spoke.

“But surely, surely,” said Harold, “the punishment is far beyond the offence. I can scarcely believe the evidence of my own eyes and ears when they tell me that you have been guilty of this.”

“Come,” returned Senhor Gamba, softening into a smile, “you English cannot understand our case in this land. Because you do not keep slaves, you take the philanthropic, the religious view of the question. We who do keep slaves have a totally different experience. You cannot understand, you cannot sympathise with us.”

“No, truly, we can not understand you,” said Harold earnestly, “and God forbid that we should ever sympathise with you in this matter. We detest the gross injustice of slavery, and we abhor the fearful cruelties connected with it.”

“That is because, as I said, you are not in our position,” rejoined the Senhor, with a shrug of his shoulders. “It is easy for you to take the philanthropic view, which, however, I admit to be the best, for in the eyes of God all men are equal, and though the African be a degraded man, I know enough of him to be sure that he can be raised by kindness and religion into a position not very inferior to our own; but we who keep slaves cannot help ourselves we must act as we do.”

“Why so?—is cruelty a necessity?” asked Harold.

“Yes, it is,” replied the Senhor decidedly.

“Then the abolition of slavery is a needcessity too,” growled Disco, who had hitherto looked on and listened in silent wonder, debating with himself as to the propriety of giving Senhor Gamba, then and there, a sound thrashing with his own whip!

“You see,” continued the Portuguese, paying no attention to Disco’s growl,—“You see, in order to live out here I must have slaves, and in order to keep slaves I must have a whip. My whip is no worse than any other whip that I know of. I don’t justify it as right, I simply defend it as necessary. Wherever slavery exists, discipline must of necessity be brutal. If you keep slaves, and mean that they shall give you the labour of their bodies, and of their minds also, in so far as you permit them to have minds, you must degrade them by the whip and by all other means at your disposal until, like dogs, they become the unhesitating servants of your will, no matter what that will may be, and live for your pleasure only. It will never pay me to adopt your philanthropic, your religious views. I am here. I must be here. What am I to do? Starve? No, not if I can help it. I do as others do—keep slaves and act as the master of slaves. I must use the whip. Perhaps you won’t believe me,” continued Senhor Gamba, with a sad smile, “but I speak truth when I say that I was tender-hearted when I first came to this country, for I had been well nurtured in Lisbon; but that soon passed away—it could not last. I was the laughing-stock of my companions. Just to explain my position, I will tell you a circumstance which happened soon after I came here. The Governor invited me to a party of pleasure. The party consisted of himself, his daughters, some officers, and others. We were to go in boats to a favourite island resort, several miles off. I took one of my slaves with me, a lad that I kept about my person. As we were going along, this lad fell into the river. He could not swim, and the tide was carrying him fast away to death. Dressed as I was, in full uniform, I plunged in after him and saved him. The wish alone to save the boy’s life prompted me to risk my own. And for this I became the jest of the party; even the ladies tittered at my folly. Next evening the Governor had a large dinner-party. I was there. Having caught cold, I coughed slightly; this drew attention to me. Remarks were made, and the Governor alluded in scoffing terms to my exploit, which created much mirth. ‘Were you drunk?’ said one. ‘Had you lost your senses, to risk your life for a brute of a negro?’ said another. ‘Rather than spoil my uniform, I would have knocked him on the head with a pole,’ said a third; and it was a long time before what they termed my folly was forgotten or forgiven. You think I am worse than others. I am not; but I do not condescend to their hypocrisy. What I am now, I have been made by this country and its associates.” (These words are not fictitious. The remarks of Senhor Gamba were actually spoken by a Portuguese slave-owner, and will be found in The Story of the Universities’ Mission to Central Africa, pages 64-5-6.)

Senhor Gamba said this with the air of one who thinks that he has nearly, if not quite, justified himself. “I am no worse than others,” is an excuse for evil conduct, not altogether unknown in more highly favoured lands, and is often followed by the illogical conclusion, “therefore I am not to blame,” but although Harold felt pity for his agreeable chance acquaintance, he could not admit that this explanation excused him, nor could he get over the shock which his feelings had sustained; it was, therefore, with comparatively little regret that he bade him adieu on the following morning, and pursued his onward way.

Everywhere along the Shire they met with a more or less hospitable reception from the natives, who regarded them with great favour, in consequence of their belonging to the same nation which had sent forth men to explore their country, defend them from the slave-dealer, and teach them about the true God. These men, of whom mention is made in another chapter, had, some time before this, been sent by the Church of England to the Manganja highlands, at the suggestion of Dr Livingstone, and laid, we believe, the foundation-stone of Christian civilisation in the interior of Africa, though God saw fit to arrest them in the raising of the superstructure.

Among other pieces of useful knowledge conveyed by them to the negroes of the Shire, was the fact that Englishmen are not cannibals, and that they have no special longings after black man steaks!

It may perchance surprise some readers to learn that black men ever entertain such a preposterous notion. Nevertheless, it is literally true. The slavers—Arabs and Portuguese—find it in their interest to instil this falsehood into the minds of the ignorant tribes of the interior, from whom the slaves are gathered, in order that their captives may entertain a salutary horror of Englishmen, so that if their dhows should be chased by our cruisers while creeping northward along the coast and run the risk of being taken, the slaves may willingly aid their captors in trying to escape. That the lesson has been well learnt and thoroughly believed is proved by the fact that when a dhow is obliged to run ashore to avoid capture, the slaves invariably take to the woods on the wings of terror, preferring, no doubt to be re-enslaved rather than to be roasted and eaten by white fiends. Indeed, so thoroughly has this been engrained into the native mind, that mothers frequently endeavour to overawe their refractory offspring by threatening to hand them over to the dreadful white monster who will eat them up if they don’t behave!

Chapter Eight.

Relates Adventures in the Shire Valley, and Touches on One or Two Phases of Slavery.

Everything depends upon taste, as the monkey remarked when it took to nibbling the end of its own tail! If you like a thing, you take one view of it; if you don’t like it, you take another view. Either view, if detailed, would be totally irreconcilable with the other.

The lower part of the river Shire, into which our travellers had now entered, is a vast swamp. There are at least two opinions in regard to that region. To do justice to those with whom we don’t sympathise, we give our opponent’s view first. Our opponent, observe, is an honest and competent man; he speaks truly; he only looks at it in another light from Harold Seadrift and Disco Lillihammer.

He says of the river Shire, “It drains a low and exceedingly fertile valley of from fifteen to twenty miles in breadth. Ranges of wooded hills bound this valley on both sides. After the first twenty miles you come to Mount Morambala, which rises with steep sides to 4000 feet in height. It is wooded to the top, and very beautiful. A small village peeps out about half-way up the mountain. It has a pure, bracing atmosphere, and is perched above mosquito range. The people on the summit have a very different climate and vegetation from those on the plains, and they live amidst luxuriant vegetation. There are many species of ferns, some so large as to deserve the name of trees. There are also lemon and orange trees growing wild, and birds and animals of all kinds.” Thus far we agree with our opponent but listen to him as he goes on:—

“The view from Morambala is extensive, but cheerless past description. Swamp, swamp-reeking, festering, rotting, malaria-pregnant swamp, where poisonous vapours for several months in the year are ever bulging up and out into the air,—lies before you as far as the eye can reach, and farther. If you enter the river at the worst seasons of the year, the chances are you will take the worst type of fever. If, on the other hand, you enter it during the best season, when the swamps are fairly dried up, you have everything in your favour.”

Now, our opponent gives a true statement of facts undoubtedly, but his view of them is not cheering.

Contrast them with the view of Disco Lillihammer. That sagacious seaman had entered the Shire neither in the “best” nor the “worst” of the season. He had chanced upon it somewhere between the two.

“Git up your steam an’ go ’longside,” he said to Jumbo one afternoon, as the two canoes were proceeding quietly among magnificent giant-reeds, sedges, and bulrushes, which towered high above them—in some places overhung them.

“I say, Mister Harold, ain’t it splendid?”

“Magnificent!” replied Harold with a look of quiet enthusiasm.

“I does enjoy a swamp,” continued the seaman, allowing a thin cloud to trickle from his lips.

“So do I, Disco.”

“There’s such a many outs and ins an’ roundabouts in it. And such powerful reflections o’ them reeds in the quiet water. W’y, sir, I do declare w’en I looks through ’em in a dreamy sort of way for a long time I get to fancy they’re palm-trees, an’ that we’re sailin’ through a forest without no end to it; an’ when I looks over the side an’ sees every reed standin’ on its other self, so to speak, an’ follers the under one down till my eyes git lost in the blue sky an’ clouds below us, I do sometimes feel as if we’d got into the middle of fairy-land,—was fairly afloat on the air, an’ off on a voyage through the univarse! But it’s them reflections as I like most. Every leaf, an’ stalk, an’ flag is just as good an’ real in the water as out of it. An’ just look at that there frog, sir, that one on the big leaf which has swelled hisself up as if he wanted to bust, with his head looking up hopefully to the—ah! he’s down with a plop like lead, but he wos sittin’ on his own image which wos as clear as his own self. Then there’s so much variety, sir—that’s where it is. You never know wot you’re comin’ to in them swamps. It may be a openin’ like a pretty lake, with islands of reeds everywhere; or it may be a narrow bit like a canal, or a river; or a bit so close that you go scrapin’ the gun’les on both sides. An’ the life, too, is most amazin’. Never saw nothin’ like it nowhere. All kinds, big an’ little, plain an’ pritty, queer an’ ’orrible, swarms here to sitch an extent that I’ve got it into my head that this Shire valley must be the great original nursery of animated nature.”

“It looks like it, Disco.”

The last idea appeared to furnish food for reflection, as the two friends here relapsed into silence.

Although Disco’s description was quaint, it could scarcely be styled exaggerated, for the swamp was absolutely alive with animal life. The principal occupant of these marshes is the elephant, and hundreds of these monster animals may be seen in one herd, feeding like cattle in a meadow. Owing to the almost impenetrable nature of the reedy jungle, however, it is impossible to follow them, and anxious though Disco was to kill one, he failed to obtain a single shot. Buffaloes and other large game were also numerous in this region, and in the water crocodiles and hippopotami sported about everywhere, while aquatic birds of every shape and size rendered the air vocal with their cries. Sometimes these feathered denizens of the swamp arose, when startled, in a dense cloud so vast that the mighty rush of their wings was almost thunderous in character.

The crocodiles were not only numerous but dangerous because of their audacity. They used to watch at the places where native women were in the habit of going down to the river for water, and not unfrequently succeeded in seizing a victim. This, however, only happened at those periods when the Shire was in flood, when fish were driven from their wonted haunts, and the crocodiles were reduced to a state of starvation and consequent ferocity.

One evening, while our travellers were proceeding slowly up stream, they observed the corpse of a negro boy floating past the canoe; just then a monstrous crocodile rushed at it with the speed of a greyhound, caught it and shook it as a terrier does a rat. Others dashed at the prey, each with his powerful tail causing the water to churn and froth as he tore off a piece. In a few seconds all was gone. (Livingstone’s Zambesi and its Tributaries, page 452.) That same evening Zombo had a narrow escape. After dusk he ran down to the river to drink. He chanced to go to a spot where a crocodile was watching. It lay settled down in the mud with its head on a level with the water, so that in the feeble light it could not be seen. While Zombo was busy laving the water into his mouth it suddenly rushed at him and caught him by the hand. The limb of a bush was fortunately within reach, and he laid hold of it. There was a brief struggle. The crocodile tugged hard, but the man tugged harder; at the same time he uttered a yell which brought Jumbo to his side with an oar, a blow from which drove the hideous reptile away. Poor Zombo was too glad to have escaped with his life to care much about the torn hand, which rendered him hors de combat for some time after that.

Although Disco failed to get a shot at an elephant, his hopeful spirit was gratified by the catching of a baby elephant alive. It happened thus:—

One morning, not very long after Zombo’s tussle with the crocodile, Disco’s canoe, which chanced to be in advance, suddenly ran almost into the midst of a herd of elephants which were busy feeding on palm-nuts, of which they are very fond. Instantly the whole troop scattered and fled. Disco, taken completely by surprise, omitted his wonted “Hallo!” as he made an awkward plunge at his rifle, but before he could bring it to bear, the animals were over the bank of the river and lost in the dense jungle. But a fine little elephant, at that period of life which, in human beings, might be styled the toddling age, was observed to stumble while attempting to follow its mother up the bank. It fell and rolled backwards.

“Give way for your lives!” roared Disco.

The boat shot its bow on the bank, and the seaman flew rather than leaped upon the baby elephant!

The instant it was laid hold of it began to scream with incessant and piercing energy after the fashion of a pig.

“Queek! come in canoe! Modder come back for ’im,” cried Jumbo in some anxiety.

Disco at once appreciated the danger of the enraged mother returning to the rescue, but, resolved not to resign his advantage, he seized the vicious little creature by the proboscis and dragged it by main force to the canoe, into which he tumbled, hauled the proboscis inboard, as though it had been the bite of a cable, and held on.

“Shove off! shove off! and give way, lads! Look alive!”

The order was promptly obeyed, and in a few minutes the baby was dragged into the boat and secured.

This prize, however, was found to be more of a nuisance than an amusement and it was soon decided that it must be disposed of. Accordingly, that very night, much to the regret of the men who wanted to make a meal of it, Disco led his baby squealing into the jungle and set it free with a hearty slap on the flank, and an earnest recommendation to make all sail after its venerable mother, which it did forthwith, cocking its ears and tail, and shrieking as it went.

Two days after this event they made a brief halt at a poor village where they were hospitably received by the chief, who was much gratified by the liberal quantity of calico with which the travellers paid for their entertainment. Here they met with a Portuguese half-caste who was reputed one of the greatest monsters of cruelty in that part of the country. He was, however, not much more villainous in aspect than many other half-castes whom they saw. He was on his way to the coast in a canoe manned by slaves. If Harold and Disco had known that this was his last journey to the coast they would have regarded him with greater interest. As it was, having learned his history from the chief through their interpreter, they turned from him with loathing.

As this half-caste’s career illustrates the depths to which humanity may fall in the hot-bed of slavery, as well as, to some extent, the state of things existing under Portuguese rule on the east coast of Africa, we give the particulars briefly.

Instead of the whip, this man used the gun, which he facetiously styled his “minister of justice,” and, in mere wantonness, he was known to have committed murder again and again, yet no steps were taken by the authorities to restrain, much less to punish him. Men heard of his murders, but they shrugged their shoulders and did nothing. It was only a wild beast of a negro that was killed, they said, and what was that! They seemed to think less of it than if he had shot a hippopotamus. One of his murders was painfully notorious, even to its minutest particulars. Over the female slaves employed in a house and adjacent lands there is usually placed a head-woman, a slave also, chosen for such an office for her blind fidelity to her master. This man had one such woman, one who had ever been faithful to him and his interests, who had never provoked him by disobedience or ill-conduct, and against whom, therefore, he could have no cause of complaint. One day when half drunk he was lying on a couch in his house; his forewoman entered and made herself busy with some domestic work. As her master lay watching her, his savage disposition found vent in a characteristic joke: “Woman,” said he, “I think I will shoot you.” The woman turned round and said, “Master, I am your slave; you can do what you will with me. You can kill me if you like; I can do nothing. But don’t kill me, master, for if you do, who is there to look after your other women? they will all run away from you.”

She did not mean to irritate her master, but instantly the man’s brutal egotism was aroused. The savage jest became a fearful reality, and he shouted with rage:—

“Say you that! say you that! fetch me my gun. I will see if my women will run away after I have killed you.”

Trained to implicit obedience, the poor woman did as she was bid. She brought the gun and handed him powder and ball. At his command she knelt down before him, and the wretch fired at her breast. In his drunken rage he missed his mark—the ball went through her shoulder. She besought him to spare her. Deaf to her entreaties, he ordered her to fetch more powder and ball. Though wounded and in agony, she obeyed him. Again the gun was loaded, again levelled and fired, and the woman fell dead at his feet. (The above narrative is quoted almost verbatim from The Story of the Universities’ Mission to Central Africa, pages 78 and 79, the author of which vouches for its accuracy.)

The facts of this case were known far and wide. The Portuguese Governor was acquainted with them, as well as the ministers of justice, but no one put forth a hand to punish the monster, or to protect his slaves.

But vengeance overtook him at last. On his way down the Zambesi he shot one of his men. The others, roused to irresistible fury, sprang upon him and strangled him.

Then, indeed, the Governor and Magistrates were roused to administer “justice!” They had allowed this fiend to murder slaves at his will, but no sooner had the slaves turned on and killed their master than ceaseless energy and resolution were displayed in punishing those who slew him. Soldiers were sent out in all directions; some of the canoe-men were shot down like wild beasts, the rest were recaptured and publicly whipped to death!

Reader, this is “domestic slavery.” This is what Portugal and Zanzibar claim the right to practise. This is what Great Britain has for many years declined to interfere with. This is the curse with which Africa is blighted at the present day in some of her fairest lands, and this is what Portugal has decreed shall not terminate in what she calls her African dominions for some years to come. In other words, it has been coolly decreed by that weakest of all the European nations, that slavery, murder, injustice, and every other conceivable and unmentionable vice and villainy shall still, for some considerable time, continue to be practised on the men, women, and children of Africa!

Higher up the Shire river, the travellers saw symptoms of recent distress among the people, which caused them much concern. Chimbolo, in particular, was rendered very anxious by the account given of the famine which prevailed still farther up the river, and the numerous deaths that had taken place in consequence.

The cause of the distress was a common one, and easily explained. Slave-dealers had induced the Ajawa, a warlike tribe, to declare war against the people of the Manganja highlands. The Ajawa had done this before, and were but too ready to do it again. They invaded the land, captured many of the young people, and slew the aged. Those who escaped to the jungle found on their return that their crops were destroyed. Little seed remained in their possession, and before that was planted and grown, famine began to reduce the ranks, already thinned by war.

Indications of this sad state of things became more numerous as the travellers advanced. Few natives appeared to greet them on the banks of the river as they went along, and these few resembled living skeletons. In many places they found dead bodies lying on the ground in various stages of decomposition, and everywhere they beheld an aspect of settled unutterable despair on the faces of the scattered remnant of the bereaved and starving people.

It was impossible, in the circumstances, for Harold Seadrift to give these wretched people more than very slight relief. He gave them as much of his stock of provisions as he could spare, and was glad when the necessity of continuing the journey on foot relieved him from such mournful scenes by taking him away from the river’s bank.

Hiring a party of the strongest men that he could find among them, he at length left his canoes, made up his goods, food, and camp-equipage into bundles of a shape and size suitable to being carried on the heads of men, and started on foot for the Manganja highlands.

“Seems to me, sir,” observed Disco, as they plodded along together on the first morning of the land journey—“seems to me, sir, that Chimbolo don’t stand much chance of findin’ his wife alive.”

“Poor fellow,” replied Harold, glancing back at the object of their remarks, “I fear not.”

Chimbolo had by that time recovered much of his natural vigour, and although not yet able to carry a man’s load, was nevertheless quite capable of following the party. He walked in silence, with his eyes on the ground, a few paces behind Antonio, who was a step or two in rear of his leader, and who, in virtue of his position as “bo’s’n” to the party, was privileged to walk hampered by no greater burden than his gun.

“We must keep up his sperrits, tho’, poor chap,” said Disco, in the hoarse whisper with which he was wont to convey secret remarks, and which was much more fitted to attract attention than his ordinary voice. “It ’ud never do to let his sperrits down; ’cause w’y? he’s weak, an’ if he know’d that his wife was dead, or took off as a slave, he’d never be able to go along with us, and we couldn’t leave him to starve here, you know.”

“Certainly not, Disco,” returned Harold. “Besides, his wife may be alive, for all we know to the contrary.—How far did he say the village was from where we landed, Antonio?”

“’Bout two, t’ree days,” answered the bo’s’n.

That night the party encamped beside the ruins of a small hamlet where charred sticks and fragments of an African household’s goods and chattels lay scattered on the ground.

Chimbolo sat down here on the ground, and, resting his chin on his knees, gazed in silence at the ruin around him.

“Come, cheer up, old fellow,” cried Disco, with rather an awkward effort at heartiness, as he slapped the negro gently on the shoulder; “tell him, Antonio, not to let his heart go down. Didn’t he say that what-dee-call-the-place—his village—was a strong place, and could be easily held by a few brave men?”

“True,” replied Chimbolo, through the interpreter, “but the Manganja men are not very brave.”

“Well, well, never mind,” rejoined the sympathetic tar, repeating his pat on the back, “there’s no sayin’. P’raps they got courage w’en it came to the scratch. P’raps it never came to the scratch at all up there. Mayhap you’ll find ’em all right after all. Come, never say die s’long as there’s a shot in the locker. That’s a good motto for ’ee, Chimbolo, and ought to keep up your heart even tho’ ye are a nigger, ’cause it wos inwented by the great Nelson, and shouted by him, or his bo’s’n, just before he got knocked over at the glorious battle of Trafalgar. Tell him that, Antonio.”

Whether Antonio told him all that, is extremely doubtful, although he complied at once with the order, for Antonio never by any chance declined at least to attempt the duties of his station, but the only effect of his speech was that Chimbolo shook his head and continued to stare at the ruins.

Next morning they started early, and towards evening drew near to Zomba.

The country through which, during the previous two days, they had travelled, was very beautiful, and as wild as even Disco could desire—and, by the way, it was no small degree of wildness that could slake the thirst for the marvellous which had been awakened in the breast of our tar, by his recent experiences in Africa. It was, he said—and said truly—a real out-and-out wilderness. There were villages everywhere, no doubt but these were so thickly concealed by trees and jungle that they were not easily seen, and most of them were at that time almost depopulated. The grass was higher than the heads of the travellers, and the vegetation everywhere was rankly luxuriant. Here and there open glades allowed the eye to penetrate into otherwise impenetrable bush. Elsewhere, large trees abounded in the midst of overwhelmingly affectionate parasites, whose gnarled lower limbs and twining tendrils and pendant foliage gave a softness to the landscape, which contrasted well with the wild passes and rugged rocks of the middle distance, and the towering mountains which rose, range beyond range, in the far distance.

But as the party approached the neighbourhood of Zomba mountains, few of them were disposed to give much heed to the beauties of nature. All being interested in Chimbolo, they became more or less anxious as to news that awaited him.

On turning a spur of one of the mountains which had hitherto barred their vision, they found themselves suddenly face to face with a small band of Manganja men, whose woe-begone countenances told too eloquently that the hand of the destroyer had been heavy upon them.

Of course they were questioned by Chimbolo, and the replies they gave him were such as to confirm the fears he had previously entertained.

The Ajawa, they said, had, just the day before, burnt their villages, stolen or destroyed their property, killed many of their kinsmen, and carried off their wives and children for slaves. They themselves had escaped, and were now on their way to visit their chief, who was at that time on the banks of the Zambesi, to beg of him to return, in order that he might bewitch the guns of the Ajawa, and so render them harmless!

“Has a woman of your tribe, named Marunga, been slain or captured?” asked Chimbolo eagerly.

To this the men replied that they could not tell. Marunga, they said, was known well to them by name and sight. They did not think she was among the captives, but could not tell what had become of her, as the village where she and her little boy lived had been burnt, and all who had not been killed or captured had taken to the bush. Marunga’s husband, they added, was a man named Chimbolo—not a Manganja man, but a friend of the tribe—who had been taken by the slavers, under command of a Portuguese half-caste named Marizano, about two years before that time.

Chimbolo winced as though he had been stung when Marizano’s name was mentioned, and a dark frown contracted his brows when he told the Manganja men that he was Chimbolo, and that he was even then in search of Marunga and her little boy.

When all this had been explained to Harold Seadrift he told the men that it was a pity to waste time in travelling such a long way to see their chief, who could not, even if he wished, bewitch the guns of the Ajawa, and advised them to turn back and guide him and his men to the place where the attack had been made on the Manganja, so that a search might be made in the bush for those of the people who had escaped.

This was agreed to, and the whole party proceeded on their way with increased speed, Chimbolo and Harold hoping they might yet find that Marunga had escaped, and Disco earnestly desiring that they might only fall in with the Ajawa and have a brush with them, in which case he assured the negroes he would show them a way of bewitching their guns that would beat their chief’s bewitchment all to sticks and stivers!

The village in which Marunga had dwelt was soon reached. It was, as they had been told by their new friends, a heap of still smouldering ashes; but it was not altogether destitute of signs of life. A dog was observed to slink away into the bush as they approached.

The moment Chimbolo observed it he darted into the bush after it.

“Hallo!” exclaimed Disco in surprise; “that nigger seems to have took a sudden fancy to the cur?—Eh, Antonio, wot’s the reason of that, think ’ee?”

“Dunno; s’pose where dog be mans be?”

“Ah! or womans,” suggested Disco.

“Or womans,” assented Antonio.

Just then they heard Chimbolo’s shout, which was instantly followed by a succession of female shrieks. These latter were repeated several times, and sounded as though the fugitives were scattering.

“Hims find a nest of womins!” exclaimed Jumbo, throwing down his load and dashing away into the bush.

Every individual of the party followed his example, not excepting Harold and Disco, the latter of whom was caught by the leg, the moment he left the track, by a wait-a-bit thorn—most appropriately so-called, because its powerful spikes are always ready to seize and detain the unwary passer-by. In the present instance it checked the seaman’s career for a few seconds, and rent his nether garments sadly; while Harold, profiting by his friend’s misfortune, leaped over the bush, and passed on. Disco quickly extricated himself, and followed.

They were not left far behind, and overtook their comrades just as they emerged on an open space, or glade, at the extremity of which a sight met their eyes that filled them with astonishment, for there a troop of women and one or two boys were seen walking towards them, with Chimbolo in front, having a child on his left shoulder, and performing a sort of insane war-dance round one of the women.

“He’s catched her!” exclaimed Disco, with excited looks, just as if Chimbolo had been angling unsuccessfully for a considerable time, and had hooked a stupendous fish at last.

And Disco was right. A few of the poor creatures who were so recently burnt out of their homes, and had lost most of those dearest to them, had ventured, as if drawn by an irresistible spell, to return with timid steps to the scene of their former happiness, but only to have their worst fears confirmed. Their homes, their protectors, their children, their hopes, all were gone at one fell swoop. Only one among them—one who, having managed to save her only child, had none to mourn over, and no one to hope to meet with—only one returned to a joyful meeting. We need scarcely say that this was Marunga.

The fact was instantly made plain to the travellers by the wild manner in which Chimbolo shouted her name, pointed to her, and danced round her, while he showed all his glistening teeth and as much of the whites of his eyes as was consistent with these members remaining in their orbits.

Really it was quite touching, in spite of its being ludicrous, the way in which the poor fellow poured forth his joy like a very child,—which he was in everything except years; and Harold could not help remembering, and recalling to Disco’s memory, Yoosoof’s observations touching the hardness of negroes’ hearts, and their want of natural affection, on the morning when his dhow was captured by the boat of the “Firefly.”

The way in which, ever and anon, Chimbolo kissed his poor but now happy wife, was wondrously similar to the mode in which white men perform that little operation, except that there was more of an unrefined smack in it. The tears which would hop over his sable cheeks now and then sparkled to the full as brightly as European tears, and were perhaps somewhat bigger; and the pride with which he regarded his little son, holding him in both hands out at arms’-length, was only excelled by the joy and the tremendous laugh with which he received a kick on the nose from that undutiful son’s black little toes.

But Yoosoof never chanced to be present when such exhibitions of negro feeling and susceptibility took place. How could he, seeing that men and women and children—if black—fled from him, and such as he, in abject terror? Neither did Yoosoof ever chance to be present when women sat down beside their blackened hearths, as they did that night, and quietly wept as though their hearts would burst at the memory of little voices and manly tones—not silent in death, but worse than that—gone, gone for ever! Doubtless they felt though they never heard of, and could not in words express, the sentiment—

“Oh for the touch of a vanished hand,

And the sound of a voice that is still.”

Yoosoof knew not of, and cared nothing for, such feelings as these. We ask again, how could he? His only experience of the negro was when cowering before him as a slave, or when yelling in agony under his terrible lash, or when brutalised and rendered utterly apathetic by inhuman cruelty.

Harold learned, that night on further conversation with the Manganja men, that a raid had recently been made into those regions by more than one band of slavers, sent out to capture men and women by the Portuguese half-castes of the towns of Senna and Tette, on the Zambesi, and that they had been carrying the inhabitants out of the country at the rate of about two hundred a week.

This however was but a small speck, so to speak, of the mighty work of kidnapping human beings that was going on—that is still going on in those regions. Yoosoof would have smiled—he never laughed—if you had mentioned such a number as being large.

But in truth he cared nothing about such facts, except in so far as they represented a large amount of profit accrueing to himself.

The result of Harold Seadrift’s cogitations on these matters was that he resolved to pass through as much of the land as he could within a reasonable time, and agreed to accompany Chimbolo on a visit to his tribe, which dwelt at some distance to the north of the Manganja highlands.

Chapter Nine.

In Which a Savage Chief Astonishes a Savage Animal.

There is something exceedingly pleasant in the act of watching—ourselves unseen—the proceedings of some one whose aims and ends appear to be very mysterious. There is such a wide field of speculation opened up in which to expatiate, such a vast amount of curious, we had almost said romantic, expectation created; all the more if the individual whom we observe be a savage, clothed in an unfamiliar and very scanty garb, and surrounded by scenery and circumstances which, albeit strange to us, are evidently by no means new to him.

Let us—you and me, reader,—quitting for a time the sad subject of slavery, and leaping, as we are privileged to do, far ahead of our explorers Harold Seadrift and his company, into the region of Central Africa; let you and me take up a position in a clump of trees by the banks of yonder stream, and watch the proceedings of that negro—negro chief let me say, for he looks like one,—who is engaged in some mysterious enterprise under the shade of a huge baobab tree.

The chief is a fine, stately, well-developed specimen of African manhood. He is clothed in black tights manufactured in nature’s loom, in addition to which he wears round his loins a small scrap of artificial cotton cloth. If an enthusiastic member of the Royal Academy were in search of a model which should combine the strength of Hercules with the grace of Apollo, he could not find a better than the man before us, for, you will observe, the more objectionable points about our ideal of the negro are not very prominent in him. His lips are not thicker than the lips of many a roast-beef-loving John Bull. His nose is not flat, and his heels do not protrude unnecessarily. True, his hair is woolly, but that is scarcely a blemish. It might almost be regarded as the crisp and curly hair that surrounds a manly skull. His skin is black—no doubt about that, but then it is intensely black and glossy, suggestive of black satin, and having no savour of that dirtiness which is inseparably connected with whitey-brown. Tribes in Africa differ materially in many respects, physically and mentally, just as do the various tribes of Europe.

This chief, as we have hinted, is a “savage;” that is to say, he differs in many habits and points from “civilised” people. Among other peculiarities, he clothes himself and his family in the fashion that is best suited to the warm climate in which he dwells. This display of wisdom is, as you know, somewhat rare among civilised people, as any one may perceive who observes how these over-clothe the upper parts of their children, and leave their tender little lower limbs exposed to the rigours of northern latitudes, while, as if to make up for this inconsistency by an inconsistent counterpoise, they swathe their own tough and mature limbs in thick flannel from head to foot.

It is however simple justice to civilised people to add here that a few of them, such as a portion of the Scottish Highlanders, are consistent inasmuch as the men clothe themselves similarly to the children.

Moreover, our chief, being a savage, takes daily a sufficient amount of fresh air and exercise, which nine-tenths of civilised men refrain from doing, on the economic and wise principle, apparently, that engrossing and unnatural devotion to the acquisition of wealth, fame, or knowledge, will enable them at last to spend a few paralytic years in the enjoyment of their gains. No doubt civilised people have the trifling little drawback of innumerable ills, to which they say (erroneously, we think) that flesh is heir, and for the cure of which much of their wealth is spent in supporting an army of doctors. Savages know nothing of indigestion, and in Central Africa they have no medical men.

There is yet another difference which we may point out: savages have no literature. They cannot read or write therefore, and have no permanent records of the deeds of their forefathers. Neither have they any religion worthy of the name. This is indeed a serious evil, one which civilised people of course deplore, yet, strange to say, one which consistency prevents some civilised people from remedying in the case of African savages, for it would be absurdly inconsistent in Arab Mohammedans to teach the negroes letters and the doctrines of their faith with one hand, while with the other they lashed them to death or dragged them into perpetual slavery; and it would be equally inconsistent in Portuguese Christians to teach the negroes to read “Whatsoever ye would that men should do unto you, do ye even so to them,” while “domestic slavery” is, in their so-called African territories, claimed as a right and the traffic connected with it sanctioned.

Yes, there are many points of difference between civilised people and savages, and we think it right to point this out very clearly, good reader, because the man at whom you and I are looking just now is a savage.

Of course, being capable of reading this book, you are too old to require to be told that there is nothing of our nursery savage about him. That peculiar abortion was born and bred in the nursery, and dwells only there, and was never heard of beyond civilised lands—although something not unlike him, alas! may be seen here and there among the lanes and purlieus where our drunkards and profligates resort. No; our savage chief does not roar, or glare, or chatter, or devour his food in its blood like the giant of the famous Jack. He carries himself like a man, and a remarkably handsome man too, with his body firm and upright, and his head bent a little forward, with his eyes fixed on the ground, as if in meditation, while he walks along.

But a truce to digressive explanation. Let us follow him.

Reaching the banks of the river, he stops, and, standing in an attitude worthy of Apollo, though he is not aware that we are looking at him, gazes first up the stream and then down. This done, he looks across, after which he tries to penetrate the depths of the water with his eye.

As no visible result follows, he wisely gives up staring and wishing, and apparently resolves to attain his ends by action. Felling a small tree, about as thick as his thigh, with an iron hatchet he cuts off it a length of about six feet. Into one end of this he drives a sharp-pointed hard-wood spike, several inches long, and to the other end attaches a stout rope made of the fibrous husk of the cocoa-nut. The point of the spike he appears to anoint—probably a charm of some kind,—and then suspends the curious instrument over a forked stick at a considerable height from the ground, to which he fastens the other end of the rope. This done, he walks quietly away with an air of as much self-satisfaction as if he had just performed a generous deed.

Well, is that all? Nay, if that were all we should owe you a humble apology. Our chief, “savage” though he be, is not insane. He has an object in view—which is more than can be said of everybody.

He has not been long gone, an hour or two, when the smooth surface of the river is broken in several places, and out burst two or three heads of hippopotami. Although, according to Disco Lillihammer, the personification of ugliness, these creatures do not the less enjoy their existence. They roll about in the stream like puncheons, dive under one another playfully, sending huge waves to the banks on either side. They gape hideously with their tremendous jaws, which look as though they had been split much too far back in the head by a rude hatchet—the tops of all the teeth having apparently been lopped off by the same clumsy blow. They laugh too, with a demoniacal “Ha! ha! ha!” as if they rejoiced in their excessive plainness, and knew that we—you and I, reader—are regarding them with disgust, not unmingled with awe.

Presently one of the herd betakes himself to the land. He is tired of play, and means to feed. Grass appears to be his only food, and to procure this he must needs go back from the river a short way, his enormous lips, like an animated mowing-machine, cutting a track of short cropped grass as he waddles along.

The form of that part of the bank is such that he is at least inclined, if not constrained, to pass directly under the suspended beam. Ha! we understand the matter now. Most people do understand, when a thing becomes obviously plain. The hippopotamus wants grass for supper; the “savage” chief wants hippopotamus. Both set about arranging their plans for their respective ends. The hippopotamus passes close to the forked stick, and touches the cord which sustains it in air like the sword of Damocles. Down comes the beam, driving the spike deep into his back. A cry follows, something between a grunt, a squeak, and a yell, and the wounded animal falls, rolls over, jumps up, with unexpected agility for such a sluggish, unwieldy creature, and rumbles, rushes, rolls, and stumbles back into the river, where his relatives take to flight in mortal terror. The unfortunate beast might perhaps recover from the wound, were it not that the spike has been tipped with poison. The result is that he dies in about an hour. Not long afterwards the chief returns with a band of his followers, who, being experts in the use of the knife and hatchet, soon make mince-meat of their game—laden with which they return in triumph to their homes.

Let us follow them thither.

Chapter Ten.

Describes African Domesticity, and Many Other Things Relative Thereto, Besides Showing that Alarms and Flights, Surprises and Feasts, are not Confined to Particular Places.

When our negro chief—whose name, by the way, was Kambira—left the banks of the river, followed by his men bearing the hippopotamus-flesh, he set off at a swinging pace, like to a man who has a considerable walk before him.

The country through which they passed was not only well wooded, but well watered by numerous rivulets. Their path for some distance tended upwards towards the hills, now crossing over mounds, anon skirting the base of precipitous rocks, and elsewhere dipping down into hollows; but although thus serpentine in its course, its upward tendency never varied until it led them to the highest parts of a ridge from which a magnificent prospect was had of hill and dale, lake, rivulet and river, extending so far that the distant scenery at the horizon appeared of a thin pearly-grey colour, and of the same consistency as the clouds with which it mingled.

Passing over this ridge, and descending into a wide valley which was fertilised and beautified by a moderately-sized rivulet, Kambira led his followers towards a hamlet which lay close to the stream, nestled in a woody hollow, and, like all other Manganja villages, was surrounded by an impenetrable hedge of poisonous euphorbia—a tree which casts a deep shade, and renders it difficult for bowmen to aim at the people inside.

In the immediate vicinity of the village the land was laid out in little gardens and fields, and in these the people—men, women, and children,—were busily engaged in hoeing the ground, weeding, planting, or gathering the fruits of their labour.

These same fruits were plentiful, and the people sang with joy as they worked. There were large crops of maize, millet beans, and ground-nuts; also patches of yams, rice, pumpkins, cucumbers, cassava, sweet potatoes, tobacco, cotton, and hemp, which last is also called “bang,” and is smoked by the natives as a species of tobacco.

It was a pleasant sight for Kambira and his men to look upon, as they rested for a few minutes on the brow of a knoll near a thicket of bramble bushes, and gazed down upon their home. Doubtless they thought so, for their eyes glistened, so also did their teeth when they smilingly commented on the scene before them. They did not, indeed, become enthusiastic about scenery, nor did they refer to the picturesque grouping of huts and trees, or make any allusion whatever to light and shade; no, their thoughts were centred on far higher objects than these. They talked of wives and children, and hippopotamus-flesh; and their countenances glowed—although they were not white—and their strong hearts beat hard against their ribs—although they were not clothed, and their souls (for we repudiate Yoosoof’s opinion that they had none), their souls appeared to take quiet but powerful interest in their belongings.

It was pleasant also, for Kambira and his men to listen to the sounds that floated up from the valley,—sweeter far than the sweetest strains of Mozart or Mendelssohn,—the singing of the workers in the fields and gardens, mellowed by distance into a soft humming tone; and the hearty laughter that burst occasionally from men seated at work on bows, arrows, fishing-nets, and such-like gear, on a flat green spot under the shade of a huge banyan-tree, which, besides being the village workshop, was the village reception-hall, where strangers were entertained on arriving,—also the village green, where the people assembled to dance, and sing, and smoke “bang,” to which last they were much addicted, and to drink beer made by themselves, of which they were remarkably fond, and by means of which they sometimes got drunk;—in all which matters the intelligent reader will not fail to observe that they bore a marked resemblance to many of the civilised European nations, except, perhaps, in their greater freedom of action, lightness of costume, and colour of skin.

The merry voices of children, too, were heard, and their active little black bodies were seen, while they engaged in the play of savages—though not necessarily in savage play. Some romped, ran after each other, caught each other, tickled each other, occasionally whacked each other—just as our own little ones do. Others played at games, of which the skipping-rope was a decided favourite among the girls, but the play of most of the older children consisted in imitating the serious work of their parents. The girls built little huts, hoed little gardens, made small pots of clay, pounded imaginary corn in miniature mortars, cooked it over ideal fires, and crammed it down the throats of imitation babies; while the boys performed deeds of chivalric daring with reed spears, small shields, and tiny bows and arrows, or amused themselves in making cattle-pens, and in sculpturing cows and crocodiles. Human nature, in short, was powerfully developed, without anything particular to suggest the idea of “savage” life, or to justify the opinion of Arabs and half-caste Portuguese that black men are all “cattle.”

The scene wanted only the spire of a village church and the tinkle of a Sabbath bell to make it perfect.

But there was a tinkle among the other sounds, not unlike a bell which would have sounded marvellously familiar to English ears had they been listening. This was the ringing of the anvil of the village blacksmith. Yes, savage though they were, these natives had a blacksmith who wrought in iron, almost as deftly, and to the full as vigorously, as any British son of Vulcan. The Manganja people are an industrious race. Besides cultivating the soil extensively, they dig iron-ore out of the hills, and each village has its smelting-house, its charcoal-burners, its forge with a pair of goatskin bellows, and its blacksmith—we might appropriately say, its very blacksmith! Whether the latter would of necessity, and as a matter of course, sing bass in church if the land were civilised enough to possess a church, remains to be seen! At the time we write of he merely hummed to the sound of the hammer, and forged hoes, axes, spears, needles, arrow-heads, bracelets, armlets, necklets, and anklets, with surprising dexterity.

Pity that he could not forge a chain which would for ever restrain the murderous hands of the Arabs and half-caste Portuguese, who, for ages, have blighted his land with their pestilential presence!

After contemplating the picture for a time, Kambira descended the winding path that led to the village. He had not proceeded far when one of the smallest of the children—a creature so rotund that his body and limbs were a series of circles and ovals, and so black that it seemed an absurdity even to think of casting a shadow on him—espied the advancing party, uttered a shrill cry of delight, and ran towards them.

His example was followed by a dozen others, who, being larger, outran him, and, performing a war-dance round the men, possessed themselves, by amicable theft, of pieces of raw meat with which they hastened back to the village. The original discoverer of the party, however, had other ends in view. He toddled straight up to Kambira with the outstretched arms of a child who knows he will be welcomed.

Kambira was not demonstrative, but he was hearty. Taking the little ball of black butter by the arms, he whirled him over his head, and placed him on his broad shoulders, with a fat leg on each side of his neck, and left him there to look after himself. This the youngster did by locking his feet together under the man’s chin, and fastening his fat fingers in his woolly hair, in which position he bore some resemblance to an enormous chignon.

Thus was he borne crowing to the chief’s hut, from the door of which a very stout elderly woman came out to receive them.

There was no one else in the hut to welcome them, but Yohama, as the chief styled her, was sufficient; she was what some people call “good company.” She bustled about making preparations for a feast, with a degree of activity that was quite surprising in one so fat—so very fat—asking questions the while with much volubility, making remarks to the child, criticising the hippopotamus-meat, or commenting on things in general.

Meanwhile Kambira seated himself in a corner and prepared to refresh himself with a pipe of bang in the most natural and civilised fashion imaginable; and young Obo—for so Yohama called him—entered upon a series of gymnastic exercises with his father—for such Kambira was—which partook of the playfulness of the kitten, mingled with the eccentricity and mischief of the monkey.

It would have done you good, reader, if you possess a spark of sympathy, to have watched these two as they played together. The way in which Obo assaulted his father, on whose visage mild benignity was enthroned, would have surprised you. Kambira was a remarkably grave, quiet and reserved man, but that was a matter of no moment to Obo, who threatened him in front, skirmished in his rear, charged him on the right flank with a reed spear, shelled him on the left with sweet potatoes, and otherwise harassed him with amazing perseverance and ingenuity.

To this the enemy paid no further attention than lay in thrusting out an elbow and raising a knee, to check an unusually fierce attack, or in giving Obo a pat on the back when he came within reach, or sending a puff of smoke in his face, as if to taunt and encourage him to attempt further deeds of daring.

While this was going on in the chief’s hut, active culinary preparations were progressing all over the village—the women forsook their hoes and grinding-mortars, and the looms on which they had been weaving cotton cloth, the men laid down various implements of industry, and, long ere the sun began to descend in the west, the entire tribe was feasting with all the gusto, and twenty times the appetite, of aldermen.

During the progress of the feast a remarkably small, wiry old negro, entertained the chief and his party with a song, accompanying himself the while on a violin—not a European fiddle, by any means, but a native production—with something like a small keg, covered with goatskin, for a body, a longish handle, and one string which was played with a bow by the “Spider.” Never having heard his name, we give him one in accordance with his aspect.

Talk of European fiddlers! No Paganini, or any other nini that ever astonished the Goths and Vandals of the north, could hold a candle—we had almost said a fiddle—to this sable descendant of Ham, who, squatted on his hams in the midst of an admiring circle, drew forth sounds from his solitary string that were more than exquisite,—they were excruciating.

The song appeared to be improvised, for it referred to objects around, as well as to things past, present, and to come; among others, to the fact that slave parties attacked villages and carried off the inhabitants.

At such points the minstrel’s voice became low and thrilling, while his audience grew suddenly earnest, opened their eyes, frowned, and showed their teeth; but as soon as the subject was changed the feeling seemed to die away. It was only old memories that had been awakened, for no slavers had passed through their country for some time past, though rumours of an attack on a not very distant tribe had recently reached and greatly alarmed them.

Thus they passed the afternoon, and when the cool of the evening drew on a dance was proposed, seconded, and carried unanimously.

They were about to begin when a man was seen running down the path leading to the village at a speed which proved him to be the bearer of tidings. In a few minutes he burst into the midst of them with glaring eyeballs and labouring chest—for he had run fast, though not far, and told his news in rapid short sentences—to the effect that a band of slavers, led by Portuguese, were on their way to the valley, within a mile or so of it, even while he spoke; that he thought the leader was Marizano; and that they were armed with the loud-sounding guns!

The consternation consequent on this news was universal, and there was good ground for it, because Marizano was a well-known monster of cruelty, and his guns had rendered him invincible hitherto, wherever he went, the native spear and bow being utterly useless in the hands of men who, however courageous, were shot down before they could come within arrow-range of their enemies.

It is the custom of the slave-dealers, on going into the interior for the purpose of procuring slaves, to offer to buy them from such tribes as are disposed to sell. This most of the tribes are willing to do. Fathers do not indeed, sell their own children, or husbands their wives, from preference, but chiefs and head-men are by no means loath to get rid of their criminals in this way—their bad stock, as it were, of black ivory. They also sell orphans and other defenceless ones of their tribes, the usual rate of charge being about two or three yards of calico for a man, woman, or child.

But the Arab slave-dealer sometimes finds it difficult to procure enough of “cattle” in this way to make up a band sufficiently large to start with for the coast because he is certain to lose four out of every five, at the lowest estimate, on his journey down. The drove, therefore, must be large. In order to provide it he sends out parties to buy where they can, and to steal when they have the chance. Meanwhile he takes up his quarters near some tribe, and sets about deliberately to produce war. He rubs up old sores, foments existing quarrels, lends guns and ammunition, suggests causes of dispute, and finally gets two tribes to fight. Of course many are slaughtered, fearful barbarities and excesses are committed, fields are laid waste and villages are burnt, but this is a matter of no consequence to our Arab. Prisoners are sure to be taken, and he buys the prisoners; for the rest,—there are plenty of natives in Africa!

When all else fails, not being very particular, he sends off a party under some thorough-going scoundrel, well-armed, and with instructions to attack and capture wherever they go.

No wonder, then, that the rumoured approach of Marizano and his men caused the utmost alarm in Kambira’s village, and that the women and children were ordered to fly to the bush without delay. This they required no second bidding to do, but, oh! it was a sad sight to see them do it. The younger women ran actively, carrying the infants and leading the smaller children by the hands, and soon disappeared; but it was otherwise with the old people. These, men and women, bowed with age, and tottering as much from terror as decrepitude, hobbled along, panting as they went, and stumbling over every trifling obstruction in their path, being sometimes obliged to stop and rest, though death might be the consequence; and among these there were a few stray little creatures barely able to toddle, who had probably been forgotten or forsaken by their mothers in the panic, yet were of sufficient age to be aware, in their own feeble way, that danger of some sort was behind them, and that safety lay before. By degrees all—young and old, strong and feeble—gained the shelter of the bush, and Kambira was left with a handful of resolute warriors to check the invaders and defend his home.

Well was it at that time for Kambira and his men that the approaching band was not Marizano and his robbers.

When the head of the supposed enemy’s column appeared on the brow of the adjacent hill, the Manganja chief fitted an arrow to his bow, and, retiring behind a hut, as also did his followers, resolved that Marizano should forfeit his life even though his own should be the penalty. Very bitter were his thoughts, for his tribe had suffered from that villain at a former period, and he longed to rid the land of him.

As he thought thus he looked at his followers with an expression of doubt for he knew too well that the Manganja were not a warlike tribe, and feared that the few who remained with him might forsake him in the hour of need. Indeed, much of his own well-known courage was to be attributed to the fact, that his mother had belonged to a family more or less nearly connected with the Ajawa, who are very warlike—too much so, in truth, for it is they who, to a large extent are made use of by the slave-dealers to carry on war with the neighbouring tribes. Kambira’s men, however, looked resolute, though very grave.

While he was thus meditating vengeance, he observed that one of the approaching band advanced alone without arms, and making signs of peace. This surprised him a little, but dreading treachery, he kept under the shelter of a hut until the stranger was close to the village; then, observing that the party on the hill had laid down their arms and seated themselves on the grass, he advanced, still, however, retaining his weapons.

The stranger was a little man, and appeared timid, but seeing that the chief evidently meant no mischief, and knowing that the guns of his friends had him within range, he drew near.

“Where come you from?” demanded Kambira.

To this Antonio—for it was he—replied that his party came from the coast; that they wanted to pass through the land to see it, and to find out what it produced and what its people had to sell; that it was led by two Englishmen, who belonged to a nation that detested slavery—the same nation that sent out Dr Livingstone, who, as everybody knew, had passed through that land some years before. They were also, he said, countrymen of the men of God who had come out to teach the Manganja the Truth, who had helped them in their troubles, delivered them from the slave-traders, and some of whom had died in their land. He added that there were Manganja men and women in their company.

The “men of God” to whom Antonio referred, and to whom he had been expressly told by Harold Seadrift to refer, were those devoted missionaries mentioned in a previous chapter, who, under the leadership of the amiable and true-hearted Bishop Mackenzie, established a mission among these very Manganja hills in the year 1861. By a rare combination of Christian love and manly courage under very peculiar circumstances, they acquired extraordinary power and influence over the natives in the space of a few months, and laid the foundation of what might have been—perhaps may yet be—true Christianity in Central Africa. But the country was unhappily involved at the time in one of the wars created by the Portuguese and Arab slave-traders. The region was almost depopulated by man-stealers, and by the famine that resulted from the culture of the land having been neglected during the panic. The good bishop and several of his devoted band sank under the combined effects of climate and anxiety, and died there, while the enfeebled remnant were compelled, sorrowfully, to quit the field, to the deep regret of the surviving Manganja. (The Story of the Universities’ Mission to Central Africa, by the Reverend Henry Rowley.—We can heartily recommend this to the young—ay, and to the old—as being, next to the Adventures of Williams in the South Seas, one of the most interesting records of missionary enterprise that we ever read.)

When, therefore, Antonio mentioned Bishop Mackenzie and Dr Livingstone, a gleam of intelligent interest lit up Kambira’s swarthy countenance, and he was about to speak, but suddenly checked himself, and a stern frown chased the gleam away.

“The Manganja,” he said, after a few moments’ silence, during which poor Antonio eyed him with some distrust, “know well that these men of God were not of the same country as the Arab and the Portuguese; that they hated slavery and loved the Manganja, and that the graves of some of them are with us now; but we know also that some white men are great liars. How am I to make sure that your leaders are English? Why did you not bring down the Manganja men and women you say are with you?”

“The women were footsore, and fell behind with their men,” answered Antonio, “and we thought it best not to wait for them.”

“Go,” rejoined Kambira, waving his hand; “if you be true men let the Englishmen come to me, and also the Manganja, without guns, then I will believe you.—Go.”

The peremptory manner in which this was said left no room for reply. Antonio therefore returned to his friends, and the chief to his cover.

On consultation and consideration it was agreed that Kambira’s advice should be acted on, “For,” said Disco, removing the pipe with which he had been solacing himself during Antonio’s absence, “we can plant our fellers on the knoll here with a blunderbuss each, and arrange a signal so that, if there should be anything like foul play, we’d have nothin’ to do but hold aloft a kercher or suthin o’ that sort, an’ they’d pour a broadside into ’em afore they could wink—d’ee see?”

“Not quite clearly,” replied Harold, smiling, “because some of our fellows can’t take an aim at all, much less a good one, so they’d be as likely to shoot us as them.”

Disco pondered this a little, and shook his head, then shook the ashes out of his pipe, and said that on the whole he was willing to risk it—that they “could not expect to travel through Afriky without risking summat.”

As Chimbolo with his wife and the rest of the party came up at that moment the case was put before him. He at once advised compliance with Kambira’s request saying that the presence of himself and his friends would be quite sufficient to put the chief’s mind at rest.

In a few minutes the plan was carried out and Kambira satisfied of the good faith of his visitors. Nevertheless he did not at once throw open his arms to them. He stood upon his dignity; asked them a good many questions, and answered a good many more, addressing himself always to Antonio as the spokesman, it being a point of etiquette not to address the principal of the party. Then, presents were exchanged, in the management of which a considerable time was spent. One of the warriors having in the meantime been despatched to recall the fugitives, these began to pour out of the woods, the frail old people and forsaken toddlers being the last to return, as they had been the last to fly.

After this, fires were kindled, fowls were chased, caught, slain, plucked, roasted, and boiled; hippopotamus-flesh was produced, the strangers were invited to make themselves at home, which they very soon did. Beer and bang were introduced; the celebrated fiddler was reinstated, the dance, which had been so long delayed, was at last fairly begun, and, as if to make the picture perfect and felicity complete, the moon came out from behind a thick cloud, and clothed the valley with a flood of silver light.

Chapter Eleven.

Reveals Disco’s Opinions about Savages, and the Savages’ Opinions of Disco, and Other Weighty Matters.

As two or three of Harold’s people were not very well just at that time, he resolved to remain at Kambira’s village for a few days to give them rest, and afterwards to push on to the country of his friend Chimbolo.

This arrangement he came to the more readily that he was short of provisions, and Kambira told him that a particular part of the country near the shores of a lake not far distant abounded with game of all sorts.

To Disco Lillihammer he explained his plans next day, while that worthy, seated under the shade of a banyan-tree, was busily engaged with what he styled his “mornin’ dooties”—namely, the filling and smoking of his cutty-pipe.

“You see, Disco,” he said, “it won’t do to knock up the men with continuous travel, therefore I shall give them a spell of rest here. Kambira tells me that there is plenty of game, large and small, to be had not far off, so that we shall be able to replenish our stock of meat and perchance give the niggers a feast such as they have not been accustomed to of late, for it is not too much to expect that our rifles will do more execution, at all events among lions and elephants, than native spears. Besides, I wish to see something of the people, who, being what we may call pure out-and-out savages—”

“Savages!” interrupted Disco, removing his pipe, and pointing with the stem of it to the village on an eminence at the outskirts of which they were seated; “d’ee call them folk savages?”

Harold looked at the scene before him, and paused for a few moments; and well he might, for not fifty yards off the blacksmith was plying his work energetically, while a lad sat literally between a pair of native bellows, one of which he blew with his left hand, the other with his right and, beyond these, groups of men and women wrought at their primitive looms or tilled their vegetable gardens and patches of land.

“Savages!” repeated Disco, still pointing to the village with the stem of his pipe, and gazing earnestly at his companion, “humph!”

It is probable that Disco might have said more, but he was an accurate judge of the precise moment when a pipe is about to go out, and delay will prove fatal. He therefore applied himself diligently to suck and cherish the dying spark. Having revived its powers to such an extent that clouds enveloped his visage, and his nose, being red, loomed luridly through them, he removed the pipe, and again said, “Humph! They ain’t a bit more savages, sir, than you or me is.”

“Perhaps not,” replied Harold. “To say truth, it would be difficult to point out any peculiarity that justifies the name, except the fact that they wear very little clothing, and neither go to school nor church.”

“They wears no clothin’,” rejoined Disco, “’cause they don’t need for to do so; an’ they don’t go to church or school, ’cause they hain’t got none to go to—that same bein’ not the fault o’ the niggers, but o’ them as knows better.”

“There’s truth in what you say, Disco,” returned Harold, with a smile, “but come, you must admit that there is something savage in the custom they have of wearing these hideous lip-rings.”

The custom to which he referred is one which prevails among several of the tribes of Africa, and is indeed so utterly hideous and outrageous that we should be justified in refusing to believe it, were we not assured of the fact by Dr Livingstone and other missionaries and travellers of unquestionable integrity. The ring is worn in the upper lip, not hanging from it but fitted into a hole in it in such a manner as to thrust the lip straight and far out from the face. As the ring is about the size of an ordinary napkin-ring, it may be easily believed, that time is required for the formation of the deformity. At an early age the middle of the upper lip of a girl is pierced close to the nose, and a small pin introduced to prevent the hole closing up. After it is healed the pin is taken out and a larger one forced into its place, and so for weeks, months, and years the process of increasing the size of the lip goes on, until a ring of two inches in diameter can be introduced. Nearly all the women in these parts use this ring, or, as it is called, pelele. Some make them of bamboo, others of ivory or tin. When a wearer of the pelele smiles, the action of the cheek muscles draws the lip tight which has the effect of raising the ring towards the eyebrows, so that the nose is seen in the middle of it, and the teeth are exposed, a revelation which shows that the latter have been chipped to sharp points so as to resemble the teeth of a cat or crocodile.

“No doubt,” said Disco, in reply to Harold’s remark, “the lip-rings are uncommon ugly, but the principle o’ the thing, sir, that’s w’ere it is, the principle ain’t no wuss than ear-rings. The savages, as we calls ’em, bores holes in their lips an’ sticks rings into ’em. The civilised folk, as we calls ourselves, bores holes in their ears an’ sticks rings into ’em. W’ere’s the difference? that’s wot I want to know.”

“There’s not much difference in principle,” said Harold, laughing, “but there is a great difference in appearance. Ear-rings hang gracefully; lip-rings stick out horribly.”

“H’m! it appears to me that that’s a matter o’ taste, now. Howsoever, I do admit that lip-rings is wuss than ear-rings; moreover it must make kissin’ somewhat difficult, not to say onpleasant, but, as I said before, so I says again, It’s all in the principle w’ere it lies. W’y, look here, sir,—savages, as we call ’em, wear brass rings round their necks, our women wear gold and brass chains. The savages wear anklets, we wear bracelets. They have no end o’ rings on their toes, we have ’em on our fingers. Some savages shave their heads, some of us shaves our faces. Their women are raither given to clothin’ which is too short and too narrer, ours come out in toggery far too wide, and so long sometimes, that a feller daren’t come within a fathom of ’em astarn without runnin’ the risk o’ trampin’ on, an’ carrying away some o’ the canvas. The savage women frizzes out their hair into most fantastical shapes, till the very monkeys has to hold their sides sittin’ in the trees larfin’ at ’em—and wot do we do in regard to that? W’y, some of our women puts on a mixture o’ hairy pads, an’ combs, an’ pins, an’ ribbons, an’ flowers, in a bundle about twice the size o’ their heads, all jumbled together in such a way as to defy description; an’ if the monkeys was to see them, they’d go off into such fits that they’d bu’st altogether an’ the race would become extinct in Afriky. No, sir; it’s my opinion that there ain’t no such thing as savages—or, if you choose to put it the tother way, we’re all savages together.”

Disco uttered the last part of his speech with intense energy, winding it up with the usual slap on the thigh, delivered with unusual fervour, and then, becoming aware that the vital spark of the cutty had all but fled, he applied himself to its resuscitation, in which occupation he found relief to his feelings, and himself formed a brilliant illustration of his remarks on savage customs.

Harold admitted that there was much truth in what he said, but rather inclined to the opinion that of the two sets of savages the uncivilised were, if anything, the wildest. Disco however, contrary to his usual habits, had nailed his colours to the mast on that point and could not haul them down. Meanwhile Harold’s opinion was to some extent justified by the appearance of a young man, who, issuing from the jungle close at hand, advanced towards them.

Most of the men at the village displayed a good deal of pride, if not taste, in the arrangement of their hair. Some wore it long and twisted into a coil which hung down their backs; others trained and stiffened it in such a way that it took the form of buffalo horns, while some allowed it to hang over the shoulders in large masses, and many shaved it either entirely, or partially in definite patterns. But the young dandy who now approached outdid all others, for he had twisted his hair into innumerable little tails, which, being stiffened by fillets of the inner bark of a tree, stuck straight out and radiated from the head in all directions. His costume otherwise was simple enough, consisting merely of a small kilt of white calico. He was accompanied by Antonio.

“We’ve be come from Kambira,” said the interpreter, “to tell you for come to feast.”

“All right,” said Disco, rising; “always ready for wittles if you only gives us an hour or two between times.—I say, Tony,” (he had by that time reduced the interpreter’s name to this extent), “ask this feller what he means by makin’ sitch a guy of hisself.”

“Hims say it look well,” said Antonio, with a broad grin.

“Looks well—eh? and ask him why the women wear that abominable pelele.”

When this question was put to the black dandy, he looked at Disco evidently in surprise at his stupidity. “Because it is the fashion,” he said.

“They wear it for beauty, to be sure! Men have beards and whiskers; women have none, and what kind of creature would woman be without whiskers, and without a pelele? She would have a mouth like a man, and no beard!”

The bare idea of such a state of things tickled the dandy so much that he went into roars of laughter, insomuch that all the radiating tails of his head quivered again. The effect of laughter and tails together was irresistible. Harold, Disco, and Antonio laughed in sympathy, till the tears ran down their cheeks, and then returned to the village where Kambira and his chief men awaited them.

While enjoying the feast prepared for them, Harold communicated his intentions and desires to the chief, who was delighted at the prospect of having such powerful allies on a hunting expedition.

The playful Obo meanwhile was clambering over his father’s person like a black monkey. He appeared to be particularly fond of his father, and as love begets love, it is not surprising that Kambira was excessively fond of Obo. But Obo, becoming obstreperous, received an amicable punch from his father, which sent him headlong into a basket of boiled hippopotamus. He gave a wild howl of alarm as Disco snatched him out of the dish, dripping with fat, and set him on his knee.

“There, there, don’t blubber,” said the seaman, tenderly wiping off the fat while the natives, including Kambira, exploded with laughter. “You ain’t burnt, are you?”

As Obo could not reply, Disco put his finger into the gravy from which the urchin had been rescued, and satisfied himself that it was not hot enough to have done the child injury. This was also rendered apparent by his suddenly ceasing to cry, struggling off Disco’s knee, and renewing his assaults on his easy-going father.

Accepting an egg which was offered him by Yohama, Harold broke it, and entered into conversation with Kambira through the medium of Antonio.

“Is your boy’s mother a— Hollo! there’s a chick in this egg,” he exclaimed, throwing the offensive morsel into the fire.

Jumbo, who sat near the place where it fell, snatched it up, grinned, and putting it into his cavernous mouth, swallowed it.

“Dem’s betterer wid chickies,” he said, resuming his gravity and his knife and fingers,—forks being held by him in light esteem.

“Ask him, Antonio, if Obo’s mother is alive,” said Harold, trying another egg, which proved to be in better condition.

The interpreter, instead of putting the question without comment, as was his wont, shook his head, looked mysterious, and whispered— “No better ask dat. Hims lost him’s wife. The slave-hunters cotch her some time ago, and carry her off when hims away hunting. Hims awful mad, worser dan mad elerphint when hims speak to ’bout her.”

Harold of course dropped the subject at once, after remarking that he supposed Yohama was the child’s grandmother.

“Yis,” said Antonio; “she be Kambira’s moder, an’ Obo’s gran’moder—bof at once.”

This fact was, we may almost say, self-evident for Obo’s attentions and favours were distributed exclusively between Yohama and Kambira, though the latter had unquestionably the larger share.

During the course of the feast, beer was served round by the little man who had performed so deftly on the violin the previous evening.

“Drink,” said Kambira hospitably; “I am glad to see my white brothers here; drink, it will warm your hearts.”

“Ay, an’ it won’t make us drunk,” said Disco, destroying Jumbo’s peace of mind by winking and making a face at him as he raised the calabash to his lips. “Here’s long life to you, Kambira, an’ death to slavery.”

There can be no doubt that the chief and his retainers would have heartily applauded that sentiment if they had understood it, but at the moment Antonio was too deeply engaged with another calabash to take the trouble to translate it.

The beer, which was pink, and as thick as gruel, was indeed too weak to produce intoxication unless taken in very large quantities; nevertheless many of the men were so fond of it that they sometimes succeeded in taking enough to bring them to the condition which we style “fuddled.” But at that time the particular brew was nearly exhausted, so that temperance was happily the order of the day.

Having no hops in those regions, they are unable to prevent fermentation, and are therefore obliged to drink up a whole brewing as quickly as possible after it is made.

“Man, why don’t ye wash yer face?” said Disco to the little fiddler as he replenished his calabash; “it’s awful dirty.”

Jumbo laughed, of course, and the small musician, not understanding what was said, followed suit out of sympathy.

“Wash him’s face!” cried Antonio, laughing, “him would as soon cut off him’s head. Manganja nevair wash. Ah me! You laugh if you hear de womans ask me yesterday— ‘Why you wash?’ dey say, ‘our men nevair do.’ Ho! ho! dey looks like it too.”

“I’m sure that cannot be said of Kambira or any of his chief men,” said Harold.

“Perhaps not,” retorted Antonio, “but some of ’um nevair wash. Once ’pon a time one man of dis tribe foller a party me was with. Not go way for all we tell ’um. We said we shoot ’um. No matter, hims foller still. At last we say, ‘You scoun’rel, we wash you!’ Ho! how hims run! Jist like zebra wid lion at ’um’s tail. Nevair see ’um after dat—nevair more!”

“Wot a most monstrous ugly feller that is sittin’ opposite Kambira, on the other side o’ the fire—the feller with the half-shaved head,” said Disco in an undertone to Harold during a temporary pause in eating.

“A well-made man, however,” replied Harold.—“I say, Disco,” he added, with a peculiar smile, “you think yourself rather a good-looking fellow, don’t you, now?”

The worthy seaman, who was indeed an exceptionally good-looking tar, modestly replied— “Well now, as you have put it so plump I don’t mind if I do confess that I’ve had some wild suspicions o’ that sort now and then.”

“Then you may dismiss your suspicions now, for I can assure you that you are regarded in this land as a very monster of ugliness,” said Harold, laughing.

“In the estimation of niggers your garments are hideous; your legs they think elephantine, your red beard frightful, and your blue eyes savage—savage! think of that.”

“Well, well,” retorted Disco, “your own eyes are as blue as mine, an’ I don’t suppose the niggers think more of a yaller beard than a red one.”

“Too true, Disco; we are both ill-favoured fellows here, whatever we may be elsewhere; however, as we don’t intend to take Manganja wives it won’t matter much. But what think you of our plan, now that Kambira is ready to fall in with it?”

“It seems a good one. When do we start?”

“To-morrow,” said Harold.

“Wery good,” replied Disco, “I’m agreeable.”

The morrow came, and with the early light all the people turned out to witness the departure of the hunters. Scouts had been previously sent out in all directions to make sure that no enemies or slave-traders were at that time in their immediate neighbourhood, and a strong force of the best warriors was left to guard the village.

Of Harold’s band, two half-castes, José and Oliveira, volunteered to stay in camp with the guard, and two, Songolo and Mabruki, the freemen of Quillimane, remained in the village to recruit their health, which had failed. Chimbolo likewise remained, the wounds on his back not having healed sufficiently to admit of the hard labour of hunting. All the rest accompanied the hunters, and of these the three Makololo men, Jumbo, Zombo, and Masiko, were incomparably the best and bravest. Of course the volatile Antonio also went, being indispensable.

On setting out—each man with his sleeping-mat on his back and his little wooden pillow hung at his neck,—there was a great deal of shouting and ho-ho-ing and well-wishing on the part of those who remained behind, but above all the noise there arose a shrill cry of intense and agonising despair. This proceeded from the small windpipe of little Obo, who had not until the last moment made the appalling discovery that Kambira was going away without him!

There was something very touching in the cry of the urchin, and something which brought vividly to the minds of the Englishmen the infantine community of their own land. There was the same sudden gaze of horror on realising the true position of affairs,—the same sharp shriek and frantic struggle to escape from the grasp of those who held him back from following his father,—the same loud cry of agony on finding that his efforts were vain, and then, the wide-open mouth, the close-shut eyes, and the awful, prolonged silence—suggestive of fits—that betokens the concentration of mind, heart, and lungs into that tremendous roar of unutterable significance which appears to be the safety-valve of the human family, black and white, at that tender period of life.

Poor Obo! his sobs continued to burst out with steam-engine power, and his eyes to pour cataracts of tears into Yohama’s sympathetic bosom, long after the hunting party had left the hills behind them, and advanced into the almost impenetrable jungles of the low grounds.

Chapter Twelve.

Describes a Hunting Expedition which was both Exciting and Successful.

Down by the reedy margin of a pretty large lake—where wild-fowl innumerable made the air vocal with their cries by day, and frogs, in numbers inconceivable, chirped and croaked a lullaby to men who slept, and a symphony to beasts that howled and growled and prowled at night in bush and brake—Kambira pitched his camp.

He did not indeed, select the moist level of the fever-breeding marshes, but he chose for his temporary habitation the dry summit of a wooded hill which overlooked the lake.

Here the natives of the neighbourhood said that elephants had been lately seen, and buffaloes, zebras, etcetera, were at all times numerous.

After two long days’ march they had reached the spot, and encamped late in the evening. Next morning early the business of the expedition began. Various parties of natives, armed with bows and arrows and spears, were sent out in different directions, but the principal band was composed of Kambira and his chief men, with Harold and his party.

They did not go far before game was found. Guinea-fowl were numerous, and those who were aimed with bows soon procured a goodly supply of these, but our travellers did not waste their energies or powder on such small game. Besides these, monkeys peeped inquisitively at the hunters from among the trees, and myriads of turtle-doves were seen in the covers. As they advanced, wild pigs, elands, waterbucks, koodoos, and other creatures, were seen in herds, and the natives dropped off, or turned aside in pursuit of these, so that ere long the band remaining with Kambira was reduced to about forty men.

Coming to a small river in which were a number of deep pools and shallows, they saw several hippopotami lying asleep, their bodies nearly all out of the water, appearing like masses of black rock in the stream. But at the same place they discovered fresh traces of elephants and buffaloes, therefore the hippopotami were left unmolested, save that Harold sent a bullet amongst them, partly to let the natives hear the report of his gun, and partly to see how the animals would take it.

They all started to their feet at once, and stared around them with looks of stolid surprise that were almost equal to the looks of the natives, to whom fire-arms were little known, except by report. Another shot sent the whole herd with a heavy plunge into deep water.

“It’s a queer country,” observed Disco when they had resumed their march. “Just look at them there lizards with red and blue tails running about among the rocks an’ eatin’ up the white ants like one o’clock.”

Disco might have said like twelve o’clock, if numbers would have added to the force of his remark, for the little creatures referred to were miraculously active in pursuit of their food.

“But I s’pose,” continued Disco, “the niggers would think our country a queerer place than this.”

“Undoubtedly they would,” replied Harold; “just fancy what would be the feelings of Kambira if he were suddenly transported into the heart of London.”

“Hallo!” exclaimed Disco, stopping suddenly and pointing to one of the men in advance, who had crouched and made signals to his friends to halt, “breakers ahead—eh?”

“More likely buffaloes,” whispered Harold, as he cocked his rifle and advanced quickly with Kambira, who carried a short spear or javelin.

On reaching an opening in the bushes, a small herd of zebras was observed not much more than a hundred yards in advance.

“Will the white man’s gun kill so far?” asked the chief, turning to Antonio.

The interpreter made no reply, but pointed to Harold, who was in the act of taking aim. The loud report was followed by the fall of the nearest zebra. Disco also fired and wounded another, which bounded away in wild alarm with its fellows.

The natives yelled with delight, and Disco cheered in sympathy.

“You’ve hit him,” said Harold, as he reloaded.

“Ay, but I han’t disabled him. Better luck next time. I think I took him somewhere on the port bow.”

“If by that you mean the left shoulder,” returned Harold, with a laugh, “it’s likely he won’t run far. What does Kambira think of the white man’s gun?” he added, turning round.

The tall chief nodded approvingly, and said, with a grave countenance—“Good, good; it is good—better than this,” shaking his short spear.

At that moment a small antelope, which had been startled and put to flight by some of the other bands of hunters, came crashing wildly towards them, ignorant of the enemy in its front until within about thirty yards. It turned at a sharp angle and plunged into the jungle, but the spear which Kambira had shaken whizzed though the air and pierced its heart before it had time to disappear.

“A splendid heave!” cried Disco, with enthusiasm; “why, man alive, you’d make yer fortin’ as a harpooner if ye was to go to the whale-fishin’.—Hallo! there’s somethin’ else; w’y, the place is swarmin’. It’s for all the world like a zoological ga’rdings let loose.”

As he spoke, the hoofs of a herd of ponderous animals were heard, but the rank grass and underwood concealed them entirely from view. The whole party rushed to the nearest opening, and were just in time to see the tail of an irate buffalo make a magnificent flourish in the air as its owner plunged into cover.

There was no further attempt at conversation after this. The near presence of large game was too exciting, so that merely a word of advice, direction, or inquiry, passed as the party advanced rapidly—one or two of the most active going before as pioneers.

While Disco was striding along with flashing eyes, rifle ready, and head turning from side to side in momentary expectation of something bounding suddenly out of somewhere, he chanced to cast his eyes upwards, and, to his horror, beheld two huge serpents coiled together among the branches of a tree close to his head.

Uttering a yell of alarm—for he entertained an almost superstitious dread of serpents—he fired blindly upwards, and dashed to one side so violently that he tumbled himself and Harold into a bush of wait-a-bit thorns, out of which the laughing natives found it difficult to extract them.

“What is the matter, man?” said Harold somewhat testily.

“Have a care! look! Avast! A bite’ll be death, an’ no mistake!” cried Disco, pointing to the reptiles.

Harold fired at once and brought them both down, and the natives, attacking them with sticks, soon killed them.

“No fear,” said Antonio, with a chuckle. “Dem not harm nobody, though ums ugly an’ big enough.”

This was true. They were a couple of pythons, and the larger of the two, a female, was ten feet long; but the python is a harmless creature.

While they were talking, smoke was observed to rise from an isolated clump of long grass and bushes not far from the banks of the river, much to the annoyance of Kambira, who feared that the fire might spread and scare away the game. It was confined, however, to the place where it began, but it had the effect of driving out a solitary buffalo that had taken refuge in the cover. Jumbo chanced to be most directly in front of the infuriated animal when it burst out, and to him exclusively it directed its attentions.

Never since Jumbo was the size of Obo had that laughter-loving savage used his lithe legs with greater energy than on this occasion. An ostrich might have envied him as he rushed towards the river, into which he sprang headlong when the buffalo was barely six feet behind him.

Of course Harold fired, as well as Disco, and both shots told, as also a spear from Kambira, nevertheless the animal turned abruptly on seeing Jumbo disappear, and charged furiously up the bank, scattering its enemies right and left. Harold fired again at little more than fifty yards off, and heard the bullet thud as it went in just behind the shoulder, yet strange to say, it seemed to have no other effect than to rouse the brute to greater wrath, and two more bullets failed to bring him down.

This toughness of the buffalo is by no means uncommon, but different animals vary much in their tenacity of life. Some fall at once to the first well-directed shot; others die hard. The animal the hunters were now in pursuit of, or rather which was in pursuit of the hunters, seemed to be of the latter class. Harold fired another shot from behind a tree, having loaded with a shell-bullet, which exploded on hitting the creature’s ribs. It fell, much to the satisfaction of Disco, of whom it happened to be in pursuit at the time. The seaman at once stopped and began to reload, and the natives came running forward, when Antonio, who had climbed a tree to be out of harm’s way, slipped down and ran with great bravery up to the prostrate animal.

Just as he reached it the buffalo sprang up with the activity of a cat, and charged him. Antonio turned and ran with such rapidity that his little legs became almost invisible, like those of a sparrow in a hurry. He gained a tree, and had just time to climb into it when the buffalo struck it like a battering-ram, hard enough almost to have split both head and tree. It paused a few seconds, drew back several paces, glared savagely at Antonio, and then charged again and again, as if resolved either to shake him out of the tree, or give itself a splitting headache, but another shell from Harold, who could hardly take aim for laughing, stretched the huge animal dead upon the ground. Altogether, it took two shells and five large solid rifle-balls to finish him.

“That wos a pretty good spurt,” said Disco, panting, as he joined Harold beside the fallen beast. “It’s well-known that a starn chase is a long ’un, but this would have been an exception to the rule if you hadn’t shot him, sir. He pretty nigh made short work o’ me. He was a’most aboard of me w’en you fired.”

“True,” said Harold; “and had that tree not grown where it stands, and grown tough, too, I suspect he would have made short work of Antonio too.”

“Bah!” said the interpreter, with affected carelessness, “him was but a slow brute, after all.”

Disco looked at Jumbo, who was none the worse of his ducking, and shut his right eye smartly. Jumbo opened his cavernous mouth, and exploded so violently that his double row of brilliant teeth must have been blown out and scattered on the ground, had they not been miraculously strong.

“Come, now,” said Kambira, who had just given orders to some of his followers to remain behind and look after the carcase, “we go to find elephants.”

“Have we much chance of findin’ them?” inquired Disco.

Kambira thought they had, because fresh traces had been recently seen in the neighbourhood, whereupon Disco said that he would prefer to go after lions, but Kambira assured him that these animals were not so easy to find, and much more dangerous when attacked. Admitting the force of this, though still asserting his preference of lions to elephants, the bloodthirsty son of Neptune shouldered his rifle and followed his leader.

While the main party of hunters were thus successfully pushing along, the other bands were not idle, though, possessing no fire-arms, they were less noisy. In fact their proceedings were altogether of the cat-catty. One fellow, as black as a coal, as lithe as an eel, and as long—according to Disco’s standard—as a fathom of pump-water, having come upon a herd of buffalo unseen by them, and being armed with a small bow and quiver of arrows, suddenly dropped on all-fours and began to glide through the long grass.

Now there is a particular little bird in those regions which calls for special notice here. It is a very singular bird, inasmuch as it has constituted itself the guardian of the buffalo. It frequently sits upon that animal’s back, and, whenever it sees the approach of man, or any other danger, it flaps its wings and screams to such an extent, that the buffalo rushes off without waiting to inquire or see what is the matter; and the small guardian seems to think itself sufficiently rewarded with the pickings it finds on the back of its fat friend. So vigilant is this little creature, that it actually renders the approach of the hunter a matter of great difficulty in circumstances when, but for it, he might approach with ease. (See Livingstone’s Zambesi and its Tributaries, page 200.)

Our wary native was, however, aware of this little fellow’s propensities, and took precautions to outwit the bird rather than the beast. It may perhaps cause some surprise to be told that a small bow and arrows were a sufficiently powerful species of artillery to bring to bear against such noble game, but the surprise will vanish when we state that the arrows were poisoned.

Having crawled to within range, the fathom of black pump-water suddenly arose and let fly an arrow. The missile went deep into the side of a majestic bull. The little bird fluttered and screamed too late. The bull at once dashed away at full speed, starting off the whole herd in alarm. The black fathom followed at the top of his speed, and was joined by a number of other black fathoms, who were quite aware of what had been done. The buffaloes were soon out of sight, but the fathoms followed the trail with the unerring pertinacity of fate. After a long run they came up with the stricken bull, which had fallen behind its fellows, and waited patiently until the poison took full effect. In a short time the animal fell, and the successful hunters fell to work upon his carcase with their knives.

Leaving them thus employed, we will return to Kambira and his friends.

They had not gone far when a fine water-buck was observed feeding beside a creek.

Kambira laid his hand on Harold’s shoulder and pointed to it with a smile, which might have been interpreted, “Now, then, there’s a chance for you!”

Harold fired, and the water-buck dropped.

“Good,” said Kambira.

“Hallo!” exclaimed Disco.

And well he might, for at that moment an enormous crocodile, which had evidently been watching the water-buck, seized and dragged it into the water. It was not deep, however, and the wounded animal made a desperate plunge, hauled the crocodile several yards, and tore itself out of its hideous jaws. It then jumped into the stream and was swimming across when another crocodile made a dash at it, but Harold sent a ball into its ugly head, which appeared to make it change its mind. It disappeared, and the water-buck turning, made for the bank from which it had started. Just as it reached it the vital spark fled—the fine head dropped and the body turned over.

It will be seen from what has been told, that on this occasion the rifles did most of the work. The natives who followed Harold had nothing to do but look on exultingly, glare, dance, show their teeth and gums, and secure the game. We cannot perhaps, expect the good-natured reader to follow us through all the details of that day’s work; but it would be unpardonable were we to close the chapter without referring to the principal event of the day, which occurred a couple of hours after the shooting of the water-buck.

It happened thus:— When the hunters began to grow tired, and the prospect of falling in with large game became less hopeful, the chief determined to return to camp; but Disco felt so disappointed at not having seen an elephant or a lion, that he expressed a wish to continue the chase with a small select party. Harold laughed at the idea of the seaman leading such a party, but offered no objection, although he did not care to accompany his friend, having, as he said, had enough of it, and being desirous of having a long chat with the chief in camp.

“You see, sir,” said Disco, patting the stock of his rifle with his right hand, “we chance to have got, so to speak, into the heart of a shoal o’ big fish, an’ there’s no sayin’ how soon they may take it into their heads to up anchor, and make sail for other grounds. Therefore, says I, blaze away at ’em while you’ve got the chance.”

“But you may have as good a chance to-morrow, or next day,” suggested Harold.

“We ain’t sure o’ that sir. To-morrow, they say, never comes,” returned Disco. “It’s my ambition to let fly a broadside at a lion or a elephant so I means for to go on; an’ wot I says is, Who wolunteers to sail in company?”

When the party were given to understand what “wolunteers” meant, the three Makololo joined the tar with alacrity, also the Somali negroes Nakoda and Conda, and about a dozen of the natives, armed with spears. Disco’s own men were armed with their guns. Antonio, being necessary to Harold, returned to camp; but this was a matter of little importance, as Jumbo and his fellow-countrymen knew enough of English to act as interpreters.

Every one who has had a few years’ experience of life knows the truth of the proverb which asserts that “fortune favours the brave.” Its truth was exemplified on the present occasion not more than an hour after the little band of heroes had set out.

Disco led the way, as a matter of course, holding, as he said, that no nigger could possibly be equal to a white sailor in the matter of steering, whether ashore or afloat. He steered by the sun, and directed his course to nowhere in particular, being influenced chiefly by the form of the ground and the appearance of the jungle.

Jumbo grinned a good deal at the sententious gravity with which the leader delivered his orders, and the self-important strides with which he passed over the land. He would have grinned still more, perhaps have laughed outright if he had understood that the occasional off-hand kicks which Disco bestowed on a thick bush here and there, were given in the hope that a lion might thereby be set up, as one dislodges a rabbit or a hare!

At last on reaching the crest of a mound which was comparatively free of underwood, Disco beheld a sight which caused him to drop on his hands and knees as though he had been shot.

Not more than fifty yards off a herd of cow elephants and their calves were seen feeding quietly on tall heavy-seeded grass in the plain below.

“Avast!” said Disco, in a hoarse whisper, at the same time crouching behind a bush, and making frantic signals to the rest of the party to advance with extreme caution.

“Wat ’um see?” inquired Jumbo in a low whisper, creeping up to his excited leader.

There was no need for a reply. A glance over the top of the bush sufficed.

“Be quiet as mice now, lads,” said Disco, when all the members of his party had crept around him, and become aware of the presence of elephants. “Get your guns laid, and if any one of you dares to pull a trigger till I give the word, I’ll keel-haul him.”

This, or something distantly resembling it, having been explained to the men who carried guns, they lay down and took aim.

The noise made by the hunters attracted the attention of the nearest elephant, and, with true motherly instinct she placed her young one between her fore-legs for protection.

“We fire right in de middel ob de lot?” inquired Zombo hastily.

“Not at all,” whispered Disco; “let every man point at the nearest one—the one that lays broadside on to us, wi’ the little un under her bows. Now—ready—present—fire!”

Bang went the seven guns with a degree of precision that might have put to shame any corps of volunteer riflemen in England; up went the trunks and tails of the elephants, little and big, and away rushed the whole herd in dire alarm. But the wounded animal suddenly stumbled and fell on its knees, then leaped up and ran on heavily.

Meanwhile Disco, who had discharged only one barrel of his heavy gun, leaped over the bushes, and rushed forward at a pace which for a few seconds enabled him to keep ahead even of the fleet natives. The elephants, however, easily left them all behind, and it appeared as if the affair were about to end in disappointment, when the wounded beast again stumbled.

“Hold on! halt!” cried Disco in a voice of thunder.

He kneeled at the same time, took aim, and fired.

Whether it was this last shot or the effects of previous loss of blood, we cannot tell; but after receiving it, the ponderous animal rolled over on its side, and died.

To say that the natives became temporarily insane would give but a feeble idea of what now took place, because few readers are likely to be aware of the amazing power of the negro to give expression to the vagaries of insanity. We shall therefore content ourselves by saying that they cheered, laughed, howled, shouted, danced, and yelled—and leave the rest to imagination.

“Now, then, boys, avast howlin’. Clap a stopper on your bellows, will ’ee?” said Disco, in a boatswain’s roar, that effectually quelled the tumult. “Cut off to camp, every mother’s son of you, an bring up Kambira an’ all the boys, with as many knives and dishes as ye can muster, for this mountain of flesh ain’t to be cut up in a hurry, an’ the sun won’t be long o’ goin’ to bed. Away with ’ee! Let’s see how you can wag yer black legs, an’ I’ll keep watch over the carcase. If anything comes to have a look at it—a lion, for instance,—so much the worse for the lion!”

It was in vain that Jumbo explained there was no necessity for sending more than one of the party to the camp. Disco was a strict disciplinarian, and, having given the order, enforced it in a manner which admitted of no disobedience. They therefore departed, leaving the seaman seated on the elephant, smoking his pipe with his gun beside him.

But Jumbo did not go far. He soon turned aside from his companions, and returned to the scene of the hunt, resolved if possible to give his leader a fright. Gaining the skirts of the jungle which surrounded the open space where Disco kept watch, he crept cautiously as near to him as possible.

Disco still sat smoking and eyeing the elephant with a smile of satisfaction. Presently he rose,—retreated a few yards from the carcase, and stood admiring it with his head on one side, as if it were a picture and he a connoisseur. He had in this act approached somewhat nearer to Jumbo, who saluted him with a most awful growl.

No monkey in Africa could have dropped its pipe, had it been a smoker, or sprung to seize its gun, had it been a sportsman, with greater agility than did Disco Lillihammer on that trying occasion! Getting on the other side of the dead elephant he faced round, cocked both barrels, and prepared to receive whatever might come.

Jumbo, lying very low behind a bank of earth for safety, gave another low growl. Disco started and half raised his piece. Jumbo then threw a large stone towards a neighbouring bush, which it struck and caused to rustle.

This was enough for Disco, who took a quick aim, and let fly the contents of both barrels into the bush.

Jumbo noiselessly but swiftly crept back into the woods, chuckling as he went, leaving Disco to reload in wild haste. But his haste was uncalled for. There was no more growling; no more rustling in the bushes.

“I’ve done for him,” muttered Disco, after waiting patiently at the “ready” for some time. “But it won’t do for me to ventur’ up to it all by myself. Pr’aps it’s a lion, an’ they do say that it’s chancy work to go near a wounded lion. To be sure the growl wasn’t so loud as I’d have expected o’ the king o’ the forest, but then they don’t always growl loud. Anyhow I’ll keep a bright look-out an’ wait till the niggers return.”

Philosophising thus, the bold seaman mounted guard over the elephant.

Meanwhile Jumbo, having got out of earshot of his friend, indulged in a loud laugh and made after his friends, but, observing the visage of a small yellow-coloured monkey among the leaves overhead, a thought flashed into his mind and induced him to change his plans.

Throwing his spear dexterously he transfixed the monkey and brought it down. Returning with great caution to the bush into which Disco had fired, and gliding with the noiseless motion of a snake the latter part of the way, he placed the dead monkey on the ground and left it there.

It was by that time too late to overtake his comrades. He therefore waited until they returned, and then joined the party in rear, as though he had followed them from the camp.

The same wild exhibition of delight was about to be enacted when the party came trooping up, but Disco quickly checked it by the astounding announcement that he thought he had shot a lion, or somethin’ o’ that sort!

“You don’t mean it!” said Harold, rather excited.

“All I know is,” said Disco, “that I heerd somethin’ uncommon like a lion growl twice in yonder bush, an’ saw the bush move too, so I fired a broadside that seemed to finish him at once, for there was no more rustlin’ after that.”

“An’ no more growlin’?” asked Jumbo, with much simplicity of countenance.

“Not a growl, nor nothin’ else,” answered Disco.

“Well, get your guns ready, lads,” said Harold, “and stand by to fire while we go and search the bush.”

So saying, Harold and Disco advanced together with their rifles ready, while the natives, who were more or less alarmed, according to their respective degrees of courage, scattered in a semicircle well in rear. Kambira, armed with a spear, kept close to Harold, and Jumbo, with unwonted bravery, walked alongside of Disco. Antonio, quietly retiring, took refuge in a tree.

“Yoo’s sure you hit um?” inquired Jumbo in a whisper.

“Can’t say I’m sure,” replied Disco, “but we’ll soon see.”

“Was um’s growl very bad?” asked Jumbo.

“Hold yer long tongue!” said Disco testily, for he was becoming excited.

“Look! see dere!” exclaimed Jumbo in an energetic whisper.

“What? where?”

“Look! right troo de bush. Dis way. Dar, don’ you zee um’s skin,—t’other side? Fire!”

“Why, eh!” exclaimed Disco, peering keenly through the leaves, “yellow hair! yes—its—”

Stopping abruptly he pointed his gun at the bush and poured the contents of both barrels into it. Then, clubbing his weapon and brandishing it in the air, he uttered a wild cry—went crashing through the bush, and next moment stood aghast before the yellow monkey, whose little carcase he had almost blown to atoms.

We won’t chronicle the roars of laughter, the yells of delight that followed,—the immense amount of chaffing, the innumerable witticisms and criticisms that ensued—no, no! regard for the gallant seaman constrains us to draw a veil over the scene and leave it, as we have left many things before, and shall leave many things yet to come, to the reader’s vivid imagination.

Fortunately for Disco, the superior attractions of the dead elephant soon drew off attention from this exploit. The natives proceeded to cut up the huge mass of meat, and this was indeed an amazing spectacle. At first the men stood round the carcase in dead silence, while Kambira delivered a species of oration, in which he pointed out minutely the particular parts of the animal which were to be apportioned to the head-men of the different fires of which the camp was composed,—the left hind-leg and the parts around the eyes being allotted to his English visitors. These points settled, the order was given to “cut up,” and immediately the excitement which had been restrained burst forth again with tenfold violence. The natives seemed to be quite unable to restrain their feelings of delight, as they cut away at the carcase with spears and knives. They screamed as well as danced with glee. Some attacked the head, others the flanks, jumping over the animal or standing on it the better to expedite their operations; some ever and anon ran off screaming with masses of bloody meat, threw it on the grass and went back for more, while others, after cutting the carcase open, jumped inside and wallowed about in their eagerness to reach and cut out the precious fat—all talking and shouting at the utmost pitch of their voices.

“Well, now,” said Disco to Harold, with a grin of amusement, “the likes o’ that I never did see nowheres. Cuttin’ up a Greenland whale is nothin’ to it.”

“Come, come,” said Harold, checking his laughter and seizing an excited negro by the shoulder, “no fighting allowed.”

This had reference to two who chanced to have taken a fancy for the same mass of meat, and were quarrelling so violently over it that blows seemed on the point of following, but having let off part of their superabundant energy in words, they rushed back to expend the remainder on their dead friend.

Suddenly a sharp agonised yell was heard inside the carcase. Next moment Zombo jumped out all bloody and furious, holding up his right hand. While groping about inside, one of his too eager comrades outside had laid about rather incautiously with his knife, drove it through the meat and sliced Zombo’s left hand. He was easily soothed, however; Harold bound up the cut with a piece of rag, and Zombo went to work as recklessly as ever.

In a marvellously short time tons of meat were cut up and divided amongst the band, and, before daylight had quite disappeared, the hunters were on their way back to camp, while a troop of hyenas and other carnivora were gorging themselves with the elephant’s remains.

Chapter Thirteen.

The Encampment and the Supper—Discussions, Political and Otherwise—Kambira Receives a Shock, and our Wanderers are Thrown into Perplexity.

Turn we now to a more peaceful scene. The camp is almost quiet, the stars are twinkling brightly overhead, the fires are glimmering fitfully below. The natives, having taken the edge off their appetites, have stretched their dusky forms on their sleeping-mats, and laid their woolly heads on their little wooden pillows. The only persons moving are Harold Seadrift and Disco Lillihammer—the first being busy making notes in a small book, the second being equally busy in manufacturing cloudlets from his unfailing pipe, gazing the while with much interest at his note-making companion.

“They was pretty vigorous w’en they wos at it, sir,” said Disco, in reference to supper, observing that his companion looked up from his book, “but they wos sooner done than I had expected.”

“Yes, they weren’t long about it,” replied Harold, with an abstracted air, as he resumed his writing.

Lest the reader should erroneously imagine that supper is over, it is necessary here to explain what taking the edge off a free African’s appetite means.

On reaching camp after the cutting up of the elephant, as detailed in the last chapter, the negroes had set to work to roast and boil with a degree of vigour that would have surprised even the chefs de cuisine of the world’s first-class hotels. Having gorged themselves to an extent that civilised people might perhaps have thought dangerous, they had then commenced an uproarious dance, accompanied by stentorian songs, which soon reduced them to the condition of beings who needed repose. Proceeding upon the principle of overcoming temptation by giving way to it, they at once lay down and went to sleep.

It was during this stage of the night’s proceedings that Disco foolishly imagined that supper had come to a close. Not many minutes after the observation was made, and before the black cutty-pipe was smoked out, first one and then another of the sleepers awoke, and, after a yawn or two, got up to rouse the fires and put on the cooking-pots. In less than a quarter of an hour the whole camp was astir, conversation was rife, and the bubbling of pots that had not got time to cool, and the hissing of roasts whose fat had not yet hardened, mingled with songs whose echoes were still floating in the brains of the wild inhabitants of the surrounding jungle. Roasting, boiling, and eating were recommenced with as much energy as if the feast had only just begun.

Kambira, having roused himself, gave orders to one of his men, who brought one of the elephant’s feet and set about the cooking of it at Harold’s fire. Kambira and Disco, with Antonio and Jumbo, sat round the same fire.

There was a hole in the ground close beside them which contained a small fire; the embers of this were stirred up and replenished with fuel. When the inside was thoroughly heated, the elephant’s foot was placed in it, and covered over with hot ashes and soil, and another fire kindled above the whole.

Harold, who regarded this proceeding with some surprise, said to Kambira—through Antonio— “Who are you cooking that for?”

“For my white guests,” replied the chief.

“But we have supped already,” said Harold; “we have already eaten as much as we can hold of the elephant’s trunk and tongue, both of which were excellent—why prepare more?”

“This is not for to-night, but for to-morrow,” returned Kambira, with a smile. “The foot takes all night to cook.”

This was a sufficient explanation, and in truth the nature of the dish required that it should be well done. When, on the morrow, they were called to partake of it they found that it was, according to Disco’s estimation, “fust-rate!” It was a whitish mass, slightly gelatinous and sweet, like marrow, and very palatable. Nevertheless, they learned from experience that if the effect of bile were to be avoided, a long march was necessary after a meal of elephant’s foot!

Meanwhile the proceedings of the natives were food enough for our travellers for the time being. Like human creatures elsewhere, they displayed great variety of taste. Some preferred boiled meat, others roast; a few indulged in porridge made of mapira meal. The meal was very good, but the porridge was doubtful, owing to the cookery. It would appear that in Africa, as in England, woman excels in the culinary art. At all events, the mapira meal was better managed by them, than by the men. On the present occasion the hunters tumbled in the meal by handfuls in rapid succession as soon as the water was hot, until it became too thick to be stirred about, then it was lifted off the fire, and one man held the pot while another plied the porridge-stick with all his might to prevent the solid mass from being burnt. Thus it was prepared, and thus eaten, in enormous quantities. No wonder that dancing and profuse perspiration were esteemed a necessary adjunct to feeding!

At the close of the second edition of supper, which went into four or five editions before morning, some of the men at the fire next to that of Kambira engaged in a debate so furious, that the curiosity of Disco and Harold was excited, and they caused Antonio to translate much of what was said. It is not possible to give a connected account of this debate as translated by Antonio. To overcome the difficulty we shall give the substance of it in what Disco styled Antonio’s “lingo.”

There were about a dozen natives round the fire, but two of them sustained the chief part in the debate. One of these was a large man with a flat nose; the other was a small man with a large frizzy head.

“Hold ’oos tongue,” said Flatnose (so Antonio named him); “tongue too long—far!”

“Boh! ’oos brains too short,” retorted Frizzyhead contemptuously.

An immense amount of chattering by the others followed these pithy remarks of the principals.

The question in debate was, Whether the two toes of the ostrich represented the thumb and forefinger in man, or the little and ring fingers? But in a few minutes the subject changed gradually, and somehow unaccountably, to questions of a political nature,—for, strange to say, in savage Africa, as in civilised England, politics are keenly discussed, doubtless at times with equal wisdom in the one land as in the other.

“What dat ’oo say?” inquired Flatnose, on hearing some muttered remarks of Frizzyhead in reference to the misgovernment of chiefs. Of course there, as here, present company was understood to be excepted.

“Chiefs ob no use—no use at all!” said Frizzyhead so vehemently that the men at several of the nearest fires ceased to talk, and began to listen.

“Ob no use?” cried Flatnose, with vehemence so superior that the attention of the whole camp was arrested.

“No!” replied Frizzyhead, still more energetically, “ob no use at all. We could govern ourselves betterer, so what de use of ’um? The chief ’ums fat an’ hab plenty wife, but we, who do all de hard work, hab hunger, an’ only one wife, prehaps none at all. Dis is bad, unjust, wrong.”

There was a general shout of “eehee!” from all quarters, which was equivalent to our “hear, hear.”

“’Oo know noting at all,” retorted Flatnose, who was a loyal subject. “Is not de chief de fader of de peepil? Can dere be peepil widout a fader—eh? God made de chief—who says dat chief is not wise? He is wise, but um’s child’n am big fools!”

Kambira nodded his head and smiled at this, and there was a general inclination on the part of most of the audience to applaud, for there, as elsewhere, men have a tendency to be blown about by every wind of doctrine.

It was amusing to observe the earnestness and freedom with which men of the lowest grade assaulted the opinions of their betters on this occasion. Unable at other times, or in any other way, to bring themselves into importance, they were glad of the opportunity to do so with their tongues, and, like their civilised types, they assumed an air of mock modesty.

“Oh!” cried one of these, in reply to Flatnose, “we is littil infants; we is still holdin’ on to de boosums ob our moders; we not able to walk alone; we knows notin’ at all; but on dis point, we knows that you old men speak like de ignorint peepil. We nebber hear such nonsense—nebber!”

No notice was taken of this, but Frizzyhead, whose passion was rising to white heat in consequence of the glibness of his opponent’s tongue, cried out— “’Oo cannot prove wat ’ou says?”

“Oh yes, can prove it well ’nuff,” replied Flatnose, “but ’oos no’ got brain for onerstand.”

This last was too much for poor Frizzyhead, who leaped up, stuttered, and cried— “Can ’oo outrun me, then?”

“Ye—ye—yes!” gasped Flatnose, springing up.

Away they went like two hunted springboks, and ran for a mile, then turned and came back into camp streaming with perspiration, little Frizzyhead far ahead of the big man, and rejoicing in the fact that he could beat his opponent in a race, if not in an argument. Thus was peace restored. Pity that civilised arguments cannot be terminated in the same way!

While these discussions were going on, Disco observed that hyenas were occasionally to be seen prowling near the verge of the bushes around them, as if anxious to join in the feast, which no doubt was the case.

“Don’t they do mischief sometimes?” he inquired of Antonio.

“No; him a cowardly beast. Him come at mans when sleepin’ or dyin’, but not at oder time. ’Oo like see me catch um?”

“Why, yes, if ’ee can do it,” answered Disco, with a slight look of contempt at his friend, who bore too much resemblance in some points to the hyena.

“Come here, den.”

They went together into the jungle a little distance, and halted under the branch of a large tree. To this Antonio suspended a lump of raw flesh, at such a height from the ground that a hyena could only reach it by leaping. Directly underneath it he planted a short spear in the earth with its point upward.

“Now, come back to fire,” he said to Disco; “’ou soon hear sometin’.”

Antonio was right. In a short time afterwards a sharp yell was heard, and, on running to the trap, they found a hyena in its death-agonies. It had leaped at the meat, missed it, and had come down on the spear and impaled itself.

“Well, of all the fellers I ever know’d for dodges,” said Disco, on reseating himself at the fire, “the men in these latitudes are the cleverest.”

By this time dancing was going on furiously; therefore, as it would have been impossible to sleep, Disco refilled his pipe and amused himself by contemplating the intelligent countenance of Kambira, who sat smoking bang out of a huge native meerschaum on the other side of the fire.

“I wonder,” said Harold, who lay stretched on a sleeping-mat, leaning on his right arm and gazing contemplatively at the glowing heart of the fire; “I wonder what has become of Yoosoof?”

“Was ’ee thinkin’ that he deserved to be shoved in there?” asked Disco, pointing to the fire.

“Not exactly,” replied Harold, laughing; “but I have frequently thought of the scoundrel, and wondered where he is and what doing now. I have sometimes thought too, about that girl Azinté, poor thing. She—”

He paused abruptly and gazed at Kambira with great surprise, not unmixed with alarm, for the chief had suddenly dropped his pipe and glared at him in a manner that cannot be described. Disco observed the change also, and was about to speak, when Kambira sprang over the fire and seized Harold by the arm.

There was something in the movement, however, which forbade the idea of an attack, therefore he lay still.

“What now, Kambira?” he said.

“Antonio,” cried the chief, in a voice that brought the interpreter to his side in a twinkling; “what name did the white man speak just now?”

“Azinté,” said Harold, rising to a sitting posture.

Kambira sat down, drew up his knees to his chin, and clasped his hands round them.

“Tell me all you know about Azinté,” he said in a low, firm voice.

It was evident that the chief was endeavouring to restrain some powerful feeling, for his face, black though it was, indicated a distinct degree of pallor, and his lips were firmly compressed together. Harold therefore, much surprised as well as interested, related the little he knew about the poor girl,—his meeting with her in Yoosoof’s hut; Disco’s kindness to her, and her subsequent departure with the Arab.

Kambira sat motionless until he had finished.

“Do you know where she is gone?” he inquired.

“No. I know not; but she was not in the boat with the other slaves when we sailed, from which I think it likely that she remained upon the coast.—But why do you ask, Kambira, why are you so anxious about her?”

“She is my wife,” muttered the chief between his teeth; and, as he said so, a frown that was absolutely diabolical settled down on his features.

For some minutes there was a dead silence, for both Harold and Disco felt intuitively that to offer consolation or hope were out of the question.

Presently Kambira raised his head, and a smile chased the frown away as he said— “You have been kind to Azinté, will you be kind to her husband?”

“We should be indeed unworthy the name of Englishmen if we said no to that,” replied Harold, glancing at Disco, who nodded approval.

“Good. Will you take me with you to the shores of the great salt lake?” said Kambira, in a low, pathetic tone, “will you make me your servant, your slave?”

“Most gladly will I take you with me as a friend,” returned Harold. “I need not ask why you wish to go,” he added,—“you go to seek Azinté?”

“Yes,” cried the chief, springing up wildly and drawing himself up to his full height, “I go to seek Azinté. Ho! up men! up! Ye have feasted enough and slept enough for one night. Who knows but the slavers may be at our huts while we lie idly here? Up! Let us go!”

The ringing tones acted like a magic spell. Savage camps are soon pitched and sooner raised. In a few minutes the obedient hunters had bundled up all their possessions, and in less than a quarter of an hour the whole band was tracking its way by moonlight through the pathless jungle.

The pace at which they travelled home was much more rapid than that at which they had set out on their expedition. Somehow, the vigorous tones in which Kambira had given command to break up the camp, coupled with his words, roused the idea that he must have received information of danger threatening the village, and some of the more anxious husbands and fathers, unable to restrain themselves, left the party altogether and ran back the whole way. To their great relief, however, they found on arriving that all was quiet. The women were singing and at work in the fields, the children shouting at play, and the men at their wonted occupation of weaving cotton cloth, or making nets and bows, under the banyan-trees.

Perplexity is not a pleasant condition of existence, nevertheless, to perplexity mankind is more or less doomed in every period of life and in every mundane scene—particularly in the jungles of central Africa, as Harold and his friends found out many a time to their cost.

On arriving at the native village, the chief point that perplexed our hero there was as to whether he should return to the coast at once, or push on further into the interior. On the one hand he wished very much to see more of the land and its inhabitants; on the other hand, Kambira was painfully anxious to proceed at once to the coast in search, of his lost wife, and pressed him to set off without delay.

The chief was rather an exception in regard to his feelings on this point. Most other African potentates had several wives, and in the event of losing one of them might have found consolation in the others. But Kambira had never apparently thought of taking another wife after the loss of Azinté, and the only comfort he had was in his little boy, who bore a strong resemblance, in some points, to the mother.

But although Harold felt strong sympathy with the man, and would have gone a long way out of his course to aid him, he could not avoid perceiving that the case was almost, if not altogether, a hopeless one. He had no idea to what part of the coast Azinté had been taken. For all he knew to the contrary, she might have been long ago shipped off to the northern markets, and probably was, even while he talked of her, the inmate of an Arab harem, or at all events a piece of goods—a “chattel”—in the absolute possession of an irresponsible master. Besides the improbability of Kambira ever hearing what had become of his wife, or to what part of the earth she had been transported, there was also the difficulty of devising any definite course of action for the chief himself, because the instant he should venture to leave the protection of the Englishmen he would be certain to fall into the hands of Arabs or Portuguese, and become enslaved.

Much of this Harold had not the heart to explain to him. He dwelt, however, pretty strongly on the latter contingency, though without producing much effect. Death, the chief replied, he did not fear, and slavery could easily be exchanged for death.

“Alas! not so easily as you think,” said Harold, pointing to Chimbolo, whose sad story he had heard; “they will try every kind of torture before they kill you.”

Chimbolo nodded his head, assenting, and ground his teeth together fiercely when this was said.

Still Kambira was unmoved; he did not care what they did to him. Azinté was as life to him, and to search for her he would go in spite of every consideration.

Harold prevailed on him, however, to agree to wait until he should have spent another month in visiting Chimbolo’s tribe, after which he promised faithfully to return and take him along with his party to the coast.

Neither Harold nor Disco was quite at ease in his mind after making this arrangement, but they both agreed that no other course could be pursued, the former saying with a sigh that there was no help for it, and the latter asserting with a grunt that the thing “wos unawoidable.”

On the following day the journey of exploration was resumed. Kambira accompanied his friends a few miles on the road, and then bade them farewell. On the summit of an elevated ridge the party halted and looked back. Kambira’s manly form could be seen leaning on his spear. Behind him the little village lay embosomed in luxuriant verdure, and glowing in the bright sunshine, while songs and sounds of industry floated towards them like a sweet melody. It was with a feeling of keen regret that the travellers turned away, after waving their hands in reply to a parting salute from the stalwart chief, and, descending to the plain, pushed forward into the unknown wilderness beyond.

Chapter Fourteen.

Camping, Travelling, Shooting, Dreaming, Poetising, Philosophising, and Surprising, in Equatorial Africa.

At sunset the travellers halted in a peculiarly wild spot and encamped under the shelter of a gigantic baobab tree.

Two rousing fires were quickly kindled, round which the natives busied themselves in preparing supper, while their leaders sat down, the one to write up his journal, the other to smoke his pipe.

“Well, sir,” said Disco, after a few puffs delivered with extreme satisfaction, “you do seem for to enjoy writin’. You go at that log of yours every night, as if it wos yer last will and testament that ye couldn’t die happy without exikootin’ an’ signin’ it with yer blood.”

“A better occupation, isn’t it,” replied Harold, with a sly glance, “than to make a chimney-pot of my mouth?”

“Come, sir,” returned Disco, with a deprecatory smile, “don’t be too hard on a poor feller’s pipe. If you can’t enjoy it, that’s no argiment against it.”

“How d’you know I can’t enjoy it?”

“Why? cos I s’pose you’d take to it if you did.”

“Did you enjoy it when you first began?” asked Harold.

“Well, I can’t ’zactly say as I did.”

“Well, then, if you didn’t, that proves that it is not natural to smoke, and why should I acquire an unnatural and useless habit?”

“Useless! why, sir, on’y think of wot you loses by not smokin’—wot a deal of enjoyment!”

“Well, I am thinking,” replied Harold, affecting a look of profound thoughtfulness, “but I can’t quite make it out—enjoyment? let me see. Do I not enjoy as good health as you do?”

“O, cer’nly, sir, cer’nly. You’re quite up to the mark in that respect.”

“Well then, I enjoy my food as well, and can eat as much, can’t I?”

“No doubt of it,” replied Disco, with a grin; “I was used to be considered raither a dab at wittles, but I must say I knocks under to you, sir.”

“Very good,” rejoined Harold, laughing; “then as to sleep, I enjoy sleep quite as soundly as yourself; don’t I?”

“I can’t say as to that,” replied Disco. “You see, sir, as I never opens my eyes arter shuttin’ of ’em till the bo’s’n pipes all hands ahoy, I’ve no means of knowin’ wot you accomplish in that way.”

“On the whole, then, it seems that I enjoy everything as much as you do, and—”

“No, not everything; you don’t enjoy baccy, you know.—But please, sir, don’t go for to moralise; I can’t stand it. You’ll spile my pipe if ye do!”

“Well, I shall spare you,” said Harold, “all the more that I perceive supper is about—”

At that moment Antonio, who had gone down to a streamlet which trickled close at hand, gave utterance to a hideous yell, and came rushing into camp with a face that was pea-green from terror.

“Ach!” he gasped, “a lion! queek! your guns!” Every one leaped up and seized his weapon with marvellous alacrity on receiving an alarm so violent and unlooked-for.

“Where away?” inquired Disco, blazing with excitement, and ready at a moment’s notice to rush into the jungle and fire both barrels at whatever should present itself.

“No, no, don’ go,” cried Antonio in alarm; “be cautionous.”

The interpreter’s caution was enforced by Chimbolo, who laid his hand on Disco’s arm, and looked at him with such solemnity that he felt it necessary to restrain his ardour.

Meanwhile Antonio with trembling steps led Harold to a point in the thicket whence he beheld two bright phosphoric-looking objects which his companion said were the lion’s eyes, adding that lion’s eyes always shone in that way.

Harold threw forward his rifle with the intention of taking aim, but lowered it quickly, for he felt convinced that no lion could possibly have eyes so wide apart unless its head were as large as that of an elephant.

“Nonsense, Antonio!” he said, laughing; “that cannot be a lion.”

“Ho, yis, him’s a lion, for sure,” Antonio returned, positively.

“We shall see.”

Harold raised his rifle and fired, while Antonio turned and fled, fully expecting the wounded beast to spring. Harold himself half looked for some such act, and shrank behind a bush by way of precaution, but when the smoke cleared away, he saw that the two glowing eyes were gazing at him as fixedly as ever.

“Pooh!” exclaimed Disco, brushing past; “I knows wot it is. Many a time I’ve seed ’em in the West Injies.”

Saying which, he went straight up to the supposed lion, picked up a couple of glow-worms, and brought them to the camp-fires, much to the amusement of the men, especially of Jumbo, and greatly to the confusion of the valorous interpreter, who, according to his invariable custom when danger threatened, was found to have sought refuge in a tree.

This incident furnished ground for much discussion and merriment during supper, in which Antonio, being in no wise ashamed of himself, joined noisily; and Chimbolo took occasion to reprove Disco for his rashness, telling him that it was impossible to kill lions in the jungle during the darkness of night, and that, if they did pay them a visit, it would be wise to let them be, and trust to the camp-fires keeping them at a respectful distance. To which Disco retorted that he didn’t believe there was any lions in Afriky, for he’d heard a deal about ’em an’ travelled far, but had not yet heard the sound of their woices, an’, wot was more, didn’t expect to.

Before that night was far advanced, Disco was constrained to acknowledge himself in error, for a veritable lion did actually prowl down to the camp, and salute them with a roar which had a wonderfully awe-inspiring effect on every member of the party, especially on those who heard it for the first time in their lives.

Just before the arrival of this nocturnal visitor, one of the men had been engaged in some poetic effusions, which claim preliminary notice here, because they were rudely terminated by the lion.

This man was one of Kambira’s people, and had joined the party by permission. He was one of those beings who, gifted with something like genius, or with superior powers of some sort, have sprung up in Africa, as elsewhere, no doubt from time immemorial, to dazzle their fellows for a little, and then pass away, leaving a trail of tradition behind them. The existence there, in time past, of men of mind far in advance of their fellows, as well as of heroes whose physical powers were marvellous, may be assumed from the fact that some such exist at the present time, as well as from tradition. Some of these heroes have excited the admiration of large districts by their wisdom, others by their courage or their superior dexterity with the spear and bow, like William Tell and Robin Hood, but the memory of these must soon have been obliterated for want of literature. The man who had joined Harold was a poet and a musician. He was an improvvisatore, composed verses on the incidents that occurred as they travelled along, and sang them with an accompaniment on an instrument called the sansa, which had nine iron keys and a calabash for a sounding-board.

The poet’s name was Mokompa. With the free and easy disposition of his race, he allowed his fancy to play round the facts of which he sang, and was never at a loss, for, if the right word did not come readily, he spun out the measure with musical sounds which meant nothing at all.

After supper was over, or rather when the first interval of repose occurred, Mokompa, who was an obliging and hearty little fellow, was called on for a song. Nothing loath, he seized his sansa and began a ditty, of which the following, given by Antonio, may be regarded as a remarkably free, not to say easy, translation:—

Mokompa’s Song.

Kambira goes to hunt,

Yo ho!

Him’s spear am nebber blunt,

Yo ho!

Him kill de buff’lo quick,

An’ lub de porridge thick;

Him chase de lion too,

An’ stick um troo an’ troo.

De ’potimus as well,

An’ more dan me can tell,

Hab down before um fell,

Yo ho!

De English come to see,

Yo ho!

Dat werry good for we,

Yo ho!

No’ take us ’way for slaves,

Nor put us in our graves,

But set de black mans free,

W’en cotch um on de sea.

Dem splendid shooters, too,

We knows what dey can do

Wid boil an’ roast an’ stew,

Yo ho!

One makes um’s gun go crack,

Yo ho!

An elephant on um’s back,

Yo ho!

De drefful lion roar,

De gun goes crack once more,

De bullet fly an’ splits

One monkey into bits,

Yo ho!

De glow-worm next arise,

De Englishman likewise

Wid werry much surprise,

An’ hit um ’tween de eyes,

“Hooray! hooray!” um cries,

An’ run to fetch um’s prize—

Yo ho!

The last “Yo ho!” was given with tremendous energy, and followed by peals of laughter.

It was at this point that the veritable lion thought proper to join in, which he did, as we have said, with a roar so tremendous that it not only put a sudden stop to the music, but filled the party with so much alarm that they sprang to their arms with surprising agility.

Mindful of Chimbolo’s previous warning, neither Harold nor Disco sought to advance, but both looked at their savage friend for advice.

Now, in some parts of Africa there exists a popular belief that the souls of departed chiefs enter into lions and render them sacred, and several members of Harold Seadrift’s party entertained this notion. Chimbolo was one of these. From the sounds of growling and rending which issued from the thicket, he knew that the lion in question was devouring part of their buffalo-meat which had been hung on the branch of a neighbouring tree, not, however, near enough to the fires to be visible. Believing that the beast was a chief in disguise, Chimbolo advanced a little towards the place where he was, and, much to our traveller’s amusement, gave him a good scolding.

“You call yourself a chief, do you—eh?” he said sternly. “What kind of a chief can you be, to come sneaking about in the dark like this, trying to steal our buffalo-meat! Are you not ashamed of yourself? A pretty chief, truly; you are like the scavenger-beetle, and think of yourself only; you have not the heart of a chief. Why don’t you kill your own beef? You must have a stone in your chest, and no heart at all.”

“That’s werry flowery lingo, but it don’t seem to convince him,” said Disco, with a quiet smile, as the lion, which had been growling continuously over its meal all the time, wound up Chimbolo’s speech with another terrific roar.

At this point another believer in transmigration of souls, a quiet man who seldom volunteered remarks on any subject, stepped forward and began seriously to expostulate with the lion.

“It is very wrong of you,” he said, “to treat strangers in this fashion. You might have more respect for Englishmen who have come to see your land, and never did you any harm. We are travelling peaceably through the country; we never kill anybody, and never steal anything; the buffalo-meat is ours, not yours, and it ill becomes a great chief like you to be prowling about in the dark, like a hyena, trying to steal the meat of strangers. Surely you can hunt for yourself—there is plenty of meat in the forest.” (See Livingstone’s Zambesi and its Tributaries, page 160.)

As the lion was equally deaf to this man’s reasoning, Harold thought it right to try a more persuasive plan. He drew up in a line all the men who had guns, and at a word of command they fired a volley of balls into the jungle, in the direction whence the sounds issued. A dead silence followed, but it was deemed advisable not to venture in to see the effect, as men had frequently lost their lives by so doing. A watch, however, was kept during the night, and the fires were well replenished, for they knew that the king of the forest usually shrinks from doing his evil deeds in the light of a strong camp-fire. We say usually—because they are not always thus shy. Authentic instances are on record of lions having leaped into the centre of a bivouac, and carried off one of the men in spite of being smitten in the face with flaming firebrands. Fortunately the lion of which we write thought “discretion the better part of valour.” He retired peaceably, nevertheless Disco and his friend continued to dream of him all night so vividly that they started up several times, and seized their rifles, under the impression that he had roared his loudest into their very ears, and after each of these occasions they crept back into their sleeping bags to re-dream of the lion!

The “bag” which formed each man’s couch was made simply of two mats sewed together, and left open, not at one of the ends but at one of the sides, so that a man could roll out of or into it more easily than he could have slid, feet first, into a sack. It was large enough also for two to sleep inside together, always supposing that the two were of accommodating dispositions!

That they had now reached a land which swarmed with wild animals was intimated to some extent by the running past, within fifty yards of their bivouac, of a troop of elephants. It was daybreak at the time, so that, having been thus rudely aroused, they did not deem it necessary to return to rest but after taking a hasty mouthful of food, set forth on their journey.

The usual mode of proceeding on the march was as follows:— They rose about five o’clock, or soon after the appearance of dawn, and swallowed a cup of tea, with a bit of biscuit, then some of the men folded up the blankets and stowed them away in the bags, others tied up the cooking utensils, etcetera, in bundles, and hung them at the ends of carrying-sticks, which they bore upon their shoulders. The process did not take long. They were soon on the march, either in single file, if the path were narrow, or in groups, according to fancy, where the ground admitted of their spreading out. About nine, a convenient spot was chosen for a halt to breakfast, which meat, although not “eaten the night before in order to save time in the morning,” was at all events cooked on the previous evening for the same end, so that it only needed warming up. Then the march was resumed; a short rest was allowed in the heat of the day, when, of course, Disco had a pipe and much sagacious intercourse with his fellows, and they finally encamped for the remainder of the day and night early in the afternoon. Thus they travelled five or six hours at a stretch, and averaged from twelve to fifteen miles a day, which is about as much as Europeans can stand in a hot climate without being oppressed. This Disco called “taking it easy,” and so it was when compared with the custom of some travellers, whose chief end would appear to be the getting over as much ground as possible in a given time, in order that they may afterwards boast of the same, and for the accomplishment of which they are obliged to abuse and look ferocious at the blacks, cock their pistols, and flourish their whips, in a manner which is only worthy of being styled contemptible and cowardly. We need not say that our friends Harold and Disco had no such propensities. They had kindly consideration for the feelings of their “niggers,” coupled with great firmness; became very sociable with them, and thus got hearty, willing work out of them. But to return from this digression.

During the day, the number of animals of all sorts that were seen was so great as to induce Disco to protest, with a slap of his thigh, that the whole land, from stem to stern, seemed to him to be one prodigious zoological garden—it did, an’ no mistake about it.

Disco was not far wrong. He and Harold having started ahead of the party, with Chimbolo as their guide, came on a wonderful variety of creatures in rapid succession. First, they fell in with some large flocks of guinea-fowl, and shot a few for dinner. As they advanced, various birds ran across their path, and clouds of turtle-doves filled the air with the blatter of their wings as they rose above the trees. Ducks, geese, and francolins helped to swell the chorus of sounds.

When the sun rose and sent a flood of light over a wide and richly wooded vale, into which they were about to descend, a herd of pallahs stood gazing at the travellers in stupid surprise, and allowed them to approach within sixty yards before trotting leisurely away. These and all other animals were passed unmolested, as the party had sufficient meat at the time, and Harold made it a point not to permit his followers to shoot animals for the mere sake of sport, though several of them were uncommonly anxious to do so. Soon afterwards a herd of waterbucks were passed, and then a herd of koodoos, with two or three magnificently-horned bucks amongst them, which hurried off to the hillsides on seeing the travellers. Antelopes also were seen, and buffaloes, grazing beside their path.

Ere long they came upon a small pond with a couple of elephants standing on its brink, cooling their huge sides by drawing water into their trunks and throwing it all over themselves. Behind these were several herds of zebras and waterbucks, all of which took to flight on “getting the wind” of man. They seemed intuitively to know that he was an enemy. Wild pigs, also, were common, and troops of monkeys, large and small, barked, chattered, grinned, and made faces among the trees.

After pitching the camp each afternoon, and having had a mouthful of biscuit, the two Englishmen were in the habit of going off to hunt for the daily supply of fresh meat accompanied by Chimbolo as their guide and game-carrier, Antonio as their interpreter, and Mokompa as their poet and jester. They did not indeed, appoint Mokompa to that post of honour, but the little worthy took it upon himself, for the express purpose of noting the deeds of the white men, in order to throw his black comrades into convulsions over supper by a poetic recital of the same.

“It pleases them, an’ it don’t hurt us,” was Disco’s observation on this head.

On the afternoon, then, of which we write, the party of four went out to hunt, while the encampment was being prepared under the superintendence of Jumbo, who had already proved himself to be an able manager and cook, as also had his countrymen Masiko and Zombo.

“What a rich country!” exclaimed Harold, looking round in admiration from the top of a small hillock on as fine a scene as one could wish to behold, “and what a splendid cotton country it might be if properly cultivated!”

“So it is,” said Disco, “an’ I shouldn’t wonder if there wos lots of gold too, if we only knew where to look for it.”

“Gold!” exclaimed Antonio, who sat winking placidly on the stump of a fallen tree; “dere be lots ob gold near Zambesi—an’ oder ting too.”

“Let’s hear wot are some of the other things,” said Disco.

“What are dere?—oh, let me see: der be coal, lots ob coal on Zambesi, any amount ob it, an’ it burn fuss-rate, too. Dere be iron-ore, very much, an’ indigo, an’ sugar-cane, an ivory; you hab hear an’ see yooself about de elephants an’ de cottin, an’ tobacco. (See Livingstone’s Zambesi and its Tributaries, page 52.) Oh! great plenty ob eberyting eberywhere in dis yere country, but,” said Antonio, with a shrug of his shoulders, “no can make noting out ob it on account ob de slave-trade.”

“Then I ’spose ’ee don’t approve of the slave-trade?” said Disco.

“No, dat am true,” replied Antonio; “de country very good for slave-trader, but no good for man like me what want to trade proper.”

“H’m! I’ve more respect for ’ee than I had,” said Disco. “I ’spose you’ve bin up in these parts before now, have ’ee?”

“No, nevah, but I hab sister what marry one nigger, one slave, what sold himself, an’ him tell me much ’bout it. Hims bin up here many time.”

“Sold himself!” repeated Harold in surprise. “What do you mean?”

“Mean dat,” returned Antonio. “Him was a black free-man—call him Chibanti; him was all alone in de world, lose fader, moder, broder, sister, wife, eberyting by slave-trader, who steal dem all away or murder dem. So Chibanti him say, ‘What de use of be free?’ So him go to one master, who berry good to hims niggers—gib dem plenty to eat an’ little to do—an’ sole hisself to him.”

“An’ wot did he get for himself?” asked Disco.

“Got ninety yard ob cottin cloth.”

“Did he consider himself cheap or dear at that?” inquired Disco.

“Oh, dear—awful dear!”

“What has come of him now?” asked Harold.

“Dunno,” answered Antonio. “After him got de cloth, hims master send him to Quillimane wid cargo ob ivory, an’ gib him leave to do leetil trade on hims own account; so him bought a man, a woman, an’ a boy, for sixty yard ob cottin, an’ wid de rest hired slaves for de voyage down, an’ drove a mos’ won’erful trade. But long time since me hear ob him. P’raps hims good master be dead, an’ him go wid de rest of de goods an’ chattels to a bad master, who berry soon make him sorry him sole hisself.”

Pushing forward for several days in the manner which we have attempted to describe, our travellers passed through many varied scenes, which, however, all bore one mark in common, namely, teeming animal and vegetable life. Human beings were also found to be exceedingly numerous, but not so universally distributed as the others, for, although many villages and hamlets were passed, the inhabitants of which were all peacefully inclined and busy in their fields, or with their native cotton, iron, and pottery manufactures, vast expanses of rich ground were also traversed, which, as far as man was concerned, appeared to be absolute solitudes.

Entering upon one of these about noon of a remarkably fine day, Harold could not help remarking on the strange stillness which pervaded the air. No sound was heard from beast, bird, or insect; no village was near, no rippling stream murmured, or zephyr stirred the leaves; in short, it was a scene which, from its solitude and profound silence, became oppressive.

“W’y, sir,” said Disco, whose face was bathed in perspiration, “it do seem to me as if we’d got to the fag-end of the world altogether. There ain’t nothin’ nowhere.”

Harold laughed, and said it looked like it. But Disco was wrong. It was only the hour when animals seem to find a siesta indispensable, and vegetables as well as air had followed their example. A few minutes sufficed to prove their mistake, for, on entering a piece of woodland, a herd of pallahs, and another of water-bucks, appeared, standing as quiet and still as if they were part of a painted landscape. Then, in passing a thick clump of thorns, they could see, through openings in the bushes, the dim phantom-like forms of buffaloes, with heads lowered and eyes glaring at them, ready to charge, if need be, though too lazy from heat, apparently, to begin the ’fray, and willing to act on the principle of “let be for let be.” Still farther on, a native was observed keeping at a respectful distance. He had seen the travellers from afar, and come with noiseless tread to get a nearer view.

Halting to rest the party for a few minutes in a shady hollow, Harold threw himself at full length on the grass, but Disco, who, strange to say, did not feel inclined to smoke at the moment—probably because he had only just finished his fifth pipe a few minutes previously—sauntered on alone to the top of the next ridge.

He had barely reached the summit when Harold, who chanced to be looking after him, observed that he crouched suddenly behind a bush, and, after gazing steadfastly for a few seconds over the hill, turned and ran back, making excessively wild demonstrations with head and arms, but uttering no sound.

Of course the whole party sprang up and ran towards the excited mariner, and soon were near enough to understand that his violent actions were meant to caution them to make no noise.

“Hush!” he said eagerly, on coming near enough to be heard; “keep quiet as mice. There’s a slave-gang, or somethin’ uncommon like it, goin’ along on right athwart us.”

Without a word of reply, the whole party hurried forward and gained a point of observation behind the low bushes which crowned the ridge.

Chapter Fifteen.

Shows Some of the Effects of the Slave-Trade at the Fountain-Head.

Down in a gorge, just below the spot where Harold Seadrift and his men lay concealed, a strange sight met the eyes of the two Englishmen, in regard to which, despite all that they had heard and seen, and were prepared to see, they were as much shocked as if it had never been presented even to their imaginations up to that moment.

It was a gang of slaves winding its way slowly but steadily through the gorge.

The head of the dusky procession was just emerging on the open ground beyond the gorge when the travellers first came upon it. The slaves advanced towards the spot where they lay, passing under it so closely that they could see the very expressions on the faces of the men, women, and children who composed the gang. These expressions were varied and very terrible. Our travellers had now reached the fountain-head whence the perennial stream of “Black Ivory” flows out of Africa. The process of manufacture, although considerably advanced, had not yet reached that perfection of callous subjection and settled despair which had struck our Englishmen so forcibly in the slave-market of Zanzibar. There was anxiety not unmingled with faint hope in the faces of some of the women; and a few of the more stalwart and courageous among the men wore a fierce, determined aspect which told of manhood not yet absolutely prostrated in the dust of abject servility, while, in regard to some of the children, surprise at the peculiar circumstances of their surroundings had not yet been swallowed up in a condition of chronic terror.

They marched in a long line, fastened to each other by chains and ropes and heavy “gorees” or slave-sticks. The latter implements were poles from six to seven feet long, with a fork at the end of each, in which the necks of the men were fitted and secured by means of an iron bolt, passing across the throat and riveted at both ends. To render marching possible with such encumbrances, the men went in couples, one behind the other, so that the slave-stick of the leading man could be tied to the stick of his fellow behind, which was slewed round to the front for the purpose. Their wrists were also tied, some in front, others behind their backs. Secured thus, Hercules himself might have been reduced to obedience, especially if he had felt the frequent sting of the cruel lash that was laid on these captives, a lash whose power was made manifest by the numerous seams and scars which crossed and recrossed their backs and limbs. The women and children were deemed sufficiently secure by being fastened to each other with ropes and iron rings round their necks. All were naked, with the exception of a little piece of cloth round the loins, and some of the women had infants of a few weeks old strapped to their backs by means of this shred of cloth, while others carried baskets on their heads containing meal for the sustenance of the party during their journey.

In advance of the line marched a tall, powerfully-built half-caste, armed with a musket and small axe, and clad in a loose coat, short drawers reaching the knees, and straw hat. He was obviously the commander of the band. Behind him came several negroes, also armed with muskets, and with thick wands for the purpose of flagellation. These wore loin-cloths and turbans or red caps, but nothing more. They laughed, talked and strutted as they went along, forming a marked contrast to the silent and depressed slaves.

At intervals along the line, and in rear, there were stationed one or two of these drivers, who urged on their “cattle” with more or less cruelty, according to their individual impulses or natures.

We need scarcely say that this sight filled Harold and Disco not only with feelings of horror and pity, but with sensations of towering indignation that almost suffocated them. Those who only read of such things at home can form but a faint conception of what it is actually to behold them.

“We must fight!” muttered Harold between his teeth.

Disco could not speak, but he looked at his companion, and gave a nod that plainly indicated the state of his feelings.

“’Sh!” hissed Chimbolo, creeping up at that moment and laying his hand, which trembled violently, on Harold’s shoulder, “Marizano!”

“What! the scoundrel in advance?”

Chimbolo pointed to the leader of the slave-gang, and almost foamed at the mouth with suppressed rage.

At that moment their attention was attracted to a woman who walked immediately behind the slavers. She was a young and, according to African ideas, a comely girl, but was apparently very weak—so weak that she panted and stumbled as she went along, a circumstance which was accounted for by the little infant tied to her back, which could not have been more than a couple of weeks old. Stumbling against the fallen branch of a tree, she fell at last with a low wail to the ground, and made no effort, as on previous occasions, to recover herself.

The whole gang stopped, and Marizano, turning back, pushed the woman with his foot.

A fine-looking young man, who was the leader in a couple secured by a slave-stick, seemed to regard this woman with a degree of interest that argued near relationship. He started forward half involuntarily when the Portuguese half-caste kicked her. He had forgotten for an instant his fellow in rear, as well as the bar of the goree across his throat, which checked him violently; at the same time one of the drivers, who had observed the movement, laid a supple wand across his bare back so sharply as to draw forth a terrific yell of agony.

This was too much for Disco Lillihammer. Unable to restrain himself, he leaped up, seized his rifle by the muzzle with both hands, and, swinging it round his head, rushed upon Marizano with a bursting shout of rage and defiance.

It is probable that the half-caste leader, who was by no means destitute of courage, would have stood his ground had his assailant been a man of colour, but this unexpected apparition of a white man with a fiery countenance and blue eyes that absolutely flashed as he rushed forward with irresistible fury, was too much for him. Firing hastily, and with bad aim, Marizano turned and fled into the woods, followed by all his men. There was however a large band of Ajawa savages in rear, armed with bows and poisoned arrows. When he encountered these the Portuguese chief halted, and, rallying his men, took shelter behind trees and began to fire at the advancing enemy.

Seeing this, Harold drew his men together and made them fire a united volley, which had the effect of utterly routing the slavers. Disco meanwhile, finding that he could not overtake Marizano, at last did what he ought to have done at first—kneeled down, took deliberate aim at him, and fired. His agitation prevented accuracy of aim; nevertheless he succeeded in sending a bullet through the fleshy part of the man’s arm, above the elbow, which effectually put him to flight.

Returning to the slaves, who had been left standing where they were first stopped, in a state of great surprise and perplexity, he assisted his companions in freeing them. This was easy enough in regard to the women and children, but the gorees on the men were very difficult to remove. Being riveted, as we have said, it became necessary to split the forks with hatchets, an operation which endangered the heads of the poor captives and hurt their galled necks considerably. It was accomplished however in the midst of a deal of excitement and hurried conversation, while Jumbo and his comrades kindled fires, and Harold bade the women cook the meal—which they had hitherto carried—for themselves and their children. They seemed to consider this too good news to be true, but on being encouraged, began with alacrity.

“Don’t be afeared, lass,” cried Disco, patting a young woman on the head, “eat as much as ’ee like. You need it, poor thing, an’ stuff the childer till they can’t hold no more. Bu’st ’em if ’ee can. The slavers won’t come back here in a hurry. Ha! I only wish they would, an’ let us have a brush with ’em. But there’s no such luck. Cowards never fight ’xcept w’en they’re sure to win.—Now, piccaninny, here you are,” he said, stuffing some raw mapira meal into the open mouth of a thin little girl of about six or seven, who was gazing at him in open-eyed surprise; “don’t put off time, you’re half-starved already!”

The little black skeleton began to chew the dry meal with evident satisfaction, but without taking her eyes off her deliverer.

“Who are you?” asked a somewhat older girl of Harold, whom she regarded with looks of reverence and wonder.

Of course Harold did not understand her, but he immediately called Antonio, who translated.

“Who are you?” she said; “the other people tied and starved us, but you cut the ropes and tell us to eat; what sort of people are you? Where did you come from?”

To this Harold replied briefly that he was an Englishman, who hated slavers and slavery, but he said nothing more at that time, as he intended to have a palaver and explanation with the freed captives after their meal was over.

There was a great clapping of hands among the slaves, expressive of gratitude, on hearing that they were free.

About a hundred sat down to that meal, most of whom were women and children, and the manner in which they devoured the food set before them, told eloquently of their previous sufferings. At first they timidly held back, scarce venturing to believe that their new captors, as they thought them, were in earnest. But when their doubts and fears were removed, they attacked the mapira porridge like ravening wolves. Gradually the human element began to reappear, in the shape of a comment or a smile, and before long the women were chatting together, and a few of the stronger among the young children were making feeble attempts to play.

When the oldest man of the party, who appeared to be between twenty and thirty, was brought forward and questioned, he gave some interesting and startling information.

“Tell him,” said Harold to Antonio, “that we are Englishmen; that we belong to the same nation as the great white man Dr Livingstone, who travelled through this land some years ago—the nation which hates slavery because the Great God hates it, and would have all men to be free, to serve each other in love, and to do to other people as they would have other people do to them. Ask him, also, where he comes from, and who captured him and his companions.”

To this the negro replied— “What the white man says may be true, but the white men seem to tell lies too much. The men who killed our warriors, burned our villages, and took our women and children away, came to us saying that they were friends; that they were the servants of the same people as the white man Livingstone, and wanted to trade with us. When we believed and trusted them, and were off our guard, they fired on us with their guns. We know not what to think or to believe.”

Harold was much perplexed by this reply, for he knew not what evidence to cite in proof that he, at least was not a deceiver.

“Tell him,” he said at length, “that there are false white men as well as true, and that the best proof I can give him that I am one of the true is, to set him and his friends at liberty. They are now as free to go where they please as we are.”

On receiving this assurance the negro retired to consult with his friends. Meanwhile Antonio, who seemed to have been touched by the unvarying kindness with which he had been treated by his employers, opened his mind to them, and gave them a good deal of information, of which the substance is as follows:—

At that time the merchants of the Portuguese inland town of Tette, on the Zambesi, were carrying on the slave-trade with unusual vigour, for this reason, that they found it difficult to obtain ivory except in exchange for slaves. In former years they had carried on a trade in ivory with a tribe called the Banyai, these Banyai being great elephant-hunters, but it happened that they went to war with another tribe named the Matabele, who had managed to steal from them all their women and children. Consequently, the forlorn Banyai said to the Tette merchants, when they went to trade with them as they had been accustomed to do, “We do not want your merchandise. Bring us women and children, and you shall have as much ivory as you wish.”

These good people of Tette—being chiefly half-caste Portuguese, and under Portuguese government, and claiming, as they do, to be the possessors of that region of Africa—are so utterly incapable of holding their own, that they are under the necessity of paying tribute to a tribe of savages who come down annually to Tette to receive it, and who, but for that tribute, would, as they easily could, expel them from the land. These merchants of Tette, moreover, in common with all the Portuguese in Africa, are by the laws of Portugal prohibited from engaging in the export slave-trade. They are not, however, forbidden to engage temporarily in the “domestic slave-trade,” hence they had sent out slaving parties—in other words, robbers, kidnappers, murderers—who hired the warlike Ajawa tribe to aid them in killing the Manganja men, and robbing them of their wives and little ones, by which means they were enabled to supply the demand for such “cattle” among the Banyai, and thus obtained the desired supply of ivory! So vigorously had this slave traffic been carried on, at the time of which we write, that no fewer than two hundred people—mostly women and children—were carried out of the hill-country every week. (See The Universities’ Mission to Central Africa, page 112.)

In a short time the negro returned to the place where Harold and Disco were seated, and said that he believed his white deliverers were true men, but added that he and his people had no home to go to; their village having been burnt, and all the old people and warriors killed or dispersed by Marizano, who was a terribly cruel man. In proof of this assertion he said that only the day before, Marizano had shot two of the women for attempting to untie their thongs; a man had been killed with an axe because he had broken-down with fatigue; and a woman had her infant’s brains dashed out because she was unable to carry it, as well as the load assigned to her.

“It is difficult to decide what one should do in these circumstances,” said Harold to Disco. “You know it would never do to leave these helpless people here to starve; but if we take them on with us our progress will be uncommonly slow.”

“We’d better take ’em back,” said Disco.

“Back! Where to?”

“W’y, to the last village wot we passed through. It ain’t more than a day’s march, an’ I’m sure the old feller as is capting of it would take care o’ the lot.”

“There is good advice in that, yet I grudge to go back,” said Harold; “if there were a village the same distance in advance, I would rather take them on.”

“But there ain’t,” returned Disco. “Hallo! I say, wot’s wrong with Tony?”

The interpreter came forward with a look of much excitement as he spoke.

“What now, Antonio?”

“Oh! it’s drefful,” replied the interpreter. “Dey tells me have hear Marizano speak ob anoder slaving party what go straight to Kambira’s village for attack it.”

“Who told you that? Are they sure?” asked Harold hastily.

“Two, t’ree mans tole me,” replied Antonio. “All say same ting. Too late to help him now, me’s ’fraid.”

“Never say too late,” cried Disco, starting up; “never say die while there’s a shot in the locker. It may be time enough yet if we only look sharp. I votes that we leave nearly all the provisions we have with these poor critters here; up anchor, ’bout ship, clap on all sail, and away this werry minit.”

Harold agreed with this advice heartily, and at once acted on it. The arrangements were quickly made, the provisions distributed, an explanation made, and in less than an hour the travellers were retracing their steps in hot haste.

By taking a straight line and making forced marches, they arrived in sight of the ridge where they had last seen Kambira, on the evening of the third day. As they drew near Harold pushed impatiently forward, and, outrunning his companions, was first to reach the summit. Disco’s heart sank within him, for he observed that his companion stood still, bowed his head, and covered his face with both hands. He soon joined him, and a groan burst from the seaman’s breast when he saw dense volumes of smoke rising above the spot where the village had so recently lain a picture of peaceful beauty.

Even their followers, accustomed though they were, to scenes and deeds of violence and cruelty, could not witness the grief of the Englishmen unmoved.

“P’raps,” said Disco, in a husky voice, “there’s some of ’em left alive, hidin’ in the bushes.”

“It may be so,” replied Harold, as he descended the slope with rapid strides. “God help them!”

A few minutes sufficed to bring them to the scene of ruin, but the devastation caused by the fire was so great that they had difficulty in recognising the different spots where the huts had stood. Kambira’s hut was, however, easily found, as it stood on a rising ground. There the fight with the slavers had evidently been fiercest, for around it lay the charred and mutilated remains of many human bodies. Some of these were so far distinguishable that it could be told whether they belonged to man, woman, or child.

“Look here!” said Disco, in a deep, stern voice, as he pointed to an object on the ground not far from the hut.

It was the form of a woman who had been savagely mangled by her murderers. The upturned and distorted face proved it to be Yohama, the grandmother of little Obo. Near to her lay the body of a grey-haired negro, who might to judge from his position, have fallen in attempting to defend her.

“Oh! if the people of England only saw this sight!” said Harold, in a low tone; “if they only believed in and realised this fact, there would be one universal and indignant shout of ‘No toleration of slavery anywhere throughout the world!’”

“Look closely for Kambira or his son,” he added, turning to his men.

A careful search among the sickening remains was accordingly made, but without any discovery worth noting being made, after which they searched the surrounding thickets. Here sad evidence of the poor fugitives having been closely pursued was found in the dead bodies of many of the old men and women, and of the very young children and infants; also the bodies of a few of the warriors. All these had been speared, chiefly through the back. Still they were unsuccessful in finding the bodies of the chief or his little boy.

“It’s plain,” said Disco, “that they have either escaped or been took prisoners.”

“Here is some one not quite dead,” said Harold,—“Ah! poor fellow!”

He raised the unfortunate man’s head on his knee, and recognised the features of the little man who had entertained them with his tunes on the native violin.

It was in vain that Antonio tried to gain his attention while Disco moistened his lips with water. He had been pierced in the chest with an arrow. Once only he opened his eyes, and a faint smile played on his lips, as if he recognised friends, but it faded quickly and left the poor musician a corpse.

Leaving, with heavy hearts, the spot where they had spent such pleasant days and nights, enjoying the hospitality of Kambira and his tribe, our travellers began to retrace their steps to the place where they had left the rescued slaves, but that night the strong frame of Disco Lillihammer succumbed to the influence of climate. He was suddenly stricken with African fever, and in a few hours became as helpless as a little child.

In this extremity Harold found it necessary to encamp. He selected the highest and healthiest spot in the neighbourhood, caused his followers to build a rude, but comparatively comfortable, hut and set himself diligently to hunt for, and to tend, his sick friend.

Chapter Sixteen.

Treats of Love, Hatred, and Sorrow, and Proves that Slavery and its Consequences are not Confined to Black Men and Women.

We must now change the scene to the garden of that excellent Governor, Senhor Francisco Alfonso Toledo Bignoso Letotti, and the date to three months in advance of the period in which occurred the events related in the last chapter.

“Maraquita, I am sorry to find that you still persist in encouraging that morbid regret for the loss of one who cannot now be recovered.”

Thus spoke the Governor in tones that were unusually petulant for one who idolised his child.

“Father, why did you sell her without saying a word to me about your intention? It was very, very, very unkind—indeed it was.”

Poor Maraquita’s eyes were already red and swollen with much weeping, nevertheless she proceeded to increase the redness and the swelling by a renewed burst of passionate distress.

The worthy Governor found it difficult to frame a reply or to administer suitable consolation, for in his heart he knew that he had sold Azinté, as it were surreptitiously, to Marizano for an unusually large sum of money, at a time when his daughter was absent on a visit to a friend. The noted Portuguese kidnapper, murderer, rebel and trader in black ivory, having recovered from his wound, had returned to the town, and, being well aware of Azinté’s market value, as a rare and remarkably beautiful piece of ivory of extra-superfine quality, had threatened, as well as tempted, Governor Letotti beyond his powers of resistance. Marizano did not want the girl as his own slave. He wanted dollars, and, therefore, destined her for the markets of Arabia or Persia, where the smooth-tongued and yellow-skinned inhabitants hold that robbery, violence, and cruelty, such as would make the flesh of civilised people creep, although horrible vices in themselves, are nevertheless, quite justifiable when covered by the sanction of that miraculous talisman called a “domestic institution.” The British Government had, by treaty, agreed to respect slavery in the dominions of the Sultan of Zanzibar, as a domestic institution with which it would not interfere!

Governor Letotti’s heart had smitten him at first for he really was an amiable man, and felt kindly disposed to humanity at large, slaves included. Unfortunately the same kindliness was concentrated with tenfold power on himself, so that when self-interest came into play the amiable man became capable of deeds that Marizano himself might have been proud of. The only difference, in fact, between the two was that the Governor, like the drunkard, often felt ashamed of himself, and sometimes wished that he were a better man, while the man-stealer gloried in his deeds, and had neither wish nor intention to improve.

“Maraquita,” said Senhor Letotti, still somewhat petulantly, though with more of remonstrance in his tone, “how can you speak so foolishly? It was out of my power you know, to speak to you when you were absent about what I intended to do. Besides, I was, at the time, very much in need of some ready money, for, although I am rich enough, there are times when most of my capital is what business men called ‘locked up,’ and therefore not immediately available. In these circumstances, Marizano came to me with a very tempting offer. But there are plenty of good-looking, amiable, affectionate girls in Africa. I can easily buy you another slave quite as good as Azinté.”

“As good as Azinté!” echoed Maraquita wildly, starting up and gazing at her father with eyes that flashed through her tears, “Azinté, who has opened her heart to me—her bursting, bleeding heart—and told me all her former joys and all her present woes, and who loves me as she loves—ay, better than she loves—her own soul, merely because I dropped a few tears of sympathy on her little hand! Another as good as Azinté!” she cried with increasing vehemence; “would you listen with patience to any one who should talk to you of another as good as Maraquita?”

“Nay, but,” remonstrated the Governor, “you are now raving; your feelings towards Azinté cannot be compared with my love for you.”

“If you loved me as I thought you did, you would not—you could not—have thus taken from me my darling little maid. Oh! shame, shame on you, father—”

She could say no more, but rushed from the room to fling herself down and sob out her feelings in the privacy of her own chamber, where she was sought out by the black cook, who had overheard some of the conversation, and was a sympathetic soul. But that amiable domestic happened to be inopportunely officious; she instantly fled from the chamber, followed by the neatest pair of little slippers imaginable, which hit her on the back of her woolly head,—for Maraquita, like other spoilt children, had made up her mind not to be comforted.

Meanwhile the Governor paced the floor of his drawing-room with uneasy feelings, which, however, were suddenly put to flight by the report of a gun. Hastening to the window, he saw that the shot had been fired by a war-steamer which was entering the bay.

“Ha! the ‘Firefly;’ good!” exclaimed the Governor, with a gratified look; “this will put it all right.”

He said nothing more, but left the room hastily. It may however be as well to explain that his remark had reference to the mutual affection which he was well aware existed between his daughter and the gallant Lieutenant Lindsay. He had not, indeed, the most remote intention of permitting Maraquita to wed the penniless officer, but he had no objection whatever to their flirting as much as they pleased; and he readily perceived that nothing would be more likely to take the Senhorina’s thoughts off her lost maid than the presence of her lover.

There was a bower in a secluded corner of the Governor Letotti’s garden, a very charming bower indeed, in which Lieutenant Lindsay had been wont at times when duty to the Queen of England permitted, to hold sweet converse with the “queen of his soul.” What that converse was it neither becomes us to say nor the reader to inquire. Perhaps it had reference to astronomy, perchance to domestic economy. At all events it was always eminently satisfactory to both parties engaged, save when the Senhorina indulged in a little touch of waywardness, and sent the poor officer back to his ship with a heavy heart, for the express purpose of teaching him the extent of her power and the value of her favour. She overclouded him now and then, just to make him the more ardently long for sunshine, and to convince him that in the highest sense of the word he was a slave!

To this bower, then, the Senhorina returned with a sad heart and swollen eyes, to indulge in vain regrets. Her sorrows had overwhelmed her to such an extent that she failed to observe the ‘Firefly’s’ salute. It was therefore with a look of genuine surprise and agitation that she suddenly beheld Lieutenant Lindsay, who had availed himself of the first free moment, striding up the little path that led to the bower.

“Maraquita!” he exclaimed, looking in amazement at the countenance of his lady-love, which was what Norsemen style “begrutten.”

But Maraquita was in no mood to be driven out of her humour, even by her lover.

“I am miserable,” she said with vehemence, clenching one of her little fists as though she meditated an assault on the lieutenant—“utterly, absolutely, inconsolably miserable.”

If Lindsay had entertained any doubt regarding the truth of her assertion, it would have been dispelled by her subsequent conduct, for she buried her face in a handkerchief and burst into tears.

“Beloved, adorable, tender, delicious Maraquita,” were words which leapt into the lieutenant’s mind, but he dare not utter them with his lips. Neither did he venture to clasp Maraquita’s waist with his left arm, lay her pretty little head on his breast and smooth her luxuriant hair with his right hand, though he felt almost irresistibly tempted so to do—entirely from feelings of pity, of course,—for the Senhorina had hitherto permitted no familiarities beyond a gentle pressure of the hand on meeting and at parting.

It is unnecessary to repeat all that the bashful, though ardent, man of war said to Maraquita, or all that Maraquita said to the man of war; how, ignoring the celestial orbs and domestic economy, she launched out into a rhapsodical panegyric of Azinté; told how the poor slave had unburdened her heart to her about her handsome young husband and her darling little boy in the far off interior, from whom she had been rudely torn, and whom she never expected to see again; and how she, Maraquita, had tried to console Azinté by telling her that there was a heaven where good people might hope to meet again, even though they never met on earth, and a great deal more besides, to all of which the earnest lieutenant sought to find words wherewith to express his pity and sympathy, but found them not, though he was at no loss to find words to tell the queen of his soul that, in the peculiar circumstances of the case, and all things considered, his love for her (Maraquita) was tenfold more intense than it had ever been before!

“Foolish boy,” said the Senhorina, smiling through her tears, “what is the use of telling me that? Can it do any good to Azinté?”

“Not much, I’m afraid,” replied the lieutenant. “Well, then, don’t talk nonsense, but tell me what I am to do to recover my little maid.”

“It is impossible for me to advise,” said the lieutenant with a perplexed look.

“But you must advise,” said Maraquita, with great decision.

“Well, I will try. How long is it since Azinté was taken away from you?”

“About two weeks.”

“You say that Marizano was the purchaser. Do you know to what part of the coast he intended to convey her?”

“How should I know? I have only just heard of the matter from my father.”

“Well then, you must try to find out from your father all that he knows about Marizano and his movements. That is the first step. After that I will consider what can be done.”

“Yes, Senhor,” said Maraquita, rising suddenly, “you must consider quickly, and you must act at once, for you must not come here again until you bring me news of Azinté.”

Poor Lindsay, who knew enough of the girl’s character to believe her to be thoroughly in earnest, protested solemnly that he would do his utmost.

All that Maraquita could ascertain from her father was, that Marizano meant to proceed to Kilwa, the great slave-depôt of the coast, there to collect a large cargo of slaves and proceed with them to Arabia, whenever he had reason to believe that the British cruisers were out of the way. This was not much to go upon, but the Senhorina was as unreasonable as were the Egyptians of old, when they insisted on the Israelites making bricks without straw.

He was unexpectedly helped out of his dilemma by Captain Romer, who called him into his cabin that same evening, told him that he had obtained information of the movements of slavers, which induced him to think it might be worth while to watch the coast to the northward of Cape Dalgado, and bade him prepare for a cruise in charge of the cutter, adding that the steamer would soon follow and keep them in view.

With a lightened heart Lindsay went off to prepare, and late that night the cutter quietly pulled away from the ‘Firefly’s’ side, with a well-armed crew, and provisioned for a short cruise.

Their object was to proceed as stealthily as possible along the coast, therefore they kept inside of islands as much as possible, and cruised about a good deal at nights, always sleeping on board the boat, as the low-lying coast was very unhealthy, but landing occasionally to obtain water and to take a survey of the sea from convenient heights.

Early one morning as they were sailing with a very light breeze, between two small islands, a vessel was seen looming through the haze, not far from shore.

Jackson, one of the men, who has been introduced to the reader at an earlier part of this narrative, was the first to observe the strangers.

“It’s a brig,” he said; “I can make out her royals.”

“No, it’s a barque,” said the coxswain.

A little midshipman, named Midgley, differed from both, and said it was a large dhow, for he could make out the top of its lateen sail.

“Whatever it is, we’ll give chase,” said Lindsay, ordering the men to put out the oars and give way, the sail being of little use.

In a few minutes the haze cleared sufficiently to prove that Midgley was right. At the same time it revealed to those on board the dhow that they were being chased by the boat of a man-of-war. The little wind that blew at the time was insufficient to enable the dhow to weather a point just ahead of her, and the cutter rowed down on her so fast that it was evidently impossible for her to escape.

Seeing this, the commander of the dhow at once ran straight for the shore. Before the boat could reach her she was among the breakers on the bar, which were so terrible at that part of the coast as to render landing in a small boat quite out of the question. In a few minutes the dhow was hurled on the beach and began to break up, while her crew and cargo of slaves swarmed into the sea and tried to gain the shore. It seemed to those in the boat that some hundreds of negroes were struggling at one time in the seething foam.

“We must risk it, and try to save some of the poor wretches,” cried Lindsay; “give way, lads, give way!”

The boat shot in amongst the breakers, and was struck by several seas in succession, and nearly swamped ere it reached the shore. But they were too late to save many of the drowning. Most of the strongest of the slaves had gained the shore and taken to the hills in wild terror, under the impression so carefully instilled into them by the Arabs, that the only object the Englishmen had in view was to catch, cook, and eat them! The rest were drowned, with the exception of two men and seven little children, varying from five to eight years of age, who were found crawling on the beach, in such a state of emaciation that they could not follow their companions into the bush. They tried, however, in their own feeble, helpless way, to avoid capture and the terrible fate which they thought awaited them.

These were soon lifted tenderly into the boat.

“Here, Jackson,” cried Lindsay, lifting one of the children in his strong arms, and handing it to the sailor, “carry that one very carefully, she seems to be almost gone. God help her, poor, poor child!”

There was good cause for Lindsay’s pity, for the little girl was so thin that every bone in her body was sticking out—her elbow and knee-joints being the largest parts of her shrunken limbs, and it was found that she could not rise or even stretch herself out, in consequence, as was afterwards ascertained, of her having been kept for many days in the dhow in a sitting posture, with her knees doubled up against her face. Indeed, most of the poor little things captured were found to be more or less stiffened from the same cause.

An Arab interpreter had been sent with Lindsay, but he turned out to be so incapable that it was scarcely possible to gain any information from him. He was either stupid in reality, or pretended to be so. The latter supposition is not improbable, for many of the interpreters furnished to the men-of-war on that coast were found to be favourable to the slavers, insomuch that they have been known to mislead those whom they were paid to serve.

With great difficulty the cutter was pulled through the surf. That afternoon the ‘Firefly’ hove in sight, and took the rescued slaves on board.

Next day two boats from the steamer chased another dhow on shore, but with even less result than before, for the whole of the slaves escaped to the hills. On the day following, however, a large dhow was captured, with about a hundred and fifty slaves on board, all of whom were rescued, and the dhow destroyed.

The dhows which were thus chased or captured were all regular and undisguised slavers. Their owners were openly engaged in what they knew was held to be piracy alike by the Portuguese, the Sultan of Zanzibar, and the English. They were exporting slaves from Africa to Arabia and Persia, which is an illegal species of traffic. In dealing with these, no difficulty was experienced except the difficulty of catching them. When caught, the dhows were invariably destroyed and the slaves set free—that is to say, carried to those ports where they might be set free with safety.

But there were two other sorts of traffickers in the bodies and souls of human beings, who were much more difficult to deal with.

There were, first the legal slave-traders, namely, the men who convey slaves by sea from one part of the Sultan of Zanzibar’s dominions to another. This kind of slavery was prosecuted under the shelter of what we have already referred to as a domestic institution! It involved, as we have said before, brutality, injustice, cruelty, theft, murder, and extermination, but, being a domestic institution of Zanzibar, it was held to be legal, and the British Government have recognised and tolerated it by treaty for a considerable portion of this century!

It is, however, but justice to ourselves to say, that our Government entered into the treaty with the view of checking, limiting, and mitigating the evils of the slave-trade. We have erred in recognising any form of slavery, no matter how humane our object was—one proof of which is that we have, by our interference, unintentionally increased the evils of slavery instead of abating them.

It is worth while remarking here, that slavery is also a domestic institution in Arabia and Persia. If it be right that we should not interfere with the Zanzibar institution, why should we interfere with that of Arabia or Persia? Our treaty appears to have been founded on the principle that we ought to respect domestic institutions. We maintain a squadron on the east coast of Africa to stop the flow of Africans to the latter countries, while we permit the flow by treaty, as well as by practice, to the former. Is this consistent? The only difference between the two cases is one of distance, not of principle.

But to return to our point—the legal traders. In consequence of the Sultan’s dominions lying partly on an island and partly on the mainland, his domestic institution necessitates boats, and in order to distinguish between his boats and the pirates, there is a particular season fixed in which he may carry his slaves by sea from one part of his dominions to another; and each boat is furnished with papers which prove it to be a “legal trader.” This is the point on which the grand fallacy of our interference hinges. The “domestic institution” would be amply supplied by about 4000 slaves a year. The so-called legal traders are simply legalised deceivers, who transport not fewer than 30,000 slaves a year! It must be borne in mind that these 30,000 represent only a portion—the Zanzibar portion—of the great African slave-trade. From the Portuguese settlements to the south, and from the north by way of Egypt, the export of negroes as slaves is larger. It is estimated that the total number of human beings enslaved on the east and north-east coast of Africa is about 70,000 a year. As all authorities agree in the statement that, at the lowest estimate, only one out of every five captured survives to go into slavery, this number represents a loss to Africa of 350,000 human beings a year. They leave Zanzibar with full cargoes continually, with far more than is required for what we may term home-consumption. Nevertheless, correct papers are furnished to them by the Sultan, which protects them from British cruisers within the prescribed limits, namely, between Cape Dalgado and Lamoo, a line of coast about 1500 miles in extent. But it is easy for them to evade the cruisers in these wide seas and extensive coasts, and the value of Black Ivory is so great that the loss of a few is but a small matter. On reaching the northern limits the legal traders become pirates. They run to the northward, and take their chance of being captured by cruisers.

The reason of all this is very obvious. The Sultan receives nearly half a sovereign a head for each slave imported into Zanzibar, and our Governments, in time past, have allowed themselves to entertain the belief, that, by treaty, the Sultan could be induced to destroy this the chief source of his revenue!

Surely it is not too much to say, that Great Britain ought to enter into no treaty whatever in regard to slavery, excepting such as shall provide for the absolute, total, and immediate extirpation thereof by whatsoever name called.

Besides these two classes of slavers,—the open, professional pirates, and the sneaking, deceiving “domestic” slavers,—there are the slave-smugglers. They are men who profess to be, and actually are, legal traders in ivory, gum, copal, and other produce of Africa. These fellows manage to smuggle two or three slaves each voyage to the Black Ivory markets, under pretence that they form part of the crew of their dhows. It is exceedingly difficult, almost impossible, for the officers of our cruisers to convict these smugglers—to distinguish between slaves and crews, consequently immense numbers of slaves are carried off to the northern ports in this manner. Sometimes these dhows carry Arab or other passengers, and when there are so many slaves on board that it would be obviously absurd to pretend that they formed part of the crew, the owner dresses the poor wretches up in the habiliments that come most readily to hand, and passes them off as the wives or servants of these passengers. Any one might see at a glance that the stupid, silent, timid-looking creatures, who have had almost every human element beaten out of them, are nothing of the sort, but there is no means of proving them other than they are represented to be. If an interpreter were to ask them they would be ready to swear anything that their owner had commanded; hence the cruisers are deceived in every way—in many ways besides those now mentioned—and our philanthropic intentions are utterly thwarted; for the rescuing and setting free of 1000 or 2000 negroes a year out of the 30,000 annually exported, is not an adequate result for our great expense in keeping a squadron on the coast, especially when we consider that hundreds, probably thousands, of slaves perish amid horrible sufferings caused by the efforts of the man-stealers to avoid our cruisers. These would probably not lose their lives, and the entire body of slaves would suffer less, if we did not interfere at all.

From this we do not argue that non-interference would be best, but that as our present system of repression does not effectively accomplish what is aimed at, it ought to be changed. What the change should be, many wise and able men have stated. Their opinion we cannot quote here, but one thing taught to us by past experience is clear, we cannot cure the slave-trade by merely limiting it. Our motto in regard to slavery ought to be—Total and immediate extinction everywhere.

Chapter Seventeen.

Strong Measures Lead to Unexpected Discoveries.

“I’m terribly worried and perplexed,” said Lieutenant Lindsay one afternoon to Midshipman Midgley, as they were creeping along the coast in the neighbourhood of Cape Dalgado.

“Why so?” inquired the middy.

“Because I can learn nothing whatever about the movements of Marizano,” replied the Lieutenant. “I have not spoken to you about this man hitherto, because—because—that is to say—the fact is, it wasn’t worth while, seeing that you know no more about him than I do, perhaps not so much. But I can’t help thinking that we might have learned something about him by this time, only our interpreter is such an unmitigated ass, he seems to understand nothing—to pick up nothing.”

“Indeed!” exclaimed the midshipman; “I’m surprised to hear you say so, because I heard Suliman whispering last night with that half-caste fellow whom we captured along with the other niggers, and I am confident that he mentioned the name of Marizano several times.”

“Did he? Well now, the rascal invariably looks quite blank when I mention Marizano’s name, and shakes his head, as if he had never heard of it before.”

“Couldn’t you intimidate him into disgorging a little of his knowledge?” suggested Midgley, with an arch look.

“I have thought of that,” replied Lindsay, with a frown. “Come, it’s not a bad idea; I’ll try! Hallo! Suliman, come aft, I want you.”

Lieutenant Lindsay was one of those men who are apt to surprise people by the precipitancy of their actions. He was not, indeed, hasty; but when his mind was made up he was not slow in proceeding to action. It was so on the present occasion, to the consternation of Suliman, who had hitherto conceived him to be rather a soft easy-going man.

“Suliman,” he said, in a low but remarkably firm tone of voice, “you know more about Marizano than you choose to tell me. Now,” he continued, gazing into the Arab’s cold grey eyes, while he pulled a revolver from his coat-pocket and cocked it, “I intend to make you tell me all you know about him, or to blow your brains out.”

He moved the pistol gently as he spoke, and placed his forefinger on the trigger.

“I not know,” began Suliman, who evidently did not believe him to be quite in earnest; but before the words had well left his lips the drum of his left ear was almost split by the report of the pistol, and a part of his turban was blown away.

“You don’t know? very well,” said Lindsay, recocking the pistol, and placing the cold muzzle of it against the Arab’s yellow nose.

This was too much for Suliman. He grew pale, and suddenly fell on his knees.

“Oh! stop! no—no! not fire! me tell you ’bout ’im.”

“Good, get up and do so,” said the Lieutenant, uncocking the revolver, and returning it to his pocket; “and be sure that you tell me all, else your life won’t be worth the value of the damaged turban on your head.”

With a good deal of trepidation the alarmed interpreter thereupon gave Lindsay all the information he possessed in regard to the slaver, which amounted to this, that he had gone to Kilwa, where he had collected a band of slaves sufficient to fill a large dhow, with which he intended, in two days more, to sail, in company with a fleet of slavers, for the north.

“Does he intend to touch at Zanzibar?” inquired Lindsay.

“Me tink no,” replied the interpreter; “got many pritty garls—go straight for Persia.”

On hearing this the Lieutenant put the cutter about, and sailed out to sea in search of the ‘Firefly,’ which he knew could not at that time be at any great distance from the shore.

He found her sooner than he had expected; and, to his immense astonishment as well as joy, one of the first persons he beheld on stepping over the side of his ship was Azinté.

“You have captured Marizano, sir, I see,” he said to Captain Romer.

“Not the scoundrel himself, but one of his dhows,” replied the Captain. “He had started for the northern ports with two heavily-laden vessels. We discovered him five days ago, and, fortunately, just beyond the protected water, so that he was a fair and lawful prize. The first of his dhows, being farthest out from shore, we captured, but the other, commanded by himself, succeeded in running ashore, and he escaped; with nearly all his slaves—only a few of the women and children being drowned in the surf. And now, as our cargo of poor wretches is pretty large, I shall run for the Seychelles. After landing them I shall return as fast as possible, to intercept a few more of these pirates.”

“To the Seychelles!” muttered the Lieutenant to himself as he went below, with an expression on his countenance something between surprise and despair.

Poor Lindsay! His mind was so taken up with, and confused by, the constant and obtrusive presence of the Senhorina Maraquita that the particular turn which affairs had taken had not occurred to him, although that turn was quite natural, and by no means improbable. Marizano, with Azinté on board of one of his piratical dhows, was proceeding to the north. Captain Romer, with his war-steamer, was on the look-out for piratical dhows. What more natural than that the Captain should fall in with the pirate? But Lieutenant Lindsay’s mind had been so filled with Maraquita that it seemed to be, for the time, incapable of holding more than one other idea—that idea was the fulfilment of Maraquita’s commands to obtain information as to her lost Azinté. To this he had of late devoted all his powers, happy in the thought that it fell in with and formed part of his duty, to his Queen and country, as well as to the “Queen of his soul.” To rescue Azinté from Marizano seemed to the bold Lieutenant an easy enough matter; but to rescue her from his own Captain, and send her back into slavery! “Ass! that I am,” he exclaimed, “not to have thought of this before. Of course she can never be returned to Maraquita, and small comfort it will be to the Senhorina to be told that her favourite is free in the Seychelles Islands, and utterly beyond her reach, unless she chooses to go there and stay with her.”

Overwhelmed with disgust at his own stupidity, and at the utter impossibility of doing anything to mend matters, the unfortunate Lieutenant sat down to think, and the result of his thinking was that he resolved at all events to look well after Azinté, and see that she should be cared for on her arrival at the Seychelles.

Among the poor creatures who had been rescued from Marizano’s dhow were nearly a hundred children, in such a deplorable condition that small hopes were entertained of their reaching the island alive. Their young lives, however, proved to be tenacious. Experienced though their hardy rescuers were in rough and tumble work, they had no conception what these poor creatures had already gone through, and, therefore, formed a mistaken estimate of their powers of endurance. Eighty-three of them reached the Seychelles alive. They were placed under the care of a warm-hearted missionary, who spared no pains for their restoration to health; but despite his utmost efforts, forty of these eventually died—their little frames had been whipped, and starved, and tried to such an extent, that recovery was impossible.

To the care of this missionary Lieutenant Lindsay committed Azinté, telling him as much of her sad story as he was acquainted with. The missionary willingly took charge of her, and placed her as a nurse in the temporary hospital which he had instituted for the little ones above referred to. Here Azinté proved herself to be a most tender, affectionate, and intelligent nurse to the poor children, for whom she appeared to entertain particular regard, and here, on the departure of the ‘Firefly’ shortly afterwards, Lindsay left her in a state of comfort, usefulness, and comparative felicity.

Chapter Eighteen.

Describes Some of the Doings of Yoosoof and His Men in Procuring Black Ivory from the Interior of Africa.

A dirty shop, in a filthy street in the unhealthy town of Zanzibar, is the point to which we now beg leave to conduct our reader—whom we also request to leap, in a free and easy way, over a few months of time!

It is not for the sake of the shop that we make this leap, but for the purpose of introducing the two men who, at the time we write of, sat over their grog in a small back-room connected with that shop. Still the shop itself is not altogether unworthy of notice. It is what the Americans call a store—a place where you can purchase almost every article that the wants of man have called into being. The prevailing smells are of oil, sugar, tea, molasses, paint, and tar, a compound which confuses the discriminating powers of the nose, and, on the principle that extremes meet, removes the feeling of surprise that ought to be aroused by discovering that these odours are in close connexion with haberdashery and hardware. There are enormous casks, puncheons, and kegs on the floor; bales on the shelves; indescribable confusion in the corners; preserved meat tins piled to the ceiling; with dust and dirt encrusting everything. The walls, beams, and rafters, appear to be held together by means of innumerable cobwebs. Hosts of flies fatten on, without diminishing, the stock, and squadrons of cockroaches career over the earthen floor.

In the little back-room of this shop sat the slave-dealer Yoosoof, in company with the captain of an English ship which lay in the harbour.

Smoke from the captain’s pipe filled the little den to such an extent that Yoosoof and his friend were not so clearly distinguishable as might have been desired.

“You’re all a set of false-hearted, wrong-headed, low-minded, scoundrels,” said the plain-spoken captain, accompanying each asseveration with a puff so violent as to suggest the idea that his remarks were round-shot and his mouth a cannon.

The Briton was evidently not in a complimentary mood. It was equally evident that Yoosoof was not in a touchy vein, for he smiled the slightest possible smile and shrugged his shoulders. He had business to transact with the captain which was likely to result very much to his advantage, and Yoosoof was not the man to let feelings stand in the way of business.

“Moreover,” pursued the captain, in a gruff voice, “the trade in slaves is illegally conducted in one sense, namely, that it is largely carried on by British subjects.”

“How you make that out?” asked Yoosoof.

“How? why, easy enough. Aren’t the richest men in Zanzibar the Banyans, and don’t these Banyans, who number about 17,000 of your population, supply you Arabs with money to carry on the accursed slave-trade? And ain’t these Banyans Indian merchants—subjects of Great Britain?”

Yoosoof shrugged his shoulders again and smiled.

“And don’t these opulent rascals,” continued the Briton, “love their ease as well as their money, and when they want to increase the latter without destroying the former, don’t they make advances to the like of you and get 100 per cent out of you for every dollar advanced?”

Yoosoof nodded his head decidedly at this, and smiled again.

“Well, then, ain’t the whole lot of you a set of mean scoundrels?” said the captain fiercely.

Yoosoof did not smile at this; he even looked for a moment as if he were going to resent it, but it was only for a moment. Self-interest came opportunely to his aid, and made him submissive.

“What can we do?” he asked after a short silence. “You knows what the Sultan say, other day, to one British officer, ‘If you stop slave-trade you will ruin Zanzibar.’ We mus’ not do that. Zanzibar mus’ not be ruin.”

“Why not?” demanded the captain, with a look of supreme contempt, “what if Zanzibar was ruined? Look here, now, Yoosoof, your dirty little island—the whole island observe—is not quite the size of my own Scotch county of Lanark. Its population is short of 250,000 all told—scarce equal to the half of the population of Lanark—composed of semi-barbarians and savages. That’s one side of the question. Here’s the other side: Africa is one of the four quarters of the earth, with millions of vigorous niggers and millions of acres of splendid land, and no end of undeveloped resources, and you have the impudence to tell me that an enormous lump of this land must be converted into a desert, and something like 150,000 of its best natives be drawn off annually—for what?—for what?” repeated the sailor, bringing his fist down on the table before him with such force that the glasses danced on it and the dust flew up; “for what? I say; for a paltry, pitiful island, ruled by a sham sultan, without army or navy, and with little money, save what he gets by slave-dealing; an island which has no influence for good on the world, morally, religiously, or socially, and with little commercially, though it has much influence for evil; an island which has helped the Portuguese to lock up the east coast of Africa for centuries; an island which would not be missed—save as a removed curse—if it were sunk this night to the bottom of the sea, and all its selfish, sensual, slave-dealing population swept entirely off the face of the earth.”

The captain had risen and dashed his pipe to atoms on the floor in his indignation as he made these observations. He now made an effort to control himself, and then, sitting down, he continued— “Just think, Yoosoof; you’re a sharp man of business, as I know to my cost. You can understand a thing in a commercial point of view. Just try to look at it thus: On the one side of the world’s account you have Zanzibar sunk with all its Banyan and Arab population; we won’t sink the niggers, poor wretches. We’ll suppose them saved, along with the consuls, missionaries, and such-like. Well, that’s a loss of somewhere about 83,000 scoundrels,—a gain we might call it, but for the sake of argument we’ll call it a loss. On the other side of the account you have 30,000 niggers—fair average specimens of humanity—saved from slavery, besides something like 150,000 more saved from death by war and starvation, the results of the slave-trade; 83,000 from 150,000 leaves 67,000! The loss, you see, would be more than wiped off, and a handsome balance left at the world’s credit the very first year! To say nothing of the opening up of legitimate commerce to one of the richest countries on earth, and the consequent introduction of Christianity.”

The captain paused to take breath. Yoosoof shrugged his shoulders, and a brief silence ensued, which was happily broken, not by a recurrence to the question of slavery, but by the entrance of a slave. He came in search of Yoosoof for the purpose of telling him that his master wished to speak with him. As the slave’s master was one of the wealthy Banyans just referred to, Yoosoof rose at once, and, apologising to the captain for quitting him so hurriedly, left that worthy son of Neptune to cool his indignation in solitude.

Passing through several dirty streets the slave led the slaver to a better sort of house in a more salubrious or, rather, less pestilential, part of the town. He was ushered into the presence of an elderly man of quiet, unobtrusive aspect.

“Yoosoof,” said the Banyan in Arabic, “I have been considering the matter about which we had some conversation yesterday, and I find that it will be convenient for me to make a small venture. I can let you have three thousand dollars.”

“On the old terms?” asked Yoosoof.

“On the old terms,” replied the merchant. “Will you be ready to start soon?”

Yoosoof said that he would, that he had already completed the greater part of his preparations, and that he hoped to start for the interior in a week or two.

“That is well; I hope you may succeed in doing a good deal of business,” said the merchant with an amiable nod and smile, which might have led an ignorant onlooker to imagine that Yoosoof’s business in the interior was work of a purely philanthropic nature!

“There is another affair, which, it has struck me, may lie in your way,” continued the merchant. “The British consul is, I am told, anxious to find some one who will undertake to make inquiries in the interior about some Englishmen, who are said to have been captured by the black fellows and made slaves of.”

“Does the consul know what tribe has captured them?” asked Yoosoof.

“I think not; but as he offers five hundred dollars for every lost white man who shall be recovered and brought to the coast alive, I thought that you might wish to aid him!”

“True,” said Yoosoof, musing, “true, I will go and see him.”

Accordingly, the slave-dealer had an interview with the consul, during which he learned that there was no absolute certainty of any Englishmen having been captured. It was only a vague rumour; nevertheless it was sufficiently probable to warrant the offer of five hundred dollars to any one who should effect a rescue; therefore Yoosoof, having occasion to travel into the interior at any rate, undertook to make inquiries.

He was also told that two Englishmen had, not long before, purchased an outfit, and started off with the intention of proceeding to the interior by way of the Zambesi river, and they, the consul said, might possibly be heard of by him near the regions to which he was bound; but these, he suggested, could not be the men who were reported as missing.

Of course Yoosoof had not the most remote idea that these were the very Englishmen whom he himself had captured on the coast, for, after parting from them abruptly, as described in a former chapter, he had ceased to care or think about them, and besides, was ignorant of the fact that they had been to Zanzibar.

Yoosoof’s own particular business required a rather imposing outfit. First of all, he purchased and packed about 600 pounds worth of beads of many colours, cloth of different kinds, thick brass wire, and a variety of cheap trinkets, such as black men and women are fond of, for Yoosoof was an “honest” trader, and paid his way when he found it suitable to do so. He likewise hired a hundred men, whom he armed with guns, powder, and ball, for Yoosoof was also a dishonest trader, and fought his way when that course seemed most desirable.

With this imposing caravan he embarked in a large dhow, sailed for the coast landed at Kilwa, and proceeded into the interior of Africa.

It was a long and toilsome journey over several hundred miles of exceedingly fertile and beautiful country, eminently suited for the happy abode of natives. But Yoosoof and his class who traded in black ivory had depopulated it to such an extent that scarce a human being was to be seen all the way. There were plenty of villages, but they were in ruins, and acres of cultivated ground with the weeds growing rank where the grain had once flourished. Further on in the journey, near the end of it, there was a change; the weeds and grain grew together and did battle, but in most places the weeds gained the victory. It was quite evident that the whole land had once been a rich garden teeming with human life—savage life, no doubt still, not so savage but that it could manage to exist in comparative enjoyment and multiply. Yoosoof—passed through a hundred and fifty miles of this land; it was a huge grave, which, appropriately enough, was profusely garnished with human bones. (See Livingstone’s Tributaries of the Zambesi, page 391.)

At last the slave-trader reached lands which were not utterly forsaken.

Entering a village one afternoon he sent a present of cloth and beads to the chief, and, after a few preliminary ceremonies, announced that he wished to purchase slaves.

The chief, who was a fine-looking young warrior, said that he had no men, women or children to sell, except a few criminals to whom he was welcome at a very low price,—about two or three yards of calico each. There were also one or two orphan children whose parents had died suddenly, and to whom no one in the village could lay claim. It was true that these poor orphans had been adopted by various families who might not wish to part with them; but no matter, the chief’s command was law. Yoosoof might have the orphans also for a very small sum,—a yard of calico perhaps. But nothing would induce the chief to compel any of his people to part with their children, and none of the people seemed desirous of doing so.

The slave-trader therefore adopted another plan. He soon managed to ascertain that the chief had an old grudge against a neighbouring chief. In the course of conversation he artfully stirred up the slumbering ill-will, and carefully fanned it into a flame without appearing to have any such end in view. When the iron was sufficiently hot he struck it—supplied the chief with guns and ammunition, and even, as a great favour, offered to lend him a few of his own men in order that he might make a vigorous attack on his old enemy.

The device succeeded to perfection. War was begun without any previous declaration; prisoners were soon brought in—not only men, but women and children. The first were coupled together with heavy slave-sticks, which were riveted to their necks; the latter were attached to each other with ropes; and thus Yoosoof, in a few days, was enabled to proceed on his journey with a goodly drove of “black cattle” behind him.

This occurred not far from Lake Nyassa, which he intended should be his headquarters for a time, while his men, under a new leader whom he expected to meet there, should push their victorious arms farther into the interior.

On reaching the shores of the noble lake, he found several birds of the same feather with himself—Arabs engaged in the same trade. He also found his old friend and trusty ally, Marizano. This gratified him much, for he was at once enabled to hand over the charge of the expedition to his lieutenant, and send him forth on his mission.

That same evening—a lovely and comparatively cool one—Yoosoof and the half-caste sauntered on the margin of the lake, listening to the sweet melody of the free and happy birds, and watching the debarkation, from a large boat, of a band of miserable slaves who had been captured or purchased on the other side.

“Now, Marizano,” said Yoosoof, addressing the half-caste in his native tongue, “I do not intend to cumber you with cloth or beads on this expedition. I have already spent a good deal in the purchase of slaves, who are now in my barracoon, and I think it will be both cheaper and easier to make up the rest of the gang by means of powder and lead.”

“It is lighter to carry, and more effectual,” remarked Marizano, with a nod of approval.

“True,” returned Yoosoof, “and quicker. Will a hundred men and guns suffice?”

“Eighty are enough to conquer any of the bow and spear tribes of this region,” replied the half-caste carelessly.

“Good!” continued Yoosoof. “Then you shall start to-morrow. The tribes beyond this lake are not yet afraid of us—thanks to the mad Englishman, Livingstone, who has opened up the country and spread the information that white men are the friends of the black, and hate slavery.” (Livingstone tells us that he found, on ascending the Shire river, that the Portuguese slave-traders had followed closely in the footsteps of his previous discoveries, and passed themselves off as his friends, by which means they were successful in gaining the confidence of the natives whom they afterwards treacherously murdered or enslaved.)

“You may try to pass yourself off as a white man, though your face is not so white as might be desired; however, you can comfort yourself with the knowledge that it is whiter than your heart!”

The Arab smiled and glanced at his lieutenant. Marizano smiled, bowed in acknowledgment of the compliment, and replied that he believed himself to be second to no one except his employer in that respect.

“Well, then,” continued Yoosoof, “you must follow up the discoveries of this Englishman; give out that you are his friend, and have come there for the same purposes; and, when you have put them quite at their ease, commence a brisk trade with them—for which purpose you may take with you just enough of cloth and beads to enable you to carry out the deception. For the rest I need not instruct; you know what to do as well as I.”

Marizano approved heartily of this plan, and assured his chief that his views should be carried out to his entire satisfaction.

“But there is still another point,” said Yoosoof, “on which I have to talk. It appears that there are some white men who have been taken prisoners by one of the interior tribes—I know not which—for the finding of whom the British consul at Zanzibar has offered me five hundred dollars. If you can obtain information about these men it will be well. If you can find and rescue them it will be still better, and you shall have a liberal share of the reward.”

While the Arab was speaking, the half-caste’s visage betrayed a slight degree of surprise.

“White men!” he said, pulling up his sleeve and showing a gun-shot wound in his arm which appeared to be not very old. “A white man inflicted that not long ago, and not very far from the spot on which we stand. I had vowed to take the life of that white man if we should ever chance to meet, but if it is worth five hundred dollars I may be tempted to spare it!”

He laughed lightly as he spoke, and then added, with a thoughtful look,—“But I don’t see how these men—there were two of them, if not more—can be prisoners, because, when I came across them, they were well-armed, well supplied, and well attended, else, you may be sure, they had not given me this wound and freed my slaves. But the scoundrels who were with me at the time were cowards.”

“You are right,” said Yoosoof. “The white men you met I heard of at Zanzibar. They cannot be the prisoners we are asked to search for. They have not yet been long enough away, I should think, to have come by any mischance, and the white men who are said to be lost have been talked about in Zanzibar for a long time. However, make diligent inquiries, because the promise is, that the five hundred dollars shall be ours if we rescue any white man, no matter who he may chance to be. And now I shall show you the cattle I have obtained on the way up.”

The barracoon, to which the Arab led his lieutenant, was a space enclosed by a strong and high stockade, in which slaves were kept under guard until a sufficient number should be secured to form a gang, wherewith to start for the coast. At the entrance stood a savage-looking Portuguese half-caste armed with a gun. Inside there was an assortment of Yoosoof’s Black Ivory. It was in comparatively good condition at that time, not having travelled far, and, as it was necessary to keep it up to a point of strength sufficient to enable it to reach the coast, it was pretty well fed except in the case of a few rebellious articles. There were, however, specimens of damaged goods even there. Several of the orphans, who had become Yoosoof’s property, although sprightly enough when first purchased, had not stood even the short journey to the lake so well as might have been expected. They had fallen off in flesh to such an extent that Yoosoof was induced to remark to Marizano, as they stood surveying them, that he feared they would never reach the coast alive.

“That one, now,” he said, pointing to a little boy who was tightly wedged in the midst of the group of slaves, and sat on the ground with his face resting on his knees, “is the most troublesome piece of goods I have had to do with since I began business; and it seems to me that I am going to lose him after all.”

“What’s the matter with him?” asked the half-caste.

“Nothing particular, only he is a delicate boy. At first I refused him, but he is so well-made, though delicate, and such a good-looking child, and so spirited, that I decided to take him; but he turns out to be too spirited. Nothing that I can do will tame him,—oh, that won’t do it,” said Yoosoof, observing that Marizano raised the switch he carried in his hand with a significant action; “I have beaten him till there is scarcely a sound inch of skin on his whole body, but it’s of no use. Ho! stand up,” called Yoosoof, letting the lash of his whip fall lightly on the boy’s shoulders.

There was, however, no response; the Arab therefore repeated the order, and laid the lash across the child’s bare back with a degree of force that would have caused the stoutest man to wince; still the boy did not move. Somewhat surprised, Yoosoof pushed his way towards him, seized him by the hair and threw back his head.

The Arab left him immediately and remarked in a quiet tone that he should have no more trouble with him—he was dead!

“What’s the matter with that fellow?” asked Marizano, pointing to a man who was employed in constantly rolling up a bit of wet clay and applying it to his left eye.

“Ah, he’s another of these unmanageable fellows,” replied Yoosoof. “I have been trying to tame him by starvation. The other morning he fell on his knees before the man who guards the barracoon and entreated him to give him food. The guard is a rough fellow, and had been put out of temper lately by a good many of the slaves. Instead of giving him food he gave him a blow in the eye which burst the ball of it, and of course has rendered him worthless; but he won’t trouble us long.”

In another place a woman crouched on the ground, having something wrapped in leaves which she pressed to her dried breast. It was the body of a child to which she had recently given birth in that place of woe.

Leaving his cringing and terrified goods to the guardian of the barracoon, the Arab returned to his tent beside the beautiful lake, and there, while enjoying the aroma of flowers and the cool breeze, and the genial sunshine, and the pleasant influences which God has scattered with bountiful hand over that luxuriant portion of the earth, calmly concerted with Marizano the best method by which he could bring inconceivable misery on thousands of its wretched inhabitants.

Chapter Nineteen.

Tells of Misfortunes that Befell Our Wanderers; of Familiar Toys Under New Aspects, Etcetera.

When Harold Seadrift and Disco Lillihammer were stopped in their journey, as related in a former chapter, by the sudden illness of the bold seaman, an event was impending over them which effectually overturned their plans. This was the sudden descent of a band of armed natives who had been recently driven from their homes by a slaving party. The slavers had taken them by surprise during the night, set their huts on fire, captured their women and children, and slaughtered all the men, excepting those who sought and found safety in flight. It was those who had thus escaped that chanced to come upon the camp of our travellers one evening about sunset.

Disco was recovering from his attack of fever at the time, though still weak. Harold was sitting by his couch of leaves in the hut which had been erected for him on the first day of the illness. Jumbo was cutting up a piece of flesh for supper, and Antonio was putting the kettle on the fire. The rest of the party were away in the woods hunting.

No guard was kept; consequently the savages came down on them like a thunderbolt, and found them quite unprepared to resist even if resistance had been of any use.

At first their captors, bitterly infuriated by their recent losses, proposed to kill their prisoners, without delay, by means of the most excruciating tortures that they could invent, but from some unknown cause, changed their minds; coupled Harold and Disco together by means of two slave-sticks; tied Antonio and Jumbo with ropes, and drove them away.

So suddenly was the thing done, and so effectually, that Disco was far from the camp before he could realise that what had occurred was a fact, and not one of the wild feverish dreams that had beset him during his illness.

The natives would not listen to the earnest explanation of Antonio that Harold and Disco were Englishmen, and haters of slavery. They scowled as they replied that the same had been said by the slavers who had attacked their village; from which remark it would seem that Yoosoof was not quite the originator of that device to throw the natives off their guard. The Portuguese of Tette on the Zambesi had also thought of and acted on it!

Fortunately it was, as we have said, near sunset when the capture was made, and before it became quite dark the band encamped, else must poor Disco have succumbed to weakness and fatigue. The very desperation of his circumstances, however, seemed to revive his strength, for next morning he resumed his journey with some hope of being able to hold out. The continued protestations and assurances of Antonio, also, had the effect of inducing their captors to remove the heavy slave-sticks from the necks of Harold and Disco, though they did not unbind their wrists. Thus were they led further into the country, they knew not whither, for several days and nights, and at last reached a large village where they were all thrust into a hut, and left to their meditations, while their captors went to palaver with the chief man of the place.

This chief proved to be a further-sighted man than the men of the tribe who had captured the Englishmen. His name was Yambo. He had heard of Dr Livingstone, and had met with men of other tribes who had seen and conversed with the great traveller. Thus, being of a thoughtful and inquiring disposition, he had come to understand enough of the good white man’s sentiments to guard him from being imposed on by pretended Christians.

Yambo’s name signified “how are you?” and was probably bestowed on him because of a strongly benevolent tendency to greet friend and stranger alike with a hearty “how d’ee do?” sort of expression of face and tone of voice.

He was a tall grave man, with a commanding firm look, and, withal, a dash of child-like humour and simplicity. On hearing his visitors’ remarks about their captives, he at once paid them a visit and a few leading questions put to Harold through Antonio convinced him that the prisoners were true men. He therefore returned to his black visitors, told them that he had perfect confidence in the good faith of the white men, and said that he meant to take charge of them. He then entertained his black brothers hospitably, gave them a few presents, and sent them on their way. This done he returned to his guests and told them that they were free, that their captors were gone, and that they might go where they pleased, but that it would gratify him much if they would consent to spend some time hunting with him in the neighbourhood of his village.

“Now,” said Disco, after Yambo left them, “this is wot I call the most uncommon fix that ever wos got into by man since Adam an’ Eve began housekeepin’ in the garden of Eden.”

“I’m not quite sure,” replied Harold, with a rueful look, “that it is absolutely the worst fix, but it is bad enough. The worst of it is that this Yambo has let these rascals off with all our fire-arms and camp-equipage, so that we are absolutely helpless—might as well be prisoners, for we can’t quit this village in such circumstances.”

“Wot’s wuss than that to my mind, sir, is, that here we are at sea, in the heart of Afriky, without chart, quadrant, compass, or rudder, an’ no more idea of our whereabouts than one o’ them spider monkeys that grins among the trees. Hows’ever, we’re in luck to fall into the hands of a friendly chief, so, like these same monkeys, we must grin an’ bear it; only I can’t help feelin’ a bit cast down at the loss of our messmates. I fear there’s no chance of their findin’ us.”

“Not the least chance in the world, I should say,” returned Harold. “They could not guess in which direction we had gone, and unless they had hit on the right road at first, every step they took afterwards would only widen the distance between us.”

“It’s lucky I was beginnin’ to mend before we was catched,” said Disco, feeling the muscles of his legs; “true, I ain’t much to boast of yet but I’m improvin’.”

“That is more than I can say for myself,” returned Harold, with a sigh, as he passed his hand across his forehead; “I feel as if this last push through the woods in the hot sun, and the weight of that terrible slave-stick had been almost too much for me.”

Disco looked earnestly and anxiously into the face of his friend.

“Wot,” asked he, “does you feel?”

“I can scarcely tell,” replied Harold, with a faint smile. “Oh, I suppose I’m a little knocked up, that’s all. A night’s rest will put me all right.”

“So I thought myself, but I wos wrong,” said Disco. “Let’s hear wot your feelin’s is, sir; I’m as good as any doctor now, I am, in regard to symptoms.”

“Well, I feel a sort of all-overishness, a kind of lassitude and sleepiness, with a slight headache, and a dull pain which appears to be creeping up my spine.”

“You’re in for it sir,” said Disco. “It’s lucky you have always carried the physic in your pockets, ’cause you’ll need it, an’ it’s lucky, too, that I am here and well enough to return tit for tat and nurse you, ’cause you’ll have that ’ere pain in your spine creep up your back and round your ribs till it lays hold of yer shoulders, where it’ll stick as if it had made up its mind to stay there for ever an’ a day. Arter that you’ll get cold an’ shivering like ice—oh! doesn’t I know it well—an’ then hot as fire, with heavy head, an’ swimming eyes, an’ twisted sight, an’ confusion of—”

“Hold! hold!” cried Harold, laughing, “if you go on in that way I shall have more than my fair share of it! Pray stop, and leave me a little to find out for myself.”

“Well, sir, take a purge, and turn in at once, that’s my advice. I’ll dose you with quinine to-morrow mornin’, first thing,” said Disco, rising and proceeding forthwith to arrange a couch in a corner of the hut, which Yambo had assigned them.

Harold knew well enough that his follower was right. He took his advice without delay, and next morning found himself little better than a child, both physically and mentally, for the disease not only prostrated his great strength—as it had that of his equally robust companion—but, at a certain stage, induced delirium, during which he talked the most ineffable nonsense that his tongue could pronounce, or his brain conceive.

Poor Disco, who, of course, had been unable to appreciate the extent of his own delirious condition, began to fear that his leader’s mind was gone for ever, and Jumbo was so depressed by the unutterably solemn expression of the mariner’s once jovial countenance, that he did not once show his teeth for a whole week, save when engaged with meals.

As for Antonio, his nature not being very sympathetic, and his health being good, he rather enjoyed the quiet life and good living which characterised the native village, and secretly hoped that Harold might remain on the sick-list for a considerable time to come.

How long this state of affairs lasted we cannot tell, for both Harold and Disco lost the correct record of time during their respective illnesses.

Up to that period they had remembered the days of the week, in consequence of their habit of refraining from going out to hunt on Sundays, except when a dearth of meat in the larder rendered hunting a necessity. Upon these Sundays Harold’s conscience sometimes reproached him for having set out on his journey into Africa without a Bible. He whispered, to himself at first, and afterwards suggested to Disco, the excuse that his Bible had been lost in the wreck of his father’s vessel, and that, perhaps, there were no Bibles to be purchased in Zanzibar, but his conscience was a troublesome one, and refused to tolerate such bad reasoning, reminding him, reproachfully, that he had made no effort whatever to obtain a Bible at Zanzibar.

As time had passed, and some of the horrors of the slave-trade had been brought under his notice, many of the words of Scripture leaped to his remembrance, and the regret that he had not carried a copy with him increased. That touch of thoughtlessness, so natural to the young and healthy—to whom life has so far been only a garden of roses—was utterly routed by the stern and dreadful realities which had been recently enacted around him, and just in proportion as he was impressed with the lies, tyranny, cruelty, and falsehood of man, so did his thoughtful regard for the truth and the love of God increase, especially those truths that were most directly opposed to the traffic in human flesh, such as—“love your enemies,” “seek peace with all men,” “be kindly affectioned one to another,” “whatsoever ye would that men should do unto you, do ye even so to them.” An absolute infidel, he thought, could not fail to perceive that a most blessed change would come over the face of Africa if such principles prevailed among its inhabitants, even in an extremely moderate degree.

But to return, the unfortunate travellers were now “at sea” altogether in regard to the Sabbath as well as the day of the month. Indeed their minds were not very clear as to the month itself!

“Hows’ever,” said Disco, when this subject afterwards came to be discussed, “it don’t matter much. Wot is it that the Scriptur’ says,—‘Six days shalt thou labour an’ do all that thou hast to do, but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God. In it thou shalt do no work.’ I wos used always to stick at that pint w’en my poor mother was a-teachin’ of me. Never got past it. But it’s enough for present use anyhow, for the orders is, work six days an’ don’t work the seventh. Werry good, we’ll begin to-day an’ call it Monday; we’ll work for six days, an’ w’en the seventh day comes we’ll call it Sunday. If it ain’t the right day, we can’t help it; moreover, wot’s the odds? It’s the seventh day, so that to us it’ll be the Sabbath.”

But we anticipate. Harold was still—at the beginning of this digression—in the delirium of fever, though there were symptoms of improvement about him.

One afternoon one of these symptoms was strongly manifested in a long, profound slumber. While he slept Disco sat on a low stool beside him, busily engaged with a clasp-knife on some species of manufacture, the nature of which was not apparent at a glance.

His admirer, Jumbo, was seated on a stool opposite, gazing at him open-mouthed, with a countenance that reflected every passing feeling of his dusky bosom.

Both men were so deeply absorbed in their occupation—Disco in his manufacture, and Jumbo in staring at Disco—that they failed for a considerable time to observe that Harold had wakened suddenly, though quietly, and was gazing at them with a look of lazy, easy-going surprise.

The mariner kept up a running commentary on his work, addressed to Jumbo indeed, but in a quiet interjectional manner that seemed to imply that he was merely soliloquising, and did not want or expect a reply.

“It’s the most ’stror’nary notion, Jumbo, between you and me and the post, that I ever did see. Now, then, this here bullet-head wants a pair o’ eyes an’ a nose on it; the mouth’ll do, but it’s the mouth as is most troublesome, for you niggers have got such wappin’ muzzles—it’s quite a caution, as the Yankees say,”—(a pause)—“on the whole, however, the nose is very difficult to manage on a flat surface, ’cause w’y?—if I leaves it quite flat, it don’t look like a nose, an’ if I carves it out ever so little, it’s too prominent for a nigger nose. There, ain’t that a good head, Jumbo?”

Thus directly appealed to, Jumbo nodded his own head violently, and showed his magnificent teeth from ear to ear, gums included.

Disco laid down the flat piece of board which he had carved into the form of a human head, and took up another piece, which was rudely blocked out into the form of a human leg—both leg and head being as large as life.

“Now this limb, Jumbo,” continued Disco, slowly, as he whittled away with the clasp-knife vigorously, “is much more troublesome than I would have expected; for you niggers have got such abominably ill-shaped legs below the knee. There’s such an unnat’ral bend for’ard o’ the shin-bone, an’ such a rediklous sticking out o’ the heel astarn, d’ee see, that a feller with white man notions has to make a study of it, if he sets up for a artist; in course, if he don’t set up for a artist any sort o’ shape’ll do, for it don’t affect the jumpin’. Ha! there they go,” he exclaimed, with a humorous smile at a hearty shout of laughter which was heard just outside the hut, “enjoyin’ the old ’un; but it’s nothin’ to wot the noo ’un’ll be w’en it’s finished.”

At this exhibition of amusement on the countenance of his friend, Jumbo threw back his head and again showed not only his teeth and gums but the entire inside of his mouth, and chuckled softly from the region of his breast-bone.

“I’m dreaming, of course,” thought Harold, and shut his eyes.

Poor fellow! he was very weak, and the mere act of shutting his eyes induced a half-slumber. He awoke again in a few minutes, and re-opening his eyes, beheld the two men still sitting, and occupied as before.

“It is a wonderfully pertinacious dream,” thought Harold. “I’ll try to dissipate it.”

Thinking thus, he called out aloud,—“I say, Disco!”

“Hallo! that’s uncommon like the old tones,” exclaimed the seaman, dropping his knife and the leg of wood as he looked anxiously at his friend.

“What old tones?” asked Harold.

“The tones of your voice,” said Disco.

“Have they changed so much of late?” inquired Harold in surprise.

“Have they? I should think they have, just. W’y, you haven’t spoke like that, sir, for—but, surely—are you better, or is this on’y another dodge o’ yer madness?” asked Disco with a troubled look.

“Ah! I suppose I’ve been delirious, have I?” said Harold with a faint smile.

To this Disco replied that he had not only been delirious, but stark staring mad, and expressed a very earnest hope that, now he had got his senses hauled taut again, he’d belay them an’ make all fast for, if he didn’t, it was his, Disco’s opinion, that another breeze o’ the same kind would blow ’em all to ribbons.

“Moreover,” continued Disco, firmly, “you’re not to talk. I once nursed a messmate through a fever, an’ I remember that the doctor wos werry partikler w’en he began to come round, in orderin’ him to hold his tongue an’ keep quiet.”

“You are right Disco. I will keep quiet, but you must first tell me what you are about, for it has roused my curiosity, and I can’t rest till I know.”

“Well, sir, I’ll tell you, but don’t go for to make no obsarvations on it. Just keep your mouth shut an’ yer ears open, an’ I’ll do all the jawin’. Well, you must know, soon after you wos took bad, I felt as if I’d like some sort o’ okipation w’en sittin’ here watchin’ of you—Jumbo an’ me’s bin takin’ the watch time about, for Antony isn’t able to hold a boy, much less you w’en you gits obstropolous—Well, sir, I had took a sort o’ fancy for Yambo’s youngest boy, for he’s a fine, brave little shaver, he is, an’ I thought I’d make him some sort o’ toy, an’ it struck me that the thing as ’ud please him most ’ud be a jumpin’-jack, so I set to an’ made him one about a futt high.

“You never see such a face o’ joy as that youngster put on, sir, w’en I took it to him an’ pulled the string. He give a little squeak of delight he did, tuk it in his hands, an’ ran home to show it to his mother. Well, sir, wot d’ee think, the poor boy come back soon after, blubberin’ an’ sobbin’, as nat’ral as if he’d bin an English boy, an’ says he to Tony, says he, ‘Father’s bin an’ took it away from me!’ I wos surprised at this, an’ went right off to see about it, an’ w’en I come to Yambo’s hut wot does I see but the chief pullin’ the string o’ the jumpin’-jack, an’ grinnin’ an’ sniggerin’ like a blue-faced baboon in a passion—his wife likewise standin’ by holdin’ her sides wi’ laughin’. Well, sir, the moment I goes in, up gits the chief an’ shouts for Tony, an’ tells him to tell me that I must make him a jumpin’-jack! In course I says I’d do it with all the pleasure in life; and he says that I must make it full size, as big as hisself! I opened my eyes at this, but he said he must have a thing that was fit for a man—a chief—so there was nothin’ for it but to set to work. An’ it worn’t difficult to manage neither, for they supplied me with slabs o’ timber an inch thick an’ I soon blocked out the body an’ limbs with a hatchet an’ polished ’em off with my knife, and then put ’em together. W’en the big jack wos all right Yambo took it away, for he’d watched me all the time I wos at it, an’ fixed it up to the branch of a tree an’ set to work.

“I never, no I never, did,” continued Disco, slapping his right thigh, while Jumbo grinned in sympathy, “see sitch a big baby as Yambo became w’en he got that monstrous jumpin’-jack into action—with his courtiers all round him, their faces blazin’ with surprise, or conwulsed wi’ laughter. The chief hisself was too hard at work to laugh much. He could only glare an’ grin, for, big an’ strong though he is, the jack wos so awful heavy that it took all his weight an’ muscle haulin’ on the rope which okipied the place o’ the string that we’re used to.

“‘Haul away, my hearty,’ thought I, w’en I seed him heavin’, blowin’, an’ swettin’ at the jack’s halyards, ‘you’ll not break that rope in a hurry.’

“But I was wrong, sir, for, although the halyards held on all right, I had not calkilated on such wiolent action at the joints. All of a sudden off comes a leg at the knee. It was goin’ the up’ard kick at the time, an’ went up like a rocket, slap through a troop o’ monkeys that was lookin’ on aloft, which it scattered like foam in a gale. Yambo didn’t seem to care a pinch o’ snuff. His blood was up. The sweat was runnin’ off him like rain. ‘Hi!’ cries he, givin’ another most awful tug. But it wasn’t high that time, for the other leg came off at the hip-jint on the down kick, an’ went straight into the buzzum of a black warrior an’ floored him wuss than he ever wos floored since he took to fightin’. Yambo didn’t care for that either. He gave another haul with all his might, which proved too much for jack without his legs, for it threw his arms out with such force that they jammed hard an’ fast, as if the poor critter was howlin’ for mercy!

“Yambo looked awful blank at this. Then he turned sharp round and looked at me for all the world as if he meant to say ‘wot d’ee mean by that? eh!’

“‘He shouldn’t ought to lick into him like that,’ says I to Tony, ‘the figure ain’t made to be druv by a six-horse power steam-engine! But tell him I’ll fix it up with jints that’ll stand pullin’ by an elephant, and I’ll make him another jack to the full as big as that one an’ twice as strong.’

“This,” added Disco in conclusion, taking up the head on which he had been engaged, “is the noo jack. The old un’s outside working away at this moment like a win’-mill. Listen; don’t ’ee hear ’em?”

Harold listened and found no difficulty in hearing them, for peals of laughter and shrieks of delight burst forth every few minutes, apparently from a vast crowd outside the hut.

“I do believe,” said Disco, rising and going towards the door of the hut “that you can see ’em from where you lay.”

He drew aside the skin doorway as he spoke, and there, sure enough, was the gigantic jumping-jack hanging from the limb of a tree, clearly defined against the sky, and galvanically kicking about its vast limbs, with Yambo pulling fiercely at the tail, and the entire tribe looking on steeped in ecstasy and admiration.

It may easily be believed that the sight of this, coupled with Disco’s narrative, was almost too much for Harold’s nerves, and for some time he exhibited, to Disco’s horror, a tendency to repeat some antics which would have been much more appropriate to the jumping-jack, but, after a warm drink administered by his faithful though rough nurse, he became composed, and finally dropped into a pleasant sleep, which was not broken till late the following morning.

Refreshed in body, happy in mind, and thankful in spirit he rose to feel that the illness against which he had fought for many days was conquered, and that, although still very weak, he had fairly turned the corner, and had begun to regain some of his wonted health and vigour.

Chapter Twenty.

Harold Appears in a New Character, and Two Old Characters Reappear to Harold.

The mind of Yambo was a strange compound—a curious mixture of gravity and rollicking joviality; at one time displaying a phase of intense solemnity; at another exhibiting quiet pleasantry and humour, but earnestness was the prevailing trait of his character. Whether indulging his passionate fondness for the jumping-jack, or engaged in guiding the deliberations of his counsellors, the earnest chief was equally devoted to the work in hand. Being a savage—and, consequently, led entirely by feeling, which is perhaps the chief characteristic of savage, as distinguished from civilised, man,—he hated his enemies with exceeding bitterness, and loved his friends with all his heart.

Yambo was very tender to Harold during his illness, and the latter felt corresponding gratitude, so that there sprang up between the two a closer friendship than one could have supposed to be possible, considering that they were so different from each other, mentally, physically, and socially, and that their only mode of exchanging ideas was through the medium of a very incompetent interpreter.

Among other things Harold discovered that his friend the chief was extremely fond of anecdotes and stories. He, therefore, while in a convalescent state and unable for much physical exercise, amused himself, and spent much of his time, in narrating to him the adventures of Robinson Crusoe. Yambo’s appetite for mental food increased, and when Crusoe’s tale was finished he eagerly demanded more. Some of his warriors also came to hear, and at last the hut was unable to contain the audiences that wished to enter. Harold, therefore, removed to an open space under a banyan-tree, and there daily, for several hours, related all the tales and narratives with which he was acquainted, to the hundreds of open-eyed and open-mouthed negroes who squatted around him.

At first he selected such tales as he thought would be likely to amuse, but these being soon exhausted, he told them about anything that chanced to recur to his memory. Then, finding that their power to swallow the marvellous was somewhat crocodilish, he gave them Jack the Giant-killer, and Jack of Beanstalk notoriety, and Tom Thumb, Cinderella, etcetera, until his entire nursery stock was exhausted, after which he fell back on his inventive powers; but the labour of this last effort proving very considerable, and the results not being adequately great, he took to history, and told them stories about William Tell, and Wallace, and Bruce, and the Puritans of England, and the Scottish Covenanters, and the discoveries of Columbus, until the eyes and mouths of his black auditors were held so constantly and widely on the stretch, that Disco began to fear they would become gradually incapable of being shut, and he entertained a fear that poor Antonio’s tongue would, ere long, be dried up at the roots.

At last a thought occurred to our hero, which he promulgated to Disco one morning as they were seated at breakfast on the floor of their hut.

“It seems to me, Disco,” he said, after a prolonged silence, during which they had been busily engaged with their knives and wooden spoons, “that illness must be sent sometimes, to teach men that they give too little of their thoughts to the future world.”

“Werry true, sir,” replied Disco, in that quiet matter-of-course tone with which men generally receive axiomatic verities; “we is raither given to be swallered up with this world, which ain’t surprisin’ neither, seein’ that we’ve bin putt into it, and are surrounded by it, mixed up with it, steeped in it, so to speak, an’ can’t werry well help ourselves.”

“That last is just the point I’m not quite so sure about,” rejoined Harold. “Since I’ve been lying ill here, I have thought a good deal about forgetting to bring a Bible with me, and about the meaning of the term Christian, which name I bear; and yet I can’t, when I look honestly at it, see that I do much to deserve the name.”

“Well, I don’t quite see that, sir,” said Disco, with an argumentative curl of his right eyebrow; “you doesn’t swear, or drink, or steal, or commit murder, an’ a many other things o’ that sort. Ain’t that the result o’ your being a Christian.”

“It may be so, Disco, but that is only what may be styled the don’t side of the question. What troubles me is, that I don’t see much on the do side of it.”

“You says your prayers, sir, don’t you?” asked Disco, with the air of a man who had put a telling question.

“Well, yes,” replied Harold; “but what troubles me is that, while in my creed I profess to think the salvation of souls is of such vital importance, in my practice I seem to say that it is of no importance at all, for here have I been, for many weeks, amongst these black fellows, and have never so much as mentioned the name of our Saviour to them, although I have been telling them no end of stories of all kinds, both true and fanciful.”

“There’s something in that sir,” admitted Disco. Harold also thought there was so much in it that he gave the subject a great deal of earnest consideration, and finally resolved to begin to tell the negroes Bible stories. He was thus gradually led to tell them that “old, old story” of God the Saviour’s life and death, and love for man, which he found interested, affected, and influenced the savages far more powerfully than any of the tales, whether true or fanciful, with which he had previously entertained them. While doing this a new spirit seemed to actuate himself, and to influence his whole being.

While Harold was thus led, almost unconsciously, to become a sower of the blessed seed of God’s Word, Marizano was working his way through the country, setting forth, in the most extreme manner, the ultimate results of man’s sinful nature, and the devil’s lies.

One of his first deeds was to visit a village which was beautifully situated on the banks of a small but deep river. In order to avoid alarming the inhabitants, he approached it with only about thirty of his men, twenty of whom were armed. Arrived at the outskirts, he halted his armed men, and advanced with the other ten, calling out cheerfully, “We have things for sale! have you anything to sell?” The chief and his warriors, armed with their bows and arrows and shields, met him, and forbade him to pass within the hedge that encircled the village, but told him to sit down under a tree outside. A mat of split reeds was placed for Marizano to sit on; and when he had explained to the chief that the object of his visit was to trade with him for ivory—in proof of which he pointed to the bales which his men carried,—he was well received, and a great clapping of hands ensued. Presents were then exchanged, and more clapping of hands took place, for this was considered the appropriate ceremony. The chief and his warriors, on sitting down before Marizano and his men, clapped their hands together, and continued slapping on their thighs while handing their presents, or when receiving those of their visitors. It was the African “thank you.” To have omitted it would have been considered very bad manners.

Soon a brisk trade was commenced, in which the entire community became ere long deeply and eagerly absorbed.

Meanwhile Marizano’s armed men were allowed to come forward. The women prepared food for the strangers; and after they had eaten and drunk of the native beer heartily, Marizano asked the chief if he had ever seen fire-arms used.

“Yes,” replied the chief, “but only once at a great distance off. It is told to me that your guns kill very far off—much further than our bows. Is that so?”

“It is true,” replied Marizano, who was very merry by this time under the influence of the beer, as, indeed, were also his men and their entertainers. “Would you like to see what our guns can do?” asked the half-caste. “If you will permit me, I shall let you hear and see them in use.”

The unsuspecting chief at once gave his consent. His visitors rose; Marizano gave the word; a volley was poured forth which instantly killed the chief and twenty of his men. The survivors fled in horror. The young women and children were seized; the village was sacked—which means that the old and useless members of the community were murdered in cold blood, and the place was set on fire—and Marizano marched away with his band of captives considerably augmented, leaving a scene of death and horrible desolation behind him. (See Livingstone’s Zambesi and its Tributaries, pages 201, 202.)

Thus did that villain walk through the land with fire and sword procuring slaves for the supply of the “domestic institution” of the Sultan of Zanzibar.

By degrees the murderer’s drove of black “cattle” increased to such an extent that when he approached the neighbourhood of the village in which Harold and Disco sojourned, he began to think that he had obtained about as many as he could conveniently manage, and meditated turning his face eastward, little dreaming how near he was to a thousand dollars’ worth of property, in the shape of ransom for two white men!

He was on the point of turning back and missing this when he chanced to fall in with a villager who was out hunting, and who, after a hot chase, was captured. This man was made much of, and presented with some yards of cloth as well as a few beads, at the same time being assured that he had nothing to fear; that the party was merely a slave-trading one; that the number of slaves required had been made up, but that a few more would be purchased if the chief of his village had any to dispose of.

On learning from the man that his village was a large one, fully two days’ march from the spot where he stood, and filled with armed men, Marizano came to the conclusion that it would not be worth his while to proceed thither, and was about to order his informant to be added to his gang with a slave-stick round his neck, when he suddenly bethought him of inquiring as to whether any white men had been seen in these parts. As he had often made the same inquiry before without obtaining any satisfactory answer, it was with great surprise that he now heard from his captive of two white men being in the very village about which he had been conversing.

At once he changed his plan, resumed his march, and, a couple of days afterwards, presented himself before the astonished eyes of Harold Seadrift and Disco Lillihammer, while they were taking a walk about a mile from the village.

Disco recognised the slave-trader at once, and, from the troubled as well as surprised look of Marizano, it was pretty evident that he remembered the countenance of Disco.

When the recollection of Marizano’s cruelty at the time of their first meeting flashed upon him, Disco felt an almost irresistible desire to rush upon and strangle the Portuguese, but the calm deportment of that wily man, and the peaceful manner in which he had approached, partly disarmed his wrath. He could not however, quite restrain his tongue.

“Ha!” said he, “you are the blackguard that we met and pretty nigh shot when we first came to these parts, eh? Pity we missed you, you black-hearted villain!”

As Marizano did not understand English, these complimentary remarks were lost on him. He seemed, however, to comprehend the drift of them, for he returned Disco’s frown with a stare of defiance.

“Whatever he was, or whatever he is,” interposed Harold, “we must restrain ourselves just now, Disco, because we cannot punish him as he deserves, however much we may wish to, and he seems to have armed men enough to put us and our entertainers completely in his power. Keep quiet while I speak to him.”

Jumbo and Antonio, armed with bows and arrows,—for they were in search of small game wherewith to supply the pot—came up, looking very much surprised, and the latter a good deal frightened.

“Ask him, Antonio,” said Harold, “what is his object in visiting this part of the country.”

“To procure slaves,” said Marizano, curtly.

“I thought so,” returned Harold; “but he will find that the men of this tribe are not easily overcome.”

“I do not wish to overcome them,” said the half-caste. “I have procured enough of slaves, as you see,” (pointing to the gang which was halted some hundred yards or so in rear of his armed men), “but I heard that you were prisoners here, and I have come to prove to you that even a slave-trader can return good for evil. You did this,” he said, looking at Disco, and pointing to his old wound in the arm; “I now come to deliver you from slavery.”

Having suppressed part of the truth, and supplemented the rest of it with this magnificent lie, Marizano endeavoured to look magnanimous.

“I don’t believe a word of it,” said Disco, decidedly.

“I incline to doubt it too,” said Harold; “but he may have some good reason of his own for his friendly professions towards us. In any case we have no resource left but to assume that he speaks the truth.”

Turning to Marizano, he said:—

“We are not prisoners here. We are guests of the chief of this village.”

“In that case,” replied the half-caste, “I can return to the coast without you.”

As he said this a large band of the villagers, having discovered that strangers had arrived, drew near. Marizano at once advanced, making peaceful demonstrations, and, after the requisite amount of clapping of hands on both sides, stated the object for which he had come. He made no attempt to conceal the fact that he was a slave-trader, but said that, having purchased enough of slaves, he had visited their village because of certain rumours to the effect that some white men had been lost in these regions, and could not find their way back to the coast. He was anxious, he said, to help these white men to do so, but, finding that the white men then at the village were not the men he was in search of, and did not want to go to the coast, he would just stay long enough with the chief to exchange compliments, and then depart.

All this was translated to the white men in question by their faithful ally Antonio, and when they retired to consult as to what should be done, they looked at each other with half amused and half perplexed expressions of countenance.

“Werry odd,” said Disco, “how contrairy things turns up at times!”

“Very odd indeed,” assented Harold, laughing. “It is quite true that we are, in one sense, lost and utterly unable to undertake a journey through this country without men, means, or arms; and nothing could be more fortunate than that we should have the chance, thus suddenly thrown in our way, of travelling under the escort of a band of armed men; nevertheless, I cannot bear the idea of travelling with or being indebted to a slave-trader and a scoundrel like Marizano.”

“That’s w’ere it is, sir,” said Disco with emphasis, “I could stand anything a’most but that.”

“And yet,” pursued Harold, “it is our only chance. I see quite well that we may remain for years here without again having such an opportunity or such an escort thrown in our way.”

“There’s no help for it, I fear,” said Disco. “We must take it like a dose o’ nasty physic—hold our nobs, shut our daylights, an’ down with it. The only thing I ain’t sure of is your ability to travel. You ain’t strong yet.”

“Oh, I’m strong enough now, or very nearly so, and getting stronger every day. Well, then, I suppose it’s settled that we go?”

“Humph! I’m agreeable, an’ the whole business werry disagreeable,” said Disco, making a wry face.

Marizano was much pleased when the decision of the white men was made known to him, and the native chief was naturally much distressed, for, not only was he about to lose two men of whom he had become very fond, but he was on the point of being bereft of his story-teller, the opener up of his mind, the man who, above all others, had taught him to think about his Maker and a future state.

He had sense enough, however, to perceive that his guests could not choose but avail themselves of so good an opportunity, and, after the first feeling of regret was over, made up his mind to the separation.

Next day Harold and Disco, with feelings of strong revulsion, almost of shame, fell into the ranks of the slave-gang, and for many days thereafter marched through the land in company with Marizano and his band of lawless villains.

Marizano usually walked some distance ahead of the main body with a few trusty comrades. Our adventurers, with their two followers, came next in order of march, the gang of slaves in single file followed, and the armed men brought up the rear. It was necessarily a very long line, and at a distance resembled some hideous reptile crawling slowly and tortuously through the fair fields and plains of Africa.

At first there were no stragglers, for the slaves were as yet, with few exceptions, strong and vigorous. These exceptions, and the lazy, were easily kept in the line by means of rope and chain, as well as the rod and lash.

Harold and Disco studiously avoided their leader during the march. Marizano fell in with their humour and left them to themselves. At nights they made their own fire and cooked their own supper, as far removed from the slave camp as was consistent with safety, for they could not bear to witness the sufferings of the slaves, or to look upon their captors. Even the food that they were constrained to eat appeared to have a tendency to choke them, and altogether their situation became so terrible that they several times almost formed the desperate resolution of leaving the party and trying to reach the coast by themselves as they best might, but the utter madness and hopelessness of such a project soon forced itself on their minds, and insured its being finally abandoned.

One morning Marizano threw off his usual reserve, and, approaching the white men, told them that in two hours they would reach the lake where his employer was encamped.

“And who is your master?” asked Harold.

“A black-faced or yellow-faced blackguard like himself, I doubt not,” growled Disco.

Antonio put Harold’s question without Disco’s comment, and Marizano replied that his master was an Arab trader, and added that he would push on in advance of the party and inform him of their approach.

Soon afterwards the lake was reached. A large dhow was in readiness, the gang was embarked and ferried across to a place where several rude buildings and barracoons, with a few tents, indicated that it was one of the inland headquarters of the trade in Black Ivory.

The moment our travellers landed Marizano led them to one of the nearest buildings, and introduced them to his master.

“Yoosoof!” exclaimed Disco in a shout of astonishment.

It would have been a difficult question to have decided which of the three faces displayed the most extreme surprise. Perhaps Disco’s would have been awarded the palm, but Yoosoof was undoubtedly the first to regain his self-possession.

“You be surprised,” he said, in his very broken English, while his pale-yellow visage resumed its placid gravity of expression.

“Undoubtedly we are,” said Harold.

“Bu’stin’!” exclaimed Disco.

“You would be not so mush surprised,—did you know dat I comes to here every year, an’ dat Engleesh consul ask me for ’quire about you.”

“If that be so, how comes it that you were surprised to see us?” asked Harold.

“’Cause why, I only knows dat some white mans be loss theirselfs—not knows what mans—not knows it was you.”

“Well now,” cried Disco, unable to restrain himself as he turned to Harold, “did ever two unfortnits meet wi’ sitch luck? Here have we bin’ obliged for days to keep company with the greatest Portugee villian in the country, an’ now we’re needcessitated to be under a obligation to the greatest Arab scoundrel in Afriky.”

The scoundrel in question smiled and shrugged his shoulders.

“Yoosoof,” cried Disco, clenching his fist and looking full in the trader’s eyes, “when I last saw yer ugly face, I vowed that if ever I seed it again I’d leave my mark on it pretty deep, I did; and now I does see it again, but I haven’t the moral courage to touch sitch a poor, pitiful, shrivelled-up package o’ bones an’ half-tanned leather. Moreover, I’m goin’ to be indebted to ’ee! Ha! ha!” (he laughed bitterly, and with a dash of wild humour in the tone), “to travel under yer care, an’ eat yer accursed bread, and—and—oh! there ain’t no sitch thing as shame left in my corpus. I’m a low mean-spirited boastful idiot, that’s wot I am, an’ I don’t care the fag-end of a hunk o’ gingerbread who knows it.”

After this explosion the sorely tried mariner brought his right hand down on his thigh with a tremendous crack, turned about and walked away to cool himself.

Chapter Twenty One.

Progress of the Slave-Run—The Deadly Swamp, and the Unexpected Rescue.

We will now leap over a short period of time—about two or three weeks—during which the sable procession had been winding its weary way over hill and dale, plain and swamp.

During that comparatively brief period, Harold and Disco had seen so much cruelty and suffering that they both felt a strange tendency to believe that the whole must be the wild imaginings of a horrible dream. Perhaps weakness, resulting from illness, might have had something to do with this peculiar feeling of unbelief, for both had been subject to a second, though slight, attack of fever. Nevertheless, coupled with their scepticism was a contradictory and dreadful certainty that they were not dreaming, but that what they witnessed was absolute verity.

It is probable that if they had been in their ordinary health and vigour they would have made a violent attempt to rescue the slaves, even at the cost of their own lives. But severe and prolonged illness often unhinges the mind as well as the body, and renders the spirit all but impotent.

One sultry evening the sad procession came to a long stretch of swamp, and prepared to cross it. Although already thinned by death, the slave-gang was large. It numbered several hundreds, and was led by Marizano; Yoosoof having started some days in advance in charge of a similar gang.

Harold and Disco were by that time in the habit of walking together in front of the gang, chiefly for the purpose of avoiding the sight of cruelties and woes which they were powerless to prevent or assuage. On reaching the edge of the swamp, however, they felt so utterly wearied and dis-spirited that they sat down on a bank to rest, intending to let the slave-gang go into the swamp before them and then follow in rear. Antonio and Jumbo also remained with them.

“You should go on in front,” said Marizano significantly, on observing their intention.

“Tell him we’ll remain where we are,” said Disco sternly to Antonio.

Marizano shrugged his shoulders and left them.

The leading men of the slave-gang were ordered to advance, as soon as the armed guard had commenced the toilsome march over ground into which they sank knee-deep at every step.

The first man of the gang hesitated and heaved a deep sigh as though his heart failed him at the prospect—and well it might, for, although young, he was not robust, and over-driving, coupled with the weight and the chafing of the goree, had worn him to a skeleton.

It was not the policy of the slave-traders to take much care of their Black Ivory. They procured it so cheaply that it was easier and more profitable to lose or cast away some of it, than to put off time in resting and recruiting the weak.

The moment it was observed, therefore, that the leading man hesitated, one of the drivers gave him a slash across his naked back with a heavy whip which at once drew blood. Poor wretch; he could ill bear further loss of the precious stream of life, for it had already been deeply drained from him by the slave-stick. The chafing of that instrument of torture had not only worn the skin off his shoulders, but had cut into the quivering flesh, so that blood constantly dropped in small quantities from it.

No cry burst from the man’s lips on receiving the cruel blow, but he turned his eyes on his captors with a look that seemed to implore for mercy. As well might he have looked for mercy at the hands of Satan. The lash again fell on him with stinging force. He made a feeble effort to advance, staggered, and fell to the ground, dragging down the man to whom he was coupled with such violence as almost to break his neck. The lash was again about to be applied to make him rise, but Disco and Harold rose simultaneously and rushed at the driver, with what intent they scarcely knew; but four armed half-castes stepped between them and the slave.

“You had better not interfere,” said Marizano, who stood close by.

“Out of the way!” cried Harold fiercely, in the strength of his passion hurling aside the man who opposed him.

“You shan’t give him another cut,” said Disco between his teeth, as he seized the driver by the throat.

“We don’t intend to do so,” said Marizano coolly, while the driver released himself from poor Disco’s weakened grasp, “he won’t need any more.”

The Englishmen required no explanation of these words. A glance told them that the man was dying.

“Cut him out,” said Marizano.

One of his men immediately brought a saw and cut the fork of the stick which still held the living to the dying man, and which, being riveted on them, could not otherwise be removed.

Harold and Disco lifted him up as soon as he was free, and carrying him a short distance aside to a soft part of the bank, laid him gently down.

The dying slave looked as if he were surprised at such unwonted tenderness. There was even a slight smile on his lips for a few moments, but it quickly passed away with the fast ebbing tide of life.

“Go fetch some water,” said Harold. “His lips are dry.”

Disco rose and ran to fill a small cocoa-nut-shell which he carried at his girdle as a drinking-cup. Returning with it he moistened the man’s lips and poured a little of the cool water on the raw sores on each side of his neck.

They were so much engrossed with their occupation that neither of them observed that the slave-gang had commenced to pass through the swamp, until the sharp cry of a child drew their attention to it for a moment; but, knowing that they could do no good, they endeavoured to shut their eyes and ears to everything save the duty they had in hand.

By degrees the greater part of the long line had got into the swamp and were slowly toiling through it under the stimulus of the lash. Some, like the poor fellow who first fell, had sunk under their accumulated trials, and after a fruitless effort on the part of the slavers to drive them forward, had been kicked aside into the jungle, there to die, or to be torn in pieces by that ever-watchful scavenger of the wilderness, the hyena. These were chiefly women, who having become mothers not long before were unable to carry their infants and keep up with the gang. Others, under the intense dread of flagellation, made the attempt, and staggered on a short distance, only to fall and be left behind in the pestilential swamp, where rank reeds and grass closed over them and formed a ready grave.

The difficulties of the swamp were, however, felt most severely by the children, who, from little creatures of not much more than five years of age to well-grown boys and girls, were mingled with and chained to the adults along the line. Their comparatively short legs were not well adapted for such ground, and not a few of them perished there; but although the losses here were terribly numerous in one sense, they after all bore but a small proportion to those whose native vigour carried them through in safety.

Among the men there were some whose strength of frame and fierce expression indicated untameable spirits—men who might have been, probably were, heroes among their fellows. It was for men of this stamp that the goree, or slave-stick, had been invented, and most effectually did that instrument serve its purpose. Samson himself would have been a mere child in it.

There were men in the gang quite as bold, if not as strong, as Samson. One of these, a very tall and powerful negro, on drawing near to the place where Marizano stood superintending the passage, turned suddenly aside, and, although coupled by the neck to a fellow-slave, and securely bound at the wrists with a cord, which was evidently cutting into his swelled flesh, made a desperate kick at the half-caste leader.

Although the slave failed to reach him, Marizano was so enraged that he drew a hatchet from his belt and instantly dashed out the man’s brains. He fell dead without even a groan. Terrified by this, the rest passed on more rapidly, and there was no further check till a woman in the line, with an infant on her back, stumbled, and, falling down, appeared unable to rise.

“Get up!” shouted Marizano, whose rage had rather been increased than abated by the murder he had just committed.

The woman rose and attempted to advance, but seemed ready to fall again. Seeing this, Marizano plucked the infant from her back, dashed it against a tree, and flung its quivering body into the jungle, while a terrible application of the lash sent the mother shrieking into the swamp. (See Livingstone’s Zambesi and its Tributaries, page 857; and for a record of cruelties too horrible to be set down in a book like this, we refer the reader to McLeod’s Travels in Eastern Africa, volume two page 26. Also to the Appendix of Captain Sulivan’s Dhow-Chasing in Zanzibar Waters, which contains copious and interesting extracts from evidence taken before the Select Committee of the House of Commons.)

Harold and Disco did not witness this, though they heard the shriek of despair, for at the moment the negro they were tending was breathing his last. When his eyes had closed and the spirit had been set free, they rose, and, purposely refraining from looking back, hurried away from the dreadful scene, intending to plunge into the swamp at some distance from the place, and push on until they should regain the head of the column.

“Better if we’d never fallen behind, sir,” said Disco, in a deep, tremulous voice.

“True,” replied Harold. “We should have been spared these sights, and the pain of knowing that we cannot prevent this appalling misery and cruelty.”

“But surely it is to be prevented somehow,” cried Disco, almost fiercely. “Many a war that has cost mints o’ money has been carried on for causes that ain’t worth mentionin’ in the same breath with this!”

As Harold knew not what to say, and was toiling knee-deep in the swamp at the moment he made no reply.

After marching about half an hour he stopped abruptly and said, with a heavy sigh,—“I hope we haven’t missed our way?”

“Hope not sir, but it looks like as if we had.”

“I’ve bin so took up thinkin’ o’ that accursed traffic in human bein’s that I’ve lost my reckonin’. Howsever, we can’t be far out, an’, with the sun to guide us, we’ll—”

He was stopped by a loud halloo in the woods, on the belt of the swamp.

It was repeated in a few seconds, and Antonio, who, with Jumbo, had followed his master, cried in an excited tone—

“Me knows dat sound!”

“Wot may it be, Tony?” asked Disco.

There was neither time nor need for an answer, for at that moment a ringing cry, something like a bad imitation of a British cheer, was heard, and a band of men sprang out of the woods and ran at full speed towards our Englishmen.

“Why, Zombo!” exclaimed Disco, wildly.

“Oliveira!” cried Harold.

“Masiko! Songolo!” shouted Antonio and Jumbo.

“An’ José, Nakoda, Chimbolo, Mabruki!—the whole bun’ of ’em,” cried Disco, as one after another these worthies emerged from the wood and rushed in a state of frantic excitement towards their friends—“Hooray!”

“Hooroo-hay!” replied the runners.

In another minute our adventurous party of travellers was re-united, and for some time nothing but wild excitement, congratulations, queries that got no replies, and replies that ran tilt at irrelevant queries, with confusion worse confounded by explosions of unbounded and irrepressible laughter not unmingled with tears, was the order of the hour.

“But wat! yoos ill?” cried Zombo suddenly, looking into Disco’s face with an anxious expression.

“Well, I ain’t ’xac’ly ill, nor I ain’t ’xac’ly well neither, but I’m hearty all the same, and werry glad to see your black face, Zombo.”

“Ho! hooroo-hay! so’s me for see you,” cried the excitable Zombo; “but come, not good for talkee in de knees to watter. Fall in boy, ho! sholler ’ums—queek mash!”

That Zombo had assumed command of his party was made evident by the pat way in which he trolled off the words of command formerly taught to him by Harold, as well as by the prompt obedience that was accorded to his orders. He led the party out of the swamp, and, on reaching a dry spot, halted, in order to make further inquiries and answer questions.

“How did you find us, Zombo?” asked Harold, throwing himself wearily on the ground.

“Yoos ill,” said Zombo, holding up a finger by way of rebuke.

“So I am, though not so ill as I look. But come, answer me. How came you to discover us? You could not have found us by mere chance in this wilderness?”

“Chanz; wat am chanz?” asked the Makololo.

There was some difficulty in getting Antonio to explain the word, from the circumstance of himself being ignorant of it, therefore Harold put the question in a more direct form.

“Oh! ve comes here look for yoo, ’cause peepils d’reck ’ums—show de way. Ve’s been veeks, monts, oh! days look for yoo. Travil far—g’rong road—turin bak—try agin—fin’ yoo now—hooroo-hay!”

“You may say that, indeed. I’d have it in my heart,” said Disco, “to give three good rousin’ British cheers if it warn’t for the thoughts o’ that black-hearted villain, Marizano, an’ his poor, miserable slaves.”

“Marizano!” shouted Chimbolo, glaring at Harold.

“Marizano!” echoed Zombo, glaring at Disco.

Harold now explained to his friends that the slave-hunter was close at hand—a piece of news which visibly excited them,—and described the cruelties of which he had recently been a witness. Zombo showed his teeth like a savage mastiff, and grasped his musket as though he longed to use it, but he uttered no word until the narrative reached that point in which the death of the poor captive was described. Then he suddenly started forward and said something to his followers in the native tongue, which caused each to fling down the small bundle that was strapped to his shoulders.

“Yoo stop here,” he cried, earnestly, as he turned to Harold and Disco. “Ve’s com bak soon. Ho! boys, sholler ’ums! queek mash!”

No trained band of Britons ever obeyed with more ready alacrity. No attention was paid to Harold’s questions. The “queek mash” carried them out of sight in a few minutes, and when the Englishmen, who had run after them a few paces, halted, under the conviction that in their weak condition they might as well endeavour to keep up with race-horses as with their old friends, they found that Antonio alone remained to keep them company.

“Where’s Jumbo?” inquired Harold.

“Gon’ ’way wid oders,” replied the interpreter.

Examining the bundles of their friends, they found that their contents were powder, ball, and food. It was therefore resolved that a fire should be kindled, and food prepared, to be ready for their friends on their return.

“I’m not so sure about their return,” said Harold gravely. “They will have to fight against fearful odds if they find the slavers. Foolish fellows; I wish they had not rushed away so madly without consulting us.”

The day passed; night came and passed also, and another day dawned, but there was no appearance of Zombo and his men, until the sun had been up for some hours. Then they came back, wending their way slowly—very slowly—through the woods, with the whole of the slave-gang, men, women, and children, at their heels!

“Where is Marizano?” inquired Harold, almost breathless with surprise.

“Dead!” said Zombo.

“Dead?”

“Ay, dead, couldn’t be deader.”

“And his armed followers?”

“Dead, too—some ob ums. Ve got at um in de night. Shotted Marizano all to hatoms. Shotted mos’ ob um follerers too. De res’ all scatter like leaves in de wind. Me giv’ up now,” added Zombo, handing his musket to Harold. “Boys! orrer ums! mees Capitin not no more. Now, Capitin Harol’, yoos once more look afer us, an’ take care ob all ums peepil.”

Having thus demitted his charge, the faithful Zombo stepped back and left our hero in the unenviable position of a half broken-down man with the responsibility of conducting an expedition, and disposing of a large gang of slaves in some unknown part of equatorial Africa!

Leaving him there, we will proceed at once to the coast and follow, for a time, the fortunes of that archvillain, Yoosoof.

Chapter Twenty Two.

Describes “Black Ivory” at Sea.

Having started for the coast with a large gang of slaves a short time before Marizano, as we have already said, and having left the Englishmen to the care of the half-caste, chiefly because he did not desire their company, although he had no objection to the ransom, Yoosoof proceeded over the same track which we have already described in part, leaving a bloody trail behind him.

It is a fearful track, of about 500 miles in length, that which lies between the head of Lake Nyassa and the sea-coast at Kilwa. We have no intention of dragging the reader over it to witness the cruelties and murders that were perpetrated by the slavers, or the agonies endured by the slaves. Livingstone speaks of it as a land of death, of desolation, and dead men’s bones. And no wonder, for it is one of the main arteries through which the blood of Africa flows, like the water of natural rivers, to the sea. The slave-gangs are perpetually passing eastward through it—perpetually dropping four-fifths of their numbers on it as they go. Dr Livingstone estimates that, in some cases, not more than one-tenth of the slaves captured reach the sea-coast alive. It is therefore rather under than over-stating the case to say that out of every hundred starting from the interior, eighty perish on the road.

Yoosoof left with several thousands of strong and healthy men, women, and children—most of them being children—he arrived at Kilwa with only eight hundred. The rest had sunk by the way, either from exhaustion or cruel treatment, or both. The loss was great; but as regards the trader it could not be called severe, because the whole gang of slaves cost him little—some of them even nothing!—and the remaining eight hundred would fetch a good price. They were miserably thin, indeed, and exhibited on their poor, worn, and travel-stained bodies the evidence of many a cruel castigation; but Yoosoof knew that a little rest and good feeding at Kilwa would restore them to some degree of marketable value, and at Zanzibar he was pretty sure of obtaining, in round numbers, about 10 pounds a head for them, while in the Arabian and Persian ports he could obtain much more, if he chose to pass beyond the treaty-protected water at Lamoo, and run the risk of being captured by British cruisers. It is “piracy” to carry slaves north of Lamoo. South of that point for hundreds of miles, robbery, rapine, murder, cruelty, such as devils could not excel if they were to try, is a “domestic institution” with which Britons are pledged not to interfere!

Since the above was written Sir Bartle Frere has returned from his mission, and we are told that a treaty has been signed by the Sultan of Zanzibar putting an end to this domestic slavery. We have not yet seen the terms of this treaty, and must go to press before it appears. We have reason to rejoice and be thankful, however, that such an advantage has been gained. But let not the reader imagine that this settles the question of East African slavery. Portugal still holds to the “domestic institution” in her colonies, and has decreed that it shall not expire till the year 1878. Decreed, in fact, that the horrors which we have attempted to depict shall continue for five years longer! And let it be noted, that the export slave-trade cannot be stopped as long as domestic slavery is permitted. Besides this, there is a continual drain of human beings from Africa through Egypt. Sir Samuel Baker’s mission is a blow aimed at that; but nothing, that we know of, is being done in regard to Portuguese wickedness. If the people of this country could only realise the frightful state of things that exists in the African Portuguese territory, and knew how many thousand bodies shall be racked with torture, and souls be launched into eternity during these five years, they would indignantly insist that Portugal should be compelled to stop it at once. If it is righteous to constrain the Sultan of Zanzibar, is it not equally so to compel the King of Portugal?

The arch robber and murderer, Yoosoof—smooth and oily of face, tongue, and manner though he was—possessed a bold spirit and a grasping heart. The domestic institution did not suit him. Rather than sneak along his villainous course under its protecting “pass,” he resolved to bid defiance to laws, treaties, and men-of-war to boot—as many hundreds of his compeers have done and do—and make a bold dash to the north with his eight hundred specimens of Black Ivory.

Accordingly, full of his purpose, one afternoon he sauntered up to the barracoons in which his “cattle” were being rested and fed-up.

Moosa, his chief driver, was busy among them with the lash, for, like other cattle, they had a tendency to rebel, at least a few of them had; the most of them were by that time reduced to the callous condition which had struck Harold and Disco so much on the occasion of their visits to the slave-market of Zanzibar.

Moosa was engaged, when Yoosoof entered, in whipping most unmercifully a small boy whose piercing shrieks had no influence whatever on his tormentor. Close beside them a large strong-boned man lay stretched on the ground. He had just been felled with a heavy stick by Moosa for interfering. He had raised himself on one elbow, while with his right hand he wiped away the blood that oozed from the wound in his head, and appeared to struggle to recover himself from the stunning blow.

“What has he been doing?” asked Yoosoof carelessly, in Portuguese.

“Oh, the old story, rebelling,” said Moosa, savagely hurling the boy into the midst of a group of cowering children, amongst whom he instantly shrank as much as possible out of sight. “That brute,” pointing to the prostrate man, “was a chief, it appears, in his own country, and has not yet got all the spirit lashed out of him. But it can’t last much longer; either the spirit or the life must go. He has carried that little whelp the last part of the way on his back, and now objects to part with him,—got fond of him, I fancy. If you had taken my advice you would have cast them both to the hyenas long ago.”

“You are a bad judge of human flesh, Moosa,” said Yoosoof, quietly; “more than once you have allowed your passion to rob me of a valuable piece of goods. This man will fetch a good price in Persia, and so will his son. I know that the child is his son, though the fool thinks no one knows that but himself, and rather prides himself on the clever way in which he has continued to keep his whelp beside him on the journey down. Bah! what can one expect from such cattle? Don’t separate them, Moosa. They will thrive better together. If we only get them to market in good condition, then we can sell them in separate lots without risking loss of value from pining.”

In a somewhat sulky tone, for he was not pleased to be found fault with by his chief, the slave-driver ordered out the boy, who was little more than five years old, though the careworn expression of his thin face seemed to indicate a much more advanced age.

Trembling with alarm, for he expected a repetition of the punishment, yet not daring to disobey, the child came slowly out from the midst of his hapless companions, and advanced. The man who had partly recovered rose to a sitting position, and regarded Moosa and the Arab with a look of hatred so intense that it is quite certain he would have sprung at them, if the heavy slave-stick had not rendered such an act impossible.

“Go, you little whelp,” said Moosa, pointing to the fallen chief, and at the same time giving the child a cut with the whip.

With a cry of mingled pain and delight poor Obo, for it was he, rushed into his father’s open arms, and laid his sobbing head on his breast. He could not nestle into his neck as, in the days of old, he had been wont to do,—the rough goree effectually prevented that.

Kambira bent his head over the child and remained perfectly still. He did not dare to move, lest any action, however inoffensive, might induce Moosa to change his mind and separate them again.

Poor Kambira! How different from the hearty, bold, kindly chief to whom we introduced the reader in his own wilderness home! His colossal frame was now gaunt in the extreme, and so thin that every rib stood out as though it would burst the skin, and every joint seemed hideously large, while from head to foot his skin was crossed and recrossed with terrible weals, and scarred with open sores, telling of the horrible cruelties to which he had been subjected in the vain attempt to tame his untameable spirit. There can be no question that, if he had been left to the tender mercies of such Portuguese half-caste scoundrels as Moosa or Marizano, he would have been brained with an axe or whipped to death long ago. But Yoosoof was more cool and calculating in his cruelty; he had more respect for his pocket than for the gratification of his angry feelings. Therefore Kambira had reached the coast alive.

Little had the simple chief imagined what awaited him on that coast, and on his way to it, when, in the fulness of his heart, he had stated to Harold Seadrift his determination to proceed thither in search of Azinté. Experience had now crushed hope, and taught him to despair. There was but one gleam of light in his otherwise black sky, and that was the presence of his boy. Life had still one charm in it as long as he could lay hold of Obo’s little hand and hoist him, not quite so easily as of yore, on his broad shoulders. Yoosoof was sufficiently a judge of human character to be aware that if he separated these two, Kambira would become more dangerous to approach than the fiercest monster in the African wilderness.

“We must sail to-night and take our chance,” said Yoosoof, turning away from his captives; “the time allowed for our trade is past and I shall run straight north without delay.”

The Arab here referred to the fact that the period of the year allowed by treaty for the “lawful slave-trade” of the Zanzibar dominions had come to an end. That period extended over several months, and during its course passes from the Sultan secured “domestic slavers” against the British cruisers. After its expiration no export of slaves was permitted anywhere; nevertheless a very large export was carried on, despite non-permission and cruisers. Yoosoof meant to run the blockade and take his chance.

“How many dhows have you got?” asked Yoosoof.

“Three,” replied Moosa.

“That will do,” returned the Arab after a few minutes’ thought; “it will be a tight fit at first, perhaps, but a few days at sea will rectify that. Even in the most healthy season and favourable conditions we must unfortunately count on a good many losses. We shall sail to-morrow.”

The morrow came, and three dhows left the harbour of Kilwa, hoisted their lateen sails, and steered northwards.

They were densely crowded with slaves. Even to the eye of a superficial observer this would have been patent, for the upper deck of each was so closely packed with black men, women, and children, that a square inch of it could not anywhere be seen.

They were packed very systematically, in order to secure economical stowage. Each human being sat on his haunches with his thighs against his breast, and his knees touching his chin. They were all ranged thus in rows, shoulder to shoulder, and back to shin, so that the deck was covered with a solid phalanx of human flesh. Change of posture was not provided for: it was not possible. There was no awning over the upper deck. The tropical sun poured its rays on the heads of the slaves all day. The dews fell on them all night. The voyage might last for days or weeks, but there was no relief to the wretched multitude. For no purpose whatever could they move from their terrible position, save for the one purpose of being thrown overboard when dead.

But we have only spoken of the upper deck of these dhows. Beneath this there was a temporary bamboo deck, with just space sufficient to admit of men being seated in the position above referred to. This was also crowded, but it was not the “Black Hole” of the vessel. That was lower still. Seated on the stone ballast beneath the bamboo deck there was yet another layer of humanity, whose condition can neither be described nor conceived. Without air, without light, without room to move, without hope; with insufferable stench, with hunger and thirst, with heat unbearable, with agony of body and soul, with dread anticipations of the future, and despairing memories of the past, they sat for days and nights together—fed with just enough of uncooked rice and water to keep soul and body together.

Not enough in all cases, however, for many succumbed, especially among the women and children.

Down in the lowest, filthiest, and darkest corner of this foul hold sat Kambira, with little Obo crushed against his shins. It may be supposed that there was a touch of mercy in this arrangement. Let not the reader suppose so. Yoosoof knew that if Kambira was to be got to market alive, Obo must go along with him. Moosa also knew that if the strong-minded chief was to be subdued at all, it would only be by the most terrible means. Hence his position in the dhow.

There was a man seated alongside of Kambira who for some time had appeared to be ill. He could not be seen, for the place was quite dark, save when a man came down with a lantern daily to serve out rice and water; but Kambira knew that he was very ill from his groans and the quiverings of his body. One night these groans ceased, and the man leaned heavily on the chief—not very heavily, however, he was too closely wedged in all round to admit of that. Soon afterwards he became very cold, and Kambira knew that he was dead. All that night and the greater part of next day the dead man sat propped up by his living comrades. When the daily visitor came down, attention was drawn to the body and it was removed.

Moosa, who was in charge of this dhow (Yoosoof having command of another), gave orders to have the slaves in the hold examined, and it was discovered that three others were dead and two dying. The dead were thrown overboard; the dying were left till they died, and then followed their released comrades.

But now a worse evil befell that dhow. Smallpox broke out among the slaves.

It was a terrible emergency, but Moosa was quite equal to it. Ordering the infected, and suspected, slaves to be brought on deck, he examined them. In this operation he was assisted and accompanied by two powerful armed men. There were passengers on board the dhow, chiefly Arabs, and a crew, as well as slaves. The passengers and crew together numbered about thirty-four, all of whom were armed to the teeth. To these this inspection was of great importance, for it was their interest to get rid of the deadly disease as fast as possible.

The first slave inspected, a youth of about fifteen, was in an advanced stage of the disease, in fact, dying. A glance was sufficient and at a nod from Moosa, the two powerful men seized him and hurled him into the sea. The poor creature was too far gone even to struggle for life. He sank like a stone. Several children followed. They were unquestionably smitten with the disease, and were at once thrown overboard. Whether the passengers felt pity or no we cannot say. They expressed none, but looked on in silence.

So far the work was easy, but when men and women were brought up on whom the disease had not certainly taken effect, Moosa was divided between the desire to check the progress of the evil, and the desire to save valuable property.

The property itself also caused some trouble in a few instances, for when it became obvious to one or two of the stronger slave-girls and men what was going to be done with them, they made a hard struggle for their lives, and the two strong men were under the necessity of using a knife, now and then, to facilitate the accomplishment of their purpose. But such cases were rare. Most of the victims were callously submissive; it might not be beyond the truth, in some cases, to say willingly submissive.

Each day this scene was enacted, for Moosa was a very determined man, and full forty human beings were thus murdered, but the disease was not stayed. The effort to check it was therefore given up, and the slaves were left to recover or die where they sat. See account of capture of dhow by Captain Robert B. Cay, of H.M.S. “Vulture,” in the Times of India, 1872.

While this was going on in the vessel commanded by Moosa, the other two dhows under Yoosoof and a man named Suliman had been lost sight of. But this was a matter of little moment, as they were all bound for the same Persian port, and were pretty sure, British cruisers permitting, to meet there at last. Meanwhile the dhow ran short of water, and Moosa did not like to venture at that time to make the land, lest he should be caught by one of the hated cruisers or their boats. He preferred to let the wretched slaves take their chance of dying of thirst—hoping, however, to lose only a few of the weakest, as water could be procured a little farther north with greater security.

Thus the horrible work of disease, death, and murder went on, until an event occurred which entirely changed the aspect of affairs on board the dhow.

Early one morning, Moosa directed the head of his vessel towards the land with the intention of procuring the much needed water. At the same hour and place two cutters belonging to H.M.S. ‘Firefly,’ armed with gun and rocket, twenty men, and an interpreter, crept out under sail with the fishing boats from a neighbouring village. They were under the command of Lieutenants Small and Lindsay respectively. For some days they had been there keeping vigilant watch, but had seen no dhows, and that morning were proceeding out rather depressed by the influence of “hope deferred,” when a sail was observed in the offing—or, rather, a mast, for the sail of the dhow had been lowered—the owners intending to wait until the tide should enable them to cross the bar.

“Out oars and give way, lads,” was the immediate order; for it was necessary to get up all speed on the boats if the dhow was to be reached before she had time to hoist her huge sail.

“I hope the haze will last,” earnestly muttered Lieutenant Small in the first cutter.

“Oh that they may keep on sleeping for five minutes more,” excitedly whispered Lieutenant Lindsay in the second cutter.

These hopes were coupled with orders to have the gun and rocket in readiness.

But the haze would not last to oblige Mr Small, neither would the Arabs keep on sleeping to please Mr Lindsay. On the contrary, the haze dissipated, and the Arabs observed and recognised their enemies when within about half a mile. With wonderful celerity they hoisted sail and stood out to sea in the full-swing of the monsoon.

There was no little probability that the boats would fail to overhaul a vessel with so large a sail, therefore other means were instantly resorted to.

“Fire!” said Mr Small.

“Fire!” cried Mr Lindsay.

Bang went the gun, whiz went the rocket, almost at the same moment. A rapid rifle-fire was also opened on the slaver—shot, rocket, and ball bespattered the sea and scattered foam in the air, but did no harm to the dhow, a heavy sea and a strong wind preventing accuracy of aim.

“Give it them as fast as you can,” was now the order; and well was the order obeyed, for blue-jackets are notoriously smart men in action, and the gun, the rocket, and the rifles kept up a smart iron storm for upwards of two hours, during which time the exciting chase lasted.

At last Jackson, the linguist who was in the stern of Lindsay’s boat, mortally wounded the steersman of the dhow with a rifle-ball at a distance of about six hundred yards. Not long afterwards the rocket-cutter, being less heavily weighted than her consort, crept ahead, and when within about a hundred and fifty yards of the slaver, let fly a well-directed rocket. It carried away the parrell which secured the yard of the dhow to the mast and brought the sail down instantly on the deck.

“Hurra!” burst irresistibly from the blue-jackets.

The Arabs were doubly overwhelmed, for besides getting the sail down on their heads, they were astonished and stunned by the shriek, smoke, and flame of the war-rocket. The gun-cutter coming up at the moment the two boats ranged alongside of the slaver, and boarded together.

As we have said, the crew and passengers, numbering thirty-four, were armed to the teeth, and they had stood by the halyards during the chase with drawn creases, swearing to kill any one who should attempt to shorten sail. These now appeared for a moment as though they meditated resistance, but the irresistible dash of the sailors seemed to change their minds, for they submitted without striking a blow, though many of them were very reluctant to give up their swords and knives.

Fortunately the ‘Firefly’ arrived in search of her boats that evening, and the slaves were transferred to her deck. But who shall describe the harrowing scene! The dhow seemed a very nest of black ants, it was so crowded, and the sailors, who had to perform the duty of removing the slaves, were nearly suffocated by the horrible stench. Few of the slaves could straighten themselves after their long confinement. Indeed some of them were unable to stand for days afterwards, and many died on board the ‘Firefly’ before they reached a harbour of refuge and freedom. Those taken from the hold were in the worst condition, especially the children, many of whom were in the most loathsome stages of smallpox, and scrofula of every description. They were so emaciated and weak that many had to be carried on board, and lifted for every movement.

Kambira, although able to stand, was doubled up like an old man, and poor little Obo trembled and staggered when he attempted to follow his father, to whom he still clung as to his last and only refuge.

To convey these poor wretches to a place where they could be cared for was now Captain Romer’s chief anxiety. First however, he landed the crew and passengers, with the exception of Moosa and three of his men. The filthy dhow was then scuttled and sunk, after which the ‘Firefly’ steamed away for Aden, that being the nearest port where the rescued slaves could be landed and set free.

Chapter Twenty Three.

The Remedy.

Reader, we will turn aside at this point to preach you a lay sermon, if you will lend an attentive ear. It shall be brief, and straight to the point. Our text is,—Prevention and Cure.

There are at least three great channels by which the life-blood of Africa is drained. One trends to the east through the Zanzibar dominions, another to the south-east through the Portuguese dependencies, and a third to the north through Egypt. If the slave-trade is to be effectually checked, the flow through these three channels must be stopped. It is vain to rest content with the stoppage of one leak in our ship if two other leaks are left open.

Happily, in regard to the first of these channels, Sir Bartle Frere has been successful in making a grand stride in the way of prevention. If the Sultan of Zanzibar holds to his treaty engagements, “domestic slavery” in his dominions is at an end. Nevertheless, our fleet will be required just as much as ever to prevent the unauthorised, piratical, slave-trade, and this, after all, is but one-third of the preventive work we have to do. Domestic slavery remains untouched in the Portuguese dependencies, and Portugal has decreed that it shall remain untouched until the year 1878! It is well that we should be thoroughly impressed with the fact that so long as slavery in any form is tolerated, the internal—we may say infernal—miseries and horrors which we have attempted to depict will continue to blight the land and brutalise its people. Besides this, justice demands that the same constraint which we lay on the Sultan of Zanzibar should be applied to the King of Portugal. We ought to insist that his “domestic slavery” shall cease at once. Still further, as Sir Bartle Frere himself has recommended, we should urge upon our Government the appointment of efficient consular establishments in the Portuguese dependencies, as well as vigilance in securing the observance of the treaties signed by the Sultans of Zanzibar and Muscat.

A recent telegram from Sir Samuel Baker assures us that a great step has been made in the way of checking the tide of slavery in the third—the Egyptian—channel, and Sir Bartle Frere bears testimony to the desire of the Khedive that slavery should be put down in his dominions. For this we have reason to be thankful; and the appearance of affairs in that quarter is hopeful, but our hope is mingled with anxiety, because mankind is terribly prone to go to sleep on hopeful appearances. Our nature is such, that our only chance of success lies, under God, in resolving ceaselessly to energise until our ends be accomplished. We must see to it that the Khedive of Egypt acts in accordance with his professions, and for this end efficient consular agency is as needful in the north-east as in the south-east.

So much for prevention, but prevention is not cure. In order to accomplish this two things are necessary. There must be points or centres of refuge for the oppressed on the mainland of Africa, and there must be the introduction of the Bible. The first is essential to the second. Where anarchy, murder, injustice, and tyranny are rampant and triumphant, the advance of the missionary is either terribly slow or altogether impossible. The life-giving, soul-softening Word of God, is the only remedy for the woes of mankind, and, therefore, the only cure for Africa. To introduce it effectually, and along with it civilisation and all the blessings that flow therefrom, it is indispensable that Great Britain should obtain, by treaty or by purchase, one or more small pieces of land, there to establish free Christian negro settlements, and there, with force sufficient to defend them from the savages, and worse than savages,—the Arab and Portuguese half-caste barbarians and lawless men who infest the land—hold out the hand of friendship to all natives who choose to claim her protection from the man-stealer, and offer to teach them the blessed truths of Christianity and the arts of civilisation. Many of the men who are best fitted to give an opinion on the point agree in holding that some such centre, or centres, on the mainland are essential to the permanent cure of slavery, although they differ a little as to the best localities for them. Take, for instance, Darra Salaam on the coast, the Manganja highlands near the river Shire, and Kartoum on the Nile. Three such centres would, if established, begin at once to dry up the slave-trade at its three fountain-heads, while our cruisers would check it on the coast. In these centres of light and freedom the negroes might see exemplified the blessings of Christianity and civilisation, and, thence, trained native missionaries might radiate into all parts of the vast continent armed only with the Word of God, the shield of Faith, and the sword of the Spirit in order to preach the glad tidings of salvation through Jesus Christ our Lord.

In brief, the great points on which we ought as a nation, to insist, are the immediate abolition of the slave-trade in Portuguese dependencies; the scrupulous fulfilment of treaty obligations by the Sultans of Zanzibar and Muscat, the Shah of Persia, and the Khedive of Egypt; the establishment by our Government of efficient consular agencies where such are required; the acquisition of territory on the mainland for the purposes already mentioned, and the united action of all Christians in our land to raise funds and send men to preach the Gospel to the negro. So doing we shall, with God’s blessing, put an end to the Eastern slave-trade, save equatorial Africa, and materially increase the commerce, the riches, and the happiness of the world.

Chapter Twenty Four.

Tells of Sad Sights, and Sudden Events, and Unexpected Meetings.

In the course of time, our hero, Harold Seadrift, and his faithful ally, Disco Lillihammer, after innumerable adventures which we are unwillingly obliged to pass over in silence, returned to the coast and, in the course of their wanderings in search of a vessel which should convey them to Zanzibar, found themselves at last in the town of Governor Letotti. Being English travellers, they were received as guests by the Governor, and Harold was introduced to Senhorina Maraquita.

Passing through the market-place one day, they observed a crowd round the flag-staff in the centre of the square, and, following the irresistible tendency of human nature in such circumstances, ran to see what was going on.

They found that a slave was about to be publicly whipped by soldiers. The unhappy man was suspended by the wrists from the flag-staff, and a single cord of coir round his waist afforded him additional support.

“Come away, we can do no good here,” said Harold, in a low, sorrowful tone, which was drowned in the shriek of the victim, as the first lash fell on his naked shoulders.

“Pra’ps he’s a criminal,” suggested Disco, as he hurried away, endeavouring to comfort himself with the thought that the man probably deserved punishment. “It’s not the whippin’ I think so much of,” he added; “that is the only thing as will do for some characters, but it’s the awful cruelties that goes along with it.”

Returning through the same square about an hour later, having almost forgotten about the slave by that time, they were horrified to observe that the wretched man was still hanging there.

Hastening towards him, they found that he was gasping for breath. His veins were bursting, and his flesh was deeply lacerated by the cords with which he was suspended. He turned his head as the Englishmen approached, and spoke a few words which they did not understand; but the appealing look of his bloodshot eyes spoke a language that required no interpreter.

At an earlier period in their career in Africa, both Harold and Disco would have acted on their first impulse, and cut the man down; but experience had taught them that this style of interference, while it put their own lives in jeopardy, had sometimes the effect of increasing the punishment and sufferings of those whom they sought to befriend.

Acting on a wiser plan, they resolved to appeal to Governor Letotti in his behalf. They therefore ran to his residence, where Maraquita, who conversed with Harold in French, informed them that her father was in the “Geresa,” or public palaver house. To that building they hastened, and found that it was in the very square they had left. But Senhor Letotti was not there. He had observed the Englishmen coming, and, having a shrewd guess what their errand was, had disappeared and hid himself. His chief-officer informed them that he had left the town early in the morning, and would not return till the afternoon.

Harold felt quite sure that this was a falsehood, but of course was obliged to accept it as truth.

“Is there no one to act for the Governor in his absence?” he asked, anxiously.

No, there was no one; but after a few minutes the chief-officer appeared to be overcome by Harold’s earnest entreaties, and said that he could take upon himself to act, that he would suspend the punishment till the Governor’s return, when Harold might prefer his petition to him in person.

Accordingly, the slave was taken down. In the afternoon Harold saw the Governor, and explained that he did not wish to interfere with his province as a magistrate, but that what he had witnessed was so shocking that he availed himself of his privilege as a guest to pray that the man’s punishment might be mitigated.

Governor Letotti’s health had failed him of late, and he had suffered some severe disappointments in money matters, so that his wonted amiability had been considerably reduced. He objected, at first, to interfere with the course of justice; but finally gave a reluctant consent, and the man was pardoned. Afterwards, however, when our travellers were absent from the town for a day, the wretched slave was again tied up, and the full amount of his punishment inflicted; in other words, he was flogged to death. (For the incident on which this is founded we are indebted to the Reverend Doctor Ryan, late Bishop of the Mauritius.)

This incident had such an effect on the mind of Harold, that he resolved no longer to accept the hospitality of Governor Letotti. He had some difficulty, however, in persuading himself to carry his resolve into effect, for the Governor, although harsh in his dealing with the slave, had been exceedingly kind and amiable to himself; but an unexpected event occurred which put an end to his difficulties. This was the illness and sudden death of his host.

Poor, disconsolate Maraquita, in the first passion of her grief, fled to the residence of the only female friend she had in the town, and refused firmly to return home. Thus it came to pass that Harold’s intercourse with the Senhorina was cut short at its commencement, and thus he missed the opportunity of learning something of the fortunes of Azinté; for it is certain that, if they had conversed much together, as would probably have been the case had her father lived, some mention of the slave-girl’s name could not fail to have been made, and their mutual knowledge of her to have been elicited and interchanged.

In those days there was no regular communication between one point and another of the east coast of Africa and the neighbouring islands. Travellers had frequently to wait long for a chance; and when they got one were often glad to take advantage of it without being fastidious as to its character. Soon after the events above narrated, a small trading schooner touched at the port. It was bound for the Seychelles, intending to return by Zanzibar and Madagascar, and proceed to the Cape. Harold would rather have gone direct to Zanzibar, but, having plenty of time on his hands, as well as means, he was content to avail himself of the opportunity, and took passage in the schooner for himself, Disco, and Jumbo. That sable and faithful friend was the only one of his companions who was willing to follow him anywhere on the face of the earth. The others received their pay and their discharge with smiling faces, and scattered to their several homes—Antonio departing to complete his interrupted honeymoon.

Just before leaving, Harold sought and obtained permission to visit Maraquita, to bid her good-bye. The poor child was terribly overwhelmed by the death of her father, and could not speak of him without giving way to passionate grief. She told Harold that she meant to leave the coast by the first opportunity that should offer, and proceed to the Cape of Good Hope, where, in some part of the interior, lived an old aunt, the only relative she now had on earth, who, she knew, would be glad to receive her. Our hero did his best to comfort the poor girl, and expressed deep sympathy with her, but felt that his power to console was very small indeed. After a brief interview he bade her farewell.

The voyage which our travellers now commenced was likely to be of considerable duration, for the Seychelles Islands lie a long way to the eastward of Africa, but as we have said, time was of no importance to Harold, and he was not sorry to have an opportunity of visiting a group of islands which are of some celebrity in connexion with the East African slave-trade. Thus, all unknown to himself or Disco, as well as to Maraquita, who would have been intensely interested had she known the fact, he was led towards the new abode of our sable heroine Azinté.

But alas! for Kambira and Obo,—they were being conveyed, also, of course, unknown to themselves or to any one else, further and further away from one whom they would have given their heart’s blood to meet with and embrace, and it seemed as if there were not a chance of any gleam of light bridging over the ever widening gulf that lay between them, for although Lieutenant Lindsay knew that Azinté had been left at the Seychelles, he had not the remotest idea that Kambira was Azinté’s husband, and among several hundreds of freed slaves the second lieutenant of the ‘Firefly’ was not likely to single out, and hold converse with a chief whose language he did not understand, and who, as far as appearances went, was almost as miserable, sickly, and degraded as were the rest of the unhappy beings by whom he was surrounded.

Providence, however, turned the tide of affairs in favour of Kambira and his son. On reaching Zanzibar Captain Romer had learned from the commander of another cruiser that Aden was at that time somewhat overwhelmed with freed slaves, a considerable number of captures having been recently made about the neighbourhood of that great rendezvous of slavers, the island of Socotra.

The captain therefore changed his mind, and once more very unwillingly directed his course towards the distant Seychelles.

On the way thither many of the poor negroes died, but many began to recover strength under the influence of kind treatment and generous diet. Among these latter was Kambira. His erect gait and manly look soon began to return, and his ribs, so to speak, to disappear. It was otherwise with poor Obo. The severity of the treatment to which he had been exposed was almost too much for so young a frame. He lost appetite and slowly declined, notwithstanding the doctor’s utmost care.

This state of things continuing until the ‘Firefly’ arrived at the Seychelles, Obo was at once conveyed to the hospital which we have referred to as having been established there.

Azinté chanced to be absent in the neighbouring town on some errand connected with her duties as nurse, when her boy was laid on his bed beside a number of similar sufferers. It was a sad sight to behold these little ones. Out of the original eighty-three children who had been placed there forty-seven had died in three weeks, and the remnant were still in a pitiable condition. While on their beds of pain, tossing about in their delirium, the minds of these little ones frequently ran back to their forest homes, and while some, in spirit, laughed and romped once more around their huts, thousands of miles away on the banks of some African river, others called aloud in their sufferings for the dearest of all earthly beings to them—their mothers. Some of them also whispered the name of Jesus, for the missionary had been careful to tell them the story of our loving Lord, while tending their poor bodies.

Obo had fevered slightly, and in the restless half-slumber into which he fell on being put to bed, he, too, called earnestly for his mother. In his case, poor child, the call was not in vain.

Lieutenant Lindsay and the doctor of the ship, with Kambira, had accompanied Obo to the hospital.

“Now, Lindsay,” said the doctor, when the child had been made as comfortable as circumstances would admit of, “this man must not be left here, for he will be useless, and it is of the utmost consequence that the child should have some days of absolute repose. What shall we do with him?”

“Take him on board again,” said Lindsay. “I daresay we shall find him employment for a short time.”

“If you will allow me to take charge of him,” interposed the missionary, who was standing by them at the time, “I can easily find him employment in the neighbourhood, so that he can come occasionally to see his child when we think it safe to allow him.”

“That will be the better plan,” said the doctor, “for as long as—”

A short sharp cry near the door of the room cut the sentence short.

All eyes were turned in that direction and they beheld Azinté gazing wildly at them, and standing as if transformed to stone.

The instant Kambira saw his wife he leaped up as if he had received an electric shock, bounded forward like a panther, uttered a shout that did full credit to the chief of a warlike African tribe, and seized Azinté in his arms.

No wonder that thirty-six little black heads leaped from thirty-six little white pillows, and displayed all the whites of seventy-two eyes that were anything but little, when this astonishing scene took place!

But Kambira quickly recovered himself, and, grasping Azinté by the arm, led her gently towards the bed which had just been occupied, and pointed to the little one that slumbered uneasily there. Strangely enough, just at the moment little Obo again whispered the word “mother.”

Poor Azinté’s eyes seemed ready to start from their sockets. She stretched out her arms and tried to rush towards her child, but Kambira held her back.

“Obo is very sick,” he said, “you must touch him tenderly.”

The chief looked into his wife’s eyes, saw that she understood him, and let her go.

Azinté crept softly to the bed, knelt down beside it and put her arms so softly round Obo that she scarcely moved him, yet she gradually drew him towards her until his head rested on her swelling bosom, and she pressed her lips tenderly upon his brow. It was an old familiar attitude which seemed to pierce the slumbers of the child with a pleasant reminiscence, and dissipate his malady, for he heaved a deep sigh of contentment and sank into profound repose.

“Good!” said the doctor, in a low tone, with a significant nod to Lindsay, when an interpreter had explained what had been already guessed by all present, that Kambira and Azinté were man and wife; “Obo has a better chance now of recovery than I had anticipated; for joy goes a long way towards effecting a cure. Come, we will leave them together.”

Kambira was naturally anxious to remain, but like all commanding spirits, he had long ago learned that cardinal virtue, “obedience to whom obedience is due.” When it was explained to him that it would be for Obo’s advantage to be left alone with his mother for a time, he arose, bowed his head, and meekly followed his friends out of the room.

Exactly one week from that date little Obo had recovered so much of his former health that he was permitted to go out into the air, and, a few days later, Lieutenant Lindsay resolved to take him, and his father and mother, on board the ‘Firefly,’ by way of a little ploy. In pursuance of this plan he set off from the hospital in company with Kambira, followed at a short distance by Azinté and Obo.

Poor Lindsay! his heart was heavy, while he did his best to convey in dumb show his congratulations to Kambira, for he saw in this unexpected re-union an insurmountable difficulty in the way of taking Azinté back to her former mistress—not that he had ever seen the remotest chance of his being able to achieve that desirable end before this difficulty arose, but love is at times insanely hopeful, just as at other times—and with equally little reason—it is madly despairing.

He had just made some complicated signs with hands, mouth, and eyebrows, and had succeeded in rendering himself altogether incomprehensible to his sable companion, when, on rounding a turn of the path that led to the harbour, he found himself suddenly face to face with Harold Seadrift, Disco Lillihammer, and their follower, Jumbo, all of whom had landed from a schooner, which, about an hour before, had cast anchor in the bay.

“Mr Lindsay!” “Mr Seadrift!” exclaimed each to the other simultaneously, for the reader will remember that they had met once before when our heroes were rescued from Yoosoof by the “Firefly.”

“Kambira!” shouted Disco.

“Azinté!” cried Harold, as our sable heroine came into view.

“Obo!” roared the stricken mariner.

Jumbo could only vent his feelings in an appalling yell and an impromptu war-dance round the party, in which he was joined by Disco, who performed a hornpipe with Obo in his arms, to the intense delight of that convalescent youngster.

Thus laughing, questioning, shouting, and dancing, they all effervesced towards the shore like a band of lunatics just escaped from Bedlam!

Chapter Twenty Five.

The Last.

“How comes it,” said Lieutenant Lindsay to Harold, on the first favourable opportunity that occurred after the meeting described in the last chapter; “how comes it that you and Kambira know each other so well?”

“I might reply by asking,” said Harold, with a smile, “how comes it that you are so well acquainted with Azinté? but, before putting that question, I will give a satisfactory answer to your own.”

Hereupon he gave a brief outline of those events, already narrated in full to the reader, which bore on his first meeting with the slave-girl, and his subsequent sojourn with her husband.

“After leaving the interior,” continued our hero, “and returning to the coast, I visited various towns in order to observe the state of the slaves in the Portuguese settlements, and, truly, what I saw was most deplorable—demoralisation and cruelty, and the obstruction of lawful trade, prevailed everywhere. The settlements are to my mind a very pandemonium on earth. Every one seemed to me more or less affected by the accursed atmosphere that prevails. Of course there must be some exceptions. I met with one, at the last town I visited, in the person of Governor Letotti.”

“Letotti!” exclaimed Lindsay, stopping abruptly.

“Yes!” said Harold, in some surprise at the lieutenant’s manner, “and a most amiable man he was—”

“Was!—was! What do you mean? Is—is he dead?” exclaimed Lindsay, turning pale.

“He died suddenly just before I left,” said Harold.

“And Maraquita—I mean his daughter—what of her?” asked the lieutenant, turning as red as he had previously turned pale.

Harold noted the change, and a gleam of light seemed to break upon him as he replied:—

“Poor girl, she was overwhelmed at first by the heavy blow. I had to quit the place almost immediately after the event.”

“Did you know her well?” asked Lindsay, with an uneasy glance at his companion’s handsome face.

“No; I had just been introduced to her shortly before her father’s death, and have scarcely exchanged a dozen sentences with her. It is said that her father died in debt, but of course in regard to that I know nothing certainly. At parting, she told me that she meant to leave the coast and go to stay with a relative at the Cape.”

The poor lieutenant’s look on hearing this was so peculiar, not to say alarming, that Harold could not help referring to it, and Lindsay was so much overwhelmed by such unexpected news, and, withal, so strongly attracted by Harold’s sympathetic manner, that he straightway made a confidant of him, told him of his love for Maraquita, of Maraquita’s love for Azinté, of the utter impossibility of his being able to take Azinté back to her old mistress, now that she had found her husband and child, even if it had been admissible for a lieutenant in the British navy to return freed negroes again into slavery, and wound up with bitter lamentations as to his unhappy fate, and expressions of poignant regret that fighting and other desperate means, congenial and easy to his disposition, were not available in the circumstances. After which explosion he subsided, felt ashamed of having thus committed himself, and looked rather foolish.

But Harold quickly put him at his ease. He entered on the subject with earnest gravity.

“It strikes me, Lindsay,” he said thoughtfully, after the lieutenant had finished, “that I can aid you in this affair; but you must not ask me how at present. Give me a few hours to think over it, and then I shall have matured my plans.”

Of course the lieutenant hailed with heartfelt gratitude the gleam of hope held out to him, and thus the friends parted for a time.

That same afternoon Harold sat under a palm-tree in company with Disco, Jumbo, Kambira, Azinté, and Obo.

“How would you like to go with me to the Cape of Good Hope, Kambira?” asked Harold abruptly.

“Whar dat?” asked the chief through Jumbo.

“Far away to the south of Africa,” answered Harold. “You know that you can never go back to your own land now, unless you want to be again enslaved.”

“Him say him no’ want to go back,” interpreted Jumbo; “got all him care for now—Azinté and Obo.”

“Then do you agree to go with me?” said Harold.

To this Kambira replied heartily that he did.

“W’y, wot do ’ee mean for to do with ’em?” asked Disco, in some surprise.

“I will get them comfortably settled there,” replied Harold. “My father has a business friend in Cape Town who will easily manage to put me in the way of doing it. Besides, I have a particular reason for wishing to take Azinté there.—Ask her, Jumbo, if she remembers a young lady named Senhorina Maraquita Letotti.”

To this Azinté replied that she did, and the way in which her eyes sparkled proved that she remembered her with intense pleasure.

“Well, tell her,” rejoined Harold, “that Maraquita has grieved very much at losing her, and is very anxious to get her back again—not as a slave, but as a friend, for no slavery is allowed in English settlements anywhere, and I am sure that Maraquita hates slavery as much as I do, though she is not English, so I intend to take her and Kambira and Obo to the Cape, where Maraquita is living—or will be living soon.”

“Ye don’t stick at trifles, sir,” said Disco, whose eyes, on hearing this, assumed a thoughtful, almost a troubled look.

“My plan does not seem to please you,” said Harold.

“Please me, sir, w’y shouldn’t it please me? In course you knows best; I was only a little puzzled, that’s all.”

Disco said no more, but he thought a good deal, for he had noted the beauty and sprightliness of Maraquita, and the admiration with which Harold had first beheld her; and it seemed to him that this rather powerful method of attempting to gratify the Portuguese girl was proof positive that Harold had lost his heart to her.

Harold guessed what was running in Disco’s mind, but did not care to undeceive him, as, in so doing, he might run some risk of betraying the trust reposed in him by Lindsay.

The captain of the schooner, being bound for the Cape after visiting Zanzibar, was willing to take these additional passengers, and the anxious lieutenant was induced to postpone total and irrevocable despair, although, Maraquita being poor, and he being poor, and promotion in the service being very slow, he had little reason to believe his prospects much brighter than they were before,—poor fellow!

Time passed on rapid wing—as time is notoriously prone to do—and the fortunes of our dramatis personae varied somewhat.

Captain Romer continued to roam the Eastern seas, along with brother captains, and spent his labour and strength in rescuing a few hundreds of captives from among the hundreds of thousands that were continually flowing out of unhappy Africa. Yoosoof and Moosa continued to throw a boat-load or two of damaged “cattle” in the way of the British cruisers, as a decoy, and succeeded on the whole pretty well in running full cargoes of valuable Black Ivory to the northern markets. The Sultan of Zanzibar continued to assure the British Consul that he heartily sympathised with England in her desire to abolish slavery, and to allow his officials, for a “consideration,” to prosecute the slave-trade to any extent they pleased! Portugal continued to assure England of her sympathy and co-operation in the good work of repression, and her subjects on the east coast of Africa continued to export thousands of slaves under the protection of the Portuguese and French flags, styling them free engagés. British-Indian subjects—the Banyans of Zanzibar,—continued to furnish the sinews of war which kept the gigantic trade in human flesh going on merrily. Murders, etcetera, continued to be perpetrated, tribes to be plundered, and hearts to be broken—of course “legally” and “domestically,” as well as piratically—during this rapid flight of time.

But nearly everything in this life has its bright lights and half-tints, as well as its deep shadows. During the same flight of time, humane individuals have continued to urge on the good cause of the total abolition of slavery, and Christian missionaries have continued, despite the difficulties of slave-trade, climate, and human apathy, to sow here and there on the coasts the precious seed of Gospel truth, which we trust shall yet be sown broad-cast by native hands, throughout the length and breadth of that mighty land.

To come more closely to the subjects of our tale:

Chimbolo, with his recovered wife and child, sought safety from the slavers in the far interior, and continued to think with pleasure and gratitude of the two Englishmen who hated slavery, and who had gone to Africa just in the nick of time to rescue that unhappy slave who had been almost flogged to death, and was on the point of being drowned in the Zambesi in a sack. Mokompa, also, continued to poetise, as in days gone by, having made a safe retreat with Chimbolo, and, among other things, enshrined all the deeds of the two white men in native verse. Yambo continued to extol play, admire, and propagate the life-sized jumping-jack to such an extent that, unless his career has been cut short by the slavers, we fully expect to find that creature a “domestic institution” when the slave-trade has been crushed, and Africa opened up—as in the end it is certain to be.

During the progress and continuance of all these things, you may be sure our hero was not idle. He sailed, as proposed, with Kambira, Azinté, Obo, Disco, and Jumbo for Zanzibar, touched at the town over which poor Senhor Francisco Alfonso Toledo Bignoso Letotti had ruled, found that the Senhorina had taken her departure; followed, as Disco said, in her wake; reached the Cape, hunted her up, found her out and presented to her, with Lieutenant Lindsay’s compliments, the African chief Kambira, his wife Azinté, and his son Obo!

Poor Maraquita, being of a passionately affectionate and romantic disposition, went nearly mad with joy, and bestowed so many grateful glances and smiles on Harold that Disco’s suspicions were confirmed, and that bold mariner wished her, Maraquita, “at the bottom of the sea!” for Disco disliked foreigners, and could not bear the thought of his friend being caught by one of them.

Maraquita introduced Harold to her aunt, a middle-aged, leather-skinned, excessively dark-eyed daughter of Portugal. She also introduced him to a bosom friend, at that time on a visit to her aunt. The bosom friend was an auburn-haired, fair-skinned, cheerful-spirited English girl. Before her, Harold Seadrift at once, without an instant’s warning, fell flat down, figuratively speaking of course, and remained so—stricken through the heart!

The exigencies of our tale require, at this point, that we should draw our outline with a bold and rapid pencil.

Disco Lillihammer was stunned, and so was Jumbo, when Harold, some weeks after their arrival at the Cape, informed them that he was engaged to be married to Alice Gray, only daughter of the late Sir Eustace Gray, who had been M.P. for some county in England, which he had forgotten the name of, Alice not having been able to recall it, as her father had died when she was four years old, leaving her a fortune of next-to-nothing a year, and a sweet temper.

Being incapable of further stunning, Disco was rather revived than otherwise, and his dark shadow was resuscitated, when Harold added that Kambira had become Maraquita’s head-gardener, Azinté cook to the establishment, and Obo page-in-waiting—more probably page-in-mischief—to the young Senhorina. But both Disco and Jumbo had a relapse from which they were long of recovering, when Harold went on to say that he meant to sail for England by the next mail, take Jumbo with him as valet, make proposals to his father to establish a branch of their house at the Cape, come back to manage the branch, marry Alice, and reside in the neighbourhood of the Senhorina Maraquita Letotti’s dwelling.

“You means wot you say, I s’pose?” asked Disco.

“Of course I do,” said Harold.

“An’ yer goin’ to take Jumbo as yer walley?”

“Yes.”

“H’m; I’ll go too as yer keeper.”

“My what?”

“Yer keeper—yer strait-veskit buckler, for if you ain’t a loonatic ye ought to be.”

But Disco did not go to England in that capacity. He remained at the Cape to assist Kambira, at the express command of Maraquita; and continued there until Harold returned, bringing Lieutenant Lindsay with him as a partner in the business; until Harold was married and required a gardener for his own domain; until the Senhorina became Mrs Lindsay; until a large and thriving band of little Cape colonists found it necessary to have a general story-teller and adventure-recounter with a nautical turn of mind; until, in short, he found it convenient to go to England himself for the gal of his heart who had been photographed there years before, and could be rubbed off neither by sickness, sunstroke, nor adversity.

When Disco had returned to the colony with the original of the said photograph, and had fairly settled down on his own farm, then it was that he was wont at eventide to assemble the little colonists round him, light his pipe, and, through its hazy influence, recount his experiences, and deliver his opinions on the slave-trade of East Africa. Sometimes he was pathetic, sometimes humorous, but, however jocular he might be on other subjects, he invariably became very grave and very earnest when he touched on the latter theme.

“There’s only one way to cure it,” he was wont to say, “and that is, to bring the Portuguese and Arabs to their marrow-bones; put the fleet on the east coast in better workin’ order; have consuls everywhere, with orders to keep their weather-eyes open to the slave-dealers; start two or three British settlements—ports o’ refuge—on the mainland; hoist the Union Jack, and, last but not least, send ’em the Bible.”

We earnestly commend the substance of Disco’s opinions to the reader, for there is urgent need for action. There is death where life should be; ashes instead of beauty; desolation in place of fertility, and, even while we write, terrible activity in the horrible traffic in—“Black Ivory.”

The End.

Chapter One. A Rough Beginning.

It is well that mankind cannot pry into the secrets of futurity.

At all events, it is certain that if the crew of the Water Wagtail had known what was in store for them when they set sail from Bristol, one fine spring morning at the beginning of the sixteenth century, most of them would have remained at home—though it is not improbable that, even with full knowledge of coming events, some of the romantic among them, and a few of the reckless, might have decided to go on.

Undoubtedly Paul Burns would have scorned to draw back, for he was a “hero of romance;” an enthusiast of the deepest dye, with an inquiring mind, a sanguine disposition, and a fervent belief in all things great and good and grand. He was also a six-footer in his socks, a horse in constitution, a Hercules in frame, with a hook nose and a hawk eye and a strong jaw—and all the rest of it. Paul had a good brain, too, and was well educated—as education went in those days. Yes, there can be little doubt that even though Paul Burns had been able to see into the future, he would have deliberately chosen to go on that voyage.

So would Oliver Trench, for Oliver worshipped Paul! He loved him as if he had been an elder brother. He admired him, afar off, as a rare specimen of human perfection. He looked up to him, physically as well as mentally, for Oliver was at that time little more than a boy of medium size, but bold as a bull-dog and active as a weasel. Yes, we are safe to say that a revelation of the disasters, dangers, sufferings, etcetera, in store, would not have deterred Oliver Trench. He would have gone on that voyage simply because Paul Burns went. That was reason enough for him. The devotion of Ruth to Naomi was mild compared with that of Oliver to Paul—if words are a test of feelings—for Ruth’s beautiful language could not compare with the forcible expressions with which Oliver assured his friend that he would stick to him, neck or nothing, through thick and thin, to the latest hour of life!

As for the rest of the crew—Big Swinton, Little Stubbs, George Blazer, Squill, and the like—it was well, as we have said, that they could not see into the future.

There were forty of them, all told, including the cook and the cabin-boy. We do not include Paul Burns or Oliver Trench, because the former was naturalist to the expedition—a sort of semi-scientific freelance; and the latter, besides being the master’s, or skipper’s, son, was a free-and-easy lance, so to speak, whose duties were too numerous to mention, and too indefinite to understand. Most of the men were what is expressed by the phrase “no better than they should be.” Some of them, indeed, were even worse than that. The wars of the period had rendered it difficult to obtain good seamen at that particular time, so that merchant skippers had to content themselves with whatever they could get. The crew of the Water Wagtail was unusually bad, including, as it did, several burglars and a few pickpockets, besides loafers and idlers; so that, before leaving Bristol, a friend of the skipper, whose imagination was lively, styled it a crew of forty thieves.

The coast of Norway was the destination of the Water Wagtail. She never reached the coast of—but we must not anticipate. What her object was in reference to Norway we cannot tell. Ancient records are silent on the point.

The object of Paul Burns was to gather general information. At that period the world was not rich in general information. To discover, to dare, to do—if need were, to die—was the intention of our big hero. To be similarly circumstanced in a small way was our little hero’s ambition.

“Goin’ to blow,” remarked Skipper Trench, on the evening of the day on which he sailed, as he paced the deck with his hands in his pockets, and, as his son Oliver said, his “weather-eye” open.

It seemed as though the weather, having overheard the prophecy, was eager to fulfil it, for a squall could be seen bearing down on the ship even while the words were being uttered.

“Close reef to-o-o-p-s’ls!” roared Master Trench, with the energy of a man who means what he says.

We are not sure of the precise nautical terms used, but the result was a sudden and extensive reduction of canvas; and not a moment too soon, for the operation had scarcely been completed when the squall struck the ship, almost capsized her, and sent her careering over the billows “like a thing of life.”

This was the first of a succession of squalls, or gales, which blew the Water Wagtail far out upon the Atlantic Ocean, stove in her bulwarks, carried away her bowsprit and foretopmast, damaged her skylights, strained her rudder, and cleared her decks of loose hamper.

After many days the weather moderated a little and cleared up, enabling Master Trench to repair damages and shape his course for Norway. But the easterly gales returned with increased violence, undid all the repairs, carried away the compass, and compelled these ancient mariners to run westward under bare poles—little better than a wreck for winds and waves to play with.

In these adverse circumstances the skipper did what too many men are apt to do in their day of sorrow—he sought comfort in the bottle.

Love of strong drink was Master Trench’s weakest point. It was one of the few points on which he and his friend Burns disagreed.

“Now, my dear man,” said Paul, seating himself one evening at the cabin table and laying his hand impressively on his friend’s arm, “do let me lock up this bottle. You can’t navigate the ship, you know, when you’ve got so much of that stuff under your belt.”

“O yes, I can,” said the skipper, with an imbecile smile, for his friend had a winning way with him that conciliated even while he rebuked. “Don’t you fear, Paul, I—I’m all right!”

The half-offended idiotic expression of the man’s face was intensely ludicrous, but Paul could not see the ludicrous at that time. He only saw his usually sedate, manly, generous friend reduced to a state of imbecility.

“Come, now, Master Trench,” he said persuasively, taking hold of the case-bottle, “let me put it away.”

“N–no, I won’t” said the captain sharply, for he was short of temper.

The persuasive look on Paul’s face suddenly vanished. He rose, grasped the bottle firmly, went to the open hatch, and sent it whizzing up into the air with such force that it went far over the stern of the ship and dropped into the sea, to the unutterable amazement of the man at the helm, who observed the bottle’s unaccountable flight with an expression of visage all his own.

There is no accounting for the rapid transitions of thought and feeling in drunken men. The skipper sprang up, clenched his right hand, and gazed in fierce astonishment at his friend, who advanced towards him with a benignant smile, quite regardless of consequences. Even in the act of striking, the captain restrained his arm and opened his hand. Paul met it with a friendly grasp, while the faces of both men expanded in smiling goodwill.

“Y–you’re a trump, P–Paul,” said the captain. “I—I—won’t drink a–another d’op!”

And Master Trench kept his word. From that day forth, till circumstances rendered drinking impossible, he drank nothing stronger than water.

Soon after this event the weather improved, damages were again repaired, and the skipper—in whom there was much of the spirit of the old vikings—once more laid his course for Norway, resolving to steer, as the said vikings were wont to do, by the stars. But a spirit of mutiny was abroad in the forecastle by that time. If hard work, hard fare, and hard fortune are trying even to good men and true, what must they be to bad men and false?

“Here’s how it lays, men,” said Big Swinton, in a subdued voice, to a knot of friends around him. “Blowin’ hard as it has bin ever since we left England, it stands to reason that we must have pretty nigh got across the western sea to that noo land discovered by that man wi’ the queer name—I can’t remember rightly—”

“Columbus, you mean,” cried George Blazer. “Why, my father sailed with Columbus on his first voyage.”

“No, it wasn’t Columbus,” returned Swinton, in a sharp tone, “an’ you needn’t speak as if we was all deaf, Blazer. It was John Cabot I was thinkin’ of, who, with his son Sebastian, discovered land a long way to the nor’ard o’ Columbus’s track. They called it Newfoundland. Well, as I was sayin’, we must be a long way nearer to that land than to Norway, an’ it will be far easier to reach it. Moreover, the Cabots said that the natives there are friendly and peaceable, so it’s my opinion that we should carry on as we go till we reach Newfoundland, an’ see whether we can’t lead a jollier life there than we did in Old England.”

“But it’s my opinion,” suggested Little Stubbs, “that the skipper’s opinion on that point will have to be found out first, Swinton, for it’s of more importance than yours. You ain’t skipper yet, you know.”

“That’s so, Stubbs,” said Squill, with a nod.

“Let your tongues lie still,” retorted Swinton, in an undertoned growl. “Of course I know I’m not skipper yet, but if you men have the courage of rabbits I’ll be skipper before another sun rises—or whoever you choose to appoint.”

A sudden silence ensued for a few moments, for, although there had been mutinous whisperings before, no one had, up to that time, ventured to make a distinct proposal that action should be taken.

“What! steal the ship?” exclaimed a huge black-bearded fellow named Grummidge. “Nay—I’ll have no hand in that.”

“Of course not; we have no intention to steal the ship,” retorted Swinton, before any one else had time to express an opinion; “we are all upright honourable men here. We only mean to take the loan of her. After all we have suffered we are entitled surely to a pleasure-trip, and when that’s over we can return the ship to the owners—if so disposed. You’ll join us in that, Grummidge, won’t you? And we’ll make you skipper—or first mate, if you’re too modest to take command.” This sally was received with a subdued laugh, and with marks of such decided approval, that Grummidge was carried with the current—at all events, he held his tongue after that.

An earnest undertoned discussion followed, and it was finally arranged that Big Swinton should sound Master Trench about the propriety of running to Newfoundland instead of returning on their track to Norway. The seaman was not slow to act. That afternoon, while at the helm, he made the suggestion to the skipper, but met with a sharp rebuke and an order to attend to his duty.

No word did Big Swinton reply, but that very night he entered the cabin with a dozen men and seized the skipper, his son, and Paul Burns, while they slept. Of course, being greatly outnumbered, they were overcome and bound. The two officers of the vessel were also seized by another party on deck, and all the five were imprisoned in the hold.

Next morning they were brought on deck, and made to stand in a row before Big Swinton, who had, in the meantime, been appointed by the mutineers to the command of the ship.

“Now, Master Trench,” said Swinton, “we are no pirates. We have no desire to kill you, so that whether you are killed or not will depend on yourself. If you agree to navigate this ship to Newfoundland—good; if not we will heave you overboard.”

“Heave away then,” growled the skipper, his nature being such that the more he was defied the more defiant he became.

“Well, Master Trench, you shall have your way. Get the plank ready, boys,” said Swinton, turning to the men. “Now stand aside and let the first mate choose.”

The same question being put to the two mates, they returned similar answers, and were ordered to prepare to walk the plank.

“You don’t understand navigation, I fancy, Master Burns,” said Swinton to Paul, “but as you can set broken bones, and things of that sort, we will spare you if you agree to serve us.”

“Thank you,” replied Paul, with quiet urbanity. “I prefer to accompany Master Trench, if you have no objection.”

There was a slight laugh at the coolness of this reply, which enraged the new skipper.

“Say you so?” he exclaimed, jumping up. “Come, then, shove out the plank, lads, and bring them on one at a time.”

“Stop!” cried little Oliver, at this point. “You’ve forgot me.”

“No, my little man, I haven’t,” returned Swinton, with a cynical smile. “You shall accompany your amiable father; but first I’ll give you a fair chance,” he added, in a bantering tone: “will you navigate the ship?”

“Yes, I will,” answered Oliver promptly.

“Indeed!” exclaimed the new skipper, taken aback by the boy’s boldness, and at a loss for a reply.

“Yes, indeed,” retorted Oliver, “only put me in command, with an auger, and I’ll navigate the ship to the bottom of the sea, with you and all your cowardly crew on board of her!”

“Well said, little master,” cried Grummidge, while a general laugh of approval went round.

Seeing that there was a symptom of better feeling among some of the men, Master Trench was about to make an appeal to them, when—

“Land ho!” was shouted by the look-out in stentorian tones.

Chapter Two. The Adventurers Land on the Island.

The excitement caused by the sight of land was tremendous. Nearly every one ran to the bow or leaped on the bulwarks, and the prisoners were left unguarded.

Seeing this, Grummidge quietly cut their bonds unobserved, and then hurried forward to gaze with the rest. Even the man at the tiller left his post for a moment to get a better view of the land. On returning, he found Master Trench occupying his place, and Paul Burns standing beside him with a handspike in his grasp. Oliver had also armed himself with a marlinespike in default of a better weapon.

“Go for’ard, my man,” said the skipper, in a quiet voice, “an’ tell your mates to get ready the anchor and stand by the cable. Haste ye, if you value life.”

The man slunk away without a word.

“We seem far from land yet, Master Trench; why such haste?” asked Paul.

“Look over the stern,” was the skipper’s curt reply.

Paul and Oliver both did so, and saw that another squall was bearing down on them.

“Is it Newfoundland?” asked Paul.

“Ay, and an ugly coast to make in a squall. Hallo! there—if ye would not be food for fishes lay aloft and take in all sail!”

The skipper, as his wont was, gave the order in a stern tone of command, and resigned the tiller to Grummidge, who came aft at the moment. The men saw with surprise that a heavy squall was bearing down on them from the eastward. Mutiny flew, as it were, out at the hawseholes, while discipline re-entered by the cabin windows. Even Big Swinton was cowed for the moment. It may be that the peculiar way in which Paul Burns eyed him and toyed with the handspike had some effect on him. Possibly he was keenly alive to the danger which threatened them. At all events, he went to work like the rest!

And there was occasion for haste. Before the sails were properly secured, the squall struck them; the foremast was snapped off close to the deck; for a time the ship became unmanageable and drifted rapidly towards the land.

“Is that a small island that I see on the weather bow, Olly?” said the skipper to his son. “Look, your eyes are better than mine.”

“Yes, father. It looks like a small one.”

“Steer for that, Grummidge. We’ll take shelter in its lee.”

The sails were braced, and the direction of the vessel was changed, while the wreck of the foremast was being cleared away; but, just as they were drawing near to the island, the wind chopped round, and the hoped-for shelter they were approaching became suddenly a lee shore.

“Nothing can save us now,” muttered Grummidge, “the Water Wagtail is going to her doom.”

“You’re right, my man. Before another hour goes by, she will have wagged her tail for the last time,” said Master Trench, somewhat bitterly.

They were both right. In less than an hour after that the ship was hurled upon the outlying rocks of a low island. Shaken and strained as she had been during her disastrous voyage, it took but a short time to break her up, but the bow had been thrust high between two rocks and remained fast.

Circumstances do not change character, but they often bring it to the front. Heroes and poltroons may remain unknown until a sudden incident or change of condition reveals them. As the crew of the wrecked ship clustered on the fragment of the bow, and gazed on the tumultuous flood of foaming water that seethed between them and the shore, their hearts failed them for fear. Some sternly compressed their lips, and looked like men who had made up their minds to “die game.” A few even looked defiant, as if daring Fate to do her worst, though the pallor of their countenances gave the lie to the expression of their features; but many of them, in the terror of the moment, cried aloud for mercy, and wildly promised amendment if their lives should be spared. A few were composed and grave. Brave men, though bad. Possibly some of these prayed. If so, they had the sense to do it silently to Him who knows the secrets of all hearts.

“No man can cross that and live,” said the skipper, in a low, sad tone.

“It is my intention to try, Master Trench,” said Paul Burns, grasping the end of a light line and tying it round his waist.

Little Oliver looked quickly and anxiously at his friend. His heart sank, for he saw at a glance that it was not possible to follow him. The deed, if done at all, must be done by his friend alone. Great, therefore, was the rebound of joy in the boy’s heart when Paul said—

“Now, Olly, attend to me. My life, under God, may depend on close attention to my signals and the management of the line. I can trust your father and the men to haul me back to the ship if need be, but I will trust only you to pay out and read my signals. Observe, now, let there be no slack to the line; keep it just taut but without any pull on it, so that you may feel the signals at once. One pull means pay out faster, two pulls mean haul me aboard, three pulls is all right and fix the big hawser to the line so that I may haul it ashore. Now, Olly, I trust to you to read my signals and act promptly.”

Oliver’s heart was too full to speak. He looked at his friend with swimming eyes and nodded his head.

“Men,” said Paul to the crew, “let me beg you to obey the boy’s orders smartly. If God wills it so, we shall all be saved.”

He leaped over the side as he concluded. Another moment and he was seen to rise and buffet the plunging waters manfully. Great as was the muscular strength of the young man, it seemed absolute feebleness to those who looked on; nevertheless he made headway towards the shore, which was strewn with great boulders with a low cliff behind them. It was among these boulders that his chief danger and difficulty lay, for his strong frame would have been as nothing if dashed against them.

Quickly he was lost to view in the hurly-burly of foam and spray.

With the utmost care did Oliver Trench perform his duty. It required both vigour of hand and delicacy of touch to keep the line right, but it was manipulated by hands whose vigour and touch were intensified by love.

“Ease off!” he cried, looking back impatiently at the strong fellows who held the slack of the line.

The men obeyed so readily that the line ran out too fast and the boy had much ado to check it. Just as he got it sufficiently taut, he felt what seemed to him like two pulls—“haul me in!” Could it be? He was not certain. In an agony of anxiety he held on, and was about to give the signal to haul in, when his father, who watched his every movement, instantly said, “Give him another second or two, Olly.”

Just then there was a strong single pull at the line.

“Pay out!—faster!” shouted Oliver, and, at the same moment he eased off his own feelings in a tremendous sigh of relief.

After that the line ran steadily for a few seconds, and no signals came. Then it ceased to run, and poor Oliver’s fears began to rush in upon him again, but he was speedily relieved by feeling three distinct and vigorous pulls.

“Thank God, he’s safe,” cried the boy. “Now then, pass along the hawser—quick!”

This was done, the light line was attached to a three-inch rope, and the party on the wreck waited anxiously.

“Give it a pull, Olly, by way of signal,” suggested Master Trench.

“He did not tell me to do that, father,” returned the boy, hesitating.

“No doubt he forgot it in the hurry—try it, anyhow.”

A hearty pull on the line was accordingly given, and they soon had the satisfaction of seeing the hawser move over the side and run towards the shore. When it ceased to run out they knew that Paul must have got hold of the end of it, so, making their end fast to the heel of the bowsprit, they waited, for as yet the rope lay deep in the heaving waters, and quite useless as a means of escape.

Presently the rope began to jerk, then it tightened, soon the bight of it rose out of the sea and remained there—rigid.

“Well done, Paul,” exclaimed the skipper, when this was accomplished. “Now, Olly, you go first, you’re light.”

But the boy hesitated. “No, father, you first,” he said.

“Obey orders, Olly,” returned the skipper sternly.

Without another word Oliver got upon the rope and proceeded to clamber along it. The operation was by no means easy, but the boy was strong and active, and the water not very cold. It leaped up and drenched him, however, as he passed the lowest point of the bight, and thereafter the weight of his wet garments delayed him, so that on nearing the shore he was pretty well exhausted. There, however, he found Paul up to the waist in the sea waiting for him, and the last few yards of the journey were traversed in his friend’s arms.

By means of this rope was every man of the Water Wagtail’s crew saved from a watery grave.

They found that the island on which they had been cast was sufficiently large to afford them shelter, and a brief survey of it proved that there was both wood and water enough to serve them, but nothing of animal or vegetable life was to be found. This was serious, because all their provisions were lost with the wrecked portion of the ship, so that starvation stared them in the face.

“If only the rum-kegs had been saved,” said one of the men, when they assembled, after searching the island, to discuss their prospects, “we might, at least, have led a merry life while it lasted.”

“Humph! Much good that would do you when you came to think over it in the next world,” said Grummidge contemptuously.

“I don’t believe in the next world,” returned the first speaker gruffly.

“A blind man says he doesn’t see the sun, and don’t believe in it,” rejoined Grummidge: “does that prove that there’s no sun?”

Here Master Trench interposed.

“My lads,” he said, “don’t you think that instead of talking rubbish it would be wise to scatter yourselves along the coast and see what you can pick up from the wreck? Depend on’t some of the provisions have been stranded among the rocks, and, as they will be smashed to pieces before long, the sooner we go about it the better. The truth is, that while you have been wastin’ your time running about the island, Master Burns and I have been doin’ this, an’ we’ve saved some things already—among them a barrel of pork. Come, rouse up and go to work—some to the shore, others to make a camp in the bush.”

This advice seemed so good that the men acted on it at once, with the result that before dark they had rescued two more barrels of pork and a barrel of flour from the grasp of the sea, besides some cases of goods which they had not taken time to examine.

Returning from the shore together, laden with various rescued articles, Paul and Oliver halted and sat down on a rock to rest for a few minutes.

“Olly,” said the former, “what was that I saw you wrapping up in a bit of tarred canvas, and stuffing so carefully under the breast of your coat, soon after the ship struck?”

“Mother’s last letter to me,” said the boy, with a flush of pleasure as he tapped his breast. “I have it safe here, and scarcely damaged at all.”

“Strange,” remarked Paul, as he pulled a well-covered packet from his own breast-pocket; “strange that your mind and mine should have been running on the same subject. See here, this is my mother’s last gift to me before she died—a letter, too, but it is God’s letter to fallen man.”

With great care the young man unrolled the packet and displayed a well-worn manuscript copy of a portion of the Gospel of John.

“This is copied,” he said, “from the translation of God’s Word by the great Wycliffe. It was given to my mother by an old friend, and was, as I have said, her parting gift to me.”

The friends were interrupted in their examination of this interesting M.S. by the arrival of one of the sailors, with whom they returned to the encampment in the bush.

Chapter Three. First Experiences on the Island.

A wonderfully picturesque appearance did these shipwrecked mariners present that night when, under the shelter of the shrubbery that crowned their small island, they kindled several camp-fires, and busied themselves in preparing supper.

As there was no law in the island—and our skipper, having lost his ship, forbore to assert any right to command—every one naturally did what seemed right in his own eyes.

As yet there had arisen no bone of contention among them. Of food they had secured enough for at least a few days. Fire they had procured by means of flint, steel, and tinder. A clear spring furnished them with water, and ships’ buckets washed ashore enabled them to convey the same to their encampment. Fortunately, no rum-kegs had been found, so that evil passions were not stirred up, and, on the whole, the first night on the island was spent in a fair degree of harmony—considering the character of the men.

Those who had been kindred souls on board ship naturally drew together on shore, and kindled their several fires apart. Thus it came to pass that the skipper and his son, the two mates, and Paul Burns found themselves assembled round the same fire.

But the two mates, it is right to add, were only sympathetic in a small degree, because of their former position as officers, and their recent imprisonment together. In reality they were men of no principle and of weak character, whose tendency was always to throw in their lot with the winning side. Being a little uncertain as to which was the winning side that night, they had the wisdom to keep their own counsel.

Oliver presided over the culinary department.

“You see, I’m rather fond of cookin’,” he said, apologetically, “that’s why I take it in hand.”

“Ah, that comes of his bein’ a good boy to his mother,” said Master Trench in explanation, and with a nod of approval. “Olly was always ready to lend her a helpin’ hand in the house at anything that had to be done, which has made him a Jack-of-all-trades—cookin’ among the rest, as you see.”

“A pity that the means of displaying his powers are so limited,” said Paul, who busied himself in levelling the ground beside the fire for their beds.

“Limited!” exclaimed Trench, “you are hard to please, Master Paul; I have lived on worse food than salt pork and pancakes.”

“If so, father,” said Oliver, as he deftly tossed one of the cakes into the air and neatly caught it on its other side in the pan, “you must either have had the pork without the pancakes or the pancakes without the pork.”

“Nay, Master Shallowpate, I had neither.”

“What! did you live on nothing?”

“On nothing better than boiled sheepskin—and it was uncommon tough as well as tasteless; but it is wonderful what men will eat when they’re starving.”

“I think, father,” returned the boy, as he tossed and deftly caught the cake again, “that it is more wonderful what men will eat when they’re not starving! Of all the abominations that mortal man ever put between his grinders, I think the worst is that vile stuff—”

He was interrupted by a sudden outbreak of wrath at the fire next to theirs, where Big Swinton, Grummidge, and several others were engaged, like themselves, in preparing supper.

“There will be trouble in the camp before long, I see plainly enough,” remarked Paul, looking in the direction of the disputants. “These two men, Swinton and Grummidge, are too well-matched in body and mind and self-will to live at peace, and I foresee that they will dispute your right to command.”

“They won’t do that, Paul,” returned Trench quietly, “for I have already given up a right which I no longer possess. When the Water Wagtail went on the rocks, my reign came to an end. For the future we have no need to concern ourselves. The man with the most powerful will and the strongest mind will naturally come to the top—and that’s how it should be. I think that all the troubles of mankind arise from our interfering with the laws of Nature.”

“Agreed, heartily,” replied Paul, “only I would prefer to call them the laws of God. By the way, Master Trench, I have not yet told you that I have in my possession some of these same laws in a book.”

“Have you, indeed?—in a book! That’s a rare and not altogether a safe possession now-a-days.”

“You speak the sober truth, Master Trench,” returned Paul, putting his hand into a breast-pocket and drawing forth the packet which contained the fragment of the Gospel of John. “Persecution because of our beliefs is waxing hotter and hotter just now in unfortunate England. However, we run no risk of being roasted alive in Newfoundland for reading God’s blessed Word—see, there it is. A portion of the Gospel of John in manuscript, copied from the English translation of good Master Wycliffe.”

“A good and true man, I’ve heard say,” responded the skipper, as he turned over the leaves of the precious document with a species of solemn wonder, for it was the first time he had either seen or handled a portion of the Bible. “Pity that such a friend of the people should not have lived to the age o’ that ancient fellow—what’s his name—Thoosle, something or other?”

“Methuselah,” said Paul; “you’re right there, Master Trench. What might not a good man like Wycliffe have accomplished if he had been permitted to live and teach and fight for the truth for nine hundred and sixty-nine years?”

“You don’t mean to say he lived as long as that?” exclaimed the boy, looking up from his pots and pans.

“Indeed I do.”

“Well, well! he must have been little better than a live mummy by the end of that time!” replied Oliver, resuming his interest in his pots and pans.

“But how came you to know about all that Master Paul, if this is all the Scripture you’ve had?” asked Trench.

“My mother was deeply learned in the Scriptures,” answered Paul, “and she taught me diligently from my boyhood. The way she came to be so learned is curious. I will tell you how it came about, while we are doing justice to Oliver’s cookery.”

“You must know, Master Trench,” continued Paul, after the first demands of appetite had been appeased, “that my dear mother was a true Christian from her youth. Her father was converted to Christ by one of that noble band of missionaries who were trained by the great Wycliffe, and whom he sent throughout England to preach the Gospel to the poor, carrying in their hands manuscript portions of that Gospel, translated by Wycliffe into plain English. You see, that curious invention of the German, John Gutenberg—I mean printing by movable types—was not known at that time, and even now, although half a century has passed since the Bible was printed abroad in Latin, no one with means and the power to do it has yet arisen to print an English Bible, but the day is not far distant when that work shall be done, I venture to prophesy, though I make no pretence to be among the prophets!

“Well, as I was going to say, the missionary was a hoary old man when he preached the sermon that turned my grandfather from darkness to light. My grandfather was just fifteen years old at that time. Ten years later the same missionary came to grandfather’s house, worn out with years and labours, and died there, leaving all his treasure to his host. That treasure was a small portion of the New Testament in English, copied from Wycliffe’s own translation. You may be sure that my grandfather valued the legacy very highly. When he died he left it to my mother. About that time my mother married and went to live on the banks of the Severn. Not far from our farm there dwelt a family of the name of Hutchins. The father had changed his name and taken refuge there during the recent civil wars. This family possessed a Latin Bible, and the head of it was well acquainted with its contents. It was through him that my mother became well acquainted with the Old as well as the New Testament, and thus it was that I also came in course of time to know about Methuselah, and a good many more characters about whom I may perhaps tell you one of these days.”

“So, then, this is the manuscript the old missionary carried about, is it?” said Trench, fingering the fragment tenderly.

“Ay, and a good translation it is, I have been told by one whom most people would think too young to be a judge. You must know that this Mr Hutchins has a son named William, who is considerably younger than I am, but he is such a clever, precocious fellow, that before he left home for college I used to find him a most interesting companion. Indeed, I owe to him much of what little I have learned, for he is a wonderful linguist, being able to read Hebrew and Greek about as easily as Latin or English. He is at Oxford now—at least he was there when I last heard of him. Moreover, it was through the Hutchins’ family, in a roundabout way, that your mother, Olly, came to learn to write such letters as you have got so carefully stowed away there in your breast-pocket.”

“Good luck to the Hutchins’ family then, say I,” returned Olly, “for I’m glad to be able to read, though, on account of the scarcity and dearness of manuscripts, I don’t have the chance of makin’ much use of my knowledge. But you puzzle me, Paul. It was poor Lucy Wentworth who used to live with us, and who died only last year, that taught me to read, and I never heard her mention the name of Hutchins. Did you, father?”

“No, I never did, Olly. She said she had lived with a family named Tyndale before she came to us, poor thing! She was an amazin’ clever girl to teach, and made your mother good at it in a wonderful short time. She tried me too, but it was of no use, I was too tough an’ old!”

“Just so, Master Trench,” rejoined Paul. “Hutchins’ real name was Tyndale, and he had resumed the name before Lucy Wentworth went to live with the family. So, you see, Olly, you are indebted, in a roundabout way, as I said, to the Tyndales for your mother’s letter. William will make his mark pretty deeply on the generation, I think, if God spares him.”

Little did Paul Burns think, when he made this prophetic speech by the camp-fire on that distant isle of the sea, that, even while he spoke William Tyndale was laying the foundation of that minute knowledge of the Greek and Hebrew languages, which afterwards enabled him to give the Bible to England in her own tongue, and that so ably translated, that, after numerous revisions by the most capable of scholars, large portions of his work remain unaltered at the present day.

The night was far spent, and the other members of the camp had been long buried in slumber before Paul and Trench and Oliver could tear themselves away from the manuscript Gospel of John. The latter two, who knew comparatively little of its contents, were at first impressed chiefly with the fact that they were examining that rare and costly article—a book, and a forbidden book, too, for the reading of which many a man and woman had been burned to death in times past—but they became still more deeply impressed as Paul went on reading and commenting and pointing out the value of the Book as God’s own “Word” to fallen man.

“Here is a promise to rest upon,” said Paul, as he finally closed the book and repeated the verse from memory, “Jesus said, If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed; and ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.”

“Ay, that’s it, Paul—free! We’re all slaves, more or less, to something or other. What we all want is to be free,” said Master Trench, as he drew his blanket round him, pillowed his head on his cloak, and went to sleep.

Silently Paul and Oliver followed his example, the fires died out, and in a few minutes the slumbering camp was shrouded in the mantle of night.

Energetic action was the order of the next day, for those shipwrecked mariners knew well enough that nothing but hard and steady labour could enable them to live on an apparently desolate island.

By daybreak most of the crew had scattered themselves along the shores, or over the interior, to spy out the land. About two hours later they began to drop into camp as hungry as hawks, each carrying the result of his researches in his arms or on his shoulders.

“Well done, Squill!” said Paul, who chanced to be first back in camp, with a huge sail bundled up on his shoulder, and who, just then, was busy blowing up his fire; “got another barrel of pork, eh?”

“It’s myself as doesn’t know, sur,” answered Squill, “and it wasn’t me as found it, but Jim Heron there. I only helped to sling it on the pole, and shoulder an end. It’s aither pork or gunpowther, so if it ain’t good for a blow out it’ll be good for a blow up, anyhow.”

“Did you see little Oliver anywhere?” asked Paul.

“Ay, sur, I saw him on the shore, bringing up what seemed to me the ship’s bowsprit—anyhow, a spar o’ some sort, about as big as he could haul along.”

“Just so,” returned Paul, with a laugh, “a ridge-pole for our tent. He’s a smart boy, little Olly.”

“Sure he’s all that, sur, and more. Here he comes, blowin’ like a porpoise.”

Sure enough, Oliver appeared at the moment, dragging a heavy spar behind him. Several of the men appeared at the same time, staggering through the bushes, with various loads of wreckage, which they flung down, and noisily began discussing their experiences as they lighted the fires and prepared breakfast.

“Here comes Little Stubbs,” cried Jim Heron. “What fortune, comrade?”

“Good fortune, though my load is the lightest yet brought in.”

He flung down a small piece of wood with an air of satisfaction.

“Why, it’s only a boat’s rudder!” said Oliver.

“Ay, so it is, and the boat lies where I picked it up, but it was too heavy to bring into camp without your assistance, boy. And the best of it is that it’s not much damaged. Very little repair will make her fit for sea again.”

This was indeed a find of immense importance, and the assembled party discussed the event in all its bearings till their mouths were partially stopped by pork and pancakes.

In the midst of this they were interrupted by the arrival of Big Swinton, George Blazer, and Grummidge with another find, which afterwards cost them much trouble and regret—namely, a couple of young lads, natives, whom they led into camp with their wrists tightly bound behind their backs.

Chapter Four. Strange Visitors—Dark Plots—And Evil Purposes.

The youths who had been captured were simple savages, with very little clothing, and with an expression of considerable alarm on their faces. As was afterwards learned, they had been coasting along the shore of the large neighbouring island in a canoe; had observed the strange fires in the night-time, and had crossed over the channel to see what could be the cause thereof. On reaching the highest part of the island they discovered some of the sailors, and turned to fly to their canoe, but Blazer had observed them, their retreat was cut off, and they were captured—not without a severe struggle, however, in which they were very roughly handled.

Big Swinton, still smarting under the bruises and bites he had received in the scuffle, dragged them forward, and demanded angrily what was to be done to them.

“What have they done?” asked Trench.

“Done!—why, they have kicked and bitten like wildcats, and I doubt not have come over here to see what they can steal. In my opinion a thief deserves keel-hauling at the very least.”

Master Trench’s mouth expanded into a very broad smile as he looked round the group of men. “D’ye hear that, lads, what Master Swinton thinks ought to be done to thieves?”

The men broke into a loud laugh, for even the most obtuse among them could not fail to perceive the humour of the skipper’s look and question.

“You have nothing more to do wi’ the matter, Trench, than any one else has,” returned Swinton. “I claim these lads as my prisoners, and I’ll do with them what I please. No man is master now. Might is right on this island!”

The words had scarcely been uttered when Big Swinton felt his right shoulder grasped as if in a vice, and next moment he was flung violently to the ground, while Paul Burns stood over him with a huge piece of wood in his hand, and a half-stern, half-smiling look on his countenance.

The men were taken completely by surprise, for Paul had, up to this time, shown such a gentle unwarlike spirit that the crew had come to regard him as “a soft lump of a fellow.”

“Big Swinton,” he said, in the mildest of voices, “as you have laid down the law that ‘might is right,’ you cannot, of course, object to my acting on it. In virtue of that law, I claim these prisoners as mine, so you may get up and go about your business. You see, lads,” he added, turning to the men, while Swinton rose and retired, “though I have no wish to domineer over you or to usurp authority. I have a right to claim that my voice shall be heard and my reasons weighed. As Swinton truly remarked, no man is master now, but as he followed this remark by making himself master, and laying down a law for us, I thought it might be complimentary to him just to act, for once, under his law, and show him how well it works! Now, let me have a word with you.

“It is evident that the land over there is peopled with savages who, probably, never saw white men before. If we treat these young fellows kindly, and send them away with gifts in their hands, we shall, no doubt, make friends of the savages. If we treat them ill, or kill them, their relations will come over, mayhap in swarms, and drive us into the sea. I drop the Swinton law of might being right, and ask you who are now the law-makers—which is it to be—kindness or cruelty?”

“Kindness!” shouted by far the greater number of the audience, for even bad men are ready enough to see and admit the beauty of truth and justice when they are not themselves unpleasantly affected by these principles.

The decision being thus made, Paul took the arm of one of the young Indians and led him gently towards his fire, while the men scattered to their several camps. Master Trench led the other youth in the same kindly way, and little Oliver, motioning to them to sit down, set before them two platters of pork and pancakes. This he did with such a benignant smile that the poor youths were obviously relieved from the dread of immediate and personal violence. After some glances of timid uncertainty they began to eat.

“That’s right,” said Oliver, patting the bigger of the two on the shoulder, “you’ll find the victuals pretty good, though you’re not much used to ’em, mayhap.”

Of course the youths did not understand the words, but they understood and fully appreciated the feeling with which they were expressed. They also appreciated most powerfully the viands. At first they were greatly perplexed by the offer of knives and forks; but, after looking at these implements gravely for a few moments, they laid them gently down, and went to work in the natural way with fingers and teeth.

After they had finished the food, and licked the platters clean, they were presented with several bright brass buttons, an old clasp-knife, a comb, and a kerchief or two, with which inestimable gifts they embarked in their canoe, and returned to the opposite shore.

That day a most important discovery was made among the wreckage, namely, a case containing fish-hooks of various sizes and a number of lines. With these, and the boat repaired, Master Trench saw his way to prolonged existence on the island.

“To tell ye the plain truth,” he remarked to Little Stubbs, with whom he fell in while searching on the shore, “before this case of tackle was found, I had no hope at all of surviving here, for a few barrels of pork and flour could not last long among so many, and our end would have bin something awful; but now, with God’s blessing, we may do well enough until we have time to think and plan for our escape.”

“But d’ye think, master,” said Stubbs, “that we shall find fish in them waters?”

“Find ’em! Ay, I make no doubt o’ that, but we shall soon put it to the test, for the boat will be ready by to-morrow or next day at furthest, and then we shall see what the fish hereabouts think o’ salt pork. If they take to it as kindly as the Indians did, we shall soon have grub enough and to spare.”

The natural tendency of man to bow to the best leader was shown immediately after the incident of the capture of the Indians, for Paul Burns was thence-forward quietly appealed to by most of the crew in all circumstances which required much consideration. Paul, being a law-respecting man, naturally turned to the skipper, whose decision was usually final, and thus Master Trench dropped, by general consent, into his old position of commander.

But it must not be supposed that all the party acquiesced in this arrangement. There were men among that crew—such as Swinton, Blazer, Garnet, and others—who, either from false training, bad example, or warped spirits, had come to the condition of believing that the world was made for their special behoof; that they possessed that “divine right” to rule which is sometimes claimed by kings, and that whoever chanced to differ from them was guilty of arrogance, and required to be put down! These men were not only bad, like most of the others, but revengeful and resolute. They submitted, in the meantime, to the “might” of Paul Burns, backed as he was by numbers, but they nursed their wrath to keep it warm, and, under the leadership of Big Swinton, plotted the downfall of their rivals.

Meanwhile, being unquestionably “in power,” Master Trench, Paul, Oliver, Grummidge, Stubbs, and several of the well-affected, took possession of the boat when ready, and, inviting Swinton to join them—as a stroke of policy—pushed off, with hooks and lines, to make the first essay in the way of fishing on the now famous Banks of Newfoundland.

Anchoring the boat in what they deemed a suitable spot, they went to work.

“I wonder if they’ll take to pork,” remarked Stubbs, as he baited a large hook.

“If they take to it as you do, we shall soon run short o’ that article,” said Swinton, dropping his hook into the water.

“I have brought off some shellfish,” remarked Master Trench. “They may prefer that.”

“So have I, father,” said Oliver, whose bait was already at the bottom, “and if—hallo! hold on! hi! Oh! I say!”

While the boy was thus ejaculating, in a state of blazing excitement, his arms, and indeed his body, to say nothing of his spirit, were being jerked violently by his line in a way that suggested something awful at the other end!

“Have a care, Olly!” “Gently, lad!” “Hold on, boy!” “Let ’im run!” were among the contradictory pieces of advice given in various tones of warning, remonstrance, or simple recommendation; but Oliver heeded them not. Acting on his own judgment he drew his fish, or whatever it might be, gradually and carefully from the deep.

“A mermaid it must be, to tug so hard,” muttered Stubbs, as he and the others looked on with eager interest.

“A merman if it’s anything,” said Squill; “sure there was never a maid in the say, or out of it, as would tug like that.”

“That depends,” said Grummidge. “I’ve had ’em tuggin’ at my heart-strings worse than that many a time.”

“Look out! Here it comes,” cried Oliver, as something huge and white was seen to flash wildly in the green depths. “Have the cleek ready.”

“All ready, my boy,” said his father, in a low voice, leaning over the side with a stick, at the end of which was a large iron hook.

“Now then, father! Quick! Missed it? No! Hurrah!”

For a moment it seemed as if Master Trench had got Neptune himself on his cleek, so severely did his stout frame quiver. Then he gave a tremendous heave—“ya-hoy!” and up came a magnificent cod—the first of a grand hecatomb of cod-fish which have since that day enriched the world, nauseated the sick with “liver oil,” and placed Newfoundland among the most important islands of the British Empire.

“Well done, Olly!” exclaimed the delighted father; but he had barely time to open his mouth for the next remark, when Squill uttered an Irish yell, and was seen holding on to his line with desperate resolve stamped on every feature.

“That’s the merman this time,” cried Stubbs.

“His gran’mother, no less,” muttered Squill, in a strongly suppressed voice, while he anxiously hauled in the line.

A shout from the other side of the boat here diverted attention.

“Attacked front and rear!” cried Paul, with a hilarious laugh, “I shouldn’t wonder if—hallo! N–no, it was only a nib—ha! there he is!”

And, truly, there he was in a few minutes, another splendid cod in the bottom of the boat.

To make a long story short, the boat was nearly filled with cod before the sun set, and that night was spent in general rejoicing and feasting on fish—with a second course of pork and pancakes for those who were insatiable.

But the state of contentment did not last long. The very next day there was quarrelling as to who should go in the boat. To allay the contention, Trench and Paul volunteered to stay in camp and help the party that should be left to split and clean the fish, and erect tents and booths. Again the fishing was successful, but dissensions about the use of the boat soon became more violent than ever.

Of course, in all this Master Trench and his friend Paul took a prominent part in trying to smooth matters, to the intense jealousy of Big Swinton and his sympathisers. In short, the camp ere long was divided into two hostile bands—the moderately bad and the immoderately wicked, if we may so put it. The first, who were few in number, sided with Trench and his friends; the second declared for Swinton. But the resolute bearing of Paul and the skipper, and the fact that the whole party was destitute of weapons (except clubs cut out of the bush, and a few clasp-knives), kept the larger and more vicious party in check.

Swinton and his friends, therefore, had recourse to secret plotting; but, plot as they would, they had not sufficient brain-power among them to devise a method by which to free themselves of the men they envied.

At last circumstances favoured them. It was found necessary to send men to the other side of the island to cut and fetch over some small trees that grew there, in order to make stages on which to dry their fish. As the operation would require part of two days, it was proposed to spend the night there. Swinton was to command the party, and Master Trench said, jestingly, that he and Master Burns, with Olly, would stay to guard the camp! The wood-cutting party was to start early the next day.

Then a plan of revenge flashed into Big Swinton’s mind. That night he revealed it to those of his friends whom he could trust, and who were necessary to his purpose. The night following—while the men around them should be sleeping at the other side of the island, and their enemies were alone in the camp—was fixed on for the execution of their purpose.

Chapter Five. Turned Adrift in a Foreign Land.

It was a calm but very dark night when Swinton, Blazer, Garnet, Heron, Taylor, and several other men of kindred spirit, rose from their couches at the further end of the island, and, stealthily quitting the place, hastened back to their original camp.

They reached it about midnight, and, as they had expected, found all quiet, for the so-called “guard” of the camp had been hard at work all day and were at that moment fast asleep. Paul and the captain, with Oliver, lay side by side under a tent which they had constructed out of broken spars and a piece of sailcloth.

Their foes drew together not far from the spot.

“Now, men,” said Swinton, “this is a tough job we have in hand, for they are strong men, and the boy, albeit not big, is a very tiger-cat to fight. You see, if our plan was murder we could easily settle their business while they slept but that’s not our plan. We are not murderers—by no means!”

“Certainly not,” growled Blazer, with virtuous solemnity.

“Well, that bein’ so, we must take them alive. I will creep into the tent with you, Jim Heron, for you’re big and strong enough. You will fall on Trench and hold ’im down. I’ll do the same to Burns. Garnet will manage the boy. The moment the rest of you hear the row begin, you will jump in and lend a hand wi’ the ropes. After we’ve got ’em all safe into the boat, we will pull to the big island—land them there, an’ bid them a tender farewell!”

“But surely you won’t land them without a morsel to eat?” said Taylor.

“Why not? They’re sure to fall in wi’ their dear friends the savages, who will, doubtless, be very grateful to ’em, an’ supply grub gratis! Now, lads, you understand what you’ve got to do?”

“Ay, ay,” was the response, in a low tone, as they moved cautiously away, like evil spirits, to carry out their wicked plans.

“Fortune,” it is said, “favours the brave,” but in this case she did not thus bestow her favours, for the cowardly plan was successfully carried out. Before the sleepers were well awake, they were overwhelmed by numbers, secured and bound. They were not gagged, however, as no one was near to hear even if they shouted their loudest, which they knew it was useless to do. In a few minutes the three prisoners were hurried into the boat and rowed across the wide channel that separated the islet from the opposite shore.

At that time it was not supposed, either by the original discoverers or those who immediately followed them, that Newfoundland was one large island—considerably larger than Ireland. Not till many a year afterwards did explorers ascertain that it was an island of about three hundred and seventeen miles in length, by about the same in breadth; but so cut up by deep bays, inlets, and fords as to have much the appearance of a group of islands.

During their passage across the channel both Trench and Paul attempted to reason with Swinton, but that hardened villain refused to utter a word till their prisoners were marched up the shingly beach, and told to sit down on a ledge of rock under the steep cliffs, where innumerable sea-birds were screaming a clamorous welcome, or, perchance, a noisy remonstrance.

“Now, my friends,” said their foe, “as you are fond of commanding, you may take command o’ them there sea-birds—they won’t object!—and if ye fall in wi’ your friends the savages, you may give them my love an’ good wishes.”

“But surely you don’t mean to leave us here without food, and with our hands tied behind us?” fiercely exclaimed Master Trench, whose wrath at any thing like injustice was always prone to get the better of his wisdom.

“As to grub,” answered Swinton, “there’s plenty of that around, if you only exert yourself to find it. I won’t cut your lashin’s, however, till we are fairly in the boat, for we can’t trust you. Come along, lads; and, Garnet, you bring the boy with ye.”

Under the impression that he was to be separated from his father and friend, and taken back again to the islet, poor Oliver, whom they had not thought it worth while to bind, struggled with a ferocity that would have done credit to the wildcats with which he had been compared; but Garnet was a strong man, and held him fast.

“Take it easy, my boy,” said Paul, who, being helpless, could only look on with intense pity. “Submit to God’s will—we will pray for you.”

But Olly’s spirit could by no means reach the submitting point until he was fairly exhausted. While they dragged him towards the boat, Taylor turned back and flung a small canvas bag at the captain’s feet.

“There, Master Trench,” he said, “you’ll find a lump o’ pork in that bag to keep you goin’ till ye get hold o’ somethin’ else. An’ don’t take on about the boy. We don’t want ’im, bless you. Why, we only want to prevent him settin’ you free before we gets fairly away.”

This was true. When the boat was reached and the men were on board, ready to shove off, Garnet, still holding Olly fast by the arm, said, “Keep still, will you, and hear what Master Swinton has got to say?”

“Now, you fiery polecat,” said Swinton, “you may go and cut their lashin’s, and take that as a parting gift.”

The gift was a sounding box on the ear; but Olly minded it not, for while Garnet was speaking, as he stood knee-deep in the water close to the boat, he had observed an axe lying on one of the thwarts near to him. The instant he was set free, therefore, he seized the axe, and, flourishing it close past Garnet’s nose, with a cheer of defiance he sprang towards the beach. Garnet leaped after him, but he was no match for the agile boy, who in another minute had severed Paul’s bonds and placed the weapon in his hands.

“Hallo! hi, you’ve forgot me. Cut my—ho!”

But there was no occasion for Master Trench to cry out and struggle with the cords that bound him. A furious rush of Paul with the axe caused Garnet to double with the neatness of a hunted hare. He bounded into the boat which was immediately shoved off, and the sailors rowed away, leaving Paul to return and liberate the captain at leisure.

Silently the trio stood and watched the receding boat, until it was lost in the darkness of the night. Then they looked at each other solemnly. Their case was certainly a grave one.

“Cast away on an unknown shore,” murmured the captain, in a low tone; as if he communed with his own spirit rather than with his companions, “without food, without a ship or boat—without hope!”

“Nay, Master Trench,” said Paul, “not without hope; for ‘God is our refuge and our strength, a very present help in trouble,’ so says His own Word, as my mother has often read to me.”

“It is well for you, Paul,” returned the captain, “that you can find comfort in such words—I can find none. Stern realities and facts are too strong for me. How can I take comfort in unfulfilled promises? Here we are in trouble enough, surely. In what sense is God a ‘refuge’ to us—or ‘strength,’ or a ‘present help’? Why, we are left absolutely destitute here, without so much as a bite of food to keep our bodies and souls together.”

He spoke with some bitterness, for he was still chafing under the sense of the wrong which he had suffered at the hands of men to whom he had been invariably kind and forbearing. As he turned from Paul with a gesture of impatience his foot struck against the canvas bag of pork which the man Taylor had flung to him on leaving, and which had been forgotten. He stopped suddenly and gazed at it; so did Paul.

“Looks like as if God had already helped us—at least to food—does it not?” said the latter.

“It was Taylor helped us to that,” objected Trench.

“And who put it into Taylor’s heart to help us?” asked Paul. “He is one of the worst men of our crew, so we can hardly say it was his own tenderness, and certainly it was not the devil who moved him to it. Am I wrong in holding that it was ‘Our Father’?”

“I believe you are right, Paul. Anyhow, I have neither the capacity nor the inclination to dispute the point now. Pick up the bag, Olly, and come along. We must try to find some sort of shelter in which to spend the rest o’ the night and consider our future plans.”

With a lighter heart and firmer faith, Paul Burns followed his leader, silently thanking God as he went along for thus far, and so opportunely, demonstrating His own faithfulness.

They had to wander some time before a suitable camping spot was found, for that part of the Newfoundland coast on which they had been landed was almost inaccessible. The cliffs in many places rose sheer out of the water to a height of full three hundred feet. Only in a few places little strips of shingly beach lay between the base of the cliffs and the sea, so that the finding of an opening in those stupendous ramparts of rock was no easy matter in a dark night.

At last they came to a place where the cliffs appeared to rise less precipitously. After careful clambering for some minutes they discovered a sort of gap in the rampart, up which they climbed, amid rugged and broken masses, until they reached a somewhat level plateau, or shelf, covered with small bushes. Here they resolved to encamp.

“Whether it’s the top o’ the cliffs or not, there’s no findin’ out,” remarked Trench, as he tried to survey the ground; “but whether or not don’t matter, for it looks level enough to lie on, an’ we’re as like as not to break our necks if we try to go further.”

“Agreed,” said Paul; “but now it occurs to me that our pork may be raw, and that we shall want fire to cook it. Have you got flint and steel in your pocket, Master Trench?”

“Ay—never travel without it; but by ill-luck I’ve got no tinder. Flint and steel are useless, you know, without that.”

“If ill-luck troubles you,” returned Paul, “good luck favours me, for I have got a bit of tinder, and—”

“The pork’s raw,” exclaimed Oliver, who had been hastily investigating the contents of the canvas bag; “but, I say, there’s more than pork here. There’s a lot o’ the little flour-cakes our cook was so fond of makin’.”

“Good. Now then let us have a search for wood,” said Paul. “If we find that, we shall get along well enough till morning. But have a care, Olly, keep from the edge of the cliff. The ledge is not broad. Have an eye too, or rather an ear, for water as you go along.”

Success attended their search, for in a few minutes Paul and the captain returned with loads of dry branches, and Olly came back reporting water close at hand, trickling from a crevice in the cliffs.

“Your shirt-front tells the tale, Olly. You’ve been drinking,” said Paul, who was busy striking a light at the time.

“Indeed I have; and we shall all be obliged to drink under difficulties, for we have neither cup nor mug with us.”

“Neither is wanted, boy, as I’ll soon show you,” said Paul. “Why, a bit of birch-bark, even a piece of paper, forms a good drinking vessel if you only know how to use it. Ha! caught at last,” he added, referring to some dry grasses and twigs which burst into flame as he spoke.

Another moment and a ruddy glare lit up the spot, giving to things near at hand a cosy, red-hot appearance, and to more distant objects a spectral aspect, while, strangely enough, it seemed to deepen to profounder darkness all else around. Heaping on fresh fuel and pressing it down, for it consisted chiefly of small branches, they soon had a glowing furnace, in front of which the pork ere long sputtered pleasantly, sending up a smell that might have charmed a gourmand.

“Now, then, while this is getting ready let us examine our possessions,” said the captain, “for we shall greatly need all that we have. It is quite clear that we could not return to our shipmates even if we would—”

“No, and I would not even if I could,” interrupted Oliver, while busy with the pork chops.

“And,” continued his father, regardless of the interruption, “it is equally clear that we shall have to earn our own livelihood somehow.”

Upon careful examination it was found that their entire possessions consisted of two large clasp-knives; a sheath hunting-knife; flint, steel, and tinder; the captain’s watch; a small axe; a large note-book, belonging to Paul; three pencils; bit of indiarubber; several fish-hooks; a long piece of twine, and three brass buttons, the property of Oliver, besides the manuscript Gospel of John, and Olly’s treasured letter from his mother. These articles, with the garments in which they stood, constituted the small fortune of our wanderers, and it became a matter of profound speculation, during the progress of the supper, as to whether it was possible to exist in an unknown wilderness on such very slender means.

Olly thought it was—as a matter of course.

Master Trench doubted, and shook his head with an air of much sagacity, a method of expressing an opinion which is eminently unassailable. Paul Burns condescended on reasons for his belief—which, like Olly’s, was favourable.

“You see,” he said, wiping his uncommonly greasy fingers on the grass, “we have enough of pork and cakes here for several days—on short allowance. Then it is likely that we shall find some wild fruits, and manage to kill something or other with stones, and it cannot be long till we fall in with natives, who will be sure to be friendly—if not, we will make them so—and where they can live, we can live. So I am going to turn in and dream about it. Luckily the weather is warm. Good-night.”

Thus did our three adventurers, turning in on that giddy ledge, spend their first night in Newfoundland.

Chapter Six. Difficulties met and Overcome.

The position in which the trio found themselves next morning, when daylight revealed it, was, we might almost say, tremendously romantic.

The ledge on which they had passed the night was much narrower than they had supposed it to be, and their beds, if we may so call them, had been dangerously near to the edge of a frightful precipice which descended sheer down to a strip of sand that looked like a yellow thread two hundred feet below. The cliff behind them rose almost perpendicularly another hundred feet or more, and the narrow path or gully by which they had gained their eyrie was so steep and rugged that their reaching the spot at all in safety seemed little short of a miracle. The sun was brightening with its first beams an absolutely tranquil sea when the sleepers opened their eyes, and beheld what seemed to them a great universe of liquid light. Their ears at the same time drank in the soft sound of murmuring ripples far below, and the occasional cry of sportive sea-birds.

“Grand! glorious!” exclaimed Trench, as he sat up and gazed with enthusiasm on the scene.

Paul did not speak. His thoughts were too deep for utterance, but his mind reverted irresistibly to some of the verses in that manuscript Gospel which he carried so carefully in his bosom.

As for Oliver, his flushed young face and glittering eyes told their own tale. At first he felt inclined to shout for joy, but his feelings choked him; so he, too, remained speechless. The silence was broken at last by a commonplace remark from Paul, as he pointed to the horizon—“The home of our shipmates is further off than I thought it was.”

“The rascals!” exclaimed the captain, thinking of the shipmates, not of the home; “the place is too good for ’em.”

“But all of them are not equally bad,” suggested Paul gently.

“Humph!” replied Trench, for kind and good-natured though he was he always found it difficult to restrain his indignation at anything that savoured of injustice. In occasionally giving way to this temper, he failed to perceive at first that he was himself sometimes guilty of injustice. It is only fair to add, however, that in his cooler moments our captain freely condemned himself.

“‘Humph!’ is a very expressive word,” observed Paul, “and in some sense satisfactory to those who utter it, but it is ambiguous. Do you mean to deny, Master Trench, that some of your late crew were very good fellows? and don’t you admit that Little Stubbs and Squill and Grummidge were first-rate specimens of—”

“I don’t admit or deny anything!” said the captain, rising, with a light laugh, “and I have no intention of engaging in a controversy with you before breakfast. Come, Olly, blow up the fire, and go to work with your pork and cakes. I’ll fetch some more wood, and Paul will help me, no doubt.”

With a good grace Paul dropped the discussion and went to work. In a few minutes breakfast was not only ready, but consumed; for a certain measure of anxiety as to the probability of there being an available path to the top of the cliffs tended to hasten their proceedings.

The question was soon settled, for after ascending a few yards above their encampment they found an indentation or crevice in the cliff which led into an open spot—a sort of broader shelf—which sloped upwards, and finally conducted them to the summit.

Here, to their surprise, they discovered that their new home, instead of being, as they had supposed it, one of a series of large islands, was in truth a territory of vast, apparently boundless, extent, covered with dense forests. Far as the eye could reach, interminable woods presented themselves, merging, in the far distance, into what appeared to be a range of low hills.

“Newfoundland is bigger than we have been led to believe,” said Paul Burns, surveying the prospect with great satisfaction.

“Ay is it,” responded Trench. “The fact is that discoverers of new lands, bein’ naturally in ships, have not much chance to go far inland. In a country like this, with such a wild seaboard, it’s no wonder they have made mistakes. We will find out the truth about it now, however, for we’ll undertake a land voyage of discovery.”

“What! without arms or provisions, father?” asked Oliver.

“What d’ye call the two things dangling from your shoulders, boy?” returned the captain, with some severity; “are these not ‘arms’? and have not woods—generally got lakes in ’em and rivers which usually swarm with provisions?”

“That’s so, father,” returned the lad, somewhat abashed; “but I did not raise the question as a difficulty, only I’ve heard you sometimes say that a ship is not fit for sea till she is well-armed and provisioned, so I thought that it might be the same with land expeditions.”

Before the skipper could reply, Paul drew attention to an opening in the woods not far from them, where an animal of some kind was seen to emerge into an open space, gaze for a moment around it, and then trot quietly away.

“Some of our provisions—uncooked as yet,” remarked Oliver.

“More of them,” returned his father, pointing to a covey of birds resembling grouse, which flashed past them at the moment on whirring wings. “How we are to get hold of ’em, however, remains, of course, to be seen.”

“There are many ways of getting hold of them, and with some of these I am familiar,” said Paul. “For instance, I can use the long-bow with some skill—at least I could do so when at school. And I have no doubt, captain, that you know how to use the cross-bow?”

“That I do,” returned Trench, with a broad grin.

“I was noted at school as bein’ out o’ sight the worst shot in the neighbourhood where I lived. Indeed, I’ve bin known to miss a barn-door at twenty yards!”

“Well, well, you must learn to shoot, that’s all,” said Paul, “and you may, perchance, turn out better with the sling. That weapon did great execution, as no doubt you know, in the hands of King David.”

“But where are we to get long-bows and cross-bows and slings?” asked Oliver eagerly.

“Why, Olly, my boy, excitement seems to have confused your brain, or the air of Newfoundland disagrees with you,” said Paul. “We shall make them, of course. But come,” he added, in a more serious tone, “we have reached a point—I may say a crisis—in our lives, for we must now decide definitely what we shall do, and I pray God to direct us so that we may do only that which is right and wise. Are you prepared, captain, to give up all hope of returning to our shipmates?”

“Of course I am,” returned Trench firmly, while a slight frown gathered on his brow. “The few who are on our side could not make the rest friendly. They may now fight it out amongst themselves as best they can, for all that I care. We did not forsake them. They sent us away. Besides, we could not return, if we wished it ever so much. No; a grand new country has been opened up to us, and I mean to have a cruise of exploration. What say you, Olly?”

“I’m with ’ee, father!” answered the boy, with a nod of the head that was even more emphatic than the tone of his voice.

With a laugh at Oliver’s enthusiasm, Paul declared himself to be of much the same mind, and added that, as they had no boxes to pack or friends to bid farewell to, they should commence the journey there and then.

“I don’t agree with that,” said the captain.

“Why not, Master Trench?”

“Because we have not yet made our weapons, and it may be that we shall have some good chances of getting supplies at the very beginning of our travels. My opinion is that we should arm ourselves before starting, for the pork and cakes cannot last long.”

This being at once recognised as sound advice, they entered the forest, which was not so thick at that place as it at first appeared to be. They went just far enough to enable them to obtain a species of hardwood, which the experienced eye of Paul Burns told them was suitable for bow-making. Here they pitched their camp. Paul took the axe and cut down several small trees; the captain gathered firewood, and Oliver set about the fabrication of a hut or booth, with poles, bark, turf, and leaves, which was to shelter them from rain if it should fall, though there was little chance of that, the weather being fine and settled at the time.

The work which they had undertaken was by no means as easy as they had anticipated. Paul had indeed made bows and arrows in former years, but then all the materials had been furnished “in the rough” to his hands, whereas he had now not only to select the tree best adapted to his purpose, but had to choose the best part of it, and to reduce that portion from a massive trunk to suitably slender proportions. It was much the same with the arrows and cross-bow bolts. However, there was resolution and perseverance in each member of the party far more than sufficient to overcome such little difficulties; only, as we have said, they were slower about it than had been expected, and the work was far from completed when the descent of night obliged them to seek repose.

“Not a bad little bower,” remarked Paul, as they sat down to supper in the primitive edifice which Oliver had erected.

The said bower was about four feet high, eight wide, and five deep, of irregular form, with three sides and a roof; walls and roof being of the same material—branchy, leafy, and turfy. The fourth side was an open space in which the inhabitants sat, facing the fire. The latter, being large enough to roast a sheep whole, was built outside.

“Why, Olly, you’re a selfish fellow,” said the captain, during a pause in the meal; “you’ve thought only of yourself in building this bower. Just look at Paul’s feet. They are sticking out ten or twelve inches beyond our shelter!”

“That comes of his being so tall, daddy. But it does not matter much. If it should come on to rain he can draw his feet inside; there’s room enough to double up. Don’t you think so, Paul?”

But Paul replied not, save by a gentle snore, for he was a healthy man, and child-like in many respects, especially in the matter of going off to the land of Nod the moment his head touched his pillow. Possibly the fresh air, the excitement, the energy with which he had wrought, and the relish with which he had supped, intensified this tendency on the present occasion. Oliver very soon followed his friend’s example, and so Captain Trench was left to meditate beside the fire. He gazed into its glowing embers, or sometimes glanced beyond it towards an open space where a tiny rivulet glittered in the moonlight, and a little cascade sent its purling music into the still air.

Ere long he passed from the meditative to the blinking stage. Then he turned his eyes on the sleepers, smiled meekly once or twice and nodded to them—quite inadvertently! After that he stretched his bulky frame beside them, and resigned himself to repose.

Now, it is probable that we should have had nothing more to record in reference to that first night in Newfoundland if Captain Trench had been in the habit of taking his rest like ordinary mortals, but such was not his habit. He bounced in his sleep! Why he did so no one could ever find out. He himself denied the “soft impeachment,” and, in his waking moments, was wont to express disbelief as well as profound ignorance in regard to the subject. Several broken beds, however, had, in the course of his career, testified against him; but, like the man who blamed “the salmon,” not “the whisky,” for his headaches, Trench blamed “the beds,” not “the bouncing,” for his misfortunes.

One might have counted him safe with the solid earth of Newfoundland for his bed, but danger often lurks where least expected. Oliver Trench was not an architect either by nature or training. His bower had been erected on several false principles. The bouncing of a big man inside was too much for its infirm constitution. Its weak points were discovered by the captain. A bounce into one of its salient supports proved fatal, and the structure finally collapsed, burying its family in a compost of earth and herbage.

With a roar that would have done credit to a native walrus, the captain struggled to free himself, under the impression that a band of savages had attacked them. All three quickly threw off the comparatively light material that covered them, and stood in warlike attitudes for a few seconds, glancing around for foes who did not exist! Then the roar of alarm was transformed into shouts of laughter, but these were quickly checked by a real foe who crept up insidiously and leaped on them unexpectedly. The half-extinguished fire, having been replenished by the falling structure—much of which was dry and inflammable—caught on the roof and flashed down into the interior.

“Save the pork, lad!” shouted the captain, as he sprang out of the kindling mass.

“Ay, ay, father,” replied the son.

Paul meanwhile grasped the half-finished bows and arrows in his arms, and thus their little all was rescued from the flames. Of course, the bower was utterly consumed, but that caused them little grief. Having extinguished the flames, they all lay down to finish off the night under a neighbouring tree, and even its architect became so oblivious of what had occurred that he employed the remainder of his slumbering hours in dreaming of the home in old England, and of that dear mother whose last letter was still carefully guarded in the pocket of the coat that covered his ardent little bosom.

Chapter Seven. They Begin their Travels in Earnest.

When their weapons were complete our three travellers started on their journey of exploration in the new-found land.

Captain Trench armed himself with a strong, heavily-made cross-bow, and a birch-bark quiver full of bolts. Paul Burns carried a bow as long as himself, with a quiver full of the orthodox “cloth-yard shafts.” Oliver provided himself with a bow and arrows more suited to his size, and, being naturally sanguine, he had also made for himself a sling with the cord he chanced to possess and the leathern tongue of one of his shoes. He likewise carried a heavy bludgeon, somewhat like a policeman’s baton, which was slung at his side. Not content with this, he sought and obtained permission to carry the axe in his belt. Of course, none of the bolts or arrows had metal points; but that mattered little, as the wood of which they were made was very hard, and could be sharpened to a fine point; and, being feathered, the missiles flew straight to the mark when pointed in the right direction.

“Now, captain,” said Paul, on the morning they set out, “let’s see what you can do with your cross-bow at the first bird you meet. I mean the first eatable bird; for I have no heart to kill the little twitterers around us for the mere sake of practice.”

“That will I right gladly,” said Trench, fixing his bow and string, and inserting a bolt with a confident air.

“And there’s a chance, daddy! See! a bird that seems to wish to be shot, it sits so quietly on the tree.”

The seaman raised his weapon slowly to his shoulder, shut the wrong eye, glared at the bird with the other, took a long unsteady aim, and sent his bolt high over the creature’s head, as well as very much to one side.

“Might have been worse!” said the captain.

“Might have been better,” returned Paul, with equal truth. “Now it’s my turn.”

The bird, all ignorant of the fate intended for it, sat still, apparently in surprise.

Paul drew his cloth-yard shaft to his ear and let fly. It went apparently in search of the captain’s bolt.

“Now me!” cried the impatient Olly, in a hoarse whisper, as he placed a stone in the sling and whirled it round his head. His companions drew off! There was a “burring” noise as the stone sped on its mission and struck the tree-stem with a sounding crack, three yards from the bird, which, learning wisdom from experience, at last took wing.

In anticipation of their chance coming round again, both Paul and the captain had got ready their artillery, and Oliver hastily put another stone in his sling. A look and exclamation of disappointment were given by each as the bird vanished, but just at that moment a large rabbit darted across their path. Whiz! twang! burr! went bolt and bow and stone, and that rabbit, pierced in head and heart, and smitten on flank, fell to rise no more.

“Strange!” said Trench, in open-mouthed surprise, “I’ve often heard of coincidences, but I never did see or hear of the like of that.”

“All three to hit it at once!” exclaimed Paul.

“Ay, and all three of us doin’ our best to hit it, too,” exclaimed Oliver.

“Just so—that’s the puzzle, lad,” rejoined the captain. “If we had been tryin’ to hit something else now, there would have been nothing strange about it! But to hit what we all aimed at—”

Apparently the captain failed to find words adequately to express his ideas, for he did not finish the sentence; meanwhile Paul picked up the rabbit and attached it to his belt. After this, advancing through the woods in a north-westerly direction, they made for a somewhat elevated ridge, hoping to obtain from that point a more extended view of the land.

Towards noon, feeling hungry, they began to look out for a suitable spot whereon to lunch, or rather to dine; for while travelling on foot in wild countries men usually find it convenient to take a very substantial meal about, or soon after, noon.

“To have water handy,” remarked Paul, as they stopped to look round, “is essential to comfort as well as cookery.”

“Look there, away to the nor’-west o’ that bunch o’ trees,” said the captain, pointing to a distant spot, “there’s a depression in the ground there; and from the lie o’ the land all round I should say we shall find a stream o’ some sort near it.”

“I hope so,” said Oliver; “for I shall want water to wash the rabbit with, and I have a strong hope that we may find fish in the rivers of this land, and although my hooks are big, I think the fish may not be particular, seein’ that they have never before been tempted in that way.”

“That’s true, Olly; I hope you won’t be disappointed. But what makes you want to wash the rabbit, my boy?” asked the captain; “it is not dirty?”

“Perhaps not; but I don’t quite relish the dirty work of cleaning out a rabbit before cooking it, so I want to try the plan of cutting it open, holding it under water, and scraping out the inside while in that position.”

“My son, you won’t be so particular when you’ve been a few weeks huntin’ in the wild woods. But what about the hair?”

“Oh, we can singe that off, daddy.”

“What! singe off wet hair? And the skin—I doubt we might find that tough?”

The young cook—for such he became to the exploring expedition—looked puzzled.

“I never skinned a rabbit,” he said, “but no doubt it is easy enough. I’ll just cut it open at the head—or tail—and pull it off like a glove.”

“Not quite so easily done as that” remarked Paul, with a laugh; “but I happen to know something about skinning birds and beasts, Olly, so make your mind easy. I will show you how to do it.”

“You happen to know something about almost everything, I think,” said the captain. “Tell me now, d’ye happen to know what sort o’ beast it is that I see starin’ at us over the bushes yonder?”

“No, Master Trench, I do not; but it looks marvellously like a deer of some sort,” said Paul, as he hastily fitted an arrow to his bow. But before he could discharge it the animal wisely retired into the shelter of its native wilds.

By this time, having walked smartly, they had gained the crest of one of the lower ridges, or plateaus, that rose in gentle slopes from the rocky shore, and there, as had been anticipated, they found a small rivulet, such as Americans would call a creek, and Scotsmen a burn. It flowed in a north-easterly direction, and was broken by several small rapids and cascades.

With a little shout of satisfaction, Oliver ran down to its banks, getting his hooks out as he went. Arriving at the margin of a deep pool, he bent over it and gazed earnestly down. The water was as clear as crystal, showing every stone at the bottom as if it had been covered merely with a sheet of glass, and there, apparently undisturbed by the intruder, lay several large fish.

What they were he knew not—cared not. Sufficient for him that they seemed large and fat. His first impulse was to turn and shout the discovery to his companions; but seeing that they had already set to work to cut firewood a little higher up the stream, he checked himself.

“I’ll catch a fish first maybe,” he muttered, as he quickly adjusted to his piece of cord one of the smallest cod-hooks he possessed. A few minutes sufficed for this; but when he was ready, it occurred to him that he had no bait. He looked around him, but nothing suitable was to be seen, and he was about to attempt the all but hopeless task of tearing up the soil with his fingers in search of a worm, when his eyes fell on a small bright feather that had been dropped by some passing bird. “Happy thoughts” occurred to people in the days of which we write, even as now, though they were not recognised or classified as such.

Fly-fishing was instantly suggested to the eager boy. He had often tried it in Old England; why not try it in Newfoundland? A very brief period sufficed to unwind a thread from the cord, and therewith to attach the feather to the hook. He had no rod, and neither time nor patience to make one. Gathering the cord into a coil, such as wharfmen form when casting ropes to steamers; he swung it round his head, and hove his hook half-way across the glassy pool.

The fish looked up at him, apparently in calm surprise—certainly without alarm. Then Olly began to haul in the hook. It was a fearful fly to look at, such as had never desecrated those waters since the days of Adam, yet those covetous fish rushed at it in a body. The biggest caught it, and found himself caught! The boy held on tenderly, while the fish in wild amazement darted from side to side, or sprang high into the air. Oliver was far too experienced a fisher not to know that the captive might be but slightly hooked, so he played it skilfully, casting a sidelong glance now and then at his busy comrades in the hope that they had not observed him.

At last the fish became tired, and the fisher drew it slowly to the bank—a four- or five-pound trout at the very least! Unfortunately the bank was steep, and the boy found, to his distress, that the hook had only caught hold slightly of the fish’s lip. To lift out the heavy creature with the line was therefore impossible, to catch hold of it with the hand was almost equally so; for when he lay down and stretched out his arm as far as possible, he could scarcely touch it with the end of his finger.

“If it makes another dash it’ll escape,” muttered the anxious boy, as he slid further and further down the bank—a hairbreadth at a time.

Just then the fish showed symptoms of revival. Olly could stand this no longer. He made a desperate grasp and caught it by the gills just as the hook came away. The act destroyed what little balance he had retained, and he went with a sharp short yell into the pool.

Paul looked up in time to see his friend’s legs disappear. He ran to the spot in considerable alarm, supposing that the boy might have taken a fit, and not knowing whether he could swim. He was relieved, however, to find that Olly on reappearing struck out manfully with one hand for a shallow place at the lower end of the pool, while with the other he pressed some object tightly to his bosom.

“You don’t mean to say,” exclaimed Paul, as he assisted his friend out of the water, “that you went in for that splendid trout and caught it with your hands!”

“You saw me dive,” replied the boy, throwing the fish down with affected indifference, and stooping to wring the water from his garments as well as to hide his face; “and you don’t suppose, surely, that I caught it with my feet. Come, look at the depth I had to go down to catch him!”

Seizing his prize, Olly led his friend to the spot where he had fallen in, and pointed with a look of triumph to the clear, deep pool. At the moment a smile of intelligence lit up Paul’s features, and he pointed to the extemporised fly-hook which still dangled from the bank.

Bursting into a hearty fit of laughter, the successful fisher ran up to the encampment, swinging the trout round his head, to the surprise and great satisfaction of his father, who had already got the fire alight and the rabbit skinned.

Need it be said that the meal which followed was a hearty one, though there was no variety save roast rabbit, roast trout, and roast pork, with the last of the cakes as pudding?

“A first-rate dinner!” exclaimed Paul, after swallowing a draft of sparkling water from the stream.

“Not bad,” admitted Captain Trench, “if we only had something stronger than water to wash it down.”

Paul made no reply to this remark, but he secretly rejoiced in the necessity which delivered his friend from the only foe that had power to overcome him.

“Now,” remarked Paul, when he had finished dinner, “I will strengthen my bow before starting, for it does not send the arrows with sufficient force, and the only way to do that, that I can think of, is to shorten it.”

“And I will feather the last arrow I made,” said Oliver, drawing the shaft in question out of his quiver.

“Well, as my bow and bolts are all ship-shape and in perfect order, I will ramble to the top of the ridge before us and take a look out ahead.”

So saying the captain departed, and the other two were soon so deeply absorbed in their work and in conversation about future plans that they had almost forgotten him when a loud shout caused them to start up. On looking towards the ridge they beheld Captain Trench tossing his arms wildly in the air, and shouting and gesticulating violently.

“Sees savages, I think,” said Paul.

“Or gone mad!” cried Olly.

Catching up their arms, the two ran hastily to the top of the ridge, where they arrived perspiring and panting, to find that their excitable comrade had only gone into ecstasies about the magnificent scenery that had burst upon his sight.

Chapter Eight. Beautiful Scenes and Strange Experiences.

And, truly, the scene which met their gaze was of a nature calculated to arouse enthusiasm in a much less ardent bosom than that of Captain Trench. A wide undulating country, studded with lakelets and rich with verdure, stretched away from their feet to the horizon, where a range of purple hills seemed to melt and mingle with cloudland, so that the eye was carried, as it were, by imperceptible gradations from the rugged earth up into the soft blue sky; indeed, it was difficult to distinguish where the former ended and the latter began. The lakes and ponds were gay with yellow water-lilies, and the air was musical with the sweet cries of wildfowl; while the noon-tide sun bathed the whole in a golden glory.

The effect of such a sight on our wanderers was at first too powerful for words, and when words did burst forth they served to show how wonderfully diverse are the spirits of men. Captain Trench, as we have seen, was moved by this vision of beauty to shout, almost to dance, with delight, while in thought he bounded over the length and breadth of the new land, taking bearings, and making notes and charts with the view of extending the geographical knowledge of mankind! His son Oliver, on the other hand, allowed his imagination to revel freely through the forests and over the hills and across lakes and savannahs in powerful sympathy with the aspirations which must have animated Nimrod; while to Paul Burns, whose temperament was sedate and earnest, as well as cheerful and hearty, the glorious vision at once suggested thoughts of that tranquil home in which man’s lot was originally cast by the loving heart of God.

“Now it is quite plain,” said Trench, as they slowly descended into this beautiful scene, “that this land is no collection of small islands, as we have been led to suppose, but a great land full of all that is needful to make it the happy abode of man.”

“Just so, daddy!” exclaimed the enthusiastic Oliver, “and we have been sent to explore it and carry home the news—perhaps to bring out the first settlers and show them the way!”

“Why, Olly, you carry too much sail for so small a craft; you look out rather too far ahead. And what mean ye by saying we are sent? Nobody sent us on this journey that I know of, unless you mean that Swinton—the big scoundrel!—sent us.”

“Whatever Olly meant by the expression,” interposed Paul, “I think he is right; for all men are sent by the Almighty, no matter where they go.”

“What! d’ye mean that men are sent by the Almighty whether they go to do good or evil?”

“Ay, Master Trench, that is what I mean; they are sent by Him, though not sent to do evil. Look here, don’t you admit that God created all men and sent them into this world?”

“Of course I do.”

“And that He made you an Englishman, and so sent you to England; and that He made you a sea-captain, and among other places sent you to Newfoundland.”

“Well—I—I suppose He did,” returned the captain, with that puzzled expression of countenance which was wont to indicate that his mind was grappling difficulties.

“Well, then,” continued Paul, “being good, of course the Almighty sent us to do good; but He also gave us free wills, which just means permission to do as we please; so it remains to be seen whether we will use our free wills in working with Him, or in trying to work against Him, for, strange to say, we cannot really work against God, we can only try to do it, and in so trying we establish the fact of our own wickedness; but His grand and good purposes shall be carried out in spite of us notwithstanding, for he can bring good out of evil.”

“Now, Paul, I’ve lost soundings altogether, and it’s my opinion that you are foolishly talking about things that you, don’t understand.”

“I never heard, Master Trench, that it was foolish to talk about what one does not understand! On the contrary, it is by talking of things that we don’t understand that we manage at last to understand them. You had a deal of talking about navigation, had you not, before you understood it?”

“Look ’ee here, lad,” said Trench, stopping suddenly, with his legs planted firmly apart as though on the quarter-deck of his ship in a cross sea, while he drove his right fist into the palm of his left hand argumentatively. “Look ’ee here. How can it be possible that—that—pooh! Come along, we’ll never get on with our survey of the land if we dispute at this rate.”

The stout mariner turned away with an air of exasperation, and resumed his walk at a rapid pace, closely followed by his amused friend and son.

This irreverent mode of dismissing a grave and difficult subject was not peculiar to Captain Trench. It has probably been adopted by those who shrink from mental effort ever since the days of Adam and Eve. Minds great and small have exercised themselves since the beginning of time on this perplexing subject—God’s sovereignty and man’s free will—with benefit, probably, to themselves. We recommend it in passing, good reader, to your attention, and we will claim to be guiltless of presumption in thus advising, so long as the writing stands, “Prove all things, and hold fast that which is good.”

Before the sun went down that night our explorers had plunged into the very heart of the beautiful country which we have described—now pushing through tangled underwood, or following the innumerable deer-tracks with which the country was seamed, or breasting the hill-sides, or making détours to get round small lakes, being guided, in a westerly direction, by a small pocket-compass which Captain Trench was fortunately in the habit of carrying with him wherever he went. No large lakes or broad rivers had yet been met with, so that up to this point the divergencies from the direct line had not been great.

Thus they advanced for several days, subsisting on game and fish, chiefly the last, however; for their shooting powers were very defective, and Oliver was an ardent—too ardent—fisher. Their inability to shoot became at last a serious matter, for many arrows and bolts were lost, as well as much game.

“Look, now, there’s another chance,” whispered Paul, pointing to a plump willow-grouse that sat in a bush in front of them. “You try first, Master Trench.”

“An’ don’t miss, daddy,” said Oliver entreatingly; “there’s only the bones of a rabbit left from this morning’s breakfast.”

The captain took a fervently careful aim, but went far wide of the mark, to his intense chagrin. Paul then bent his bow, but without success, though his arrows stuck in a branch close under the bird, which, being very tame, only glanced down inquiringly. Oliver’s arrow went over it, and the stone which he afterwards slang made such a rattling in the bush that the puzzled creature finally retired.

“This is becoming serious,” remarked the captain, with a face so solemn that Paul burst into a fit of laughter.

“Ha! you may laugh, lad,” continued Trench, “but if you were as hungry as I am you’d be more inclined to cry. D’ye think a stout man like me can sup heartily on rabbit bones?”

“You’ve forgot, daddy, the four big trout I caught to-day.”

“So I have, Olly; well, come and let’s have ’em cooked at once.”

The fish, which were really more than sufficient without the rabbit bones, were soon grilling over a huge fire under the canopy of a spreading birch-tree.

When the skipper had disposed of enough to allay the pangs of hunger, he turned and said to his comrades, in a tone of marked decision—

“Now, mess-mates, I’ve been rummagin’ my brains a bit, and the outcome of it is as follows:— ‘Whatever is worth doin’ is worth doin’ well,’ as the old proverb puts it. If we are to explore this country, we must set about learning to shoot, for if we don’t, we are likely to starve in the midst of plenty, and leave our bones to bleach in this beautiful wilderness.”

“True, Master Trench,” remarked Paul, for the seaman had paused at this point; “thus far you and I think alike. What more have you to say?”

“This I have to say, that I am resolved not to explore another fathom o’ this land until I can make sure of hittin’ the crown o’ my cap with a cross-bow bolt at a reasonable distance; and I would advise you both to make the same resolution, for if you don’t you will have to do your exploring without me.”

“Just so, captain,” said Paul, putting the last morsel of fish into his mouth, with a sigh of contentment; “you are commander of this expedition. I will obey orders.”

“But what do you call a ‘reasonable’ distance, daddy?” asked Oliver, with that pert cock of the head peculiar to insolent youths; “a yard, or a fathom?”

“Well, now,” continued Trench, ignoring the question, “we will set about it to-morrow morning, first thing after breakfast; stick up a target, retire to a reasonable distance, and work away from morning till night, and every day till we become perfect.”

“Agreed, captain,” said Paul; “but what about food?”

“We will give Olly leave of absence for an hour or two daily to go and fish,” said the captain; “that will keep us alive, coupled with what birds or beasts may come accidentally in front of our arrows.”

This plan, although proposed at first half in jest, was carried into operation next day, during the whole of which they practised shooting at a mark most diligently. At supper-time, over a couple of fine trout, it was admitted sadly by each that the progress made was very slight—indeed, scarcely perceptible. Next night, however, the report was more favourable, and the third night it was felt that the prospect ahead was becoming hopeful; for, besides the improvement in shooting, two rabbits graced their supper, one having been arrested by an almost miraculous bolt when bolting; the other having been caught, unintentionally, by a stone similar to that which brought down the giant of Gath. The fact that skill had nothing to do with the procuring of either did not in the least detract from the enjoyment with which they consumed both.

“Nothing is denied,” they say, “to well-directed labour, and nothing can be done without it.” Like most of the world’s maxims, this is a partially erroneous statement; for many things are denied to well-directed labour, and sometimes amazing success is accorded to ill-directed and blundering efforts. Still, what truth does exist in the saying was verified by our three friends; for, after two weeks of unremitting, unwearied, persistent labour, each labourer succeeded in raising enormous blisters on two fingers of his right hand, and in hitting objects the size of a swan six times out of ten at a “reasonable distance!”

Having arrived at this state of proficiency with their weapons, they resumed their journey, fortified with a hearty breakfast, the foundation of which was fish, the superstructure willow-grouse interspersed with rabbit, and the apex plover.

Not long after that the first deer was shot. It occurred thus:—

They were walking one beautiful morning slowly along one of the numerous deer-tracks of which we have already made mention, and were approaching the summit of a ridge at the very time that a herd of deer, headed by a noble stag, were ascending the same ridge from the opposite side. The little air that moved was blowing in the right direction—from the deer towards the travellers. As they topped the ridge about the same instant, the two parties stood suddenly face to face, and it would be difficult to determine which party looked most amazed.

Facility in fitting arrows, etcetera, had been acquired by that time. The hunters were ready in a couple of seconds. The deer, recovering, wheeled about; but before they could take the first bound, “burr, twang, and whizz,” sounded in their ears. The stone struck an antler of the stag, the arrow pierced his flank, the bolt quivered in his heart, and the monarch of the woods, leaping wildly into the air, fell dead upon the ground.

“Well done, Master Trench!” shouted Paul, with a hearty cheer. As for Oliver, he uttered a squeal of delight, threw an uncontrollable somersault, and landed, sittingwise, on a bed of soft moss.

This was a tremendous triumph and source of jubilation, and it soon became obvious to each that the other two had a hard struggle to keep their expressions of satisfaction within the limits of moderation; for not only had they now obtained the crowning evidence of their skill, but they were provided with a supply of meat which, if properly dried, would furnish them with food for many days to come.

It was a striking and picturesque, though perhaps not an agreeable, sight to witness the party that night, in the ruddy light of the camp-fire, with sleeves rolled to the shoulders, and bloody knives in hands, operating on the carcase of the deer, and it was several hours past their usual supper-time before they felt themselves at liberty to sit down on a bed of spruce-fir branches and enjoy the luxury of rest and food.

Next day, while proceeding slowly through the woods, chatting merrily over the incidents of the previous day, a sudden silence fell upon them; for out of the thick shrubbery there stalked a tall, noble-looking man of middle age. He was dressed in the garb of a hunter. Long yellow curls hung on his shoulders, and a heavy beard and moustache of the same colour concealed the lower part of a bronzed and handsome countenance. His bright blue eyes seemed to sparkle with good humour as he gazed inquiringly, yet sadly, at the astonished faces of the three travellers.

Chapter Nine. Their New Acquaintance Becomes Interested and Practical.

The tall stranger who had thus suddenly presented himself bore so strong a resemblance to the vikings of old that Paul Burns, who was familiar with tales and legends about the ancient sea-rovers, felt stealing over him at the first glance a sensation somewhat akin to awe, for it seemed as if one of the sea-kings had actually risen from his grave to visit them.

This feeling was succeeded, however, by one of intense surprise when the stranger addressed them in the English tongue.

“I thought, years ago,” he said, “that I had seen the last of white faces!”

It immediately occurred to Oliver Trench that, as their faces were by that time deeply embrowned by the sun, the stranger must be in a bantering mood, but neither he nor his companions replied. They were too much astonished to speak or even move, and waited for more.

“This is not a land where the men whose ruling ideas seem to be war and gold are likely to find what they want,” continued the stranger, somewhat sternly. “Whence come ye? Are you alone, or only the advance-guard of the bloodthirsty race?”

There was something so commanding as well as courtly in the tone and bearing of this extraordinary man, that Paul half involuntarily removed his cap as he replied:

“Forgive me, sir, if astonishment at your sudden appearance has made me appear rude. Will you sit down beside us and share our meal, while I answer your questions?”

With a quiet air and slight smile the stranger accepted the invitation, and listened with profound interest to Paul as he gave a brief outline of the wreck of the Water Wagtail, the landing of the crew, the mutinous conduct of Big Swinton and his comrades, and the subsequent adventures and wanderings of himself, Master Trench, and Oliver.

“Your voices are like the echoes of an old, old song,” said the stranger, in a low sad voice, when the narrative was concluded. “It is many years since I heard my native tongue from English lips. I had forgotten it ere now if I had not taken special means to keep it in mind.”

“And pray, good sir,” said Paul, “may I ask how it happens that we should find an Englishman in this almost unheard-of wilderness? To tell you the truth, my first impression on seeing you was that you were the ghost of an ancient sea-king.”

“I am the ghost of my former self,” returned the stranger, “and you are not far wrong about the sea-kings, for I am in very truth a descendant of those rovers who carried death and destruction round the world in ancient times. War and gold—or what gold represents—were their gods in those days.”

“It seems to me,” said Captain Trench, at last joining in the conversation, “that if you were in Old England just now, or any other part of Europe, you’d say that war and gold are as much worshipped now-a-days as they ever were in the days of old.”

“If you add love and wine to the catalogue,” said Paul, “you have pretty much the motive powers that have swayed the world since the fall of man. But tell us, friend, how you came to be here all alone.”

“Not now—not now,” replied the stranger hurriedly, and with a sudden gleam in his blue eyes that told of latent power and passion under his calm exterior. “When we are better acquainted, perhaps you shall know. At present, it is enough to say that I have been a wanderer on the face of the earth for many years. For the last ten years my home has been in this wilderness. My native land is one of those rugged isles which form the advance-guard of Scotland in the Northern Ocean.”

“But are you quite alone here?” asked Captain Trench, with increasing interest.

“Not quite alone. One woman has had pity on me, and shares my solitude. We dwell, with our children, on an island in a great lake, to which I will conduct you if you will accept my hospitality. Red men have often visited me there, but I had thought that the face of a white man would never more grieve my sight.”

“Is, then, the face of the white man so distasteful to you?” asked Paul.

“It was; but some change must have come over me, for while I hold converse with you the old hatred seems melting away. If I had met you eight or ten years ago, I verily believe that I would have killed you all in cold blood, but now—”

He stopped abruptly, and gazed into the flames of the camp-fire, with a grave, almost tender air that seemed greatly at variance with his last murderous remark.

“However, the feeling is past and gone—it is dead,” he presently resumed, with a toss of his head which sent the yellow curls back, and appeared at the same time to cast unpleasant memories behind him, “and I am now glad to see and welcome you, though I cannot help grieving that the white race has discovered my lonely island. They might have discovered it long ago if they had only kept their ears open.”

“Is it a big island, then—not a cluster of islands?” asked Trench eagerly.

“Yes, it is a large island, and there is a great continent of unknown extent to the westward of it.”

“But what do you mean, stranger, by saying that it might have been discovered long ago if people had kept their ears open?” asked Paul. “It is well known that only a few years ago a sea-captain named Columbus discovered the great continent of which you speak, and that so recently as the year 1497 the bold mariner, John Cabot, with his son Sebastian, discovered these islands, which they have named Newfoundland.”

The stranger listened with evident interest, not unmingled with surprise, to this.

“Of Columbus and Cabot I have never heard,” he replied, “having had no intercourse with the civilised world for twenty years. I knew of this island and dwelt on it long before the time you say that Cabot came. But that reminds me that once, on returning from a hunting expedition into the interior, it was reported to me by Indians that a giant canoe had been seen off the coast. That may have been Cabot’s ship. As to Columbus, my forefathers discovered the great continent lying to the west of this about five hundred years before he could have been born. When I was a boy, my father, whose memory was stored with innumerable scraps of the old viking sagas, or stories, used to tell me about the discovery of Vinland by the Norsemen, which is just the land that seems to have been re-discovered by Columbus and Cabot. My father used to say that many of the written sagas were believed to exist among the colonists of Iceland. I know not. It is long since my thoughts ceased to be troubled by such matters, but what you tell me has opened up the flood-gates of old memories that I had thought were dead and buried for ever.”

All that day the strange hunter accompanied them, and encamped with them at night. Next morning he resumed with ever-increasing interest the conversation which had been interrupted by the necessity of taking rest. It was evident that his heart was powerfully stirred; not so much by the news which he received, as by the old thoughts and feelings that had been revived. He was very sociable, and, among other things, showed his new friends how to slice and dry their venison, so as to keep it fresh and make it convenient for carriage.

“But you won’t require to carry much with you,” he explained, “for the country swarms with living creatures at all times—especially just now.”

On this head he gave them so much information, particularly as to the habits and characteristics of birds, beasts, and fishes, that Paul’s natural-historic enthusiasm was aroused; and Oliver, who had hitherto concerned himself exclusively with the uses to which wild animals might be applied—in the way of bone-points for arrows, twisted sinews for bowstrings, flesh for the pot, and furs for garments—began to feel considerable curiosity as to what the creatures did when at home, and why they did it.

“If we could only find out what they think about,” he remarked to the hunter, “we might become quite sociable together.”

What it was in this not very remarkable speech that interested their new friend we cannot tell, but certain it is that from the time it was uttered he took greater interest in the boy, and addressed many of his remarks and explanations to him.

There was a species of dignity about this strange being which prevented undue familiarity either with or by him; hence, he always addressed the boy by his full name, and never condescended to “Olly!” The name by which he himself chose to be called was Hendrick, but whether that was a real or assumed name of course they had no means of knowing.

Continuing to advance through a most beautiful country, the party came at last to a river of considerable size and depth, up the banks of which they travelled for several days. Hendrick had by tacit agreement assumed the leadership of the party, because, being intimately acquainted with the land, both as to its character, form, and resources, he was naturally fitted to be their guide.

“It seems to me,” said Captain Trench, as they sat down to rest one afternoon on a sunny bank by the river side—out of which Olly had just pulled a magnificent trout—“that the climate of this island has been grossly misrepresented. The report was brought to us that it was a wild barren land, always enveloped in thick fogs; whereas, although I am bound to say we found fogs enough on the coast we have found nothing but beauty, sunshine, and fertility in the interior.”

“Does not this arise from the tendency of mankind to found and form opinions on insufficient knowledge?” said Hendrick. “Even the Indians among whom I dwell are prone to this error. If your discoverer Cabot had dwelt as many years as I have in this great island, he would have told you that it has a splendid climate, and is admirably adapted for the abode of man. Just look around you—the region which extends from your feet to the horizon in all directions is watered as you see by lakes and rivers, which swarm with fish and are alive with wildfowl; the woods, which are largely composed of magnificent and useful trees, give shelter to myriads of animals suitable for food to man; the soil is excellent, and the grazing lands would maintain thousands of cattle—what more could man desire?”

“Nothing more,” answered Paul, “save the opportunity to utilise it all, and the blessing of God upon his efforts.”

“The opportunity to utilise it won’t be long of coming, now that the facts about it are known, or soon to be made known, by us,” remarked Trench.

“I’m not so sure about that” said Paul. “It is wonderful how slow men are to believe, and still more wonderful how slow they are to act.”

That the captain’s hopes were not well founded, and that Paul’s doubts were justified, is amply proved by the history of Newfoundland. At first its character was misunderstood; then, when its unparalleled cod-fishing banks were discovered, attention was entirely confined to its rugged shores. After that the trade fell into the hands of selfish and unprincipled monopolists, who wilfully misrepresented the nature of this island, and prevailed on the British Government to enact repressive laws, which effectually prevented colonisation. Then prejudice, privileges, and error perpetuated the evil state of things, so that the true character of the land was not known until the present century; its grand interior was not systematically explored till only a few years ago, and thus it comes to pass that even at the present day one of the finest islands belonging to the British Crown—as regards vast portions of its interior—still remains a beautiful wilderness unused by man.

But with this we have nothing at present to do. Our business is, in spirit, to follow Hendrick and his friends through that wilderness, as it was at the beginning of the sixteenth century.

Deer-tracks, as we have said, were innumerable, and along one of those tracks a herd of deer were seen trotting one day about two bow-shots from the party. With characteristic eagerness Oliver Trench hastily let fly an arrow at them. He might as well have let it fly at the pole-star. The only effect it had was to startle the deer and send them galloping into the shelter of the woods.

“What a pity!” exclaimed Oliver.

“Not so, my boy,” remarked his father. “Experience, they say, teaches fools; and if experience has now taught you that it is foolish to shoot at game out of range, you are no fool, which is not a pity, but matter for congratulation.”

“But what about practice, daddy? Did you not say only last night that there is nothing like practice to make perfect?”

“True, lad, but I did not recommend practising at deer beyond range. Besides, you can practise at stumps and stones.”

“But stumps and stones don’t afford running shots,” objected Olly.

“Yes they do, boy. You can run past the stumps while you shoot, and as to stones, you can roll them down hill and let fly at them as they roll. Now clap the hatches on your mouth; you’re too fond of argument.”

“I’m only a chip of the ancient tree, father,” retorted the boy, with a quiet laugh.

How much further this little skirmish might have proceeded we cannot tell, for it was brought to an abrupt close by the sudden appearance of a black bear. It was on turning a cliff which bordered the edge of a stream that they came upon the monster—so close to it that they had barely time to get ready their weapons when it rose on its hind legs to attack them.

“Look out!” yelled Oliver, who, being in advance, was the first to see the bear.

A stone from his sling was well though hastily aimed, for it hit the animal fairly on the nose, thereby rendering it particularly angry. Almost at the same moment a bolt and an arrow flew from the weapons of Paul and Trench; but they flew wide of the mark, and there is no saying what the result might have been had not Hendrick bent his short but powerful bow, and sent an arrow to the feather into the creature’s breast.

The modern bullet is no doubt more deadly than the ancient arrow, nevertheless the latter had some advantages over the former. One of these was that, as it transfixed several muscles, it tended to hamper the movements of the victim shot. It also drew attention in some degree from the assailant. Thus, on the present occasion the bear, with a savage growl, seized the head of the arrow which projected from the wound and wrenched it off. This, although little more than a momentary act, gave the hunter time to fit and discharge a second arrow, which entered the animal’s throat, causing it to fall writhing on the ground, while Oliver, who had gone almost mad with excitement, grasped his axe, bounded forward, and brought it down on bruin’s skull.

Well was it for the reckless boy that Hendrick’s arrows had done their work, for, although his young arm was stout and the axe sharp, little impression was made on the hard-headed creature by the blow. Hendrick’s knife, however, completed the work and despatched the bear. Then they all sat down to rest while the hunter set to work to skin the animal.

Chapter Ten. Olly’s First Salmon and Hendrick’s Home.

From this time forward the opportunities for hunting and fishing became so numerous that poor Oliver was kept in a constantly bubbling-over condition of excitement, and his father had to restrain him a good deal in order to prevent the larder from being greatly overstocked.

One afternoon they came to a river which their guide told them was one of the largest in the country.

“It flows out of the lake, on one of the islands of which I have built my home.”

“May I ask,” said Paul, with some hesitation, “if your wife came with you from the Shetland Isles?”

A profoundly sad expression flitted across the hunter’s countenance.

“No,” he replied. “Trueheart, as she is named in the Micmac tongue, is a native of this island—at least her mother was; but her father, I have been told, was a white man—a wanderer like myself—who came in an open boat from no one knows where, and cast his lot among the Indians, one of whom he married. Both parents are dead. I never saw them; but my wife, I think, must resemble her white father in many respects. My children are like her. Look now, Oliver,” he said, as if desirous of changing the subject, “yonder is a pool in which it will be worth while to cast your hook. You will find something larger there than you have yet caught in the smaller streams. Get ready. I will find bait for you.”

Olly needed no urging. His cod-hook and line, being always handy, were arranged in a few minutes, and his friend, turning up the sod with a piece of wood, soon procured several large worms, which were duly impaled, until they formed a bunch on the hook. With this the lad hurried eagerly to the edge of a magnificent pool, where the oily ripples and curling eddies, as well as the great depth, effectually concealed the bottom from view. He was about to whirl the bunch of worms round his head, preparatory to a grand heave, when he was arrested by the guide.

“Stay, Oliver; you will need a rod for this river. Without one you will be apt to lose your fish. I will cut one.”

So saying, he went into the woods that bordered the pool, and soon returned with what seemed to the boy to be a small tree about fourteen feet long.

“Why, Hendrick, do you take me for Goliath, who as Paul Burns tells us, was brought down by a stone from the sling of David? I’ll never be able to fish with that.”

“Oliver,” returned the hunter gravely, as he continued the peeling of the bark from the rod, “a lad with strong limbs and a stout heart should never use the words ‘not able’ till he has tried. I have seen many promising and goodly young men come to wreck because ‘I can’t’ was too often on their lips. You never know what you can do till you try.”

The boy listened to this reproof with a slight feeling of displeasure, for he felt in his heart that he was not one of those lazy fellows to whom his friend referred. However, he wisely said nothing, but Hendrick observed, with some amusement, that his brow flushed and his lips were firmly compressed.

“There now,” he said in a cheery tone, being anxious to remove the impression he had made, “you will find the rod is lighter than it looks, and supple, as you see. We will tie your line half-way down and run it through a loop at the end—so!—to prevent its being lost if the point should break. Now, try to cast your hook into the spot yonder where a curl in the water meets and battles with an eddy. Do you see it?”

“Yes, I see it,” replied Olly, advancing to the pool, with the rod grasped in both hands.

“It would be better,” continued Hendrick, “if you could cast out into the stream beyond, but the line is too short for that, unless you could jump on to that big rock in the rapid, which is impossible with the river so high.”

Oliver looked at the rock referred to. It stood up in the midst of foaming water, full twenty feet from the bank. He knew that he might as well try to jump over the moon as attempt to leap upon that rock; nevertheless, without a moment’s hesitation, he rushed down the bank, sprang furiously off, cleared considerably more than half the distance, and disappeared in the foaming flood!

Hendrick was suddenly changed from a slow and sedate elephant into an agile panther. He sprang along the bank to a point lower down the stream, and was up to the waist in the water before Olly reached the point—struggling to keep his head above the surface, and at the same time to hold on to his rod. Hendrick caught him by the collar, and dragged him, panting, to land.

Paul and his father had each, with a shout of surprise or alarm, rushed for the same point, but they would have been too late.

“Olly, my son,” said Trench, in a remonstrative tone, “have you gone mad?”

“No, father; I knew that I could not jump it, but I’ve been advised never to say so till I have tried!”

“Nay, Oliver, be just,” said the guide, with a laugh. “I did truly advise you never to say ‘I can’t’ till you had tried, but I never told you to try the impossible. However, I am not sorry you did this, for I’d rather see a boy try and fail, than see him fail because of unwillingness to try. Come, now, I will show you something else to try.”

He took Oliver up the stream a few yards, and pointed to a ledge of rock, more than knee-deep under water, which communicated with the rock he had failed to reach.

“The ledge is narrow,” he said, “and the current crossing it is strong, but from what I’ve seen of you I think you will manage to wade out if you go cautiously, and don’t lose heart. I will go down stream again, so that if you should slip I’ll be ready to rescue.”

Boldly did Oliver step out upon the ledge; cautiously did he advance each foot, until he was more than leg-deep, and wildly, like an insane semaphore, did he wave his arms, as well as the heavy rod, in his frantic efforts not to lose his balance! At last he planted his feet, with a cheer of triumph, on the rock.

“Hush, Olly, you’ll frighten the fish,” cried Paul, with feigned anxiety.

“You’ll tumble in again, if you don’t mind,” said his cautious father.

But Olly heard not. The whole of his little soul was centred on the oily pool into which he had just cast the bunch of worms. Another moment, and the stout rod was almost wrenched from his grasp.

“Have a care! Hold on! Stand fast!” saluted him in various keys, from the bank.

“A cod! or a whale!” was the response from the rock.

“More likely a salmon,” remarked Hendrick, in an undertone, while a sober smile lit up his features.

At the moment a magnificent salmon, not less than twenty pounds weight, leapt like a bar of silver from the flood, and fell back, with a mighty splash.

The leap caused a momentary and sudden removal of the strain on the rod. Oliver staggered, slipped, and fell with a yell that told of anxiety more than alarm; but he got up smartly, still holding on by both hands.

In fishing with the tapering rods and rattling reels of modern days, fishers never become fully aware of the strength of salmon, unless, indeed, a hitch in their line occurs, and everything snaps! It was otherwise about the beginning of the sixteenth century. It is otherwise still with primitive fishers everywhere. Oliver’s line could not run; his rod was rigid, save at the point. The result was that it was all he could do to stand and hold on to his captive. The rod, bent down into the water, sprang up to the perpendicular, flew hither and thither, jerked and quivered, causing the poor boy to jerk and quiver in irresistible sympathy. At last a mighty rush of the fish drew the fisher headlong into the flood.

“He’ll be drowned or killed on the boulders below,” gasped his father, running wildly down the bank of the river.

“Don’t fear,” said Hendrick, as he ran beside him. “There is a shallow just above the boulders. We will stop him there.”

Paul Burns was already abreast of the shallow in question, and Oliver was stranded on it, but a deep rapid stream ran between it and the bank, so that Paul hesitated and looked eagerly about for the best spot to cross.

“Follow me,” cried Hendrick, “I know the ford.”

He led his comrade swiftly to a point where the river widened and became shallow, enabling them to wade to the tail of the bank at the top of which Oliver stood engaged in a double struggle—with the water that hissed and leaped around him, and the fish that still surged wildly about in its vain efforts to escape.

As the three men waded nearer to him they got into shallower water, and then perceived that the boy had not lost his self-possession, but was still tightly grasping the butt of his rod. Just as they came up the salmon, in its blind terror, ran straight against the boy’s legs. Olly fell upon it, let go the rod, and embraced it! Happily, his friends reached him at the moment, else the water that rushed over his head would have compelled him to let go—or die!

Paul lifted him up. The great fish struggled in its captor’s arms. It was slippery as an eel, and its strength tremendous. No digging of his ten nails into it was of any use. Slowly but surely it was wriggling out of his tight embrace when Hendrick inserted his great thumbs into its gills, and grasped it round the throat.

“Let go, Oliver,” he said, “I’ve got him safe.”

But Olly would not let go. Indeed, in the state of his mind and body at the moment it is probable that he could not let go.

His father, having made some ineffectual attempts to clear the line, with which, and the rod, they had got completely entangled, was obliged to “stand by” and see that the entanglement became no worse. Thus, holding on each to the other and all together, they staggered slowly and safely to land with their beautiful prize.

“Are there many fish like that in these rivers?” asked Paul, as they all stood contemplating the salmon, and recovering breath.

“Ay, thousands of them in all the rivers, and the rivers are numerous—some of them large,” replied Hendrick.

“This will be a great country some day, you take my word for it,” said the captain, in a dogmatic manner, which was peculiar to him when he attempted amateur prophecy.

That prophecy, however, like many other prophecies, has been only partly fulfilled. It has come true, indeed, that Newfoundland now possesses the most valuable cod-fishery in the world, and that her exports of salmon are considerable, but as to her being a great country—well, that still remains unfulfilled prophecy; for, owing to no fault of her people, but to the evils of monopoly and selfishness, as we have already said, her career has been severely checked.

Not many days after the catching of the salmon—which remained a memorable point in the career of Oliver Trench—the explorers were led by Hendrick to the shores of a magnificent lake. It was so large that the captain at first doubted whether it was not the great ocean itself.

“It is not the sea,” said their guide, as he surveyed the watery expanse with evident enthusiasm. “It is a lake full fifty miles long, yet it is not the largest lake in this island. Taste its waters and you will find them sweet. Here,” he added, with a look of gratification, “is my home.”

“God has given you a wide domain,” said Paul, gazing with pleasure on the verdant islets with which the bay before him was studded. “Yet I cannot help thinking that it is a waste of one’s life to spend it in a solitude, however beautiful, when the sorrowing and the suffering world around us calls for the active energies of all good men.”

The hunter seemed to ponder Paul’s words.

“It appears to me,” he said at last, “that our Creator meant us to serve Him by making ourselves and those around us happy. I have to do so here, and in some degree have succeeded.”

As he spoke he raised both hands to his mouth and gave vent to a prolonged halloo that swept out over the calm waters of the bay.

It was quickly replied to by a shrill cry, and in a few minutes a canoe, emerging from one of the islets, was seen paddling swiftly towards them.

Chapter Eleven. The Hunter’s Home.

The canoe, which approached the shores of the lake where our explorers stood, was a large one, built after the fashion of the coracle of the ancient Britons, namely, with a frame of wicker-work covered with deerskin. It was propelled with paddles by a woman seated in the stern and a little girl in the bow.

“My wife is a woman of forethought,” remarked Hendrick, with a pleased expression. “Seeing that we are a large party, she has not only brought our largest canoe, but has made Oscar get out the small one.”

He pointed to the island, from a creek in which a little canoe of a reddish colour was seen to issue. It was made of birch-bark, and was propelled by a small boy, who seemed from his exertions to be in urgent haste to overtake the other craft.

“Your son, I suppose?” said Paul.

“Yes, my eldest. His younger brother is but a babe yet. These, with my daughter Goodred, and my wife Trueheart, who are now approaching, constitute the family which God has given to me.”

A feeling of satisfaction filled the heart of Paul Burns as he listened to the last words, for they proved that their new friend was not among those who deem it weakness or hypocrisy in men to openly acknowledge their Maker as the Giver of all that they possess. This feeling was merged in one of surprise when the canoe touched the shore, and an exceedingly pretty child, with fair complexion, blue eyes, and curling hair, stepped lightly out, and ran to her father, who stooped to kiss her on the cheek. Hendrick was not demonstrative, that was evident; neither was his wife, nor his child. Whatever depth of feeling they possessed, the surface ran smooth. Yet there was an air of quiet gladness about the meeting which enabled Paul to understand what the hunter meant when, in a former conversation, he had said that he “made those around him happy.”

“Is baby well?” he asked quickly.

“Yes, father, quite well, and I very sure wishing much that you come home soon. You been long time away.”

“Longer than I expected, Goodred. And I have brought friends with me,” he added, turning to his wife. “Friends whom I have found in the forest, Trueheart.”

“You friends be welcome,” said Trueheart, with a modest yet self-possessed air.

The woman, who advanced and held out a small hand to be shaken in European fashion, was obviously of Indian extraction, yet her brown hair, refined cast of features, and easy manner, showed as obviously the characteristics of her white father. Though not nearly so fair as her child, she was still far removed from the deep colour of her mother’s race.

Before more could be said on either side the enthusiastic youngster in the bark canoe leaped ashore, burst into the midst of the group with a cheer, and began wildly to embrace one of his father’s huge legs, which was about as much of his person as he could conveniently grasp. He was a miniature Hendrick, clad in leather from top to toe.

The whole party now entered the canoes, skimmed over the lake, and past the wooded islets, towards the particular island which the hunter called “home.”

It was as romantic a spot as one could desire for a residence. Though only a quarter of a mile or so in diameter, the island, which was composed of granite, was wonderfully diversified in form and character. There was a little cove which formed a harbour for the hunter’s canoes; bordering it was a patch of open ground backed by shrubs, above which rose a miniature precipice. The ground in the centre of the isle was rugged—as the captain remarked, quite mountainous in a small way! Hendrick had taught his children to call it the mountain, and in the midst of its miniature fastnesses he had arranged a sort of citadel, to which he and his family could retire in case of attack from savages. One peak of this mountainette rose in naked grandeur to a height of about fifty feet above the lake. Elsewhere the islet was wooded to the water’s edge with spruce and birch-trees, in some places fringed with willows. On a few open patches were multitudes of ripe berries, which here and there seemed literally to cover the ground with a carpet of bright red.

On the open ground, or lawn, beside the cove, stood the hunter’s hut, a small structure of rounded logs, with a door, on either side of which was a window. From those glassless windows there was a view of lake and isles and distant woods, with purple mountains beyond, which formed a scene of indescribable beauty. Close to the door, forming, as it were, a porch to it, there stood a semi-circular erection of poles covered with birch-bark and deerskins, in front of which blazed the household fire, with a tripod over it, and a bubbling earthen pot hanging therefrom. Around the inner side of the fire, under the semi-circular tent, were spread a number of deerskins to serve as couches. On one of these sat an Indian woman, with the family babe in her arms.

It was a wonderful babe! and obviously a wise one, for it knew its own father directly, stretched out its little arms, and shouted for instant recognition. Nor had it to shout long, for Hendrick, being fond of it and regardless of appearances, seized it in his arms and smothered it in his beard, out of which retreat crows and squalls of satisfaction thereafter issued.

“Excuse me, friends,” said Hendrick at last, delivering the child to its mother. “I have been absent on a visit to my wife’s relations, and have not seen little Ian for a long time. Sit down, and we will see what cheer the pot contains. I don’t ask you to enter the hut, because while the weather is mild it is pleasanter outside. When winter comes we make more use of the house. My wife, you see, does not like it, having been accustomed to tents all her life.”

“But me—I—likes it when the snow fall,” said Trueheart, looking up with a bright smile from the pot, into which she had previously been making investigations.

“True—true. I think you like whatever I like; at least you try to!” returned the hunter, as he sat down and began to tie the feathers on the head of an arrow. “You even try to speak good grammar for my sake!”

Trueheart laughed and continued her culinary duties.

“You told us when we first met,” said Captain Trench, who had made himself comfortable on a deerskin beside the baby, “that you had taken special means not to forget your native tongue. Do I guess rightly in supposing that the teaching of it to your wife and children was the means?”

“You are right, captain. Of course, the language of the Micmac Indians is more familiar and agreeable to Trueheart, but she is obstinate, though a good creature on the whole, and insists on speaking English, as you hear.”

Another little laugh in the vicinity of the earthen pot showed that his wife appreciated the remark.

Meanwhile Goodred busied herself in preparing venison steaks over the same fire, and Oscar undertook to roast marrow bones for the whole party, as well as to instruct Oliver Trench in that delicate operation.

While they were thus engaged the shades of evening gradually descended on the scene, but that did not interfere with their enjoyment, for by heaping fresh resinous logs on the fire they produced a ruddy light, which seemed scarcely inferior to that of day; a light which glowed on the pretty and pleasant features of the wife and daughter as they moved about placing plates of birch-bark before the guests, and ladling soup and viands into trenchers of the same. Savoury smells floated on the air, and gradually expelled the scent of shrub and flower from the banqueting-hall.

Truly, it was a right royal banquet; fit for a king—if not too particular a king—to say nothing of its being spread before one who was monarch of all he surveyed, and served by his queen and princess!

There was, first of all, soup of excellent quality. Then followed boiled salmon and roast sea-trout. Next came a course of boiled venison, fat and juicy, with an alternative of steaks and grilled ribs. This was followed by what may be styled a haunch of beaver, accompanied by the animal’s tail—a prime delicacy—in regard to which Captain Trench, with his mouth full of it, said—

“This is excellent eatin’, Master Hendrick. What may it be—if I may presume to ask?”

“Beaver’s tail,” replied the hunter.

“Dear me!” exclaimed Olly, withdrawing a roast rib from his mouth for the purpose of speech; “beavers seem to have wonderfully broad and flat tails.”

“They have, Oliver, and if you will try a bit you will find that their tails are wonderfully good.”

Oliver tried, and admitted that it was good; then, observing that little Oscar had just finished his fourth venison steak, he politely handed him the trencher. The greasy-fingered boy gravely helped himself to number five, and assailed it as if he had only just begun to terminate a long fast.

There were no vegetables at that feast, and instead of bread they had cakes of hard deer’s-fat, with scraps of suet toasted brown intermixed—a species of plum-cake, which was greatly relished by the visitors. At the last, when repletion seemed imminent, they finished off with marrow bones. With these they trifled far on into the night. Of course as the demands of appetite abated the flow of soul began.

“I see neither nets, hooks, nor lines about the camp, Hendrick,” said Paul Burns, after the queen and princess had retired into the hut for the night. “How do you manage to catch salmon?”

The hunter replied by pointing to a spear somewhat resembling Neptune’s trident which stood against a neighbouring tree.

“We spear them by torchlight,” he said. “Oscar is a pretty good hand at it now.”

“You live well, Master Hendrick,” remarked Trench, raising a bark flagon to his lips and tossing off a pint of venison soup, with the memory of pots of ale strong upon him. “Do you ever have a scarcity of food?”

“Never; for the country, as you have seen, swarms with game. We dry the flesh of deer, otter, martens, and musk-rats, and store it for winter, and during that season we have willow-grouse and rabbits for fresh meat. Besides, in autumn we freeze both flesh and fish, and thus keep it fresh till spring, at which time the wildfowl return to us. The skins and furs of these creatures furnish us with plenty of clothing—in fact, more than we can use. The question sometimes comes into my mind, Why did the Great Father provide such abundance for the use of man without sending men to use it?—for the few Micmacs who dwell in the land are but as a drop in the ocean, and they totally neglect some things, while they waste others. I have seen them slaughter thousands of deer merely for the sake of their tongues and other tit-bits.”

“There is much of mystery connected with that, Master Hendrick, which we cannot clear up,” remarked Trench.

“Mystery there is, no doubt,” said Paul quickly. “Yet there are some things about it that are plain enough to those who choose to look. The Word of God (which, by the way, is beginning to be circulated now among us in England in our mother tongue), that Word tells man plainly to go forth and replenish the earth. Common sense, from the beginning of time, has told us the same thing, but what does man do? He sticks to several small patches of the earth, and there he trades, and works, and builds, and propagates, until these patches swarm like ant-hills, and then he wars, and fights, and kills off the surplus population; in other words, slays the young men of the world and sows misery, debt and desolation broadcast. In fact, man seems to me to be mad. Rather than obey God and the dictates of common sense, he will leave the fairest portions of the world untenanted, and waste his life and energies in toiling for a crust of bread or fighting for a foot of land!”

“Some such thoughts have passed through my mind,” said Hendrick thoughtfully, “when I have remembered that my ancestors, as I have told you, discovered this land, as well as that which lies to the west and south of it, long before this Columbus you speak of was born. But surely we may now expect that with all our modern appliances and knowledge, the earth will soon be overrun and peopled.”

“I don’t feel very sanguine about it,” said Paul, with a prophetic shake of the head.

That Paul was justified in his doubts must be obvious to every reader who is aware of the fact that in the present year of grace (1889) there are millions of the world’s fair and fertile acres still left untenanted and almost untrodden by the foot of man.

“It’s my opinion,” remarked Captain Trench, with a blink of the eyes, induced possibly by wisdom and partly by sleep, “that you two are talking nonsense on a subject which is quite beyond the reach of man’s intellect.”

“It may be so,” replied Paul, with a laugh which merged into a yawn, “and perhaps it would be wiser that we should go to rest. Olly and Oscar have already set us a good example. What say you, Hendrick?”

“As you please,” answered the polite hunter. “I am ready either to sleep or to converse.”

“Then I will not tax your good-nature. We will seek repose. But what of our future movements? My sleep will be sounder if I could lie down with the assurance that you will continue to be our guide into the fertile interior of which you have said so much.”

“I will go with you,” returned Hendrick, after a few moments’ thought, “but I must ask you to spend a few days in my camp to rest yourselves, while I provide a supply of fresh meat and fish for my family; for, willing and able though Oscar is to provide for them, he is yet too young to have the duty laid upon his little shoulders.”

This having been satisfactorily settled, the captain and Paul wrapped themselves in deerskin blankets, and lay down with their feet to the fire.

Hendrick, having heaped a fresh supply of fuel on the embers, followed their example, and the camp was soon buried in profound silence.

Chapter Twelve. A Surprise, a Fight, and a War Party.

At this point in our tale we might profitably turn aside for a little to dilate upon the interesting—not to say exciting—proceedings of our explorers and the hunter’s family during the few days spent in the island home and its neighbourhood, were it not that incidents of a more stirring and important nature claim our attention.

We might, if time and space permitted, tell how they all went fishing in the lake with Oliver’s cod-hooks, which were, of course, greatly superior to the bone-hooks which Hendrick had been accustomed to manufacture; how they went salmon-spearing by torchlight in a neighbouring stream, in which operation Oliver soon became as expert as his entertainers, and even more enthusiastic, insomuch that he several times met what seemed to be his ordinary fate—a ducking in the water; how, in consequence, he caught a bad cold, as well as fish, and was compelled to lie up and be nursed for several days, during which time of forced inaction he learned to appreciate the excellent nursing qualities of Trueheart and her daughter Goodred. He also learned to estimate at its true value the yelling power of the family baby, whose will was iron and whose lungs were leather, besides being inflated by the fresh, wholesome air of the grand wilderness. We might tell of the short but thrilling expeditions undertaken by the men and boys in pursuit of bears, otters, beaver, and deer, in which Hendrick displayed the certainty of his deadly aim, and Master Trench the uncertainty of his dreadful shooting, despite all his former “practice.” We might relate the interesting stories, anecdotes, and narratives with which the explorers and the hunter sought to beguile the pleasant periods that used to follow supper and precede repose, and describe the tremendous energy of Paul Burns in springing to the rescue of the self-willed baby when it fell into the fire, and the cool courage of Oliver Trench in succouring the same baby when it tumbled into the water. All this we might dilate on, and a great deal more—such as the great friendship struck up between Oscar and Oliver, and the intense interest expressed by Hendrick on finding that his friend Paul possessed a manuscript copy of the Gospel of John, and the frequent perusals of that Gospel over the camp-fire, and the discussions that followed on the great subjects of man’s duty, the soul’s destiny, and the love of God, as shown in and by Jesus Christ—but over all this we must unwillingly draw a curtain and leave it to the courteous reader’s imagination, while we pass on to subjects which bear more directly on the issues of our tale.

One day, some time after leaving Hendrick’s camp on the great lake, Captain Trench and his son, with Paul Burns and the hunter, halted to rest on the summit of a cliff from which they could obtain a magnificent view of the country lying beyond.

They had by that time passed over the rich grassland with its park-like plains, its lakes and streams and belts of woodland, and had entered upon that mountainous region which lies towards the southwesterly portion of the island.

“Hendrick,” said Paul, as he gazed with admiration on the wild scene before him, “I have now seen enough to know that this land is most suitable for the abode of man. The soil is admirable; the woods contain magnificent timber; fish, flesh, and fowl are plentiful; coal exists in, I should think, extensive fields, while there are indications in many places of great mineral wealth, especially copper. Besides this, the land, you tell me, is pierced by innumerable bays, inlets, fords, and natural harbours; and, to crown all, the climate, except on some parts of the coast, is exceedingly good. Now it seems to me that these facts ought to be made known in England, and that our King should not only take possession, but should send out colonists to settle all over this island and develop its resources. If permitted, it will be my part to finish this exploration and carry home the news.”

Hendrick did not reply for a few minutes, then a faint sigh escaped him as he replied—

“No doubt what you say is just, and I doubt not that these plains and hills will one day resound with the activities of civilised life: the plough will obliterate the deer-tracks, the axe will lay low the forests, and the lowing of cattle and the bark of dogs will replace the trumpeting of the wild-goose and the cry of plover; but when the change begins to come, I will strike my tent and go to the great unknown lands of the west, for I cannot bear the clatter and the strife of men.”

Paul was about to reply, when an arrow whizzed through the air, pierced the sleeve of his coat, scratched his left arm slightly as it passed, and quivered in a tree behind them.

Leaping up, each member of the party sprang for shelter behind a neighbouring tree.

At the same moment there arose a terrible cry, as of men rushing to attack each other. The form of the ground prevented our travellers from seeing the combatants, though the sound of their strife proved them to be close at hand. Suddenly Hendrick left the tree behind which he had taken shelter, and, running towards a precipitous bank or cliff, called to his companions to follow. They obeyed at once.

“I fear,” he said, as Paul ran up alongside of him, “that I know the meaning of this. Some of the voices sound familiar to me. That arrow was not, I think, discharged at us. We shall be wanted here. May I count on you?”

“You may,” said Paul. “I cannot doubt that your cause must be a just one.”

“I’m with you!” exclaimed Master Trench, plucking the hatchet from his son’s belt—a weapon that the youngster could well spare, as the bludgeon and the bow were still left to him.

Hendrick had spoken in quick, sharp tones, for he was evidently much excited. On reaching the crest of a rising ground he looked cautiously over it.

“As I thought!” he said; “my wife’s relations are attacked by savages from Labrador. Come, follow me!”

He ran swiftly round the base of the rising ground, not giving his comrades time even to see the combatants to whom he referred.

Suddenly they came in full sight of perhaps the most terrible sight that our fallen world can present—two bands of armed men, mad with rage, engaged in the fiendish work of butchering each other.

In the immediate foreground two powerful Indians were struggling each to plant a short spear in the other’s heart. One, who was shorter than the other but equally powerful, was making a desperate effort to wrench his right hand from his foe’s grasp, and another foe was on the point of stabbing the short man in the back, when the white men appeared on the scene. Paul, the captain, and Oliver, although ready with arrow and bolt hesitated, for they knew not which to regard as foes, and which as friends. No such difficulty, however, interfered with Hendrick, who sent an arrow into the brain of the savage who meant to strike from behind. At the same instant the short warrior succeeded in his effort; his spear flashed upwards, and the next moment his tall enemy fell to rise no more.

Hendrick, who seemed to have been transformed into a human tiger, rushed to the attack with a shout and a display of fury that for a moment arrested the fight. The short Indian, whose life he had just saved, bestowed on him and his companions one look of surprise, and joined him in the rush. Captain Trench, whose combative tendencies were easily aroused, joined them with a roar which was somewhat intensified by the fact that he was still a little uncertain as to which was “the enemy.” Oliver relieved his overcharged bosom by an involuntary shriek or howl, that rose high and shrill above the tumult, as he followed suit, whirling his bludgeon with some difficulty round his head.

The combined effect of all this was to strike terror into the enemy who, turning short round, fled precipitately, and were followed for a considerable distance by some of the victorious Indians.

On returning from the pursuit, Hendrick introduced the short Indian as his wife’s cousin, who, with a party of hunters, had been out for a supply of fresh meat when attacked by the Labrador savages.

“It is an old feud,” remarked Hendrick, as he and Paul sat a little apart that evening, while their comrades assisted the Indians to prepare supper; “an old feud. Oh! war—war! There is no place of rest from it, I fear, in this world.”

The hunter’s tone was so sad that Paul looked at him inquiringly.

“You are surprised,” said his companion, “that I should long thus for escape from the warring passions of men, but if you knew what reason I have for hating war, you would not wonder. Listen! Many years ago I went with my wife and child to visit a kinsman in the Scottish Highlands. I need scarcely tell you that it was not my present wife and child. She was young, fair, faultless in person and disposition. Our little daughter resembled her in all respects. There chanced to be a miserable feud existing between my relative and a neighbouring chief. It originated in some disputed boundary, and always smouldered, like a subdued volcano, but occasionally broke forth in open warfare. At the time of my visit my kinsman, who was a bachelor, had gone to transact some business at a town not far distant, leaving a message for me to follow him as he required my assistance in some family arrangements, and meant to return home the same night. I went, leaving my wife and child in the castle. That very night my kinsman’s foe—knowing nothing of my arrival—came to the castle, took the small body of defenders by surprise, overcame them, and set the place on fire. Fiendish and revengeful though the marauders were, I believe they would not wantonly have murdered the helpless ones, had they known of their being in the place, but they knew it not until too late.

“When we returned that night the castle was a black smoking ruin, and my wife and little one had perished! Can you wonder that I fled from the horrible spot; that I left my native land for ever; and that I shudder at the very thought of strife?”

“Nay, brother, I wonder not,” said Paul, in a sympathetic tone; “but I fear there is no region on the face of this earth where the terrible war-spirit, or, rather, war-fiend, is not alive.”

“Why, the man whose life I took this very day,” resumed Hendrick, clenching his right hand almost fiercely, “has doubtless left a woman at home who is now a widow, and it may be children, whom I have rendered fatherless! No rest—no rest anywhere from this constant slaying of our fellow-men; yet I was forced to do it to save the life of my wife’s kinsman! Oh! is there no deliverance, no hope for this poor world?”

“Hendrick,” said Paul, laying his hand impressively on his friend’s arm, “there is deliverance—there is hope. See here.”

He pulled out the manuscript Gospel as he spoke, and turning over the well-thumbed leaves, read the words—

“‘Jesus saith... A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another... Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me. In My Father’s house are many mansions.’ Hendrick, this same Jesus, who is Immanuel, God with us, has said, ‘Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.’ ‘Him that cometh unto me I will in no wise cast out.’ These latter words are not here, but they are in other scriptures which I have often heard read.”

“But how shall I know,” said the hunter earnestly, “that these words are true—that they are the words of God?”

For some time Paul made no reply, then suddenly, to the surprise of his friend, he looked upwards, and, in a low voice, said—

“O Holy Spirit of God, convince my friend that these words are Thine,—in Jesus’ name!”

Then, turning to the hunter, he continued: “Come, let us examine this writing together.”

“Something of this have I heard before,” said Hendrick, “and, as I thirst for light and truth, I will gladly examine it with you.”

Need we say that those two earnest men were soon engrossed in the study of the Word, and that the interruption of the evening meal did not prevent them from afterwards poring over the manuscript far into the night by the light of the camp-fire. Hendrick was well able to do so, for, like Paul, he had received a better education than fell to the lot of most men in those days.

At first Captain Trench and his son had listened to the conversation and discussion of the students with much interest and the sturdy matter-of-fact mariner even ventured to put one or two puzzling questions to them; but by degrees their interest flagged, and at last taking example by the Indians, they rolled themselves in deerskin robes and sought repose.

Continuing their journey next day, they were about to part from their Indian friends on the mountain ridge, from which a view of the Western ocean could be obtained, when they observed a band of Indians in the far distance travelling eastward.

“On the war-path!” suggested Hendrick.

After a prolonged gaze the kinsman of Trueheart came to the same conclusion, and said he felt sure that they were not from Labrador, but were evidently men of the Island.

“Can you guess what they are going to do?” asked Hendrick.

The Indian shook his head solemnly. “No, he did not know—he could not guess, and as they were separated by some miles of valleys, precipices, and mountain gorges, there was no possibility of finding out.”

After some time spent in speculation and guessing as to the intention of the war party, our explorers, bidding farewell to their red friends, proceeded on their journey, while the latter diverged to the southward, and continued their hunt after fresh meat.

If Paul Burns and his friends had known the purpose of the warriors whom they had just seen, it is probable that they might not have slept quite as soundly as they did that night under the greenwood trees.

Chapter Thirteen. Unlooked-for Interruptions and Difficulties.

No elaborate dissertation is needed to prove that we are ignorant of what the morrow may bring forth, and that the best-laid plans of men are at all times subject to dislocation. It is sufficient here to state that immediately after parting from the Indians, Paul Burns and Captain Trench had their plans and hopes, in regard to exploration, overturned in a sudden and effective though exceedingly simple manner.

On the evening of the day on which their travels were resumed they halted sooner than usual in order to have time to form their camp with some care, for the weather had suddenly become cold, and that night seemed particularly threatening.

Accordingly they selected a spot surrounded by dense bushes, canopied by the branches of a wide-spreading fir-tree, and backed by a precipitous cliff, which afforded complete shelter from a sharp nor’-west gale that was blowing at the time. In this calm retreat they erected a rough-and-ready wall of birch-bark and branches, which enclosed them on all sides except one, where a glorious fire was kindled—a fire that would have roasted anything from a tom-tit to an ox, and the roaring flames of which had to be occasionally subdued lest they should roast the whole encampment.

There, saturated, so to speak, with ruddy light and warmth, they revelled in the enjoyment of a hearty meal and social intercourse until the claims of tired Nature subdued Captain Trench and Oliver, leaving Paul and Hendrick to resume their eager and sometimes argumentative perusal of the Gospel according to John.

At last, they also succumbed to the irresistible influences of Nature, and lay down beside their fellows. Then it was that Nature—as if she had only waited for the opportunity—began to unfold her “little game” for overturning the sleepers’ plans. She quietly opened her storehouse of northern clouds, and silently dropped upon them a heavy shower of snow.

It was early in the season for such a shower, consequently the flakes were large. Had the cold been excessive the flakes would have been small. As it was, they covered the landscape by imperceptible but rapid degrees until everything turned from ghostly grey to ghastly white, which had the effect of lighting, somehow, the darkness of the night.

But in the midst of the effective though silent transformation the camp of our explorers remained unchanged; and the dying embers of the slowly sinking fire continued to cast their dull red glow on the recumbent forms which were thoroughly protected by the spreading fir-tree.

By degrees the morning light began to flow over the dreary scene, and at length it had the effect of rousing Oliver Trench from slumber. With the innate laziness of youth the lad turned on his other side, and was about to settle down to a further spell of sleep when he chanced to wink. That wink sufficed to reveal something that induced another wink, then a stare, then a start into a sitting posture, a rubbing of the eyes, an opening of the mouth, and a succession of exclamations, of which “Oh! hallo! I say!” and “Hi-i-i-i!” were among the least impressive.

Of course every one started up and made a sudden grasp at weapons, for the memory of the recent fight was still fresh.

“Winter!” exclaimed Paul and the captain, in the same breath.

“Not quite so bad as that,” remarked Hendrick, as he stepped out into the snow and began to look round him with an anxious expression; “but it may, nevertheless, put an end to your explorations if the snow continues.”

“Never a bit on’t, man!” exclaimed the captain promptly. “What! d’ye think we are to be frightened by a sprinkling of snow?”

To this Hendrick replied only with a gentle smile, as he returned and set about blowing up the embers of the fire which were still smouldering.

“There is more than a sprinkling, Master Trench,” observed Paul, as he began to overhaul the remnants of last night’s supper; “but I confess it would be greatly against the grain were we to be beaten at this point in our travels. Let us hope that the storm won’t last.”

“Anyhow we can go on till we can’t, daddy,” said Oliver, with a tremendous yawn and stretch.

“Well said, my son; as you once truly remarked, you are a chip of the ancient log.”

“Just so, daddy. Don’t quite finish that marrow bone; I want some of it.”

“There, you young rascal, I leave you the lion’s share,” returned the captain, throwing the bone in question to his son. “But now, Hendrick, what d’ye really think o’ this state of things? Shall we be forced to give in an’ ’bout ship?”

“No one can tell,” answered the hunter. “If the snow stops and the weather gets warm, all will be well. If not, it will be useless to continue our journeying till winter fairly sets in, and the snow becomes deep, and the rivers and lakes are frozen. In which case you must come and stay with me in my island home.”

“You are very good, Hendrick; but don’t let us talk of givin’ up till the masts go by the board. We will carry all sail till then,” said the captain, rather gloomily, for he felt that the hunter knew best.

This first snowfall occurred about the middle of October; there was, therefore, some reasonable prospect that it might melt under an improved state of the weather, and there was also the possibility of the fall ceasing, and still permitting them to advance.

Under the impulse of hope derived from these considerations, they set forth once more to the westward.

The prospect in that direction, however, was not cheering. Mountain succeeded mountain in irregular succession, rugged and bleak—the dark precipices and sombre pine-woods looking blacker by contrast with the newly-fallen snow. Some of the hills were wooded to their summits; others, bristling and castellated in outline, afforded no hold to the roots of trees, and stood out in naked sterility. Everywhere the land seemed to have put on its winter garb, and all day, as they advanced, snow continued to fall at intervals, so that wading through it became an exhausting labour, and Oliver’s immature frame began to suffer, though his brave spirit forbade him to complain.

That night there came another heavy fall, and when they awoke next morning it was found that the country was buried under a carpet of snow full three feet deep.

“Do you admit now, Master Trench, that the masts have gone by the board,” asked Paul, “and that it is impossible to carry sail any longer?”

“I admit nothing,” returned the captain grumpily.

“That’s right, daddy, never give in!” cried Oliver; “but what has Master Hendrick got to say to it?”

“We must turn in our tracks!” said the hunter gravely, “and make for home.”

“Home, indeed!” murmured the captain, whose mind naturally flew back to old England. “If we are to get to any sort of home at all, the sooner we set about making sail for it the better.”

There was something in the captain’s remark, as well as in his tone, which caused a slight flush on Hendrick’s brow, but he let no expression of feeling escape him. He only said—

“You are right, Captain Trench. We must set off with the least possible delay. Will you and your son start off in advance to get something fresh for breakfast while Master Paul and I remain to pack up and bring on our camp equipage? Hunters, you know, should travel light—we will do the heavy work for you.”

The captain was surprised, but replied at once—

“Most gladly, Master Hendrick, will I do your bidding; but as we don’t know what course to steer, won’t we be apt to go astray?”

“There is no fear of that, captain. See you yonder bluff with the bush on the top of it?”

“Where away, Master Hendrick? D’ye mean the one lyin’ to wind’ard o’ that cliff shaped like the side of a Dutch galliot?”

“The same. It is not more than a quarter of a mile off—make straight for that. You’ll be sure to fall in with game of some sort between this and that. Wait there till we come up, for we shall breakfast there. You can keep yourself warm by cutting wood and kindling a fire.”

Rather pleased than otherwise with this little bit of pioneer work that had been given him to do, Trench stepped boldly into the snow, carrying his cross-bow in one hand, and the hatchet over his shoulder with the other. He was surprised, indeed, to find that at the first step beyond the encampment he sank considerably above the knees, but, being wonderfully strong, he dashed the snow aside and was soon hid from view by intervening bushes. Oliver, bearing his bow and bludgeon, followed smartly in his track.

When they were gone Paul turned a look of inquiry on his companion. Hendrick returned the look with profound gravity, but there was a faint twinkle in his eyes which induced Paul to laugh.

“What mean you by this?” he asked.

“I mean that Master Trench will be the better of a lesson from experience. He will soon return—sooner, perhaps, than you expect.”

“Why so—how? I don’t understand.”

“Because,” returned the hunter, “it is next to impossible to travel over such ground in deep snow without snow-shoes. We must make these, whether we advance or retreat. Meanwhile you had better blow up the fire, and I will prepare breakfast.”

“Did you not tell the captain we were to breakfast on the bluff?”

“I did; but the captain will never reach the bluff. Methinks I hear him returning even now!”

The hunter was right. A quarter of an hour had barely elapsed when our sturdy mariner re-entered the encampment, blowing like a grampus and perspiring at every pore! Oliver was close at his heels, but not nearly so much exhausted, for he had not been obliged to “beat the track.”

“Master Hendrick,” gasped the captain, when he had recovered breath, “it’s my opinion that we have only come here to lay down our bones and give up the ghost—ay, and it’s no laughing business; Master Paul, as you’ll find when you try to haul your long legs out of a hole three futt deep at every step.”

“Three futt deep!” echoed Oliver, “why, it’s four futt if it’s an inch—look at me. I’ve been wadin’ up to the waist all the time!”

It need scarcely be said that their minds were much relieved when they were made acquainted with the true state of matters, and that by means of shoes that could be made by Hendrick, they would be enabled to traverse with comparative ease the snow-clad wilderness—which else were impassable.

But this work involved several days’ delay in camp. Hendrick fashioned the large though light wooden framework of the shoes—five feet long by eighteen inches broad—and Oliver cut several deerskins into fine threads, with which, and deer sinews, Paul and the captain, under direction, filled in the net-work of the frames when ready.

“Can you go after deer on such things?” asked the captain one night while they were all busy over this work.

“Ay, we can walk thirty or forty miles a day over deep snow with these shoes,” answered Hendrick.

“Where do the deer all come from?” asked Oliver, pausing in his work to sharpen his knife on a stone.

“If you mean where did the reindeer come from at first, I cannot tell,” said Hendrick. “Perhaps they came from the great unknown lands lying to the westward. But those in this island have settled down here for life, apparently like myself. I have hunted them in every part of the island, and know their habits well. Their movements are as regular as the seasons. The winter months they pass in the south, where the snow is not so deep as to prevent their scraping it away and getting at the lichens on which they feed. In spring—about March—they turn their faces northward, for then the snow begins to be softened by the increased power of the sun, so that they can get at the herbage beneath. They migrate to the north-west of the island in innumerable herds of from twenty to two hundred each—the animals following one another in single file, and each herd being led by a noble stag. Thus they move in thousands towards the hills of the west and nor’-west, where they arrive in April. Here, on the plains and mountains, they browse on their favourite mossy food and mountain herbage; and here they bring forth their young in May or June. In October, when the frosty nights set in, they again turn southward and march back to winter-quarters over the same tracks, with which, as you have seen, the whole country is seamed. Thus they proceed from year to year. They move over the land in parallel lines, save where mountain passes oblige them to converge, and at these points, I regret to say, my kinsmen! the Bethuck Indians, lie in wait and slaughter them in great numbers, merely for the sake of their tongues and other tit-bits.”

“There is no call for regret, Master Hendrick,” said Captain Trench. “Surely where the deer are in such numbers, the killing of a few more or less don’t matter much.”

“I think it wrong, captain, to slay God’s creatures wantonly,” returned the hunter. “Besides, if it is continued, I fear that the descendants of the present race of men will suffer from scarcity of food.”

That Hendrick’s fears were not groundless has been proved in many regions of the earth, where wanton destruction of game in former days has resulted in great scarcity or extinction at the present time.

In a few days a pair of snowshoes for each traveller was completed, and the party was prepared to set out with renewed vigour on their return to the hunter’s home.

Chapter Fourteen. Tells of a Tremendous Storm and a Strange Shelter, etcetera.

Proverbial philosophy teaches us that misfortunes seldom come singly. Newfoundland, at the beginning of the sixteenth century, does not seem to have been a place of refuge from the operation of that law.

On the morning of the day in which the explorers meant to commence the return journey, a storm of unwonted rigour burst upon them, and swept over the land with devastating violence—overturning trees, snapping off mighty limbs, uplifting the new-fallen snow in great masses, and hurling it in wild confusion into space, so that earth and sky seemed to commingle in a horrid chaos.

The first intimation the travellers had of the impending storm was the rending of a limb of the tree under which they reposed. The way in which Oliver Trench received the rude awakening might, in other circumstances, have raised a laugh, for he leaped up like a harlequin, with a glare of sudden amazement, and, plunging headlong away from the threatened danger, buried himself in the snow. From this he instantly emerged with an aspect similar to that of “Father Christmas,” minus the good-natured serenity of that liberal-hearted personage.

“Daddy!” he gasped, “are you there?”

The question was not uncalled for, the captain having made a plunge like that of his son, but unlike his son, having found it difficult to extricate himself quickly.

Paul and Hendrick had also sprung up, but the latter, remaining close to the stem of the tree, kept his eye watchfully on the branches.

“Come here—quick!” he cried—“the stem is our safeguard. Look out!”

As he spoke his voice was drowned in a crash which mingled with the shrieking blast, and a great branch fell to the ground. Fortunately the wind blew it sufficiently to one side to clear the camp. The air was so charged with snow particles that the captain and his son seemed to stagger out of a white mist as they returned to their comrades who were clinging to the weather-side of the tree.

“D’ye think it will go by the board?” asked the captain, as he observed Hendrick’s anxious gaze fixed on the swaying tree.

“It is a good stout stick,” replied his friend, “but the blast is powerful.”

The captain looked up at the thick stem with a doubtful expression, and then turned to Hendrick with a nautical shake of the head.

“I never saw a stick,” he said, “that would stand the like o’ that without fore an’ back stays, but it may be that shoregoin’ sticks are—”

He stopped abruptly, for a terrific crash almost stunned him, as the tree by which they stood went down, tearing its way through the adjacent branches in its fall, and causing the whole party to stagger.

“Keep still!” shouted Hendrick in a voice of stern command, as he glanced critically at the fallen tree.

“Yes,” he added, “it will do. Come here.”

He scrambled quickly among the crushed branches until he stood directly under the prostrate stem, which was supported by its roots and stouter branches. “Here,” said he, “we are safe.”

His comrades glanced upwards with uneasy expressions that showed they did not quite share his feelings of safety.

“Seems to me, Master Hendrick,” roared the captain, for the noise of the hurly-burly around was tremendous, “that it was safer where we were. What if the stem should sink further and flatten us?”

“As long as we stood to windward of it” replied Hendrick, “we were safe from the tree itself, though in danger from surrounding trees, but now, with this great trunk above us, other trees can do us no harm. As for the stem sinking lower, it can’t do that until this solid branch that supports it becomes rotten. Come now,” he added, “we will encamp here. Give me the axe, Oliver, and the three of you help to carry away the branches as I chop them off.”

In little more than an hour a circular space was cleared of snow and branches, and a hut was thus formed, with the great tree-stem for a ridge-pole, and innumerable branches, great and small, serving at once for walls and supports. Having rescued their newly made snow-shoes and brought them, with their other property, into this place of refuge, they sat or reclined on their deerskins to await the end of the storm. This event did not, however, seem to be near. Hour after hour they sat, scarcely able to converse because of the noise, and quite unable to kindle a fire. Towards evening, however, the wind veered round a little, and a hill close to their camp sheltered them from its direct force. At the same time, an eddy in the gale piled up the snow on the fallen tree till it almost buried them; converting their refuge into a sort of snow-hut, with a branchy framework inside. This change also permitted them to light a small fire and cook some venison, so that they made a sudden bound from a state of great discomfort and depression to one of considerable comfort and hilarity.

“A wonderful change,” observed Trench, looking round the now ruddy walls of their curious dwelling with great satisfaction. “About the quickest built house on record, I should think—and the strongest.”

“Yes, daddy, and built under the worst of circumstances too. What puzzles me is that such a tree should have given way at all.”

“Don’t you see, Olly,” said Paul, “that some of its roots are hollow, rotten at the core?”

“Ah! boy—same with men as trees,” remarked the captain, moralising. “Rotten at the core—sure to come down, sooner or later. Lay that to heart, Olly.”

“If ever I do come down, daddy, I hope it won’t be with so much noise. Why, it went off like a cannon.”

“A cannon!” echoed the captain. “More like as if the main-mast o’ the world had gone by the board!”

“What if the gale should last a week?” asked Olly.

“Then we shall have to stay here a week,” returned Hendrick; “but there’s no fear of that. The fiercer the gale the sooner the calm. It won’t delay us long.”

The hunter was right. The day following found the party en route, with a clear sky, bright sun, and sharp calm air. But the art of snow-shoe walking, though easy enough, is not learned in an hour.

“They’re clumsy things to look at—more like small boats flattened than anything else,” remarked the captain, when Hendrick had fastened the strange but indispensable instruments on his feet—as he had already fastened those of the other two.

“Now look at me,” said Hendrick. “I’ll take a turn round of a few hundred yards to show you how. The chief thing you have to guard against is treading with one shoe on the edge of the other, at the same time you must not straddle. Just pass the inner edge of one shoe over the inner edge of the other, and walk very much as if you had no snow-shoes on at all—so.”

He stepped off at a round pace, the broad and long shoes keeping him so well on the surface of the snow that he sank only a few inches.

“Why, it seems quite easy,” observed the captain.

“Remarkably so,” said Paul.

“Anybody can do that,” cried Oliver.

“Now then, up anchor—here goes!” said the captain.

He stepped out valiantly; took the first five paces like a trained walker; tripped at the sixth step, and went headlong down at the seventh, with such a wild plunge that his anxious son, running hastily to his aid, summarily shared his fate. Paul burst into an uncontrollable fit of laughter, lost his balance, and went down—as the captain said—stern foremost!

It was a perplexing commencement, but the ice having been broken, they managed in the course of a few hours to advance with only an occasional fall, and, before the next day had closed, walked almost as easily as their guide.

This was so far satisfactory. Our three travellers were quite charmed with their proficiency in the new mode of progression, when a sudden thaw set in and damped not only their spirits but their shoes. The netting and lines became flabby. The moccasins, with which Hendrick had supplied them from the bundle he carried for his own use, were reduced to something of the nature of tripe. The damp snow, which when rendered powdery by frost had fallen through the net-work of the shoes, now fell upon it in soft heaps and remained there, increasing the weight so much as to wrench joints and strain muscles, while the higher temperature rendered exertion fatiguing and clothing unbearable.

“I wonder how long I can stand this without my legs coming off,” said poor Oliver, giving way at last to a feeling of despair.

“Seems to me to get hotter and hotter,” growled his father, as he wiped the perspiration from his face with the tail of his coat—having lost the solitary handkerchief with which he had landed.

“I’m glad the thaw is so complete,” said Hendrick, “for it may perhaps clear away the snow altogether. It is too early for winter to begin in earnest. I would suggest now that we encamp again for a few days, to see whether the weather is really going to change; hunt a little, and rest a while. What say you?”

With a sigh of contentment the captain answered, “Amen!” Paul said, “Agreed!” and Oliver cried, “Hurrah!” at the same time throwing his cap in the air.

Two days after that they were enabled to continue the journey on snowless ground, with the unwieldy shoes slung at their backs.

The change, although decidedly an improvement was not perfect, for the ground had been made soft, the rivers and rills had been swollen, and the conditions altogether were rendered much less agreeable than they had been on the outward journey. The travellers enjoyed themselves greatly, notwithstanding, and the captain added many important jottings in what he styled the log-book of his memory as to bearings of salient points, distances, etcetera, while Paul took notes of the fauna and flora, soils, products, and geological features of the country, on the same convenient tablets.

“There can be no doubt about it,” said the latter one morning, as he surveyed the country around him.

“No doubt about what?” asked the captain.

“About the suitableness of this great island for the abode of man,” answered Paul; and then, continuing to speak with enthusiasm, “the indication of minerals is undoubted. See you that serpentine deposit mingled with a variety of other rocks, varying in colour from darkest green to yellow, and from the translucent to the almost transparent? Wherever that is seen, there we have good reason to believe that copper ore will be found.”

“If so,” observed Hendrick, “much copper ore will be found on the sea-coast, on the north side of the island, for I have seen the same rocks in many places there.”

“But there are indications of other metals,” continued Paul, “which I perceive; though my acquaintance with geological science is unfortunately not sufficient to make me certain, still, I think I can see that, besides copper, nickel, lead, and iron may be dug from the mines of Newfoundland; indeed, I should not wonder if silver and gold were also to be found. Of the existence of coal-beds there can be no doubt, though what their extent may be I cannot guess; but of this I am certain, that the day cannot be far distant when the mineral and forest wealth of this land shall be developed by a large and thriving population.”

“It may be as you say, Paul,” remarked Captain Trench, with a dubious shake of the head; “but if you had lived as long as I have, and seen as much of the world and its ways, you wouldn’t be quite so sanguine about the thriving population or the speedy development. You see, hitches are apt to occur in the affairs of men which cause wonderful delays, and tanglements come about that take years to unravel.”

If Captain Trench had been a professional prophet he could hardly have hit the nail more fairly on the head, for he indicated exactly what bad government has actually done for Newfoundland—only he might have said centuries instead of years—for its internal resources, even at the present time, remain to a very great extent undeveloped. However, not being a professional prophet, but merely an ancient mariner, the captain wound up his remark with a recommendation to hoist all sail and lay their course, as there was no saying how long the mild weather would last.

For several days after this they plodded steadily onward, sometimes over the mountains or across the grassy plains, where migrating reindeer supplied them with abundant venison; at other times among lakelets and streams, whose excellent fish and innumerable wildfowl provided them with variety for the table and music for the ear. Now and then they saw the great moose-deer, which rivals the horse in size, and once Hendrick shot one, at a time when they chanced to have consumed their last caribou steak, and happened to enter a great forest without anything for supper in their wallets. For, occasionally, circumstances may render men supperless even when surrounded by plenty.

At last they reached the great lake, with its beautiful islands, where Hendrick had set up his home.

The hunter became very silent as they drew near to its shores.

“You seem anxious,” remarked Paul, as they approached the lake. “Have you reason to fear aught?”

“None—none,” replied his friend quickly; “but I never return after a long absence without feeling anxious.”

A loud halloo soon brought the echoing answer in the shrill voice of little Oscar, whose canoe quickly shot out from the creek. It was speedily followed by the deerskin boat, and, when near enough to be heard, the reply to Hendrick’s anxious inquiry was the gratifying assurance—“All’s well!”

Chapter Fifteen. Grummidge asserts himself—Great Discoveries are made and the Crew flits.

We must turn aside now for a time to inquire into the doings of the crew of the Water Wagtail, whom we left on the little island off the eastern seaboard of Newfoundland. At first, when the discovery was made that the captain, Paul, and Oliver had been put ashore and left to take care of themselves without weapons or supplies, there was a disposition on the part of the better men of the crew to apply what we now style Lynch law to Big Swinton, David Garnet, and Fred Taylor. “Let’s hang ’em,” suggested Grummidge, at a meeting of the men when the culprits were not present. “Sure an’ I’ll howld the rope wid pleasure,” said Squill. “An’ I’ll help ye,” cried Little Stubbs.

But Jim Heron shook his head, and did not quite see his way to that, while George Blazer protested against such violent proceedings altogether. As he was backed up by the majority of the crew, the proposal was negatived.

“But what are we to do, boys?” cried Grummidge vehemently. “Are we goin’ to be domineered over by Swinton? Why, every man he takes a dislike to, he’ll sneak into his tent when he’s asleep, make him fast, heave him into the boat, pull to the big island, land him there, and bid him good-bye. There won’t be one of us safe while he prowls about an’ gits help from three or four rascals as bad as himself.”

“Ay, that’s it, boys,” said Little Stubbs; “it won’t be safe to trust him. Hang him, say I.”

Stubbs was a very emphatic little man, but his emphasis only roused the idea of drollery in the minds of those whom he addressed, and rather influenced them towards leniency.

“No, no,” cried the first mate of the Water Wagtail who, since the wreck, had seldom ventured to raise his voice in council; “I would advise rather that we should give him a thrashing, and teach him that we refuse to obey or recognise a self-constituted commander.”

“Ah, sure now, that’s a raisonable plan,” said Squill with something of sarcasm in his tone; “an’ if I might make so bowld I’d suggist that yoursilf, sor, shud give him the thrashin’.”

“Nay, I am far from being the strongest man of the crew. The one that is best able should do the job.”

The mate looked pointedly at Grummidge as he spoke; but Grummidge, being a modest man, pretended not to see him.

“Yes, yes, you’re right, sir, Grummidge is the very man,” cried Stubbs.

“Hear, hear,” chorused several of the others. “Come, old boy, you’ll do it, won’t you? and we’ll all promise to back you up.”

“Well, look ’ee here, lads,” said Grummidge, who seemed to have suddenly made up his mind, “this man has bin quarrellin’ wi’ me, off an’ on, since the beginning of the voyage, whether I would or not, so it may be as well to settle the matter now as at another time. I’ll do the job on one consideration.”

“What’s that?” cried several men.

“That you promises, on your honour (though none o’ you’s got much o’ that), that when I’ve done the job you agree to make me captain of the crew. It’s a moral impossibility, d’ee see, for people to git along without a leader, so if I agree to lead you in this, you must agree to follow me in everything—is it so?”

“Agreed, agreed!” chorused his friends, only too glad that one of the physically strongest among them—also one of the best-humoured—should stand up to stem the tide of anarchy which they all clearly saw was rising among them.

“Well, then,” resumed Grummidge, “I see Swinton with his three friends a-comin’. I’ll expect you to stand by an’ see fair play, for he’s rather too ready wi’ his knife.”

While he spoke the comrade in question was seen approaching, with Fred Taylor and David Garnet, carrying a quantity of cod-fish that had just been caught.

“You’ve been holding a meeting, comrades, I think,” said Swinton, looking somewhat suspiciously at the group of men, as he came up and flung down his load.

“Yes, we have,” said Grummidge, advancing, hands in pockets, and with a peculiar nautical roll which distinguished him. “You’re right, Big Swinton, we have bin havin’ a meetin’, a sort of trial, so to speak, an’ as you are the man what’s bin tried, it may interest you to know what sentence has bin passed upon you.”

“Oh indeed!” returned Swinton, with a look of cool insolence which he knew well how to assume, no matter what he felt. “Well, yes, it would interest me greatly to hear the sentence of the learned judge—whoever he is.”

The fingers of the man fumbled as he spoke at his waist-belt, near the handle of his knife. Observing this, Grummidge kept a watchful eye on him, but did not abate his nonchalant free-and-easy air, as he stepped close up to him.

“The sentence is,” he said firmly but quietly, “that you no longer presume to give orders as if you was the captain o’ this here crew; that from this hour you fall to the rear and undertake second fiddle—or fourth fiddle, for the matter o’ that; and that you head a party to guide them in a sarch which is just a-goin’ to begin for the two men and the boy you have so sneakingly betrayed and put on shore—an’ all this you’ll have to do with a ready goodwill on pain o’ havin’ your brains knocked out if you don’t. Moreover, you may be thankful that the sentence is so light, for some o’ your comrades would have had you hanged right off, if others hadn’t seen fit to be marciful.”

While this sentence was being pronounced, Swinton’s expression underwent various changes, and his face became visibly paler under the steady gaze of Grummidge. At the last word he grasped his knife and drew it, but his foe was prepared. Like a flash of light he planted his hard knuckles between Swinton’s eyes, and followed up the blow with another on the chest, which felled him to the ground.

There was no need for more. The big bully was rendered insensible, besides being effectually subdued, and from that time forward he quietly consented to play any fiddle—chiefly, however, the bass one. But he harboured in his heart a bitter hatred of Grummidge, and resolved secretly to take a fearful revenge at the first favourable opportunity.

Soon after that the boat was manned by as many of the crew as it could contain, and an exploring party went to the spot where Captain Trench and his companions had been landed, guided thereto by Swinton, and led by his foe Grummidge, whose bearing indicated, without swagger or threat, that the braining part of the sentence would be carried out on the slightest symptom of insubordination on the part of the former. While this party was away; those who remained on the islet continued to fish, and to preserve the fish for winter use by drying them in the sun.

We need scarcely add that the exploring party did not discover those for whom they sought, but they discovered the true nature of the main island, which, up to that time, they had supposed to be a group of isles. When the search was finally given up as hopeless, an examination of the coast was made, with a view to a change of abode.

“You see, lads,” observed Grummidge, when discussing this subject, “it’s quite plain that we shall have to spend the winter here, an’ as I was a short bit to the south of these seas in the late autumn one voyage, I have reason to believe that we had better house ourselves, an’ lay in a stock o’ provisions if we would escape bein’ froze an’ starved.”

“Troth, it’s well to escape that, boys,” remarked Squills, “for it’s froze I was mesilf wance—all but—on a voyage to the Baltic, an’ it’s starved to death was me owld grandmother—almost—so I can spake from experience.”

“An’ we couldn’t find a better place for winter-quarters than what we see before us,” said Garnet. “It looks like a sort o’ paradise.”

We cannot say what sort of idea Garnet meant to convey by this comparison, but there could be no question that the scene before them was exceedingly beautiful. The party had held their consultation on the crest of a bluff, and just beyond it lay a magnificent bay, the shores of which were clothed with luxuriant forests, and the waters studded with many islets. At the distant head of the bay the formation or dip of the land clearly indicated the mouth of a large river, while small streams and ponds were seen gleaming amid the foliage nearer at hand. At the time the sun was blazing in a cloudless sky, and those thick fogs which so frequently enshroud the coasts of Newfoundland had not yet descended from the icy north.

“I say, look yonder. What’s Blazer about?” whispered Jim Heron, pointing to his comrade, who had separated from the party, and was seen with a large stone in each hand creeping cautiously round a rocky point below them.

Conjecture was useless and needless, for, while they watched him, Blazer rose up, made a wild rush forward, hurled the stones in advance, and disappeared round the point. A few moments later he reappeared, carrying a large bird in his arms.

The creature which he had thus killed with man’s most primitive weapon was a specimen of the great auk—a bird which is now extinct. It was the size of a large goose, with a coal-black head and back, short wings, resembling the flippers of a seal, which assisted it wonderfully in the water, but were useless for flight, broad webbed feet, and legs set so far back that on land it sat erect like the penguins of the southern seas. At the time of which we write, the great auk was found in myriads on the low rocky islets on the eastern shores of Newfoundland. Now-a-days there is not a single bird to be found anywhere, and only a few specimens and skeletons remain in the museums of the world to tell that such creatures once existed. Their extermination was the result of man’s reckless slaughter of them when the Newfoundland banks became the resort of the world’s fishermen. Not only was the great auk slain in vast numbers, for the sake of fresh food, but it was salted by tons for future use and sale. The valuable feathers, or down, also proved a source of temptation, and as the birds could not fly to other breeding-places, they gradually diminished in numbers and finally disappeared.

“Why, Blazer,” exclaimed Heron, “that’s one o’ the sodger-like birds we frightened away from our little island when we first landed.”

“Ay, an’ there’s plenty more where this one came from,” said Blazer, throwing the bird down; “an’ they are so tame on the rocks round the point that I do believe we could knock ’em on the head with sticks, if we took ’em unawares. What d’ee say to try, lads?”

“Agreed—for I’m gettin’ tired o’ fish now,” said Grummidge. “How should we set about it, think ’ee?”

“Cut cudgels for ourselves, then take to the boat creep round to one o’ the little islands in the bay, and go at ’em!” answered Blazer.

This plan was carried out with as little delay as possible. An islet was boarded, as Squill said, and the clumsy, astonished creatures lost numbers of their companions before making their escape into the sea. A further treasure was found in a large supply of their eggs. Laden almost to the gunwale with fresh provisions, the search-party returned to their camp—some of them, indeed, distressed at having failed to find their banished friends, but most of them elated by their success with the great auks, and the prospect of soon going into pleasant winter-quarters.

So eager were they all to flit into this new region—this paradise of Garnet—that operations were commenced on the very next day at early morn. The boat was launched and manned, and as much of their property as it would hold was put on board.

“You call it paradise, Garnet,” said Grummidge, as the two carried a bundle of dried cod slung on a pole between them, “but if you, and the like of ye, don’t give up swearin’, an’ try to mend your manners, the place we pitch on will be more like hell than paradise, no matter how comfortable and pretty it may be.”

Garnet was not in a humour either to discuss this point or to accept a rebuke, so he only replied to the remark with a surly “Humph!”

Landing on the main island to the northward of the large bay, so as to secure a southern exposure, the boat-party proceeded to pitch their camp on a lovely spot, where cliff and coppice formed a luxuriant background. Ramparts of rock protected them from the nor’-west gales, and purling rivulets hummed their lullaby. Here they pitched their tents, and in a short space of time ran up several log huts, the material for which was supplied in abundance by the surrounding forest.

When the little settlement was sufficiently established, and all the goods and stores were removed from what now was known as Wreck Island, they once more launched the boat, and turned their attention to fishing—not on the Great Bank, about which at the time they were ignorant, but on the smaller banks nearer shore, where cod-fish were found in incredible numbers. Some of the party, however, had more of the hunter’s than the fisher’s spirit in them, and prepared to make raids on the homes of the great auk, or to ramble in the forests.

Squill was among the latter. One day, while rambling on the sea-shore looking for shellfish, he discovered a creature which not only caused him to fire off all the exclamations of his rich Irish vocabulary, but induced him to run back to camp with heaving chest and distended eyes—almost bursting from excitement.

“What is it, boy?” chorused his comrades.

“Och! musha! I’ve found it at long last!—the great say—sur—no, not exactly that, but the—the great, sprawlin’, long-legged—och! what shall I say? The great-grandfather of all the—the—words is wantin’, boys. Come an’ see for yourselves!”

Chapter Sixteen. A Giant Discovered—New Home At Wagtail Bay—A Strange Addition to the Settlement.

The creature which had so powerfully affected the feelings of the Irishman was dead; but dead and harmless though it was, it drew forth from his comrades a shout of intense surprise when they saw it, for it was no less than a cuttlefish of proportions so gigantic that they felt themselves in the presence of one of those terrible monsters of the deep, about which fabulous tales have been told, and exaggerated descriptions given since the beginning of historical time.

“Av he’s not the say-sarpint himself, boys,” panted Squill, as he pointed to him with looks of unmitigated admiration, “sure he must be his first cousin.”

And Squill was not far wrong, for it was found that the monstrous fish measured fifty-two feet between the extremities of its outspread arms. Its body was about eight feet long and four feet broad. Its great arms, of which it had ten radiating from its body, varied in length and thickness—the longest being about twenty-four feet, and the shortest about eight. The under sides of these arms were supplied with innumerable suckers, while from the body there projected a horny beak, like the beak of a parrot.

“It’s wishin’, I am, that I might see wan o’ yer family alive,” said Squill, as he turned over the dead arms; “but I’d rather not be embraced by ye. Och! what a hug ye could give—an’ as to howldin’ on—a thousand limpets would be nothin’ to ye.”

“A miser grippin’ his gold would be more like it,” suggested Grummidge.

“I don’t expect ever to see one alive,” said Little Stubbs, “an’ yet there must surely be more where that came from.”

The very next day Squill had his wish gratified, and Stubbs his unbelief rebuked, for, while they were out in the boat rowing towards one of the fishing-banks with several of their comrades, they discovered a living giant-cuttlefish.

“What’s that, boys?” cried the Irishman, pointing to the object which was floating in the water not far ahead of them.

“Seaweed,” growled Blazer.

Blazer always growled. His voice was naturally low and harsh—so was his spirit. Sometimes a grunt supplanted the growl, suggesting that he was porcine in nature—as not a few men are.

But it was not seaweed. The thing showed signs of life as the boat drew near.

“Starboard! starboard hard!” shouted Little Stubbs, starting up.

But the warning came too late. Next moment the boat ran with a thud into a monster cuttlefish. Grummidge seized a boat-hook, shouted, “Stern all!” and hit the creature with all his might, while Stubbs made a wild grasp at a hatchet which lay under one of the thwarts.

Instantly the horny parrot-like beak, the size of a man’s fist, reared itself from among the folds of the body and struck the boat a violent blow, while a pair of saucer-like eyes, fully four inches in diameter, opened and glared ferociously. This was terrifying enough, but when, a moment later, two tremendous arms shot out from the body near the eyes, flung themselves around the boat and held on tight, a yell of fear escaped from several of the men, and with good reason, for if the innumerable suckers on those slimy arms once fairly attached themselves to the boat there seemed to be no chance of escape from the deadly embrace. In that moment of danger Little Stubbs proved himself equal to the occasion. With the hatchet he deftly severed the two limbs as they lay over the gunwale of the boat, and the monster, without cry or sign of pain, fell back into the sea, and moved off, ejecting such a quantity of inky fluid as it went that the water was darkened for two or three hundred yards around.

“Well done, Little Stubbs!” cried Grummidge, as he watched the creature disappearing. “You’ve often worried our lives in time past, but this time you’ve saved ’em. Coil away the limbs, boys. We’ll measure ’em and enter ’em in the log when we go ashore.”

It may interest the reader to know that the measurements were as follows:—

The longer and thinner arm was nineteen feet in length; about three and a half inches in circumference; of a pale pinkish colour, and exceedingly strong and tough. As all the men agreed that more than ten feet of the arm were left attached to the monster’s body, the total length must have been little short of thirty feet. Towards the extremity it broadened out like an oar, and then tapered to a fine tongue-like point. This part was covered with about two hundred suckers, having horny-toothed edges, the largest of the suckers being more than an inch in diameter, the smallest about the size of a pea. The short arm was eleven feet long, and ten inches in circumference. It was covered on the under side throughout its entire length with a double row of suckers. Grummidge, who was prone to observe closely, counted them that night with minute care, and came to the conclusion that the creature must have possessed about eleven hundred suckers altogether. There was also a tail to the fish—which Squill called a “divil-fish”—shaped like a fin. It was two feet in width.

Lest any reader should imagine that we are romancing here, we turn aside to refer him to a volume entitled Newfoundland, the oldest British Colony, written by Joseph Hatton and the Reverend M. Harvey, in which (pages 238 to 242) he will find an account of a giant-cuttlefish, devil-fish, or squid, very similar to that which we have now described, and in which it is also stated that Mr Harvey, in 1873, obtained possession of one cuttlefish arm nineteen feet long, which he measured and photographed, and described in various newspapers and periodicals, and, finally, sent to the Geological Museum in St. John’s, where it now lies. The same gentleman afterwards obtained an uninjured specimen of the fish, and it is well known that complete specimens, as well as fragments, of the giant cephalopod now exist in several other museums.

Can any one wonder that marvellous tales of the sea were told that night round the fires at supper-time? that Little Stubbs became eloquently fabulous, and that Squill, drawing on his imagination, described with graphic power a monster before whose bristling horrors the great sea-serpent himself would hide his diminished head, and went into particulars so minute and complex that his comrades set him down as “one o’ the biggest liars” that ever lived, until he explained that the monster in question had only appeared to him “wance in wan of his owld grandmother’s dreams!”

In fishing, and hunting with bows and arrows made by themselves, as well as with ingenious traps and weirs and snares of their own invention, the crew spent their time pleasantly, and the summer passed rapidly away. During this period the rude tents of spars and sailcloth were supplanted by ruder huts of round logs, caulked with hay and plastered with mud. Holes in the walls thereof did service as windows during the day, and bits of old sails or bundles of hay stuffed into them formed shutters at night. Sheds were also put up to guard provisions and stores from the weather, and stages were erected on which to dry the cod-fish after being split and cleaned; so that our shipwrecked crew, in their new home, which they named Wagtail Bay, had thus unwittingly begun that great industry for which Newfoundland has since become celebrated all the world over.

It is not to be supposed that among such men in such circumstances everything went harmoniously. At first, indeed, what with having plenty to do in fishing, hunting, building, splitting and drying fish, etcetera, all day, and being pretty well tired out at nights, the peace was kept pretty easily; all the more that Big Swinton had been quelled and apparently quite subdued. But as the stores became full of food and the days shortened, while the nights proportionately lengthened, time began to hang heavy on their hands, and gradually the camp became resolved into the two classes which are to be found everywhere—the energetically industrious and the lazily idle. Perhaps we should say that those two extreme phases of human nature began to show themselves, for between them there existed all shades and degrees, so that it was difficult to tell, in some cases, to which class the men belonged.

The proverbial mischief, of course, was soon found, for the latter class to do, and Grummidge began to discover that the ruling of his subjects, which sat lightly enough on his shoulders during the summer, became a matter of some trouble and anxiety in autumn. He also found, somewhat to his surprise, that legislation was by no means the easy—we might say free-and-easy—business which he had supposed it to be. In short, the camp presented the interesting spectacle of a human society undergoing the process of mushroom growth from a condition of chaotic irresponsibility to that of civilised order.

The chaotic condition had been growing worse and worse for some time before Grummidge was forced to take action, for Grummidge was a man of long-suffering patience. One night, however, he lost all patience, and, like most patient people when forced out of their natural groove, he exploded with surprising violence and vigour.

It happened thus:—

The crew had built for themselves a hut of specially large dimensions, in which they nightly assembled all together round the fires, of which there were two—one at either end. Some of the men told stories, some sang songs, others played at draughts of amateur construction, and a good many played the easy but essential part of audience.

The noise, of course, was tremendous, but they were used to that, and minded it not. When, however, two of the men began to quarrel over their game, with so much anger as to interrupt all the others, and draw general attention to themselves, the thing became unbearable, and when one called the other “a liar,” and the other shouted with an oath, “You’re another,” the matter reached a climax.

“Come, come, Dick Swan and Bob Crow,” cried Grummidge, in a stern voice; “you stop that. Two liars are too much in this here ship. One is one too many. If you can’t keep civil tongues in your heads, we’ll pitch you overboard.”

“You mind your own business,” gruffly replied Dick Swan, who was an irascible man and the aggressor.

“That’s just what I’ll do,” returned Grummidge, striding up to Swan, seizing him by the collar, and hurling him to the other end of the room, where he lay still, under the impression, apparently, that he had had enough. “My business,” said Grummidge, “is to keep order, and I mean to attend to it. Isn’t that so, boys?”

“No—yes—no,” replied several voices.

“Who said ‘No’?” demanded Grummidge.

Every one expected to see Big Swinton step forward, but he did not. His revenge was not to be gratified by mere insubordination. The man who did at last step forward was an insignificant fellow, who had been nicknamed Spitfire, and whose chief characteristics were self-will and ill-nature. He did not lack courage, however, for he boldly faced the angry ruler and defied him. Every one expected to see Spitfire follow Dick Swan, and in similar fashion, but they were mistaken. They did not yet understand Grummidge.

“Well, Spitfire, what’s your objection to my keeping order?” he said, in a voice so gentle that the other took heart.

“My objection,” he said, “is that when you was appinted capting there was no vote taken. You was stuck up by your own friends, an’ that ain’t fair, an’ I, for one, refuse to knuckle under to ’ee. You may knock me down if you like, for I ain’t your match by a long way, but you’ll not prove wrong to be right by doin’ that.”

“Well spoken, Master Spitfire!” exclaimed a voice from the midst of the crowd that encircled the speakers.

“Well spoken, indeed,” echoed Grummidge, “and I thank you, Master Spitfire, for bringin’ this here matter to a head. Now, lads,” he added, turning to the crowd, “you have bin wrong an’ informal, so to speak, in your proceedin’s when you appinted me governor o’ this here colony. There’s a right and a wrong in everything, an’ I do believe, from the bottom of my soul, that it’s—that it’s—that—well, I ain’t much of a dab at preaching as you know, but what I would say is this—it’s right to do right, an’ it ain’t right for to do wrong, so we’ll krect this little mistake at once, for I have no wish to rule, bless you! Now then, all what’s in favour o’ my bein’ gov’nor, walk to the end o’ the room on my right hand, an’ all who wants somebody else to be—Spitfire, for instance—walk over to where Dick Swan is a-sittin’ enjo’in’ of hisself.”

Immediately three-fourths of the crew stepped with alacrity to the right. The remainder went rather slowly to the left. “The Grummidges has won!” cried Squill, amid hearty laughter.

The ruler himself made no remark whatever, but, seating himself in a corner of the hut, resumed the game which had been interrupted, quite assured that the game of insubordination was finally finished.

The day following that on which the reign of King Grummidge was established, a new member of considerable interest was added to the colony. Blaze, Stubbs, and Squill chanced to be out that day along the shore. Squill, being in a meditative mood, had fallen behind his comrades. They had travelled further than usual, when the attention of the two in front was attracted by what seemed to them the melancholy howling of a wolf. Getting their bows ready, they advanced with caution, and soon came upon a sad sight—the dead body of a native, beside which crouched a large black dog. At first they thought the dog had killed the man, and were about to shoot it, when Stubbs exclaimed, “Hold on! don’t you see he must have tumbled over the cliff?”

A brief examination satisfied them that the Indian, in passing along the top of the cliffs, had fallen over, and that the accident must have been recent, for the body was still fresh. The dog, which appeared to be starving, showed all its formidable teeth when they attempted to go near its dead master. Presently Squill came up.

“Ah, boys,” he said, “ye don’t onderstand the natur’ o’ the baste—see here.”

Taking a piece of dried fish from his pocket, he went boldly forward and presented it. The dog snapped it greedily and gulped it down. Squill gave him another and another piece; as the fourth offering was presented he patted the animal quietly on its head. The victory was gained. The dog suffered them to bury its master, but for four days it refused to leave his grave. During that time Squill fed it regularly. Then he coaxed it to follow him, and at last it became, under the name of Blackboy, a general favourite, and a loving member of the community.

Chapter Seventeen. Has Reference to Food and a Great Fight.

There is always a certain amount of pleasure to be derived from the tracing of any subject of interest back to its origin. We have already seen how—like a noble river, which has its fountain-head in some mountain lakelet that would scarcely serve as a washing-basin for a Cyclops—the grand cod-fishing industry, which has enriched the world, and found employment for thousands of men for centuries, had its commencement in the crew of the Water Wagtail! we shall now show that another great industry, namely, the Newfoundland seal-fishery, had its origin in the same insignificant source.

King Grummidge was walking one morning along the shore of Wagtail Bay, with hands in pockets, hat on back of head, and that easy roll of gait so characteristic of nautical men and royalty. He was evidently troubled in mind, for a frown rested on his brow, and his lips were compressed. It might have been supposed that the cares of state were beginning to tell upon him, but such was not the case: food was the cause of his trouble.

“Fish, fish, fish,” he growled, to Little Stubbs, who was his companion in the walk. “I’m sick tired o’ fish. It’s my opinion that if we go on eatin’ fish like we’ve bin doin’ since we was cast away here, we will turn into fish, or mermaids, if not somethin’ worse. What are ye laughin’ at?”

“At the notion o’ you turnin’ into a maid of any sort,” replied Stubbs.

“That’s got nothin’ to do wi’ the argiment,” returned Grummidge sternly, for his anxieties were too serious to permit of his indulging in levity at the time. “What we’ve got to do is to find meat, for them auks are nigh as dry as the fish. Meat, lad, meat, wi’ plenty o’ fat, that’s the question o’ the hour.”

“Yes, it’s our question, no doubt,” rejoined Stubbs.

He might as well have bestowed his bad pun on a rabbit, for Grummidge was essentially dense and sober-minded.

“But we’ve had a few rabbits of late, an’ ducks an’ partridges,” he added.

“Rabbits! ducks! partridges!” repeated his companion, with contempt. “How many of them delicacies have we had? That’s what I wants to know.”

“Not many, I admit for there’s none of us got much to boast of as shots.”

“Shots!” echoed Grummidge. “You’re right, Stubbs. Of all the blind bats and helpless boys with the bow, there’s not I believe, in the whole world such a lot as the popilation of Wagtail Bay. Why, there’s not two of ye who could hit the big shed at sixty paces, an’ all the fresh meat as you’ve brought in yet has bin the result o’ chance. Now look ’ee here, Stubbs, a notion has entered my head, an’ when a notion does that, I usually grab that notion an’ hold ’im a fast prisoner until I’ve made somethin’ useful an’ ship-shape of ’im. If it works properly we’ll soon have somethin’ better to eat than fish, an’ more substantial than rabbits, ducks, partridges, or auks.”

We may remark in passing that the animals which those wrecked sailors called rabbits were in reality hares. Moreover, the men took an easy, perhaps unscientific, method of classifying feathered game. Nearly everything with wings that dwelt chiefly on lake, river, or sea they called ducks, and all the feathered creatures of the forest they styled partridges. From this simple classification, however, were excepted swans, geese, eagles, and hawks.

“Well, Grummidge, what may be your notion?” asked Stubbs.

“My notion is—seals! For all our hard rowin’ and wastin’ of arrows we’ve failed to catch or kill a single seal, though there’s such swarms of ’em all about. Now this is a great misfortin’, for it’s well known that seals make first-rate beef—leastwise to them as ain’t partic’lar—so we’ll set about catchin’ of ’em at once.”

“But how?” asked Stubbs, becoming interested under the influence of his comrade’s earnest enthusiasm.

“This is how. Look there, d’ye see that small island lyin’ close to the shore with several seals’ heads appearin’ in the channel between?”

“Yes—what then?”

“Well, then, what I mean to do is to have nets made with big meshes, an’ set ’em between that island an’ the shore, and see what comes of it.”

“But where’s the twine to come from?” objected Stubbs.

“Twine! Ain’t there no end o’ cordage swashin’ about the Water Wagtail ever since she went ashore? An’ haven’t we got fingers? Can’t we undo the strands an’ make small cord? Surely some of ye have picked oakum enough to understand what that means!”

Stubbs was convinced. Moreover, the rest of the men were so convinced that the plan promised well, when it was explained to them, that they set to work with alacrity, and, in a brief space of time, made a strong net several fathoms in length, and with meshes large enough to permit of a seal’s head squeezing through.

No sooner was it ready than the whole community went down to see it set. Then, with difficulty, they were prevented from waiting on the shore to watch the result. In the afternoon, when Grummidge gave permission, they ran down again with all the eagerness of children, and were rewarded by finding six fat seals entangled in the net and inflated almost to bursting with the water that had drowned them.

Thus they were supplied with “beef,” and, what was of almost equal importance, with oil, which enabled them to fry the leanest food, besides affording them the means of making a steadier and stronger light than that of the log fires to which they had hitherto been accustomed.

It may be here remarked by captious readers, if such there be, that this cannot appropriately be styled the beginning of that grand sealing, or, as it is now styled, “swile huntin’,” industry, which calls into action every year hundreds of steam and other vessels, and thousands of men, who slaughter hundreds of thousands of seals; which produces mints of money, and in the prosecutions of which men dare the terrible dangers of ice-drift and pack, in order that they may bludgeon the young seals upon the floes.

As well might it be objected that a tiny rivulet on the mountain-top is not the fountain-head of a mighty river, because its course is not marked by broad expanses and thundering cataracts. Grummidge’s net was undoubtedly the beginning, the tiny rill, of the Newfoundland seal-fishery, and even the bludgeoning was initiated by one of his party. It happened thus:—

Big Swinton went out one morning to try his fortune with the bow and arrow in the neighbourhood of a range of cliffs that extended far away to the northward. Swinton usually chose to hunt in solitude. Having few sympathies with the crew he shut up his feelings within his own breast and brooded in silence on the revenge he was still resolved to take when a safe opportunity offered, for the man’s nature was singularly resolute and, at the same time, unforgiving.

Now it chanced that Grummidge, in utter ignorance of where his foe had gone, took the same direction that morning, but started some time later, intending to explore the neighbourhood of the cliffs in search of sea-fowls’ eggs.

On reaching the locality, Swinton found that a large ice-floe had come down from the Arctic regions, and stranded on the shore of the island. On the ice lay a black object which he rightly judged to be a seal. At first, he supposed it to be a dead one, but just as he was about to advance to examine it the animal raised its head and moved its tail. Love of the chase was powerful in Swinton’s breast. He instantly crouched behind a boulder, and waited patiently till the seal again laid its head on the ice as if to continue its nap.

While the seaman crouched there, perfectly motionless, his brain was active. Arrows, he feared, would be of little use, even if he were capable of shooting well, which he was not. Other weapon he had none, with the exception of a clasp-knife. What was he to do? The only answer to that question was—try a club. But how was he to get at the seal with a club?

While pondering this question he observed that there was another seal on the same mass of ice, apparently sleeping, behind a hummock. He also noticed that both seals were separated from the water by a considerable breadth of ice—especially the one behind the hummock, and that there was a tongue of ice extending from the floe to the shore by which it seemed possible to reach the floe by patient stalking without disturbing the game. Instantly Swinton decided on a plan, and commenced by crawling into the bushes. There, with his clasp-knife, he carefully cut and peeled a club which even Hercules might have deigned to wield.

With this weapon he crawled on hands and knees slowly out to the floe, and soon discovered that the seals were much larger than he had at first supposed, and were probably a male and a female. Being ignorant of the nature of seals, and only acquainted with the fact that the tender nose of the animal is its most vulnerable part, he crept like a cat after a mouse towards the smaller seal, which he judged to be the female, until near enough to make a rush and cut off its retreat to the sea. He then closed with it, brought his great club down upon its snout, and laid it dead upon the ice. Turning quickly round, he observed, to his surprise, that the male seal instead of making for the water, as he had expected, was making towards himself in floundering and violent bounds!

It may be necessary here to state that there are several kinds of seals in the northern seas, and that the “hood seal”—or, as hunters call it the “dog-hood”—is among the largest and fiercest of them all. The male of this species is distinguished from the female by a singular hood, or fleshy bag, on his nose, which he has the power to inflate with air, so that it covers his eyes and face—thus forming a powerful protection to his sensitive nose, for, besides being elastic, the hood is uncommonly tough. It is said that this guard will even resist shot and that the only sure way of killing the dog-hood seal is to hit him on the neck at the base of the skull.

Besides possessing this safeguard, or natural buffer, the dog-hood is full of courage, which becomes absolute ferocity when he is defending the female. This is now so well known that hunters always try to kill the male first, if possible, when the female becomes an easy victim.

Swinton saw at a single glance that he had to deal with a gigantic and furious foe, for the creature had inflated its hood and dilated its nostrils into two huge bladders, as with glaring eyes it bounced rather than rushed at him in terrific rage. Feeling that his arrows would be useless, the man flung them and the bow down, resolving to depend entirely on his mighty club. Being possessed of a good share of brute courage, and feeling confident in his great physical strength, Swinton did not await the attack, but ran to meet his foe, swung his ponderous weapon on high, and brought it down with tremendous force on the seal’s head, but the hood received it and caused it to rebound—as if from indiarubber—with such violence that it swung the man to one side. So far this was well, as it saved him from a blow of the dog-hood’s flipper that would probably have stunned him. As it was, it grazed his shoulder, tore a great hole in his strong canvas jacket and wounded his arm.

Experience usually teaches caution. When the seal turned with increased fury to renew the assault Swinton stood on the defensive, and as soon as it came within reach brought his club down a second time on its head with, if possible, greater force than before; but again the blow was broken by the hood, though not again was the man struck by the flipper, for he was agile as a panther and evaded the expected blow. His foot slipped on the ice, however, and he fell so close to the seal that it tumbled over him and almost crushed him with its weight. At the same time the club flew from his hand.

Though much shaken by the fall, the seaman scrambled to his feet in time to escape another onslaught, but do what he would he could make no impression on the creature’s head, because of that marvellous hood, and body blows were, of course, useless. Still Big Swinton was not the man to give in easily to a seal! Although he slipped on the ice and fell several times, he returned again and again to the encounter until he began to feel his strength going. As muscular power was his sole dependence, a sensation of fear now tended to make matters worse; at last he tripped over a piece of ice, and the seal fell upon him.

It was at this critical point that Grummidge came in sight of the combatants, and ran at full speed to the rescue. But he was still at a considerable distance, and had to cross the tongue of ice before he could reach the floe.

Meanwhile the seal opened its well-armed jaws to seize its victim by the throat. Swinton felt that death stared him in the face. Desperation sharpened his ingenuity. He thrust his left hand as far as possible down the throat of his adversary, and, seizing it with the other arm round the neck, held on in a tight though not loving embrace!

The struggle that ensued was brief. The seal shook off the man as if he had been but a child, and was on the point of renewing the attack when it caught sight of Grummidge, and reared itself to meet this new enemy.

Grummidge possessed a fair-sized clasp-knife. Armed with this, he rushed boldly in and made a powerful stab at the creature’s heart.

Alas! for the poor man, even though his stabbing powers had been good instead of bad, for he would only have imbedded the short weapon in a mass of fat without touching the heart. But Grummidge was a bad stabber. He missed his aim so badly as to plunge his weapon into the hood! Nothing could have been more fortunate. The air escaped and the hood collapsed. At the same moment Grummidge received an ugly scratch on the cheek which sent him sprawling. As he rose quickly he observed Swinton’s club, which he grasped and brought vigorously down on the seal’s now unprotected nose, and felled it. Another effective blow terminated its career for ever, and then the victor turned to find that Big Swinton lay on the ice, quite conscious of what was going on though utterly unable to move hand or foot.

Chapter Eighteen. Tells of Death and Disaster.

To bind up Swinton’s wounds, some of which were ugly ones, was the first business of Grummidge, after he had hastily staunched the blood which was flowing copiously from his own cheek. The stout seaman was well able to play the part of amateur surgeon, being a handy fellow, and he usually carried about with him two or three odd pieces of spun-yarn for emergencies—also a lump of cotton-waste as a handkerchief, while the tail of his shirt served at all times as a convenient rag.

Having finished the job he looked earnestly at the pale face and closed eyes of his old enemy, and said— “You’ve bin pretty much banged about old chap—eh?”

As the wounded man made no reply, Grummidge rose quickly, intending to run to the settlement for help, knowing that no time should be lost. He was hastening away when Swinton stopped him.

“Hallo! hold on!” he shouted. Grummidge turned back.

“You—you’re not goin’ to leave me, are you?” demanded his enemy, somewhat sternly, “I—I shall die if you leave me here on the cold ice.”

An involuntary shudder here bore testimony to the probability of his fear being well grounded.

“Swinton,” replied Grummidge, going down on one knee, the more conveniently to grasp the unwounded hand of his foe, “you mistake my c’rackter entirely. Though I’m not much to boast on as a man, I ain’t quite a devil. I was only goin’ to run to Wagtail Bay to start some o’ the boys with a stretcher to fetch ye—an’ it’s my belief that there’s no time to be lost.”

“Right you are, Grummidge,” replied the poor man in a faint voice, “so little time that if you leave me here the boys will only find some human beef to carry back, an’ that won’t be worth the trouble.”

“Don’t say that, old chap,” returned the other, in a low, gruff voice which was the result of tender feeling. “Keep up heart—bless you, I’ll be back in no time.”

“All right,” said Swinton, with a resigned look, “go an’ fetch the boys. But I say, Grummidge, shake hands before you go, I don’t want to carry a grudge agin you into the next world if I can help it. Goodbye.”

“No, no, mate, if that’s to be the way of it I’ll stick to ’ee. D’ye think you could manage to git on my back?”

“I’ll try.”

With much heaving, and many half-suppressed groans from the one, and “heave-ho’s” from the other, Big Swinton was at last mounted on his comrade’s broad shoulders, and the two started for home. It was a long and weary journey, for Grummidge found the road rough and the load heavy, but before night he deposited his old enemy in a bunk in the large room of the settlement and then himself sank fainting on the floor—not, we need scarcely add, from the effect of sentimental feeling, but because of prolonged severe exertion, coupled with loss of blood.

Two days later Grummidge sat by the side of Swinton’s bunk. It was early forenoon, and they were alone—all the other men being out on various avocations.

Blackboy, the large dog, lay asleep on the floor beside them.

Suddenly the dog jumped up, ran to the door, and began to whine restlessly.

“Wolves about, I suppose,” said Grummidge, rising and opening the door.

Blackboy bounded away in wild haste.

“H’m! he seems in a hurry. Perhaps it’s a bear this time. Well, mate, how d’ye feel now?” he added, closing the door and returning to his seat.

“Grummidge,” said the sick man, in a low voice, “I’ll never git over this. That seal have done for me. There’s injury somewheres inside o’ me, I feel sure on it. But that’s not what I was going to speak about. I want to make a clean breast of it afore I goes. I’ve been a bad man, Grummidge, there’s no question about that in my own mind, whatever may be in the mind of others. I had even gone the length of making up my mind to murder you, the first safe chance I got, for which, and all else I’ve done and thought agin ye, I ax your pardon.”

“You have it” said his friend earnestly. “Thank ’ee. That’s just what I expected, Grummidge. Now what I want to know is, d’ye think God will forgive me?”

The seaman was perplexed. Such a question had never been put to him before, and he knew not what to answer. After a few moments’ consideration, he replied—

“What you say is true, Swinton. You’ve bin a bad lot ever since I’ve know’d ye. I won’t go for to deny that. As to what the Almighty will do or won’t do, how can I tell? I wish I knew more about such things myself, for I’d like to help you, but I can’t.”

Suddenly an idea flashed into his mind and he continued:—

“But it do seem to me, Swinton, that if a poor sinner like me is willin’ to forgive ye, ain’t the Almighty likely to be much more willin’?”

“There’s somethin’ in that, Grummidge—somethin’ in that,” said the sick man eagerly. Then the hopeful look disappeared as he added slowly, “but I fear, Grummidge, that what you say don’t quite fit my case, for I’ve got a notion that the Almighty must have been willin’ all my life to save me from myself, and that all my life I’ve bin refusin’ to listen to Him.”

“How d’ye make that out, boy?”

“This way. There’s bin somethin’ or other inside o’ me, as far back as I can remember, that somehow didn’t seem to be me, that has been always sayin’ ‘Don’t’ to me, whenever I was a-goin’ to do a mean thing. Now, I can’t help thinkin’ that it must have bin God that spoke, for a man would never say ‘Don’t’ to himself, an’ then go right off an’ do it, would he?”

“That’s more than I can tell,” answered Grummidge. “I remember hearin’ Master Burns a-talkin’ on that point wi’ the cappen, an’ he thought it was conscience or the voice of God.”

“Well, conscience or no conscience, I’ve resisted it all my life,” returned the sick man, “an’ it do seem a mean, sneakin’ sort o’ thing to come to the Almighty at the very last moment, when I can’t help myself, an’ say, ‘I’m sorry.’”

“It would be meaner to say ‘I’m not sorry,’ wouldn’t it?” returned Grummidge. “But, now I think of it, Master Burns did read one or two things out o’ that writin’ that he’s so fond of, which he says is the Word of God. If it’s true what he says, he may well be fond of it, but I wonder how he has found that out. Anyway, I remember that one o’ the things he read out of it was that the Lamb of God takes away the sins of the world; an’ he explained that Jesus is the Lamb of God, an’ that he stands in our place—takes our punishment instead of us, an’ fulfils the law instead of us.”

The sick man listened attentively, even eagerly, but shook his head.

“How can any man stand in my place, or take my punishments?” he said, in a tone savouring almost of contempt. “As far as I can see, every man will have enough to do to answer for himself.”

“That’s just what come into my mind too, when I heard Master Burns speak,” returned the other; “but he cleared that up by explainin’ that Jesus is God as well as man—‘God with us,’ he said.”

“That do seem strange,” rejoined the sick man, “and if true,” he added thoughtfully, “there’s somethin’ in it, Grummidge, somethin’ in it to give a man comfort.”

“Well, mate, I’m of your mind about that, for if God himself be for us, surely nobody can be agin us,” said the seaman, unconsciously paraphrasing the word of Scripture itself. “Blow high or blow low, that seems to me an anchor that you an’ me’s safe to hang on to.”

The conversation was interrupted at this point by the sudden entrance of Jim Heron with an arrow sticking in the fleshy part of his back.

“Attacked by savages!” he gasped. “Here, Grummidge, lend a hand to haul out this—I can’t well reach it. They came on us behind the big store, t’other side o’ the settlement, and, after lettin’ fly at us took to their heels. The lads are after them. I got separated from the boys, and was shot, as you see, so I came—hah! pull gently, Grummidge—came back here that you might haul it out, for it’s hard to run an’ fight with an arrow in your back.”

“Stay here, Jim,” said Grummidge, after hastily extracting the shaft. “You couldn’t do much with a wound like that. I’ll take your place and follow up the men, and you’ll take mine here, as nurse to Swinton. We mustn’t leave him alone, you know.”

Eager though Jim Heron was at first for the fray, the loss of blood had reduced his ardour and made him willing to fall in with this proposal.

“Good-bye, Grummidge,” cried Swinton, as the former, having snatched up his knife and bow, was hastening to the door.

“Good-bye—good-bye, mate,” he responded, turning back and grasping the proffered hand. “You’ll be all right soon, old chap—and Jim’s a better nurse than I am.”

“I like what you said about that anchor, mate, I’ll not forget it” said Swinton, sinking back on his pillow as Grummidge sallied forth to join in the pursuit of the savages.

The stout seaman’s movements were watched by some hundreds of glittering black eyes, the owners of which were concealed amid the brushwood of the adjoining forest.

Meanwhile, at the other end of the settlement, the greater number of the shipwrecked mariners were engaged in hot pursuit of the party of Indians who had attacked them. They were very indignant, several of their mates having been wounded, and a considerable quantity of their stores carried off.

It quickly became apparent, however, that the seamen were no match for savage, at a race through the woods, therefore Grummidge, who soon overtook his comrades, called a halt, and gathered as many of his men as possible around him.

“Now, lads,” he said, “it’s plain that some of you can’t run much further. You ain’t used to this sort o’ work. Besides, we have left our settlement undefended. Most of you must therefore return, an’ a few of the smartest among you will follow me, for we must give these rascals a fright by followin’ ’em till we catch ’em—if we can—or by drivin’ ’em back to their own place, wherever that may be.”

Many of the men were more than willing to agree to this arrangement, while others were quite ready to follow their leader. The party, therefore, that finally continued in pursuit of the Indians was composed of Grummidge, George Blazer, Fred Taylor, Little Stubbs, Garnet Squill, and several others. Armed with bows, arrows, short spears, and clubs, these set off without delay into the forest, trusting to the sun and stars for guidance. The remainder of the men returned to the settlement, where they discovered that they had been the victims of a ruse on the part of the savages. The assault at the further end of the settlement proved to be a mere feint, made by a comparatively small party, for the purpose of drawing the seamen away, and leaving the main part of the settlement undefended, and open to pillage. While the small detachment of Indians, therefore, was doing its part, the main body descended swiftly but quietly on Wagtail Bay, and possessed themselves of all that was valuable there, and carried it off.

Of course, Swinton and Jim Heron were found there. Both had been beheaded, and their bodies stripped and left on the floor. Heron seemed to have offered a stout resistance, until overpowered by numbers and slain. Poor Swinton, who could not have had much more life remaining than enabled him to understand what was occurring, had been stabbed to death where he lay.

Fortunately, it was not possible for the Indians to carry off all the dried fish and other provisions, so that the men were not reduced to absolute starvation.

All ignorant of what was going on at the settlement, the avengers were pushing their way through the woods in pursuit of the smaller body of savages. Nothing could have been more satisfactory to these latter. From every eminence and knoll unseen eyes watched the movements of the white men, who remained under the delusion that they were striking terror into the hearts of a flying foe.

“Sure, we’ll have to take a rest soon,” said Squill, as they halted on the top of a mound, about sunset to breathe and wipe their heated brows.

“True, a short sleep we must have, but we’ll have to take our rest without kindling a fire,” said Grummidge.

“Ay, an’ go supperless to bed, too,” remarked Little Stubbs; “for we’ve brought nothing to eat with us.”

This fact had not struck any of the party till that moment. They had been so eager in pursuit of the foe that all prudential considerations had been thrown to the winds. They now lay down, therefore, to the very brief rest that was absolutely needful, not only without supper, but with the prospect of starting again without breakfast. However, each man felt bound in honour not to damp his fellows by complaining.

“Now, boys,” said Grummidge, “you lie down, an’ I’ll mount guard. Sleep as fast as you can, for I’ll route ye out in an hour or so.”

But Grummidge did not fulfil his promise. Seating himself with his back to a tree, his bows and arrows ready to hand, and actuated by a firm resolve to watch with intense care, he fell fast asleep, and the whole party snored in concert.

About fifty Indians, who had joined the original attacking party, had waited patiently for this state of affairs. When quite certain that the seamen were all sleeping soundly, they crept silently forward, and pounced upon them. The struggle was sharp, but short. Courage and strength are futile when opposed to overwhelming numbers. A few minutes later, and the white men were led, with hands bound behind them, into the depth of the unknown wilderness.

Chapter Nineteen. A New Friend with Startling News.

Turn we now to the island in the great lake where Hendrick, the hunter, had set up his romantic home.

The premature touch of winter, which had put so sudden a stop to the work of our explorers, gave way to a burst of warmth and sunshine almost as sudden. It was that brief period of calm repose in which nature indulges in some parts of the world as if to brace herself for the rough work of approaching winter. There was a softness in the air which induced one to court its embrace. Absolute stillness characterised the inanimate world. Clouds floated in the heavenly blue in rotund masses, which seemed, to the careless glance, as unchangeable as the hills, and the glassy water reflected them with perfect fidelity. It also reflected gulls, ducks, plover, and other wildfowl, as they sailed, whirred, or waded about, absorbed in the activities of their domestic economy, or in the hilarious enjoyment of the sweet influences around them. Colours most resplendent dyed the forest trees; gentle sounds from bird and beast told of joyous life everywhere, and the blessed sun threw a golden haze over wood and lake and hill. It was as though Paradise had been restored to man, and our loving Creator had swept away every trace of evil and misery from the beautiful earth.

But although the day is surely coming when, through Jesus Christ, “sorrow and sighing shall flee away,” Paradise had certainly not returned to earth at the date we write of. Doubtless, however, something which seemed marvellously like it had reappeared round the hunter’s home, for, while all nature was peaceful as well as beautiful, love was the grand motive power which actuated the hearts of those who dwelt there, and that love had been greatly intensified, as well as purified, since the advent of Paul Burns with the manuscript Gospel of John in his bosom, and the Spirit of God in his heart.

Besides being naturally sympathetic, Paul and Hendrick were thus drawn still more strongly together, as they communed with each other—sometimes while walking through the forest engaged in the chase; often beside the camp-fire after supper while others slept; and, not unfrequently, while paddling in their canoe over the sleeping lake.

One evening they were in the latter position—returning from a successful day’s hunt in the canoe—when Hendrick became more communicative than usual about the Indian tribe to which his wife belonged, and in regard to which subject he had hitherto been reticent. The sun was setting; the island home was not far distant. The total absence of wind and consequent stillness of the lake rendered it unnecessary to do more than make an occasional dip of the paddles with which the light craft was propelled—Paul using his in the bow, while Hendrick sat in the stern and steered. No one was with them—indeed the canoe was too small to carry more than two when loaded with the proceeds of the chase.

“I have often thought” said the hunter, dipping his paddle lazily, “that you must wonder why one whose position in the world warranted his looking forward to a bright and prosperous career should inflict on himself voluntary banishment, and wed an Indian woman.”

“Hendrick,” returned Paul, “I wonder at few things in this life, for I know something of the working of the human mind and heart and have ceased to judge other men’s feelings by my own. Besides, I criticise not the actions of my friend. The motives of his acts are known only to himself and his God. The Gospel tells me to ‘judge not according to the appearance.’ Moreover, the longer I live with you, the more have I learned to know that there are qualities in Trueheart which would do honour to dames of the highest station.”

A gleam of satisfaction lightened the hunter’s face for a moment as he exclaimed, with unwonted energy, “You do her no more than justice, my friend. I have lived to learn that love, truth, and every virtue are to be found in every station—alike with the high-born and the lowly; also that the lack of these qualities is common to both, and, to say truth, I had rather mate with a gentle savage than with a civilised female tiger!”

“But Trueheart is not a gentle savage,” returned Paul, scarcely able to repress a smile at the tone in which his friend uttered his sentiments; “she is a gentle woman.”

“Of course, I know that” rejoined Hendrick; “moreover she is a half-caste! I only used the word to designate the class of humanity to which she belongs, and to contrast her with that other class which deems itself at the top of the civilised tree.”

“But it seems to me, Master Hendrick, that you are inclined to be too severe on the high-born. There are those among them whose lives conform to the teachings of the Gospel of Jesus.”

“Do I not know it?” replied the hunter abruptly. “Have I not told you that my murdered wife was high-born and endowed with every grace?”

“True, but what of this civilised female tiger whom you would scorn to wed. Did not Christ die for her? May she not be saved by the same Power that drags the tiger of the lower ranks—both male and female—from the pit?”

“I doubt it not,” answered Hendrick thoughtfully, as he relapsed into his usual quiet manner, “and I am glad you appreciate Trueheart, for she is worthy of your regard. Her name was bestowed on her by her Indian relations. My children I have named after some of my kindred in the old country. The tribe to which my wife belongs are called Bethucks. They are well-disposed and kindly in disposition, and do not quarrel among themselves more than other human beings—indeed not so much as men in our own land; probably because they have not so much to quarrel about and have more elbow-room. They are good kinsmen, as I know; good hunters also, and inclined for peace, but the natives of Labrador render peace impossible, for they make frequent raids on our island, and of course we have to drive them away. If white men now come to Newfoundland, I fear that the poor Bethucks will be exterminated.” (The Bethucks are now extinct.)

“I trust not,” said Paul.

“So do I,” returned Hendrick, “and if the Gospel you have brought here only takes good root in our own land all will be well, for if men acted on the command ‘let us love one another,’ war and robbery, murder and strife, would be at an end.”

“Can we expect all men to act upon that precept?” asked Paul.

“Apparently not; but we might at least expect Christians to do so; those who accept the Gospel as their book of law. I had expected to escape from war and bloodshed when I left civilised lands and settled here, but I have been disappointed. The necessity for fighting still exists!”

“And will exist until the reign of Jesus extends to every human heart,” returned Paul. “It seems to me that what we have some right and ground to expect is, not the stoppage of all war, but the abolition of war between nations calling themselves Christian.”

It is a curious circumstance that, only a few days after the above conversation, an incident occurred which induced both Paul and Hendrick to buckle on their armour, and sally forth with a clear perception that it was their bounden duty to engage in war!

That incident was the arrival of an Indian hunter who was slightly known to Hendrick’s wife.

He came in a canoe just as the family on the Island were about to sit down to supper.

It was dark when his tall figure was seen to stalk out of the surrounding gloom into the circle of firelight. Trueheart recognised him at once, and a word from her sufficed to inform her husband that the stranger was a friend. He was welcomed of course cordially, and made to sit down in the place of honour.

Every attention he accepted with the grave solemnity of an owl, and without any other recognition than a mild grunt, which was by no means meant as a surly return of thanks, but as a quiet mode of intimating that the attention was agreeable to his feelings.

It may, perhaps, be not unknown to the reader that grave reticence is one of the characteristics of the Red men of the west. They are never in a hurry to communicate their news, whether important or otherwise, but usually, on arriving at any hospitable abode, sit down with calm dignity and smoke a pipe, or make slight reference to unimportant matters before coming to the main point of their visit—if it have a main point at all. As it is with the Red men now, so was it with the Bethucks at the time we write of. True, the pernicious practice of smoking tobacco had not yet been introduced among them, so that the social pipe was neither offered, desired, nor missed! but the Indian accepted a birch-bark basket of soup with placid satisfaction, and consumed it with slow felicity. Then, being offered a formidable venison steak, he looked calmly at his host, blinked his thanks—or whatever he felt—and devoured it.

“Has he got nothing to say for himself?” asked Captain Trench, surprised at the man’s silence.

“Plenty to say, I doubt not,” answered Hendrick, who then explained to the Captain the Indian characteristic just referred to.

“What a power of suction he has got” said Olly, referring not to the Indian, but to the family baby which he had got on his knee, and was feeding with a dangerously large lump of bear’s fat.

“What does he say?” asked Paul, referring to their visitor, who, having come to a temporary pause, with a sigh of contentment had said something in his native tongue to Hendrick.

“He asked me if the singing-birds will gladden his ears and cause his heart to thrill.”

“What means he by that?”

“He only refers to a fact well known among the Indians,” replied the hunter, with a quiet smile, “that Trueheart and Goodred have such sweet voices that they are known everywhere by the name of the singing-birds. Happening to have some knowledge of music, I have trained them to sing in parts one or two hymns taught to me by my mother, and composed, I believe, by a good monk of the olden time. Some things in the hymns puzzled me, I confess, until I had the good fortune to meet with you. I understand them better now. You shall hear one of them.”

So saying, he turned and nodded to Trueheart who of course understood the conversation. With a slight inclination of the head denoting acquiescence she began to sing. At the same moment Goodred parted her pretty lips and joined her. The result was to fill the air with harmony so sweet that the captain and his comrade were struck dumb with delight and surprise, the Indian’s jaw was arrested with an unchewed morsel in the mouth, and the family baby gazing upward in wonder, ceased the effort to choke itself on bear’s fat.

It need scarcely be said that the grunt of the Indian was very emphatic when the sounds died away like fairy-music, and that the hunter’s white guests entreated for more. Trueheart and her daughter were quite willing, and, for a considerable time, kept their audience enthralled.

At last, having washed down his meal with a final basketful of soup, the Indian began to unbosom himself of his news—a few words at a time. It was soon found, however, that he had no news of importance to tell. He was a hunter; he had been out with a party of his tribe, but having differed with them as to the best district to be visited, he had left them and continued the hunt alone. Being not far distant from the home of the white hunter who had mated with the Bethuck singing-bird, he had turned aside for no other purpose than to have his ears gladdened and his heart thrilled!

“We are happy,” said Hendrick, “that our Bethuck brother should have his ears gladdened and his heart thrilled, and we trust that the spirit of the wolf within him is subdued, now that his stomach is also filled.”

A polite grunt was the reply.

“Will our Bethuck brother tell us more news?”

“There is no more,” he answered, “Strongbow is now an empty vessel.”

“Considering that Strongbow has just filled himself with venison, he can hardly call himself an empty vessel,” responded the hunter, with intense gravity.

Strongbow turned his head quickly and gazed at the speaker. His solemnity deepened. Could his white brother be jesting? The white brother’s gravity forbade the idea. In order to convey more strongly the fact that he had no news to give the Indian touched his forehead—“Strongbow is empty here.”

“That may well be,” remarked Hendrick quietly.

Again the Indian glared. Solemnity is but a feeble word after all! He said nothing, but was evidently puzzled.

“Has our Bethuck brother seen no enemies from the setting sun? Is all quiet and peaceful among his friends?” asked the hunter.

“All is peaceful—all is quiet. But we have news of a war party that left us many days past. They had gone, about the time that the deer begin to move, to punish some white men who were cast on shore by the sea where the sun rises.”

“What say you?” cried Hendrick, starting. “Have the Red warriors been successful?”

“They have. Some of the white men have been killed, others caught and taken to our wigwams to be made slaves or to die.”

The consternation of Paul and his friends, on this being translated to them, may be imagined. Past injuries were forgotten, and instant preparations were made to set off to the rescue at the earliest dawn of the following day.

Chapter Twenty. The Rescue Party—A Rencontre and Bad News.

Hot haste now marked the proceedings of the rescue party, for Paul and his friends felt that they had no time to lose. Fortunately the weather favoured them. That very night a sharp frost set in, hardening the moist and swampy grounds over which they had to pass. Strongbow, on being made acquainted with the state of matters, willingly agreed to lead the party to the place to which he thought it likely the captives had been taken, or where, at least, information about them might be obtained from members of his own tribe.

Little Oscar, at his own urgent request, was allowed to accompany them, and Trueheart, Goodred, and the family baby and nurse were left in charge of an old Indian whose life had once been saved by Hendrick, and who, although too old to go on the war-path, was still well able to keep the family in provisions.

Although the party was small—numbering only six, two of whom were boys—it was nevertheless formidable, each man being more than usually powerful, as well as valiant, whilst the boys, although comparatively small, possessed so much of the unconquerable spirit of their sires as to render them quite equal to average men.

The frost, which seemed to have fairly set in, kept them cool during the day while walking, and rendered their bivouac-fires agreeable at nights. Little time, however, was allowed for rest or food. They pressed on each day with unflagging energy, and felt little disposition to waste time in conversation during the brief halts for needed rest and food.

Occasionally, however, some of the party felt less disposed than usual for sleep, and sought to drive away anxiety regarding their old shipmates by talking of things and scenes around them.

“Does Strongbow think that the frost will hold?” asked Hendrick, one evening after supper, as he reclined in front of the fire on a pile of brushwood.

“Strongbow cannot tell,” returned the Indian. “It looks like thaw, but the Great Spirit sometimes changes his mind and sends what we do not expect.”

Having uttered this cautious reply with sententious gravity he continued his supper in silence.

“The Great Spirit never changes his mind,” said Paul. “Perfection cannot change, because it need not.”

“Waugh!” replied the Indian. It was evident that he did not agree with Paul, but was too polite to say so.

“I like this sort o’ thing,” remarked Captain Trench, looking up from the rib on which he was engaged, and gazing round at the magnificent sweep of hill and dale of which they had a bird’s-eye view from their camp.

“So do I, daddy; with lots to eat an’ a roarin’ fire a fellow feels as happy as a king,” said Oliver.

“Happier than most kings, I doubt not,” returned Hendrick.

“But, Olly, you have mentioned only two of the things that go to produce felicity,” said Paul. “Food and fire are certainly important elements, but these would be of little avail if we had not health, strength, and appetite.”

“To say nothin’ of the fresh air o’ the mountains, and the excitement o’ the wilderness, and the enthusiasm of youth,” added the captain.

“Are you not as happy as me, daddy?” asked the boy, with a sudden glance of intelligence.

“Happier a great deal, I should say,” replied the father, “for I’m not so much of a goose.”

“Why then, daddy, if you are happier than we, what you call the enthusiasm of youth can have nothing to do with it, you know!”

“You young rascal, the enthusiasm of middle age is much more powerful than that of youth! You let your tongue wag too freely.”

“D’ye hear that, Osky?” said Oliver to his little companion in an audible whisper. “There’s comfort for you an’ me. We’ll be more enthusiastic and far happier when we come to middle age! What d’ye think o’ that?”

Oscar—who, although much inclined to fun and humour, did not always understand the curious phases of them presented to him by his civilised friend—looked innocently in his face and said, “Me no tink about it at all!” Whereupon Olly burst into a short laugh, and expressed his belief that, on the whole, that state of mind was about the happiest he could come to.

“How long, think you, will it take us to reach the wigwams of your kindred from this point?” asked Hendrick of their guide, as he prepared to lie down for the night.

“Two days,” answered the Indian.

“God grant that we may be in time,” murmured Paul, “I fear a thaw, for it would delay us greatly.”

That which was feared came upon them the next day. They were yet asleep when those balmy influences, which alone have power to disrupt and destroy the ice-king’s reign, began to work, and when the travellers awoke, the surface of the land was moist. It was not soft, however, for time is required to draw frost out of the earth, so that progress was not much impeded. Still, the effect of the thaw depressed their spirits a good deal, for they were well aware that a continuance of it would render the low grounds, into which they had frequently to descend, almost impassable.

It was, therefore, with anxious forebodings that they lay down to rest that night, and Paul’s prayer for strength and guidance was more fervent than usual.

About this period of the year changes of temperature are sometimes very abrupt, and their consequences curious. During the night frost had again set in with great intensity. Fatigue had compelled the party to sleep longer than usual, despite their anxiety to press forward, and when they awoke the rays of the rising sun were sweeping over the whole landscape, and revealing, as well as helping to create, a scene of beauty which is seldom, if ever, witnessed elsewhere.

When rain falls with a low thermometer near the earth it becomes frozen the moment it reaches the ground, and thus a regular deposit of pure glassy ice takes place on every branch and twig of the leafless shrubs and trees. The layer of ice goes on increasing, sometimes, till it attains the thickness of half an inch or more. Thus, in a few hours, a magical transformation is brought about. The trees seem to be hung with glittering jewels; the larger limbs are edged with dazzling ice-ropes; the minutest twigs with threads of gleaming crystal, and all this, with the sun shooting on and through it, presents a scene of splendour before which even our most vivid conceptions of fairy-land must sink into comparative insignificance.

Such, then, was the vision presented to the gaze of the rescue party on awaking that morning. To some of them it was a new revelation of the wonderful works of God. To Hendrick and the Indian it was familiar enough. The Newfoundlanders of modern times know it well by the name of a “silver thaw.”

After the first gaze of surprise and admiration, our travellers made hasty preparation to resume the journey, and the frost told beneficially on them in more ways than one, for while it hardened the ground it rendered the atmosphere clear and exhilarating, thus raising their spirits and their hopes, which tended greatly to increase their power of action and endurance.

That night they encamped again on a commanding height, and prepared supper with the hopeful feelings of men who expect to gain the end of their journey on the morrow.

As if to cheer them still more, the aurora borealis played in the heavens that night with unwonted magnificence. It is said that the northern lights are grander in Newfoundland even than in the Arctic regions. At all events they were finer than anything of the kind that had ever before been seen by Paul Burns or Captain Trench and his son, insomuch that the sight filled them with feelings of awe.

The entire heavens seemed to be ablaze from horizon to zenith, not as with the lurid fires of a great conflagration, which might suggest only the idea of universal devastation, but with the tender sheen of varied half-tints, playfully shooting athwart and intermingling with brighter curtains of light of every conceivable hue.

The repose of the party was somewhat interfered with by the wonders that surrounded them that night, and more than once they were startled from slumber by the loud report of great limbs of trees, which, strong though they seemed to be, were torn off by the load of ice that had accumulated on them.

Daybreak found the party again passing swiftly over the land. It really seemed as if even the boys had received special strength for the occasion, for they neither lagged behind nor murmured, but kept well up during the whole forced march. No doubt that youthful enthusiasm to which Captain Trench had referred kept Olly up to the mark, while Osky—as his friend called him—had been inured to hard labour of every kind from infancy.

At last, about noon that day, their leader came to a sudden halt, and pointed to something on the ground before him.

“What does he see?” asked Paul, in a low voice.

“Footprints,” said Hendrick.

“What of—deer?” asked the captain, in a hoarse whisper.

“No—natives. Perhaps his friends.”

While they were whispering, the Indian was on his knees examining the footprints in question. Rising after a few minutes’ survey, with a grave look he said—

“Strongbow is not sure. The prints look like those of his tribe, but—he is not sure!”

“At all events we can follow them,” said Hendrick. “The land is open; we cannot easily be surprised, and we have our weapons handy.”

As he spoke he drew an arrow from his quiver, and, affixing the notch to the bow-string, carried the weapon in his left hand. The others followed his example. Oliver felt his belt behind, to make sure that the axe was there, and glanced at the mighty club that hung from his shoulder.

Oscar, regarding with a slight degree of wonder the warlike arrangements of his friend, also fitted an arrow to his little bow, and then, with cautious steps and inquiring glances, the party continued to advance.

But Hendrick was wrong in supposing that a surprise was not probable, for suddenly from behind a frowning rock or cliff there appeared a band of armed men who confronted them, and instantly raised their bows to shoot. Quick as lightning the white men did the same. Evidently both parties were taken by surprise, for if the Indians had been a party in ambush they would have shot at the others without showing themselves. This or some such idea seemed to flash into the minds of both parties, for there was a slight hesitation on the part of each. Just at that moment a large black dog which accompanied the Indians, and had displayed all its formidable teeth and gums on seeing the strangers, was observed to cover its teeth and wag its tail interrogatively.

Hendrick gave a low whistle.

Instantly the dog bounded towards him, and began to fawn and leap upon and around him with every demonstration of excessive joy, at sight of which both parties lowered their weapons.

“The dog is an old friend,” explained Hendrick to Paul. “Good dog,” he added, addressing the animal in the Indian tongue, “you are a faithful friend—faithful in time of need.”

Then, dropping his bow and advancing unarmed to the Indians, he said—

“This dog belongs to the Bethucks of Grand Lake. Did you obtain him from them?”

“No, we did not,” replied one of the Indians, who seemed from his bearing to be a chief, “but we are kinsmen of the men of Grand Lake. One of their braves, Little Beaver, took one of our girls, Rising Sun, for his wife. We come from yonder (pointing northward). Some moons have passed since Little Beaver, who came to revisit us with his wife, left us to return to his wigwam on Grand Lake.”

“I know Little Beaver well,” said Hendrick, as the chief paused at this point; “the dog belongs to him.”

Without noticing the remark the chief continued—

“When Little Beaver and Rising Sun left us they went on alone by the shores of the great salt lake. We never saw our brave in life again. Some time after, a party of our warriors came upon a grave. They examined it, and found the dead body of Little Beaver. It was bruised, and many bones were broken. A party of white men had built lodges near to the place. It was they who had murdered Little Beaver, we knew, for there was no sign of others near, and his dog was with them. So our braves went to the kinsmen of Rising Sun, and we returned and attacked the palefaces.”

“Did you slay all the palefaces?” asked Hendrick anxiously.

“No, some we slew, others we took prisoners.”

Hendrick thought it best to reserve in the meantime his communication of all this to Paul and his friends.

“I am your kinsman also,” he said to the chief, “for Trueheart is my wife. I have much to say to you, but our business is pressing. Will you walk with me while we talk?”

The chief bowed his head, and ordered his party to fall to the rear and follow, while he walked in advance with the pale-faced hunter.

Hendrick then explained to the Indian as much about the wreck of the Water Wagtail and the dismissal of Captain Trench and his comrades as he thought necessary, and then said that although his three friends were indignant at the treatment they had received from their comrades, they would be grieved to hear that any of them were to be killed, and he greatly wished to prevent that. “Would the chief guide him to the place where the prisoners were?”

“I will guide you,” said the chief, “but you will find it hard to save them. Palefaces have slain Little Beaver and stolen Rising Sun, and palefaces must die.”

Chapter Twenty One. Old Friends in a Sad Plight.

Anxious though Paul Burns naturally was for the fate of the crew of the Water Wagtail, he could not help being interested in and impressed by the fine country which he was thus unexpectedly obliged to traverse. His mind being of a practical and utilitarian cast, as well as religious, he not only admired the grand and richly diversified land as being part of the works of God, but as being eminently suitable for the use and enjoyment of man.

“Look there,” he said to Captain Trench, as they plodded steadily along, at the same time pointing to a break in a neighbouring cliff which revealed the geological features of the land. “Do you see yonder beds of rock of almost every colour in the rainbow? These are marble-beds, and from the look of the parts that crop out I should say they are extensive.”

“But not of much use,” returned the captain, “so long as men are content to house themselves in huts of bark and skins.”

“So might some short-sighted mortal among our own savage forefathers have said long ago if the mineral wealth of Britain had been pointed out to him,” returned Paul. “Yet we have lived to see the Abbey of Westminster and many other notable edifices arise in our land.”

“Then you look forward to such-like rising in this land?” said the captain, with something of a cynical smile.

“Well, not exactly, Master Trench; but our grandchildren may see them, if men will only colonise the land and strive to develop its resources on Christian principles.”

“Such as—?” asked Trench.

“Such as the doing to others as one would have others do to one’s-self, and the enacting of equal laws for rich and poor.”

“Then will Newfoundland never be developed,” said the captain emphatically; “for history tells us that the bulk of men have never been guided by such principles since the days of Adam.”

“Since when were you enrolled among the prophets, Master Trench?”

“Since you uttered the previous sentence, Master Paul. I appeal to your own knowledge of history.”

“Nay, I question not your historical views, but your prophetical statements, as to the fate of this island. Have you not heard of this writing—that ‘the knowledge of the Lord shall cover the earth as the waters cover the sea?’ Does not that signify completeness in the spread of knowledge? And when that comes to pass, will it bear no good fruit? If not, why is it recorded as a blessed state of things to which we may look forward, and towards which we may strive? I admit that the wickedness of man may delay the desired end. Unjust laws, interference with freedom of action, hatred of truth, may check progress here as it has done elsewhere; but who can tell how soon the truth, as it is in Jesus, may begin to operate, or how rapidly it may culminate?”

“You may be right, Master Paul; I know not. Anyhow I withdraw my claim to be numbered with the prophets—all the more that I see Strongbow making signals which I don’t rightly understand.”

The Indian guide, who had been walking somewhat in advance of the party, was seen standing on the summit of a knoll making signals, not to his friends behind him, but apparently to some one in front. Hastening forward they soon found that he had discovered friends,—a body of Indians, who were hurrying to meet him; while down in the valley beyond, which suddenly burst upon their view, stood an extensive Indian village. It was of that evanescent and movable kind, which consists of cone-like tents made of skins and bark spread upon poles.

“They are friends,” said Strongbow, when Hendrick and the others reached him; “kinsmen of the murdered Little Beaver.”

“Friends of Hendrick also, I see,” said the captain to Paul, as the hunter hastened forward to meet the Indians and salute them.

He was right, and a few minutes’ conversation with his friends sufficed to put the guide in possession of all he wished to know. Returning to his companions, he at once relieved their minds, to some extent at least, by telling them that it was indeed the tribe into whose hands their old shipmates had fallen, and that the sailors were still alive and well, though prisoners, and lying under sentence of death.

“Come, that at all events is good news,” said Paul. “I thank God we are not too late, and I make no doubt that we will persuade the Indians to delay execution of the sentence till we find out whether or not they have been guilty of this murder. Some of our old shipmates I know are capable of it, but others are certainly innocent.”

Hendrick did not at once reply. It was evident from his looks that he had not much hope in the merciful disposition of the Indians.

“I know some men of this tribe,” he said, “but not all of them—though they all know me by report. You may at least depend on my influence being used to the utmost in behalf of your friends. Come, we will descend.”

A few minutes’ walk brought them to the foot of the hill where the Indian tents were pitched. Here they found a multitude of men, women, and children watching them as they descended the hill, and, from the looks of many of the former, it seemed not at all improbable that a rough reception awaited them.

“You see,” said Paul, in a low voice to the captain, “they probably class us with the murderers, because of our white skins. Our only hope, under God, rests in Hendrick.”

That Paul’s hope was not ill-founded became apparent the moment the hunter made himself known. For the scowling brows cleared at once, and one or two men, who had formerly met with the white hunter, came forward and saluted him in the European manner which he had already taught to many of the red men, namely, with a shake of the hand.

A great palaver followed in the wigwam of the chief, Bearpaw, in the course of which many things were talked about; but we confine our record to that part of the talk which bears specially on our tale.

“The men must die,” said Bearpaw sternly. “What you tell me about their harsh treatment of their chief and his son and friend only proves them to be the more deserving of death. My two young braves who visited them on the island were treated like dogs by some of them, and Little Beaver they have slain. It is just that they should die.”

“But my three friends here,” returned Hendrick, “treated your braves well, and they had no knowledge or part in the killing of Little Beaver. Perhaps the palefaces did not kill him. Do they admit that they did?”

“How can we tell what they admit? We know not their language, nor they ours. But there is no need to palaver. Did not Strongbow and his braves find the dead body of Little Beaver bruised and broken? Did they not see his black dog in the paleface camp, and has not Rising Sun disappeared like the early frost before the sun? Doubtless she is now in the camp with those palefaces who have escaped us, but whom we will yet hunt down and kill.”

“Bearpaw is right,” said Hendrick, “murderers deserve to die. But Bearpaw is also just; he will let the men of the sea speak in their own defence now that I am here to interpret?”

“Bearpaw is just,” returned the chief. “He will hear what the palefaces have got to say. One of the young men will take you to their prison.”

He signed as he spoke to a young Indian, who instantly left the tent, followed by Hendrick and his friends.

Passing right through the village the party reached a precipice, on the face of which was what appeared to be the entrance to a cavern. Two Indians stood in front of it on guard. A voice was heard within, which struck familiarly yet strangely on Paul and the captain’s ears. And little wonder, for it was the voice of Grummidge engaged in the unaccustomed act of prayer! The young Indian paused, and, with a solemn look, pointed upwards, as if to intimate that he understood the situation, and would not interrupt. Those whom he led also paused and listened—as did the sentinels, though they understood no word of what was said.

Poor Grummidge had evidently been brought very low, for his once manly voice was weak and his tones were desponding. Never before, perhaps, was prayer offered in a more familiar or less perfunctory manner.

“O Lord,” he said, “do get us out o’ this here scrape somehow! We don’t deserve it, though we are awful sinners, for we’ve done nothin’ as I knows on to hurt them savages. We can’t speak to them an’ they can’t speak to us, an’ there’s nobody to help us. Won’t you do it, Lord?”

“Sure it’s no manner o’ use goin’ on like that, Grummidge,” said another voice. “You’ve done it more than wance a’ready, an’ there’s no answer. Very likely we’ve bin too wicked intirely to deserve an answer at all.”

“Speak for yourself Squill,” growled a voice that was evidently that of Little Stubbs. “I don’t think I’ve been as wicked as you would make out, nor half as wicked as yourself! Anyhow, I’m goin’ to die game, if it comes to that. We can only die once, an’ it’ll soon be over.”

“Ochone!” groaned Squill, “av it wasn’t for the short allowance they’ve putt us on, an’ the bad walkin’ every day, an’ all day, I wouldn’t mind so much, but I’ve scarce got strength enough left to sneeze, an’ as to my legs, och! quills they are instid of Squill’s.”

“For shame, man,” remonstrated Grummidge, “to be makin’ your bad jokes at a time like this.”

The tone of the conversation now led the young Indian to infer that interruption might not be inappropriate, so he turned round the corner of rock that hid the interior from view, and led his party in front of the captives. They were seated on the ground with their backs against the wall, and their arms tied behind them.

The aspect of the unfortunate prisoners was indeed forlorn. It would have been ludicrous had it not been intensely pitiful. So woe-begone and worn were their faces that their friends might have been excused had they failed to recognise them, but even in the depths of his misery and state of semi-starvation it was impossible to mistake the expressive visage of poor Squill, whose legs were indeed reduced to something not unsuggestive of “quills,” to say nothing of the rest of his body.

But all the other prisoners, Grummidge, Stubbs, Blazer, Taylor, and Garnet, were equally reduced and miserable, for the harsh treatment and prolonged journeying through forest and swamp, over hill and dale, on insufficient food, had not only brought them to the verge of the grave, but had killed outright one or two others of the crew who had started with them.

The visitors, owing to their position with their backs to the light of the cave’s mouth, could not be recognised by the prisoners, who regarded them with listless apathy until Captain Trench spoke, swallowing with difficulty a lump of some sort that nearly choked him.

“Hallo! shipmates! how goes it? Glad to have found ye, lads.”

“Och!” exclaimed Squill, starting up, as did all his companions; but no other sound was uttered for a few seconds. Then a deep “thank God” escaped from Grummidge, and Little Stubbs tried to cheer, but with small success; while one or two, sitting down again, laid their thin faces in their hands and wept.

Reader, it were vain to attempt a description of the scene that followed, for the prisoners were not only overwhelmed with joy at a meeting so unexpected, but were raised suddenly from the depths of despair to the heights of confident hope, for they did not doubt that the appearance of their mates as friends of the Indians was equivalent to their deliverance. Even when told that their deliverance was by no means a certainty, their joy was only moderated, and their hope but slightly reduced.

“But tell me,” said Paul, as they all sat down together in the cave, while the Indians stood by and looked silently on, “what is the truth about this Indian who was murdered, and the dog and the woman?”

“The Indian was never murdered,” said Grummidge stoutly. “He had evidently fallen over the precipice. We found him dead and we buried him. His dog came to us at last and made friends with us, though it ran away the day the settlement was attacked. As to the woman, we never saw or heard of any woman at all till this hour!”

When Bearpaw was told how the matter actually stood, he frowned and said sternly—

“The palefaces lie. If they never saw Rising Sun, why did she not come back to us and tell what had happened? She was not a little child. She was strong and active, like the young deer. She could spear fish and snare rabbits as well as our young men. Why did she not return? Where is she? Either she is dead and the palefaces have killed her, or they have her still among them. Not only shall the palefaces answer for her with their lives, but the Bethucks will go on the war-path to the coast and sweep the paleface settlement into the sea!”

It was of no avail that Hendrick pleaded the cause of the prisoners earnestly, and set forth eloquently all that could be said in their favour, especially urging that some of them had been kind to the two Indians who first visited the white men. Rising Sun had been a favourite with the chief; she was dead—and so the palefaces must die!

Chapter Twenty Two. Tells of Terrible Suspense—Violent Intentions and Religious Discussion.

“Now I tell you what it is, Master Hendrick,” said Captain Trench, the day after their arrival at the Indian camp. “I see this is goin’ to be an ugly business, an’ I give you fair warning that I’m goin’ to git surly. I won’t stand by quietly and see Grummidge and my men slaughtered before my eyes without movin’ a finger. I’ll keep quiet as long as there’s any chance of all your palaverin’ resulting in anything, but if the worst comes to the worst I’ll show fight, even if I should have to stand alone with all the red devils in Newfoundland arrayed against me.”

“I honour your feelings, Captain Trench, but doubt your judgment. How do you propose to proceed?”

“Will you join me? Answer me that question first.”

“I will join you in any scheme that is reasonable,” returned Hendrick, after a pause, “but not in a useless attempt to fight against a whole colony of Indians.”

“Then I’ll keep my plans of procedure in my own noddle,” said the captain, turning away with an indignant fling, and taking the path that led to the cave or prison-house of his shipmates, for as yet they were allowed free intercourse with their friends.

“Grummidge,” said he, in a stern voice, as he squatted down on the floor beside the unfortunate seaman, “things look bad, there’s no doubt about that, an’ it would be unkind deception to say otherwise, for that villain Bearpaw seems to git harder and harder the more they try to soften him. Now what I want to know is, are you an’ the others prepared to join me, if I manage to cut your cords an’ give you weapons, an’—”

“Shush! clap a stopper on your mouth, cappen,” said Grummidge in an undertone, “the redskins are listening.”

“An’ what then? They know no more about English than I know about Timbuctoosh,” returned the captain irascibly. “Let ’em listen! What I was a-goin’ to say is, are you an’ the other lads ready to follow me into the woods an’ bolt if we can, or fight to the death if we can’t?”

“Sure an’ I’m ready to fight,” interposed Squill, “or to follow ye to the end o’ the world, an’ further; but if I do I’ll have to leave my legs behind me, for they’re fit for nothin’. True it is, I feel a little stronger since your friend Hendrick got the bastes to increase our allowance o’ grub, but I’m not up to much yet. Howsiver, I’m strong enough p’r’aps to die fightin’. Anyhow, I’ll try.”

“So will I,” said Little Stubbs. “I feel twice the man I was since you found us.”

“Putt me down on the list too, cap’n,” said Fred Taylor, who was perhaps the least reduced in strength of any of the prisoners. “I’m game for anything short o’ murder.”

Similar sentiments having been expressed by his other friends, the captain’s spirit was somewhat calmed.

Leaving them he went into the woods to ponder and work out his plans. There he met Paul and Hendrick.

“We are going to visit the prisoners,” said the former.

“You’ll find ’em in a more hopeful frame of mind,” observed the captain.

“I wish they had better ground for their hopes,” returned his friend, “but Bearpaw is inexorable. We are to have a final meeting with him to-morrow. I go now to have a talk with our poor friends. It may be that something in their favour shall be suggested.”

Nothing, however, was suggested during the interview that followed, which gave the remotest hope that anything they could say or do would influence the savage chief in favour of his prisoners. Indeed, even if he had been mercifully disposed, the anger of his people against the seamen—especially the relatives of Little Beaver and those who had been wounded during the attack on Wagtail settlement—would have constrained him to follow out what he believed to be the course of justice.

When the final meeting between the visitors and the chief took place, the latter was surrounded by his principal warriors.

“Hendrick,” he said, in reply to a proposal that execution should be at least delayed, “the name of the white hunter who has mated with the Bethuck girl is respected everywhere, and his wishes alone would move Bearpaw to pardon his paleface foes, but blood has been shed, and the price of blood must be paid. Hendrick knows our laws—they cannot be changed. The relations of Little Beaver cry aloud for it. Tell your paleface friends that Bearpaw has spoken.”

When this was interpreted to Paul Burns a sudden thought flashed into his mind, and standing forth with flushed countenance and raised arm, he said—

“Hendrick, tell the chief of the Bethucks that when the Great Spirit formed man He made him without sin and gave him a just and holy law to obey; but man broke the law, and the Great Spirit had said that the price of the broken law is death. So there seemed no hope for man, because he could not undo the past, and the Great Spirit would not change His law. But he found a way of deliverance. The Great Spirit himself came down to earth, and, as the man Jesus Christ, paid the price of the broken law with His own blood, so that guilty, but forgiven, man might go free. Now, if the Great Spirit could pardon the guilty and set them free, would it be wrong in Bearpaw to follow His example?”

This was such a new idea to the Indian that he did not at first reply. He stood, with folded arms and knitted brow, pondering the question. At last he spoke slowly—

“Bearpaw knows not the thing about which his paleface brother speaks. It may be true. It seems very strange. He will inquire into the matter hereafter. But the laws that guide the Great Spirit are not the laws that guide men. What may be fit in Him, may not be fit in them.”

“My dark-skinned brother is wrong,” said Hendrick. “The law that guides the Great Spirit, and that should guide all His creatures, is one and the same. It is the law of love.”

“Was it love that induced the palefaces to kill Little Beaver and steal Rising Sun?” demanded the chief fiercely.

“It was not,” replied Hendrick; “it was sin; and Bearpaw has now an opportunity to act like the Great Spirit by forgiving those who, he thinks, have sinned against him.”

“Never!” returned the chief vehemently. “The palefaces shall die; but they shall live one day longer while this matter is considered in council, for it is only children who act in haste. Go! Bearpaw has spoken.”

To have secured even the delay of a single day was almost more than the prisoners’ friends had hoped for, and they resolved to make the most of it.

“Now, Hendrick,” said Paul, when they were in the tent that had been set aside for their use, “we must be prepared, you and I, to give the chief a full account of our religion; for, depend on it, his mind has been awakened, and he won’t rest satisfied with merely discussing the subject with his men of war.”

“True, Paul; what do you propose to do?”

“The first thing I shall do is to pray for guidance. After that I will talk with you.”

“For my part,” said Captain Trench, as Paul rose and left the tent, “I see no chance of moving that savage by religion or anything else, so I’ll go an’ make arrangements for the carryin’ out o’ my plans. Come along to the woods with me, Olly, I shall want your help.”

“Father,” said the boy, in a serious tone, as they entered the forest, “surely you don’t mean to carry out in earnest the plan you spoke of to Grummidge and the others yesterday?”

“Why not, my son?”

“Because we are sure to be all killed if you do. As well might we try to stop the rising tide as to subdue a whole tribe of savages.”

“And would you, Olly,” said the seaman, stopping and looking sternly at the boy, “would you advise me to be so mean as to look on at the slaughter of my shipmates without making one effort to save them?”

“I would never advise you to do anything mean, father; an’ if I did so advise you, you wouldn’t do it; but the effort you think of makin’ would not save the men. It would only end in all of us bein’ killed.”

“Well, and what o’ that? Would it be the first time that men have been killed in a good cause?”

“But a cause can’t be a good one unless some good comes of it! If there was a chance at all, I would say go at ’em, daddy, an’ bowl ’em down like skittles, but you know there’s no chance in your plan. Boltin’ into the woods an’ gittin’ lost would be little use in the face o’ savages that can track a deer by invisible footprints. An’ fighting them would be like fighting moskitoes—one thousand down, another thousand come on! Besides, when you an’ I are killed—which we’re sure to be—what would come o’ mother, sittin’ there all alone, day after day, wonderin’ why we never come back, though we promised to do so? Think how anxious it’ll make her for years to come, an’ how broken-hearted at last; an’ think how careful she always was of you. Don’t you remember in that blessed letter she sent me, just before we sailed, how she tells me to look well after you, an’ sew the frogs on your sea-coat when they git loose, for she knows you’ll never do it yourself, but will be fixin’ it up with a wooden skewer or a bit o’ rope-yarn. An’ how I was to see an’ make you keep your feet dry by changin’ your hose for you when you were asleep, for you’d never change them yourself till all your toes an’ heels came through ’em. Ah! daddy, it will be a bad job for mother if they kill you and me!”

“But what can I do, Olly?” said the mariner, in a somewhat husky voice, when this pathetic picture was presented to his view. “Your mother would be the last to advise me to stand by and look on without moving a finger to save ’em. What can I do, Olly? What can I do?”

This question was more easily put than answered. Poor Oliver looked as perplexed as his sire.

“Pr’aps,” he said, “we might do as Paul said he’d do, an’ pray about it.”

“Well, we might do worse, my son. If I only could believe that the Almighty listens to us an’ troubles Himself about our small affairs, I—”

“Don’t you think it likely, father,” interrupted the boy, “that if the Almighty took the trouble to make us, He will take the trouble to think about and look after us?”

“There’s somethin’ in that, Olly. Common sense points out that there’s somethin’ in that.”

Whether or not the captain acted on his son’s suggestion, there is no record to tell. All we can say is that he spent the remainder of that day in a very disturbed, almost distracted, state of mind, now paying short visits to the prisoners, anon making sudden rushes towards the chief’s tent with a view to plead their cause, and checking himself on remembering that he knew no word of the Indian tongue; now and then arguing hotly with Paul and Hendrick, that all had not been done which might or ought to have been done, and sometimes hurrying into the woods alone.

Meanwhile, as had been anticipated, the chief sent for Hendrick and Paul to demand an explanation of the strange words which they had used about forgiveness and the broken law of the Great Spirit and Jesus Christ.

It would be out of place here to enter into the details of all that was said on both sides, but it may not be uninteresting to state that, during the discussion, both the palefaces and the red men became so intensely absorbed in contemplation of the vast region of comparatively new thought into which they were insensibly led, that they forgot for the time being the main object of the meeting, namely, the ultimate fate of the captives.

That the chief and his warriors were deeply impressed with the Gospel message was evident, but it was equally evident that the former was not to be moved from his decision, and in this the warriors sympathised with him. His strong convictions in regard to retributive justice were not to be shaken.

“No,” he said, at the end of the palaver, “the blood of a Bethuck has been shed; the blood of the palefaces must flow.”

“But tell him that that is not just even according to his own views,” said Paul. “The blood of one paleface ought to suffice for the blood of one Bethuck.”

This was received in silence. Evidently it had some weight with the chief.

“The paleface is right,” he said, after a minute’s thought. “Only one shall die. Let the prisoners decide among themselves who shall be killed. Go, Bearpaw has spoken—waugh!”

A few minutes later, and the prisoners, with their friends, were assembled in the cave discussing this new phase of their case.

“It’s horrible!” said Grummidge. “D’ye think the chief is really in earnest?”

“There can be no doubt of it,” said Hendrick.

“Then, my lads, I’ll soon bid ye all farewell, for as I was your leader when the so-called murder was done, I’m bound in honour to take the consequences.”

“Not at all,” cried Squill, whose susceptible heart was touched with this readiness to self-sacrifice. “You can’t be spared yet, Grummidge; if any man shud die it’s the Irishman. Shure it’s used we are to bein’ kilt, anyhow!”

“There’ll be none o’ you killed at all,” cried Captain Trench, starting up with looks of indignation. “I’ll go and carry out my plans—ah! you needn’t look like that, Olly, wi’ your poor mother’s reproachful eyes, for I’m determined to do it, right or wrong!”

Chapter Twenty Three. Deliverance.

Fortunately for Captain Trench, and indeed for the whole party, the execution of his plan was rendered unnecessary by an incident the full significance of which requires that we should transport the reader to another, but not far distant, part of the beautiful wilderness of Newfoundland.

Under the boughs of a spreading larch, on the summit of a mound which commanded a wide prospect of plain and morass, sat an Indian woman. She might have been taken for an old woman, so worn and thin was she, and so hollow were her cheeks; but the glossy blackness of her hair, the smoothness of her brow, and the glitter of her dark eyes told that she was yet in her youthful years.

She sat perfectly listless, with a vacant yet steadfast expression on her thin features, as if she were dreaming with her eyes open. The view before her was such as might indeed arouse the admiration of the most stolid; but it was evident that she took no notice of it, for her eyes were fixed on the clouds above the horizon.

Long she sat, almost motionless, thus gazing into space. Then she began to sing in a low sweet voice a plaintive air, which rose and fell for some time more like a tuneful wail than a song. Suddenly, and in the very midst of her song, she burst into a wild laugh, which increased in vehemence until it rang through the forest in a scream so terrible that it could be accounted for by nothing but insanity. That the poor creature’s reason was indeed dethroned became evident from her subsequent movements, for after falling backwards from the exhaustion produced by her effort, or, it might be, from the sheer weakness resulting from partial starvation, she got up and began quietly to cut up and devour raw a small bird which she had killed with a stone. Strengthened a little by this food, she rose and made a futile effort to draw more closely around her a little shawl, or rather kerchief of deerskin, which covered her shoulders, shuddering with cold as she did so.

Her short leathern gown and leggings were so soiled and torn that the ornamental work with which they had been originally decorated was almost invisible, and the moccasins she had worn hung in mere shreds upon her little feet.

Rising slowly, and with a weary sigh, the poor creature descended the side of the hill and entered the forest at the foot of it.

Lying concealed in a neighbouring thicket an Indian youth had watched the motions of the girl. It was evident, from his gaze of surprise, that he had just discovered her. It was equally evident, from his expression of perplexity, that he hesitated to intrude upon one who, he could not help seeing, was mad; but when she moved forward he followed her with the soft wary tread of a panther.

At first the girl’s step was slow and listless. Then it became rapid. A fit of excitement seemed to come on, and she began to run. Presently the excitement seemed to have passed, for she fell again into the listless walk. After a time she sat down, and recommenced her low wailing song.

At this point, taking advantage of a neighbouring thicket, the young Indian drew as near to the girl as possible, and, in a low voice, uttered the Indian word for—“Rising Sun!”

Starting violently, the girl turned round, stretched out both arms, and, with intense hope expressed in every feature, took a step forward. In an instant the expression vanished. Another terrible scream resounded in the air, and, turning quickly away, she fled like a hunted deer.

The young man pursued, but he evidently did not try to overtake her—only to keep her in sight. The maniac did not choose her course, but ran straight before her, leaping over fallen trees and obstructions with a degree of agility and power that seemed marvellous. Sometimes she shrieked as she ran, sometimes she laughed fiercely, but she never looked back. At last she came to a small lake—about a quarter of a mile wide. She did not attempt to skirt it, but went straight in with a wild rush, and, being well able to swim, struck out for the opposite shore. The young man followed without hesitation, but could not overtake her, and when he landed she had disappeared in the woods beyond.

Skilled to follow a trail, however, the youth soon recovered sight of her, but still did not try to overtake her—only to keep her in view.

At length the fire which had sustained the poor creature seemed to have burned itself out. In attempting to leap over a low bush Rising Sun stumbled, fell, and lay as if dead.

The Indian youth came up and, raising her in his arms, looked very sadly into her face. She still breathed, but gave no other sign of life. The youth, therefore, lifted her from the ground. He was tall and strong. She was small in person, and reduced almost to skin and bone. He carried her in his arms as though she had been but a little child, and, an hour later, bore her into the Indian camp, for which for many days past she had been making—straight as the arrow flies from the bow.

He carried her at once to the chief’s tent and laid his burden softly down, at the same time explaining how and where he had found her.

Bearpaw sprang up with an air of excitement which an Indian seldom displays. Evidently his feelings were deeply touched, as he knelt and raised the girl’s head. Then he ordered his chief squaw to supply Rising Sun with some warm food.

It was evening when this occurred. Most of the people were supping in their tents. No one was with the chief save his own family and two of his braves.

When the poor maniac revived under the influence of the warm food, she started up with wild looks and sought again to fly, but was forcibly detained by one of the braves.

“Oh, let me go—let me go!—to his mother!” she wailed piteously, for she felt herself to be helpless in the youth’s strong grasp.

“Has Rising Sun forgotten Bearpaw?” said the chief tenderly, as he stood before her.

“Yes—yes—no. I have not forgotten,” she said, passing her hand over her brow; “but, oh! let me go to her before I die!”

“Rising Sun shall not die. She is among friends now. The pale-faced enemies who killed Little Beaver can do her no harm.”

“Killed him—enemies!” murmured the poor girl, as if perplexed; then, quickly, “Yes—yes—he is dead. Does not Rising Sun know it? Did she not see it with her own eyes? He was killed—killed!”

The poor girl’s voice rose as she spoke until it was almost a shriek.

“Rising Sun,” said the chief, in a tone which the girl could not choose but obey, “tell us who killed him?”

“Killed him? No one killed him!” she answered, with a return of the perplexed look. “He missed his footing and fell over the cliff, and the Great Spirit took him.”

“Then the palefaces had nothing to do with it?” asked the chief eagerly.

“Oh! yes; the palefaces had to do with it. They were there, and Rising Sun saw all that they did; but they did not see her, for when she saw them coming she hid herself, being in great fear. And she knew that Little Beaver was dead. No man could fall from such a cliff and live. Dead—dead! Yes, he is dead. Oh! let me go.”

“Not yet, Rising Sun. What did the palefaces do? Did they take his scalp?”

“No; oh! no. The palefaces were kind. They lifted him tenderly. They dug his grave. They seemed as if they loved him like myself. Then they went away, and then—Rising Sun forgets! She remembers running and bounding like the deer. She cannot—she forgets!”

The poor girl stopped speaking, and put her hand to her brow as if to restrain the tumult of her thoughts. Then, suddenly, she looked up with a wild yet intelligent smile.

“Yes, she remembers now. Her heart was broken, and she longed to lay it on the breast of Little Beaver’s mother—who loved him so well. She knew where the wigwams of Bearpaw stood, and she ran for them as the bee flies when laden with honey to its home. She forgets much. Her mind is confused. She slept, she fell, she swam, she was cold—cold and hungry—but—but now she has come home. Oh, let me go!”

“Let her go,” said the chief, in a low voice.

The young brave loosed his hold, and Rising Sun bounded from the tent.

It was dark by that time, but several camp-fires threw a lurid glare over the village, so that she had no difficulty in finding the hut of her dead husband’s mother, for, during the interchange of several visits between members of the two tribes, she had become very familiar with the camp. All ignorant of the poor maniac’s arrival, for the news had not yet spread, the mother of Little Beaver sat embroidering a moccasin with dyed quill-work. The traces of profound grief were on her worn face, and her meek eyes were dim as she raised them to see who lifted the curtain of the tent so violently.

Only one word was uttered by Rising Sun as she sprang in and fell on her knees before the old woman:—“Mother!”

No cry was uttered, not even an expression of surprise moved the old woman’s face; but her ready arms were extended, and the girl laid her head, with a long-drawn sigh, upon the old bosom.

Long did she lie there that night, while a tender hand smoothed her coal-black hair, and pressed the thin cheek to a warm throbbing heart, which feared to move lest the girl’s rest should be disturbed; but there was no need to fear that. Even the loving old heart could no longer warm the cheek that was slowly but surely growing cold. When the face was at last turned anxiously towards the firelight it was seen that a rest which could not be disturbed had been found at last—for Rising Sun was dead.

While this solemn scene was enacting in the old mother’s tent, a very different one was taking place in the cave prison, where the captives still sat, bound hand and foot leaning against the wall.

Captain Trench and his son sat in front of them. A small fire burned in the cave, the smoke of which found an exit among the crevices of the high roof. It cast a lurid light on the faces of the men and on projections of the wall, but left the roof in profound darkness.

The captain was still much excited, for the moment for his desperate venture was rapidly approaching.

“Now, Grummidge,” he said, in a low but earnest voice, “it’s of no use your objectin’ any more, for I’ve made up my mind to do it.”

“Which means,” returned the seaman, “that for the sake of savin’ my life, you’re a-goin’ to risk your own and the lives of all consarned. Now it’s my opinion that as the sayin’ goes, of two evils a man should choose the least. It’s better that I should die quietly than that the whole of us should die fightin’, and, maybe, killin’ savages as well, which would be of no manner of use, d’ye see. I can only die once, you know, so I advise ye to give it up, an’ leave the whole matter in the hands of Providence.”

“Not at all,” said Squill stoutly. “It’s my opinion that when they’ve kilt you, Grummidge, they’ll be like tigers when they’ve tasted blood: they’ll want to kill the rest of us. No; I’ve made up me mind to bolt, and, if need be, fight, an’ so has all the rest on us—so heave ahead, cappen, an’ tell us what we’ve got to do.”

“Well, boys, here it is,” said the captain. “You see this weapon.” He took up the heavy bludgeon that Oliver had made for himself on commencing his travels in Newfoundland. “Well, I’ve brought this here every time I’ve come just to get the two sentries accustomed to see me with it. This is your last night on earth, Grummidge, so I’m goin’ to pay you an extra visit about midnight, by way of sayin’ farewell. As I pass the sentries—who are quite used to me now—I’ll fetch the first one I come to such a crack with this here that he will give no alarm. Before the other has time to wink I’ll treat him to the same. It’s a mean sort o’ thing to do, but necessity has no law, so I’ve made up my mind to go through with it.”

“It’ll be a bad look-out if you do,” said Grummidge.

“It’ll be a worse look-out if I don’t,” replied the captain. “Then, when that’s done,” he continued, “I’ll cut your lashin’s, an’ we’ll crowd all sail for the woods, where I have already concealed some arms an’ dried deer’s-meat, an’ if we can’t get fair off and make for the east coast, we’ll get on the top o’ some mound or rock an’ show these Redskins what English seamen can do when they’re hard pressed.”

“Not to mintion Irish wans!” said Squill.

“An’ have Master Paul an’ Hendrick agreed to fall in wi’ this mad plan?” asked Grummidge.

“No, I can’t say they have. To say truth, considerin’ that Hendrick’s a relation o’ the Redskins an’ that Master Paul is his friend, I thought it best to say nothing to them about it. So I’ll—”

He was interrupted here by the sudden entrance of Hendrick and Paul themselves, accompanied by Bearpaw and the sentries. To one of the latter the chief gave an order, and the man, drawing his knife, advanced to Grummidge. The seaman instinctively shrank from him, but was agreeably surprised on having his bonds cut. The others having also been liberated, the chief said:—

“My pale-faced brothers are free.”

“Yes, lads,” said Paul, heartily grasping Grummidge by the hand. “God has sent deliverance at the eleventh hour—you are all free.”

Chapter Twenty Four. The Last.

The joy with which the news was received by our seamen and their friends was somewhat marred by the death of the poor girl who had unconsciously been the means of their deliverance. During several days there was profound grief in the Indian village, for Rising Sun had been a favourite with every one.

About this time one or two scattered bands of the party, which had gone to attack the paleface settlement, returned to the village, and when they found what had occurred in their absence, their enmity was turned into friendship, and general goodwill prevailed among all.

From the men just arrived Paul and his friends heard of the fate of poor Swinton and Jim Heron, but at the same time were relieved to find that none of the other seamen had been slain.

A grand council and palaver was held in front of Bearpaw’s tent not long afterwards. It was a very grave and orderly council—one which would contrast favourably with many of our nineteenth century councils, for those savages had not at that time acquired the civilised capacity for open offhand misrepresentation, calumny, and personal abuse which is so conspicuous in these days, and which must be so gratifying to those who maintain that civilisation is the grand panacea for all the moral ills that flesh is heir to. Whether the Bethucks ever improved in this matter is not known, for history is silent on the point; but it is, perhaps, of little consequence, the Bethuck race having become extinct.

“It is now a matter for our consideration, my friends and warriors,” said Bearpaw, in opening the palaver, “whether the palefaces are to spend the winter here and hunt with us, or to return to the Crooked Lake to stay with our kinsman, the white hunter, and his wife, the sweet singer. Of course, my warriors know well that we could keep the palefaces by force just as easily as we could take their scalps, if we were so disposed; but Bearpaw is not a tyrant. He will not inflict kindness on his friends. His heart is great. It swells within him. Something inside of him whispers, ‘Let them do as they please.’ That must be right, for if circumstances were reversed, it would be right to let Bearpaw do as he pleases.”

The chief paused and looked sternly round, as if to say, “Contradict that if you dare!” Possibly he felt that the “something inside of him” might have stated the golden rule more simply. Returning to the point, he continued—

“Bearpaw is glad that Rising Sun came home before he killed the palefaces, for her words have saved their lives. He is also glad that the friends of the palefaces came, for they have taught him wisdom. They have shown him that he was going to act in haste; they have told him that the Great Spirit orders all events here, and the Great Spirit himself has proved the truth of what they said; for, when Bearpaw refused to believe the palefaces, He sent Rising Sun to confirm their words, and to convince Bearpaw that he was wrong.”

Again the chief paused, and looked round upon his men, some of whom appeared to dissent from what he said in condemnation of himself by slightly shaking their heads.

“Bethuck warriors,” continued the chief, “have often told Bearpaw that he is wise. Bearpaw now tells his warriors that they are fools—fools for telling their chief that he is wise! If he had been wise he would not have come so near to shedding the blood of innocent men; but the Great Spirit prevented him. If the Great Spirit had not prevented him, still that would have been right, for the Great Spirit cannot do wrong, and He is not bound to give explanations to his creatures; though, doubtless, we will do it in the end. The heart of Bearpaw is grateful to his paleface brothers, and he would be glad if they will stay to hunt over his lands and palaver in his wigwam during the winter; but if they prefer to go, they may do as they please. Waugh! Bearpaw has spoken.”

The chief sat down with emphasis, as if he felt that he had done his duty, and his men uttered a decided “Ho!” of approval.

Then Hendrick rose, and, looking round the circle with that grave dignity of countenance and manner which was not less natural to himself than characteristic of his Indian friends, delivered himself as follows:—

“I and my friends are glad that Bearpaw recognises the hand of the Great Spirit in all that has occurred, for we rejoice to believe that He is the great First Cause of all things, and that men are only second causes, gifted, however, with the mysterious power to do evil.

“In thanking my Bethuck brother and his warriors for their kind invitation—I speak for all my party—we are all grateful, and we would greatly like to spend the winter here, and enjoy the hospitality of our red brothers. Especially would my friend Paul Burns rejoice to read more to you from his wonderful writing, and explain it; but we cannot stay. My paleface brothers wish to return with me to Crooked Lake, where the sweet singer and her little ones await the return of the hands that feed and protect them.”

Hendrick, pausing, looked round and received some nods of approval at this point.

“The winter is long, however,” he continued, “and when the snow is deep over all the land we can put on our snow-shoes and revisit Bearpaw; or, better still, Bearpaw and his warriors may come to Crooked Lake, when the sweet singer and her daughter will give them hearty welcome, supply them with more food than they can consume, and cause their ears and hearts to thrill with music.”

Hendrick paused again, and decided marks of approval greeted his last words.

“But, my friends and kinsmen,” he resumed, “when winter draws to a close, the palefaces will go to the coast to see how it fares with their comrades, and to try whether it is not possible for them to make a big canoe in which to cross the great Salt Lake, for some of them have wives and mothers, sisters, fathers, and other relations whom they love, in the mighty land that lies far away where the sun rises—the land of my own fathers, about which I have often talked to you. If they cannot make a big enough canoe, they will wait and hope till another great canoe, like the one they lost, comes to this island—as come it surely will, bringing many palefaces to settle in the land.”

“When they come they shall be welcome,” said Bearpaw, as Hendrick sat down, “and we will hunt for them till they learn to hunt for themselves; we will teach them how to capture the big fish with the red flesh, and show them how to track the deer through the wilderness—waugh! But will our guests not stay with us till the hard frosts set in?”

“No; we must leave before the deep snow falls,” said Hendrick. “Much of that which fell lately has melted away; so we will start for Crooked Lake without further delay.”

The Indian chief bowed his head in acquiescence with this decision, and the very next day Paul and the captain and Oliver, with their rescued comrades and Strongbow, set out for Hendrick’s home, which they reached not long after, to find that all was well, that the old Indian servant had kept the family fully supplied with fish, flesh, and fowl; that no one had visited the islet since they left, that the sweet singers were in good voice; and that the family baby was as bright as ever, as great an anxiety to its mother, and as terrible a torment to its idolising nurse!

Among others who took up their abode at that time on the hunter’s islet was the large dog Blackboy. That faithful creature, having always had a liking for Hendrick, and finding that the old master and mistress never came back, had attached itself to the party of palefaces, and quietly accepted the English name of Blackboy.

Now, it is impossible, with the space at our command, to recount all the sayings and doings of this section of the Water Wagtail’s crew during that winter: how they built a hut for themselves close to that of their host; how they learned to walk on snowshoes when the deep snow came; how, when the lake set fast and the thick ice formed a highway to the shore, little Oscar taught Oliver Trench how to cut holes through to the water and fish under the ice; how hunting, sledging, football, and firewood-cutting became the order of the day; supping, story-telling, singing, and reading the manuscript Gospel according to John, the order of the evening, and sleeping like tops, with occasional snoring, the order of the night, when the waters were thus arrested by the power of frost, and the land was smothered in snow. All this and a great deal more must be left untold, for, as we have said, or hinted, or implied before, matters of greater moment claim our attention.

One night, towards the close of that winter, Paul Burns suggested that it was about time to go down to the coast and visit their comrades there.

“So say I,” remarked Grummidge, who at the time was feeding the baby, to the grave satisfaction of Blackboy.

“Sure, an’ I’m agreeable,” said Squills, who was too busy feeding himself to say more.

As Little Stubbs, George Blazer, Fred Taylor, and David Garnet were of the same opinion, and Hendrick had no objection, except that Trueheart, Goodred, and Oscar would be very sorry to part with them, and the family baby would be inconsolable, it was decided that a start should be made without delay.

They set out accordingly, Hendrick and Strongbow alternately leading, and, as it is styled, beating the track, while the rest followed in single file. It was a long, hard journey, but our travellers were by that time inured to roughing it in the cold. Every night they made their camp by digging a hole in the snow under the canopy of a tree, and kindling a huge fire at one end thereof. Every morning at dawn they resumed the march over the snow-clad wilderness, and continued till sun-down. Thus, day by day they advanced, living on the dried meat they carried on their backs, and the fresh meat and ptarmigan they procured with bolt and arrow. At last they reached the coast.

It was a clear, sharp, starry night when they arrived at Wagtail Bay, with an unusually splendid aurora lighting them on their way. Anxious forebodings filled the breasts of most of the party, lest they should find that their comrades had perished; but on coming in sight of the principal hut, Oliver exclaimed, “There’s a light in the window, and smoke coming from—hurr—!”

He would have cheered, but Grummidge checked him.

“Shut up your hatchway, lad! Let us see what they are about before goin’ in.”

They all advanced noiselessly, Grummidge leading, Strongbow bringing up the rear. The hut had two windows of parchment, which glowed with the light inside, but through which they could not see, except by means of one or two very small holes, to which eager eyes were instantly applied. A most comfortable scene was presented, and jovial sounds smote the ears of those who listened. As far as they could make out every man of the crew was there, except, of course, Big Swinton and Jim Heron. Some were playing draughts, some were mending nets or fashioning bows, and others were telling stories or discussing the events of the past day.

But a great change for the better was perceptible both in words and manners, for some of the seed which Paul Burns had let fall by the wayside, had, all unexpectedly, found good ground in several hearts, and was already bearing fruit. Dick Swan and Spitfire no longer quarrelled as they played together, and Bob Crow no longer swore.

“Heigho!” exclaimed the latter at the end of a game, as he stretched his arms above his head, “I wonder if we’ll ever play draughts in Old England or see our friends again!”

“You’ll see some of ’em to-night, anyhow, God bless ye, Bob Crow,” cried Grummidge, as he flung open the door and sprang in, while his snow-sprinkled comrades came tramp, tramp, in a line behind him!

Who can describe that meeting as they shook hands, gasped, exclaimed, laughed—almost cried; while Blackboy leaped around wildly joyful at the sight of so many old friends? We will not attempt it; but, leaving them there, we will conduct the reader down to a small creek hard by, where a curious sight may be seen—a small ship on the stocks nearly finished, which will clearly be ready to launch on the first open water.

From the wreck of the old ship, tools, and timber, and cordage had been recovered. The forests of Newfoundland had supplied what was lacking. Ingenuity and perseverance did the rest. Need we add that the work went on merrily now that the wanderers had returned?

Hendrick stayed with them till the little ship was launched. With a pleased yet sorrowful expression he watched as the eager men tested her stability and her sailing powers, and rejoiced with them on finding that she worked well and answered to her helm smartly.

“Good-bye, friends, and God watch over you and me till that day after which there shall be no more partings,” he said, as they all shook hands for the last time.

He was left standing beside his Indian friend on the rocks when the Morning Star finally set sail. The tall forms of the two men were still visible when the little vessel rounded the neighbouring headland and turned its prow towards England. They stood there sadly watching the lessening sails till the ship became a mere speck on the horizon and finally disappeared.

Then Hendrick slowly re-entered the forest, and, followed by Strongbow, returned to his own home in the beautiful wilderness of Newfoundland.

The End.

List of Illustrations

FRONTPIECE

TOM LOKINS RAISED THE HARPOON

HURLED IT BLAZING INTO THE SEA

IN A MOMENT I WAS OVERBOARD

CHAPTER I

IN TROUBLE, TO BEGIN WITH

There are few things in this world that have filled me with so much astonishment as the fact that man can kill a whale! That a fish, more than sixty feet long, and thirty feet round the body; with the bulk of three hundred fat oxen rolled into one; with the strength of many hundreds of horses; able to swim at a rate that would carry it right round the world in twenty-three days; that can smash a boat to atoms with one slap of its tail, and stave in the planks of a ship with one blow of its thick skull;—that such a monster can be caught and killed by man, is most wonderful to hear of, but I can tell from experience that it is much more wonderful to see.

There is a wise saying which I have often thought much upon. It is this: "Knowledge is power". Man is but a feeble creature, and if he had to depend on his own bodily strength alone he could make no head against even the ordinary brutes in this world. But the knowledge which has been given to him by his Maker has clothed man with great power, so that he is more than a match for the fiercest beast in the forest, or the largest fish in the sea. Yet, with all his knowledge, with all his experience, and all his power, the killing of a great old sperm whale costs man a long, tough battle, sometimes it even costs him his life.

It is a long time now since I took to fighting the whales. I have been at it, man and boy, for nigh forty years, and many a wonderful sight have I seen; many a desperate battle have I fought in the fisheries of the North and South Seas.

Sometimes, when I sit in the chimney-corner of a winter evening, smoking my pipe with my old messmate Tom Lokins, I stare into the fire and think of the days gone by till I forget where I am, and go on thinking so hard that the flames seem to turn into melting fires, and the bars of the grate into dead fish, and the smoke into sails and rigging, and I go to work cutting up the blubber and stirring the oil-pots, or pulling the bow-oar and driving the harpoon at such a rate that I can't help giving a shout, which causes Tom to start and cry:

"Hallo! Bob" (my name is Bob Ledbury, you see). "Hallo! Bob, wot's the matter?"

To which I reply, "Tom, can it all be true?"

"Can wot be true?" says he, with a stare of surprise—for Tom is getting into his dotage now.

And then I chuckle and tell him I was only thinking of old times, and so he falls to smoking again, and I to staring at the fire, and thinking as hard as ever.

The way in which I was first led to go after the whales was curious. This is how it happened.

About forty years ago, when I was a boy of nearly fifteen years of age, I lived with my mother in one of the seaport towns of England. There was great distress in the town at that time, and many of the hands were out of work. My employer, a blacksmith, had just died, and for more than six weeks I had not been able to get employment or to earn a farthing. This caused me great distress, for my father had died without leaving a penny in the world, and my mother depended on me entirely. The money I had saved out of my wages was soon spent, and one morning when I sat down to breakfast, my mother looked across the table and said, in a thoughtful voice:

"Robert, dear, this meal has cost us our last halfpenny."

My mother was old and frail, and her voice very gentle; she was the most trustful, uncomplaining woman I ever knew.

I looked up quickly into her face as she spoke. "All the money gone, Mother?"

"Aye, all. It will be hard for you to go without your dinner, Robert, dear."

"It will be harder for you, Mother," I cried, striking the table with my fist; then a lump rose in my throat and almost choked me. I could not utter another word.

It was with difficulty I managed to eat the little food that was before me. After breakfast I rose hastily and rushed out of the house, determined that I would get my mother her dinner, even if I should have to beg for it. But I must confess that a sick feeling came over me when I thought of begging.

Hurrying along the crowded streets without knowing very well what I meant to do, I at last came to an abrupt halt at the end of the pier. Here I went up to several people and offered my services in a wild sort of way. They must have thought that I was drunk, for nearly all of them said gruffly that they did not want me.

Dinner-time drew near, but no one had given me a job, and no wonder, for the way in which I tried to get one was not likely to be successful. At last I resolved to beg. Observing a fat, red-faced old gentleman coming along the pier, I made up to him boldly. He carried a cane with a large gold knob on the top of it. That gave me hope, "for of course," thought I, "he must be rich." His nose, which was exactly the colour and shape of the gold knob on his cane, was stuck in the centre of a round, good-natured countenance, the mouth of which was large and firm; the eyes bright and blue. He frowned as I went forward hat in hand; but I was not to be driven back; the thought of my starving mother gave me power to crush down my rising shame. Yet I had no reason to be ashamed. I was willing to work, if only I could have got employment.

Stopping in front of the old gentleman, I was about to speak when I observed him quietly button up his breeches pocket. The blood rushed to my face, and, turning quickly on my heel, I walked away without uttering a word.

"Hallo!" shouted a gruff voice just as I was moving away.

I turned, and observed that the shout was uttered by a broad rough-looking jack-tar, a man of about two or three and thirty, who had been sitting all the forenoon on an old cask smoking his pipe and basking in the sun.

"Hallo!" said he again.

"Well," said I.

"Wot d'ye mean, youngster, by goin' on in that there fashion all the mornin', a-botherin' everybody, and makin' a fool o' yourself like that? eh!"

"What's that to you?" said I savagely, for my heart was sore and heavy, and I could not stand the interference of a stranger.

"Oh! it's nothin' to me of course," said the sailor, picking his pipe quietly with his clasp-knife; "but come here, boy, I've somethin' to say to ye."

"Well, what is it?" said I, going up to him somewhat sulkily.

The man looked at me gravely through the smoke of his pipe, and said, "You're in a passion, my young buck, that's all; and, in case you didn't know it, I thought I'd tell ye."

I burst into a fit of laughter. "Well, I believe you're not far wrong; but I'm better now."

"Ah! that's right," said the sailor, with an approving nod of his head; "always confess when you're in the wrong. Now, younker, let me give you a bit of advice. Never get into a passion if you can help it, and if you can't help it get out of it as fast as possible, and if you can't get out of it, just give a great roar to let off the steam and turn about and run. There's nothing like that. Passion han't got legs. It can't hold on to a feller when he's runnin'. If you keep it up till you a'most split your timbers, passion has no chance. It must go a-starn. Now, lad, I've been watchin' ye all the mornin', and I see there's a screw loose somewhere. If you'll tell me wot it is, see if I don't help you!"

The kind frank way in which this was said quite won my heart, so I sat down on the old cask, and told the sailor all my sorrows.

"Boy," said he, when I had finished, "I'll put you in the way o' helpin' your mother. I can get you a berth in my ship, if you're willin' to take a trip to the whale fishery of the South Seas."

"And who will look after my mother when I'm away?" said I.

The sailor looked perplexed at the question.

"Ah! that's a puzzler," he replied, knocking the ashes out of his pipe. "Will you take me to your mother's house, lad?"

"Willingly," said I, and, jumping up, I led the way. As we turned to go, I observed that the old gentleman with the gold-headed cane was leaning over the rail of the pier at a short distance from us. A feeling of anger instantly rose within me, and I exclaimed, loud enough for him to hear:

"I do believe that stingy old chap has been listening to every word we've been saying!"

I thought I observed a frown on the sailor's brow as I said this, but he made no remark, and in a few minutes we were walking rapidly through the streets. My companion stopped at one of those stores so common in seaport towns, where one can buy almost anything, from a tallow candle to a brass cannon. Here he

[Transcriber's note: two pages missing from book]

I've got neither family nor friends, and I'm bound for the South Seas in six days; so, if you'll take it, you're welcome to it, and if your son Bob can manage to cast loose from you without leaving you to sink, I'll take him aboard the ship that I sail in. He'll always find me at the Bull and Griffin, in the High Street, or at the end o' the pier."

While the sailor was speaking, I observed a figure standing in a dark corner of the room near the door, and, on looking more closely, I found that it was the old gentleman with the nose like his cane knob. Seeing that he was observed, he came forward and said:

"I trust that you will forgive my coming here without invitation; but I happened to overhear part of the conversation between your son and this seaman, and I am willing to help you over your little difficulty, if you will allow me."

The old gentleman said this in a very quick, abrupt way, and looked as if he were afraid his offer might be refused. He was much heated, with climbing our long stair no doubt, and as he stood in the middle of the room, puffing and wiping his bald head with a handkerchief, my mother rose hastily and offered him a chair.

"You are very kind, sir," she said; "do sit down, sir. I'm sure I don't know why you should take so much trouble. But, dear me, you are very warm; will you take a cup of tea to cool you?"

"Thank you, thank you. With much pleasure, unless, indeed, your son objects to a 'stingy old chap' sitting beside him."

I blushed when he repeated my words, and attempted to make some apology; but the old gentleman stopped me by commencing to explain his intentions in short, rapid sentences.

To make a long story short, he offered to look after my mother while I was away, and, to prove his sincerity, laid down five shillings, and said he would call with that sum every week as long as I was absent. My mother, after some trouble, agreed to let me go, and, before that evening closed, everything was arranged, and the gentleman, leaving his address, went away.

The sailor had been so much filled with surprise at the suddenness of all this, that he could scarcely speak. Immediately after the departure of the old gentleman, he said, "Well, good-bye, mistress, good-bye, Bob," and throwing on his hat in a careless way, left the room.

"Stop!" I shouted after him, when he had got about half-way down stair.

"Hallo! wot's wrong now?"

"Nothing; I only forgot to ask your name."

"Tom Lokins," he bellowed, in the hoarse voice of a regular boatswain, "w'ich wos my father's name before me."

So saying, he departed, whistling "Rule, Britannia," with all his might.

Thus the matter was settled. Six days afterwards, I rigged myself out in a blue jacket, white ducks, and a straw hat, and went to sea.

CHAPTER II

AT SEA

My first few days on the ocean were so miserable that I oftentimes repented of having left my native land. I was, as my new friend Tom Lokins said, as sick as a dog. But in course of time I grew well, and began to rejoice in the cool fresh breezes and the great rolling billows of the sea.

Many and many a time I used to creep out to the end of the bowsprit, when the weather was calm, and sit with my legs dangling over the deep blue water, and my eyes fixed on the great masses of rolling clouds in the sky, thinking of the new course of life I had just begun. At such times the thought of my mother was sure to come into my mind, and I thought of her parting words, "Put your trust in the Lord, Robert, and read His Word." I resolved to try to obey her, but this I found was no easy matter, for the sailors were a rough lot of fellows, who cared little for the Bible. But, I must say, they were a hearty, good-natured set, and much better, upon the whole, than many a ship's crew that I afterwards sailed with.

We were fortunate in having fair winds this voyage, and soon found ourselves on the other side of the line, as we jack-tars call the Equator.

Of course the crew did not forget the old custom of shaving all the men who had never crossed the line before. Our captain was a jolly old man, and uncommonly fond of "sky-larking". He gave us leave to do what we liked the day we crossed the line; so, as there were a number of wild spirits among us, we broke through all the ordinary rules, or, rather, we added on new rules to them.

The old hands had kept the matter quiet from us greenhorns, so that, although we knew they were going to do some sort of mischief, we didn't exactly understand what it was to be.

About noon of that day I was called on deck and told that old father Neptune was coming aboard, and we were to be ready to receive him. A minute after I saw a tremendous monster come up over the side of the ship and jump on the deck. He was crowned with seaweed, and painted in a wonderful fashion; his clothes were dripping wet, as if he had just come from the bottom of the sea. After him came another monster with a petticoat made of sailcloth and a tippet of a bit of old tarpaulin. This was Neptune's wife, and these two carried on the most remarkable antics I ever saw. I laughed heartily, and soon discovered, from the tones of their voices, which of my shipmates Neptune and his wife were. But my mirth was quickly stopped when I was suddenly seized by several men, and my face was covered over with a horrible mixture of tar and grease!

Six of us youngsters were treated in this way; then the lather was scraped off with a piece of old hoop-iron, and, after being thus shaved, buckets of cold water were thrown over us.

At last, after a prosperous voyage, we arrived at our fishing-ground in the South Seas, and a feeling of excitement and expectation began to show itself among the men, insomuch that our very eyes seemed brighter than usual.

One night those of us who had just been relieved from watch on deck were sitting on the lockers down below telling ghost stories.

It was a dead calm, and one of those intensely dark, hot nights, that cause sailors to feel uneasy, they scarce know why. I began to feel so uncomfortable at last, listening to the horrible tales which Tom Lokins was relating to the men, that I slipt away from them with the intention of going on deck. I moved so quietly that no one observed me; besides, every eye was fixed earnestly on Tom, whose deep low voice was the only sound that broke the stillness of all around. As I was going very cautiously up the ladder leading to the deck, Tom had reached that part of his story where the ghost was just appearing in a dark churchyard, dressed in white, and coming slowly forward, one step at a time, towards the terrified man who saw it. The men held their breath, and one or two of their faces turned pale as Tom went on with his description, lowering his voice to a hoarse whisper. Just as I put my head up the hatchway the sheet of one of the sails, which was hanging loose in the still air, passed gently over my head and knocked my hat off. At any other time I would have thought nothing of this, but Tom's story had thrown me into such an excited and nervous condition that I gave a start, missed my footing, uttered a loud cry, and fell down the ladder right in among the men with a tremendous crash, knocking over two or three oil-cans and a tin bread-basket in my fall, and upsetting the lantern, so that the place was instantly pitch-dark.

I never heard such a howl of terror as these men gave vent to when this misfortune befell me. They rushed upon deck with their hearts in their mouths, tumbling, and peeling the skin off their shins and knuckles in their haste; and it was not until they heard the laughter of the watch on deck that they breathed freely, and, joining in the laugh, called themselves fools for being frightened by a ghost story. I noticed, however, that, for all their pretended indifference, there was not one man among them—not even Tom Lokins himself—who would go down below to relight the lantern for at least a quarter of an hour afterwards!

Feeling none the worse for my fall, I went forward and leaned over the bow of the ship, where I was much astonished by the appearance of the sea. It seemed as if the water was on fire. Every time the ship's bow rose and fell, the little belt of foam made in the water seemed like a belt of blue flame with bright sparkles in it, like stars or diamonds. I had seen this curious appearance before, but never so bright as it was on that night.

"What is it, Tom?" said I, as my friend came forward and leaned over the ship's bulwark beside me.

"It's blue fire, Bob," replied Tom, as he smoked his pipe calmly.

"Come, you know I can't swallow that," said I; "everybody knows that fire, either blue or red, can't burn in the water."

"Maybe not," returned Tom; "but it's blue fire for all that. Leastwise if it's not, I don't know wot else it is."

Tom had often seen this light before, no doubt, but he had never given himself the trouble to find out what it could be. Fortunately the captain came up just as I put the question, and he enlightened me on the subject.

"It is caused by small animals," said he, leaning over the side.

"Small animals!" said I, in astonishment.

"Aye; many parts of the sea are full of creatures so small and so thin and colourless, that you can hardly see them even in a clear glass tumbler. Many of them are larger than others, but the most of them are very small."

"But how do they shine like that, sir?" I asked.

"That I do not know, boy. God has given them the power to shine, just as he has given us the power to walk or speak; and they do shine brightly, as you see; but how they do it is more than I can tell. I think, myself, it must be anger that makes them shine, for they generally do it when they are stirred up or knocked about by oars, or ships' keels, or tumbling waves. But I am not sure that that's the reason either, because, you know, we often sail through them without seeing the light, though of course they must be there."

"P'r'aps, sir," said Tom Lokins; "p'r'aps, sir, they're sleepy sometimes, an' can't be bothered gettin' angry."

"Perhaps!" answered the captain, laughing. "But then again, at other times, I have seen them shining over the whole sea when it was quite calm, making it like an ocean of milk; and nothing was disturbing them at that time, d'ye see."

"I don' know that," objected Tom; "they might have bin a-fightin' among theirselves."

"Or playing, maybe," said I.

The captain laughed, and, looking up at the sky, said: "I don't like the look of the weather, Tom Lokins. You're a sharp fellow, and have been in these seas before; what say you?"

"We'll have a breeze," replied Tom, briefly.

"More than a breeze," muttered the captain, while a look of grave anxiety overspread his countenance; "I'll go below and take a squint at the glass."

"What does he mean by that, Tom?" said I, when the captain was gone; "I never saw a calmer or a finer night. Surely there is no chance of a storm just now."

"Aye, that shows that you're a young feller, and han't got much experience o' them seas," replied my companion. "Why, boy, sometimes the fiercest storm is brewin' behind the greatest calm. An' the worst o' the thing is that it comes so sudden at times, that the masts are torn out o' the ship before you can say Jack Robinson."

"What! and without any warning?" said I.

"Aye, almost without warnin'; but not altogether without it. You heer'd the captain say he'd go an' take a squint at the glass?"

"Yes; what is the glass?"

"It's not a glass o' grog, you may be sure; nor yet a lookin'-glass. It's the weather-glass, boy. Shore-goin' chaps call it a barometer."

"And what's the meaning of barometer?" I enquired earnestly.

Tom Lokins stared at me in stupid amazement. "Why, boy," said he, "you're too inquisitive. I once asked the doctor o' a ship that question, and says he to me, 'Tom,' says he, 'a barometer is a glass tube filled with quicksilver or mercury, which is a metal in a soft or fluid state, like water, you know, and it's meant for tellin' the state o' the weather.'

"'Yes, sir,' I answers, 'I know that well enough.'

"'Then why did you ask?' says he, gettin' into a passion.

"'I asked what was the meanin' o' the word barometer, sir,' said I.

"The doctor he looked grave at that, and shook his head. 'Tom,' says he, 'if I was to go for to explain that word, and all about the instrument, in a scientific sort o' way, d'ye see, I'd have to sit here an' speak to you right on end for six hours or more.'

"'Oh, sir,' says I, 'don't do it, then. Please, don't do it.'

"'No more I will,' says he; 'but it'll serve your turn to know that a barometer is a glass for measurin' the weight o' the air, and, somehow or other, that lets ye know wot's a-coming. If the mercury in the glass rises high, all's right. If it falls uncommon low very sudden, look out for squalls; that's all. No matter how smooth the sea may be, or how sweetly all natur' may smile, don't you believe it; take in every inch o' canvas at once.'"

"That was a queer explanation, Tom."

"Aye, but it was a true one, as you shall see before long."

As I looked out upon the calm sea, which lay like a sheet of glass, without a ripple on its surface, I could scarcely believe what he had said. But before many minutes had passed I was convinced of my error.

While I was standing talking to my messmate, the captain rushed on deck, and shouted:

"All hands tumble up! Shorten sail! Take in every rag! Look alive, boys, look alive."

I was quite stunned for a moment by this, and by the sudden tumult that followed. The men, who seemed never to take thought about anything, and who had but one duty, namely, to obey orders, ran upon deck, and leaped up the rigging like cats; the sheets of nearly all the principal sails were clewed up, and, ere long, the canvas was made fast to the yards. A few of the smaller sails only were left exposed, and even these were close-reefed. Before long a loud roar was heard, and in another minute the storm burst upon us with terrific violence. The ship at first lay over so much that the masts were almost in the water, and it was as impossible for anyone to walk the deck as to walk along the side of a wall. At the same time, the sea was lashed into white foam, and the blinding spray flew over us in bitter fury.

"Take in the topsails!" roared the captain. But his voice was drowned in the shriek of the gale. The men were saved the risk of going out on the yards, however, for in a few moments more all the sails, except the storm-trysail, were burst and blown to ribbons.

We now tried to put the ship's head to the wind and "lay to", by which landsmen will understand that we tried to face the storm, and remain stationary. But the gale was so fierce that this was impossible. The last rag of sail was blown away, and then there was nothing left for us but to show our stern to the gale, and "scud under bare poles".

The great danger now was that we might be "pooped", which means that a huge wave might curl over our stern, fall with terrible fury on our deck, and sink us.

Many and many a good ship has gone down in this way; but we were mercifully spared. As our safety depended very much on good steering, the captain himself took the wheel, and managed the ship so well, that we weathered the gale without damage, further than the loss of a few sails and light spars. For two days the storm howled furiously, the sky and sea were like ink, with sheets of rain and foam driving through the air, and raging billows tossing our ship about like a cork.

During all this time my shipmates were quiet and grave, but active and full of energy, so that every order was at once obeyed without noise or confusion. Every man watched the slightest motion of the captain. We all felt that everything depended on him.

As for me, I gave up all hope of being saved. It seemed impossible to me that anything that man could build could withstand so terrible a storm. I do not pretend to say that I was not afraid. The near prospect of a violent death caused my heart to sink more than once; but my feelings did not unman me. I did my duty quietly, but quickly, like the rest; and when I had no work to do, I stood holding on to the weather stanchions, looking at the raging sea, and thinking of my mother, and of the words of kindness and counsel she had so often bestowed upon me in vain.

The storm ceased almost as quickly as it began, and although the sea did not all at once stop the heavings of its angry bosom, the wind fell entirely in the course of a few hours, the dark clouds broke up into great masses that were piled up high into the sky, and out of the midst of these the glorious sun shone in bright rays down on the ocean, like comfort from heaven, gladdening our hearts as we busily repaired the damage that we had suffered from the storm.

CHAPTER III

OUR FIRST BATTLE

I shall never forget the surprise I got the first time I saw a whale.

It was in the forenoon of a most splendid day, about a week after we arrived at that part of the ocean where we might expect to find fish. A light nor'-east breeze was blowing, but it scarcely ruffled the sea, as we crept slowly through the water with every stitch of canvas set.

As we had been looking out for fish for some time past, everything was in readiness for them. The boats were hanging over the side ready to lower, tubs for coiling away the ropes, harpoons, lances, &c., all were ready to throw in, and start away at a moment's notice. The man in the "crow's-nest", as they call the cask fixed up at the masthead, was looking anxiously out for whales, and the crew were idling about the deck. Tom Lokins was seated on the windlass smoking his pipe, and I was sitting beside him on an empty cask, sharpening a blubber-knife.

"Tom," said I, "what like is a whale?"

"Why, it's like nothin' but itself," replied Tom, looking puzzled. "Why, wot a queer feller you are to ax questions."

"I'm sure you've seen plenty of them. You might be able to tell what a whale is like."

"Wot it's like! Well, it's like a tremendous big bolster with a head and a tail to it."

"And how big is it?"

"They're of all sizes, lad. I've seen one that was exactly equal to three hundred fat bulls, and its rate of goin' would take it round the whole world in twenty-three days."

"I don't believe you," said I, laughing.

"Don't you?" cried Tom; "it's a fact notwithstandin', for the captain himself said so, and that's how I came to know it."

Just as Tom finished speaking, the man in the crow's-nest roared at the top of his voice, "There she blows!"

That was the signal that a whale was in sight, and as it was the first time we had heard it that season, every man in the ship was thrown into a state of tremendous excitement.

"There she blows!" roared the man again.

"Where away?" shouted the captain.

"About two miles right ahead."

In another moment the utmost excitement prevailed on board. Suddenly, while I was looking over the side, straining my eyes to catch a sight of the whale, which could not yet be seen by the men on deck, I saw a brown object appear in the sea, not twenty yards from the side of the ship; before I had time to ask what it was, a whale's head rose to the surface, and shot up out of the water. The part of the fish that was visible above water could not have been less then thirty feet in length. It just looked as if our longboat had jumped out of the sea, and he was so near that I could see his great mouth quite plainly. I could have tossed a biscuit on his back easily. Sending two thick spouts of frothy water out of his blow-holes forty feet into the air with tremendous noise, he fell flat upon the sea with a clap like thunder, tossed his flukes or tail high into the air, and disappeared.

I was so amazed at this sight that I could not speak. I could only stare at the place where the huge monster had gone down.

"Stand by to lower," shouted the captain.

"Aye, aye, sir," replied the men, leaping to their appointed stations; for every man in a whale-ship has his post of duty appointed to him, and knows what to do when an order is given.

"Lower away," cried the captain, whose face was now blazing with excitement.

In a moment more three boats were in the water; the tubs, harpoons, &c., were thrown in, the men seized the oars, and away they went with a cheer. I was in such a state of flutter that I scarce knew what I did; but I managed somehow or other to get into a boat, and as I was a strong fellow, and a good rower, I was allowed to pull.

"There she blows!" cried the man in the crow's-nest, just as we shot from the side of the ship. There was no need to ask, "where away" this time. Another whale rose and spouted not more than three hundred yards off, and before we could speak a third fish rose in another direction, and we found ourselves in the middle of what is called a "school of whales".

"Now, lads," said the captain, who steered the boat in which I rowed, "bend your backs, my hearties; that fish right ahead of us is a hundred-barrel whale for certain. Give way, boys; we must have that fish."

There was no need to urge the men, for their backs were strained to the utmost, their faces were flushed, and the big veins in their necks swelled almost to bursting, with the tremendous exertion.

"Hold hard," said the captain in a low voice, for now that we were getting near our prey we made as little noise as possible.

The men at once threw their oars "apeak", as they say; that is, raised them straight, up in the air, and waited for further orders. We expected the whale would rise near to where we were, and thought it best to rest and look out.

While we were waiting, Tom Lokins, who was harpooner of the boat, sat just behind me with all his irons ready. He took this opportunity to explain to me that by a "hundred-barrel fish" is meant a fish that will yield a hundred barrels of oil. He further informed me that such a fish was a big one, though he had seen a few in the North-West Seas that had produced upwards of two hundred barrels.

I now observed that the other boats had separated, and each had gone after a different whale. In a few minutes the fish we were in chase of rose a short distance off, and sent up two splendid water-spouts high into the air, thus showing that he was what the whalers call a "right" whale. It is different from the sperm whale, which has only one blowhole, and that a little one.

We rowed towards it with all our might, and as we drew near, the captain ordered Tom Lokins to "stand up", so he at once laid in his oar, and took up the harpoon. The harpoon is an iron lance with a barbed point. A whale-line is attached to it, and this line is coiled away in a tub. When we were within a few yards of the fish, which was going slowly through the water, all ignorant of the terrible foes who were pursuing him, Tom Lokins raised the harpoon high above his head, and darted it deep into its fat side just behind the left fin, and next moment the boat ran aground on the whale's back.

"Stern all, for your lives!" roared the captain, who, before his order was obeyed, managed to give the creature two deep wounds with his lance. The lance has no barbs to its point, and is used only for wounding after the harpoon is fixed.

The boat was backed off at once, but it had scarcely got a few yards away when the astonished fish whirled its huge body half out of the water, and, coming down with a tremendous clap, made off like lightning.

The line was passed round a strong piece of wood called the "logger-head", and, in running out, it began to smoke, and nearly set the wood on fire. Indeed, it would have done so, if a man had not kept constantly pouring water upon it. It was needful to be very cautious in managing the line, for the duty is attended with great danger. If any hitch should take place, the line is apt to catch the boat and drag it down bodily under the waves. Sometimes a coil of it gets round a leg or an arm of the man who attends to it, in which case his destruction is almost certain. Many a poor fellow has lost his life in this way.

The order was now given to "hold on line". This was done, and in a moment our boat was cleaving the blue water like an arrow, while the white foam curled from her bows. I thought every moment we should be dragged under; but whenever this seemed likely to happen, the line was let run a bit, and the strain eased. At last the fish grew tired of dragging us, the line ceased to run out, and Tom hauled in the slack, which another man coiled away in its tub. Presently the fish rose to the surface, a short distance off our weather bow.

"Give way, boys! spring your oars," cried the captain; "another touch or two with the lance, and that fish is ours."

The boat shot ahead, and we were about to dart a second harpoon into the whale's side, when it took to "sounding",—which means, that it went straight down, head foremost, into the depths of the sea. At that moment Tom Lokins uttered a cry of mingled anger and disappointment. We all turned round and saw our shipmate standing with the slack line in his hand, and such an expression on his weather-beaten face, that I could scarce help laughing. The harpoon had not been well fixed; it had lost its hold, and the fish was now free!

"Gone!" exclaimed the captain with a groan.

I remember even yet the feeling of awful disappointment that came over me when I understood that we had lost the fish after all our trouble! I could almost have wept with bitter vexation. As for my comrades, they sat staring at each other for some moments quite speechless. Before we could recover from the state into which this misfortune had thrown us, one of the men suddenly shouted, "Hallo! there's the mate's boat in distress."

We turned at once, and, truly, there was no doubt of the truth of this, for, about half a mile off, we beheld our first mate's boat tearing over the sea like a small steamer. It was fast to a fish, and two oars were set up on end to attract our attention.

When a whale is struck, it sometimes happens that the whole of the line in a boat is run out. When this is about to occur, it becomes necessary to hold on as much as can be done without running the boat under the water, and an oar is set up on end to show that assistance is required, either from the ship or from the other boats. As the line grows less and less, another and another oar is hoisted to show that help must be sent quickly. If no assistance can be sent, the only thing that remains to be done is to cut the line and lose the fish; but a whale-line, with its harpoon, is a very heavy loss, in addition to that of the fish, so that whalers are tempted to hold on a little too long sometimes.

When we saw the mate's boat dashing away in this style, we forgot our grief at the loss of our whale in anxiety to render assistance to our comrades, and we rowed towards them as fast as we could. Fortunately the whale changed its course and came straight towards us, so that we ceased pulling, and waited till they came up. As the boat came on I saw the foam curling up on her bows as she leaped and flew over the sea. I could scarcely believe it possible that wood and iron could bear such a strain. In a few minutes they were almost abreast of us.

"You're holding too hard!" shouted the captain.

"Lines all out!" roared the mate.

They were past almost before these short sentences could be spoken. But they had not gone twenty yards ahead of us when the water rushed in over the bow, and before we could utter a word the boat and crew were gone. Not a trace of them remained! The horror of the moment had not been fully felt, however, when the boat rose to the surface keel up, and, one after another, the heads of the men appeared. The line had fortunately broken, otherwise the boat would have been lost, and the entire crew probably would have gone to the bottom with her.

We instantly pulled to the rescue, and were thankful to find that not a man was killed, though some of them were a little hurt, and all had received a terrible fright. We next set to work to right the upset boat, an operation which was not accomplished without much labour and difficulty.

Now, while we were thus employed, our third boat, which was in charge of the second mate, had gone after the whale that had caused us so much trouble, and when we had got the boat righted and began to look about us, we found that she was fast to the fish about a mile to leeward.

"Hurrah, lads!" cried the captain, "luck has not left us yet. Give way, my hearties, pull like Britons! we'll get that fish yet."

We were all dreadfully done up by this time, but the sight of a boat fast to a whale restored us at once, and we pulled away as stoutly as if we had only begun the day's work. The whale was heading in the direction of the ship, and when we came up to the scene of action the second mate had just "touched the life"; in other words, he had driven the lance deep down into the whale's vitals. This was quickly known by jets of blood being spouted up through the blowholes. Soon after, our victim went into its dying agonies, or, as whalemen say, "his flurry ".

This did not last long. In a short time he rolled over dead. We fastened a line to his tail, the three boats took the carcass in tow, and, singing a lively song, we rowed away to the ship.

Thus ended our first battle with the whales.

CHAPTER IV

"CUTTING IN" THE BLUBBER AND "TRYING OUT" THE OIL

The scene that took place on board ship after we caught our first fish was most wonderful. We commenced the operation of what is called "cutting in", that is, cutting up the whale, and getting the fat or blubber hoisted in. The next thing we did was to "try out" the oil, or melt down the fat in large iron pots brought with us for this purpose; and the change that took place in the appearance of the ship and the men when this began was very remarkable.

When we left port our decks were clean, our sails white, our masts well scraped; the brass-work about the quarter-deck was well polished, and the men looked tidy and clean. A few hours after our first whale had been secured alongside all this was changed. The cutting up of the huge carcass covered the decks with oil and blood, making them so slippery that they had to be covered with sand to enable the men to walk about. Then the smoke of the great fires under the melting pots begrimed the masts, sails, and cordage with soot. The faces and hands of the men got so covered with oil and soot that it would have puzzled anyone to say whether they were white or black. Their clothes, too, became so dirty that it was impossible to clean them. But, indeed, whalemen do not much mind this. In fact, they take a pleasure in all the dirt that surrounds them, because it is a sign of success in the main object of their voyage. The men in a clean whale ship are never happy. When everything is filthy, and dirty, and greasy, and smoky, and black—decks, rigging, clothes, and person—it is then that the hearty laugh and jest and song are heard as the crew work busily, night and day, at their rough but profitable labour.

The operations of "cutting in" and "trying out" were matters of great interest to me the first time I saw them.

After having towed our whale to the ship, cutting in was immediately begun. First, the carcass was secured near the head and tail with chains, and made fast to the ship; then the great blocks and ropes fastened to the main and fore mast for hoisting in the blubber were brought into play. When all was ready, the captain and the two mates with Tom Lokins got upon the whale's body, with long-handled sharp spades or digging-knives. With these they fell to work cutting off the blubber.

I was stationed at one of the hoisting ropes, and while we were waiting for the signal to "hoist away", I peeped over the side, and for the first time had a good look at the great fish. When we killed it, so much of its body was down in the water that I could not see it very clearly, but now that it was lashed at full length alongside the ship, and I could look right down upon it, I began to understand more clearly what a large creature it was. One thing surprised me much; the top of its head, which was rough and knotty like the bark of an old tree, was swarming with little crabs and barnacles, and other small creatures. The whale's head seemed to be their regular home! This fish was by no means one of the largest kind, but being the first I had seen, I fancied it must be the largest fish in the sea.

Its body was forty feet long, and twenty feet round at the thickest part. Its head, which seemed to me a great, blunt, shapeless thing, like a clumsy old boat, was eight feet long from the tip to the blowholes or nostrils; and these holes were situated on the back of the head, which at that part was nearly four feet broad. The entire head measured about twenty-one feet round. Its ears were two small holes, so small that it was difficult to discover them, and the eyes were also very small for so large a body, being about the same size as those of an ox. The mouth was very large, and the under jaw had great ugly lips. When it was dying, I saw these lips close in once or twice on its fat cheeks, which it bulged out like the leather sides of a pair of gigantic bellows. It had two fins, one on each side, just behind the head. With these, and with its tail, the whale swims and fights. Its tail is its most deadly weapon. The flukes of this one measured thirteen feet across, and with one stroke of this it could have smashed our largest boat in pieces. Many a boat has been sent to the bottom in this way.

I remember hearing our first mate tell of a wonderful escape a comrade of his had in the Greenland Sea Fishery. A whale had been struck, and, after its first run, they hauled up to it again, and rowed so hard that they ran the boat right against it. The harpooner was standing on the bow all ready, and sent his iron cleverly into the blubber. In its agony the whale reared its tail high out of the water, and the flukes whirled for a moment like a great fan just above the harpooner's head. One glance up was enough to show him that certain death was descending. In an instant he dived over the side and disappeared. Next moment the flukes came down on the part of the boat he had just left, and cut it clean off; the other part was driven into the waves, and the men were left swimming in the water. They were all picked up, however, by another boat that was in company, and the harpooner was recovered with the rest. His quick dive had been the saving of his life.

I had not much time given me to study the appearance of this whale before the order was given to "hoist away!" so we went to work with a will. The first part that came up was the huge lip, fastened to a large iron hook, called the blubber hook. It was lowered into the blubber-room between decks, where a couple of men were stationed to stow the blubber away. Then came the fins, and after them the upper jaw, with the whalebone attached to it. The "right" whale has no teeth like the sperm whale. In place of teeth it has the well-known substance called whalebone, which grows from the roof of its mouth in a number of broad thin plates, extending from the back of the head to the snout. The lower edges of these plates of whalebone are split into thousands of hairs like bristles, so that the inside roof of a whale's mouth resembles an enormous blacking brush! The object of this curious arrangement is to enable the whale to catch the little shrimps and small sea-blubbers, called "medusa;", on which it feeds. I have spoken before of these last as being the little creatures that gave out such a beautiful pale-blue light at night. The whale feeds on them. When he desires a meal he opens his great mouth and rushes into the midst of a shoal of medusae; the little things get entangled in thousands among the hairy ends of the whalebone, and when the monster has got a large enough mouthful, he shuts his lower jaw and swallows what his net has caught.

The wisdom as well as the necessity of this arrangement is very plain. Of course, while dashing through the sea in this fashion, with his mouth agape, the whale must keep his throat closed, else the water would rush down it and choke him. Shutting his throat then, as he does, the water is obliged to flow out of his mouth as fast as it flows in; it is also spouted up through his blowholes, and this with such violence that many of the little creatures would be swept out along with it but for the hairy-ended whalebone which lets the sea-water out, but keeps the medusae in.

Well, let us return to our "cutting in". After the upper jaw came the lower jaw and throat, with the tongue. This last was an enormous mass of fat, about as large as an ox, and it weighed fifteen hundred or two thousand pounds. After this was got in, the rest of the work was simple. The blubber of the body was peeled off in great strips, beginning at the neck and being cut spirally towards the tail. It was hoisted on board by the blocks, the captain and mates cutting, and the men at the windlass hoisting, and the carcass slowly turning round until we got an unbroken piece of blubber, reaching from the water to nearly as high as the mainyard-arm. This mass was nearly a foot thick, and it looked like fat pork. It was cut off close to the deck, and lowered into the blubber-room, where the two men stationed there attacked it with knives, cut it into smaller pieces, and stowed it away. Then another piece was hoisted on board in the same fashion, and so on we went till every bit of blubber was cut off; and I heard the captain remark to the mate when the work was done, that the fish was a good fat one, and he wouldn't wonder if it turned out to be worth 300 pounds.

Now, when this process was going on, a new point of interest arose which I had not thought of before, although my messmate, Tom Lokins, had often spoken of it on the voyage out. This was the arrival of great numbers of sea-birds.

Tom had often told me of the birds that always keep company with whalers; but I had forgotten all about it until I saw an enormous albatross come sailing majestically through the air towards us. This was the largest bird I ever saw, and no wonder, for it is the largest bird that flies. Soon after that, another arrived, and although we were more than a thousand miles from any shore, we were speedily scented out and surrounded by hosts of gonies, stinkards, haglets, gulls, pigeons, petrels, and other sea-birds, which commenced to feed on pieces of the whale's carcass with the most savage gluttony. These birds were dreadfully greedy. They had stuffed themselves so full in the course of a short time, that they flew heavily and with great difficulty. No doubt they would have to take three or four days to digest that meal!

Sharks, too, came to get their share of what was going. But these savage monsters did not content themselves with what was thrown away; they were so bold as to come before our faces and take bites out of the whale's body. Some of these sharks were eight and nine feet long, and when I saw them open their horrid jaws, armed with three rows of glistening white sharp teeth, I could well understand how easily they could bite off the leg of a man, as they often do when they get the chance. Sometimes they would come right up on the whale's body with a wave, bite out great pieces of the flesh, turn over on their bellies, and roll off.

While I was looking over the side during the early part of that day, I saw a very large shark come rolling up in this way close to Tom Lokins's legs. Tom made a cut at him with his blubber-spade, but the shark rolled off in time to escape the blow. And after all it would not have done him much damage, for it is not easy to frighten or take the life out of a shark.

"Hand me an iron and line, Bob," said Tom, looking up at me. "I've got a spite agin that feller. He's been up twice already. Ah! hand it down here, and two or three of ye stand by to hold on by the line. There he comes, the big villain!"

The shark came close to the side of the whale at that moment, and Tom sent the harpoon right down his throat.

"Hold on hard," shouted Tom.

"Aye, aye," replied several of the men as they held on to the line, their arms jerking violently as the savage fish tried to free itself. We quickly reeved a line through a block at the fore yard-arm, and hauled it on deck with much difficulty. The scene that followed was very horrible, for there was no killing the brute. It threshed the deck with its tail, and snapped so fiercely with its tremendous jaws, that we had to keep a sharp look-out lest it should catch hold of a leg. At last its tail was cut off, the body cut open, and all the entrails' taken out, yet even after this it continued to flap and thresh about the deck for some time, and the heart continued to contract for twenty minutes after it was taken out and pierced with a knife.

I would not have believed this had I not seen it with my own eyes. In case some of my readers may doubt its truth, I would remind them how difficult it is to kill some of those creatures with which we are all familiar. The common worm, for instance, may be cut into a number of small pieces, and yet each piece remains alive for some time after.

The skin of the shark is valued by the whalemen, because, when cleaned and dry, it is as good as sand-paper, and is much used in polishing the various things they make out of whales' bones and teeth.

When the last piece of blubber had been cut off our whale, the great chain that held it to the ship's side was cast off, and the now useless carcass sank like a stone, much to the sorrow of some of the smaller birds, which, having been driven away by their bigger comrades, had not fed so heartily as they wished perhaps! But what was loss to the gulls was gain to the sharks, which could follow the carcass down into the deep and devour it at their leisure.

"Now, lads," cried the mate, when the remains had vanished, "rouse up the fires, look alive, my hearties!"

"Aye, aye, sir," was the ready reply, cheerfully given, as every man sprang to his appointed duty.

And so, having "cut in" our whale, we next proceeded to "try out" the oil.

CHAPTER V

A STORM, A MAN OVERBOARD, AND A RESCUE

The scenes in a whaleman's life are varied and very stirring. Sometimes he is floating on the calm ocean, idling about the deck and whistling for a breeze, when all of a sudden the loud cry is heard, "There she blows!" and in a moment the boats are in the water, and he is engaged in all the toils of an exciting chase. Then comes the battle with the great leviathan of the deep, with all its risks and dangers. Sometimes he is unfortunate, the decks are clean, he has nothing to do. At other times he is lucky, "cutting in" and "trying out" engage all his energies and attention. Frequently storms toss him on the angry deep, and show him, if he will but learn the lesson, how helpless a creature he is, and how thoroughly dependent at all times for life, safety, and success, upon the arm of God.

"Trying out" the oil, although not so thrilling a scene as many a one in his career, is, nevertheless, extremely interesting, especially at night, when the glare of the fires in the try-works casts a deep-red glow on the faces of the men, on the masts and sails, and even out upon the sea.

The try-works consisted of two huge melting-pots fixed upon brick-work fireplaces between the fore and main masts. While some of the men were down in the blubber-room cutting the "blanket-pieces", as the largest masses are called, others were pitching the smaller pieces on deck, where they were seized by two men who stood near a block of wood, called a "horse", with a mincing knife, to slash the junks so as to make them melt easily. These were then thrown into the melting-pots by one of the mates, who kept feeding the fires with such "scraps" of blubber as remain after the oil is taken out. Once the fires were fairly set agoing no other kind of fuel was required than "scraps" of blubber. As the boiling oil rose it was baled into copper cooling-tanks. It was the duty of two other men to dip it out of these tanks into casks, which were then headed up by our cooper, and stowed away in the hold.

As the night advanced the fires became redder and brighter by contrast, the light shone and glittered on the bloody decks, and, as we plied our dirty work, I could not help thinking, "what would my mother say, if she could get a peep at me now?"

The ship's crew worked and slept by watches, for the fires were not allowed to go out all night. About midnight I sat down on the windlass to take a short rest, and began talking to one of the men, Fred Borders by name. He was one of the quietest and most active men in the ship, and, being quite a young man, not more than nineteen, he and I drew to one another, and became very intimate.

"I think we're goin' to have a breeze, Bob," said he, as a sharp puff of wind crossed the deck, driving the black smoke to leeward, and making the fire flare up in the try-works.

"I hope it won't be a storm, then," said I, "for it will oblige us to put out the fires."

Just then Tom Lokins came up, ordered Fred to go and attend to the fires, sat down opposite to me on the windlass, and began to "lay down the law" in regard to storms.

"You see, Bob Ledbury," said he, beginning to fill his pipe, "young fellers like you don't know nothin' about the weather—'cause why? you've got no experience. Now, I'll put you up to a dodge consarning this very thing."

I never found out what was the dodge that Tom, in his wisdom, was to have put me up to, for at that moment the captain came on deck, and gave orders to furl the top-gallant sails.

Three or four of us ran up the rigging like monkeys, and in a few minutes the sails were lashed to the yards.

The wind now began to blow steadily from the nor'-west; but not so hard as to stop our tryworks for more than an hour. After that it blew stiff enough to raise a heavy sea, and we were compelled to slack the fires. This was all the harm it did to us, however, for although the breeze was stiffish, it was nothing like a gale.

As the captain and the first mate walked the quarter-deck together, I heard the former say to the latter, "I think we had as well take in a reef in the topsails. All hereabouts the fishing-ground is good, we don't need to carry on."

The order was given to reduce sail, and the men lay out on the topsail yards. I noticed that my friend Fred Borders was the first man to spring up the shrouds and lay out on the main-topsail yard. It was so dark that I could scarcely see the masts. While I was gazing up, I thought I observed a dark object drop from the yard; at the same moment there was a loud shriek, followed by a plunge in the sea. This was succeeded by the sudden cry, "man overboard!" and instantly the whole ship was in an uproar.

No one who has not heard that cry can understand the dreadful feelings that are raised in the human breast by it. My heart at first seemed to leap into my mouth and almost choke me. Then a terrible fear, which I cannot describe, shot through me, when I thought it might be my comrade Fred Borders. But these thoughts and feelings passed like lightning—in a far shorter time than it takes to write them down. The shriek was still ringing in my ears when the captain roared—

"Down your helm! stand by to lower away the boats."

At the same moment he seized a light hen-coop and tossed it overboard, and the mate did the same with an oar in the twinkling of an eye. Almost without knowing what I did, or why I did it, I seized a great mass of oakum and rubbish that lay on the deck saturated with oil, I thrust it into the embers of the fire in the try-works, and hurled it blazing into the sea.

The ship's head was thrown into the wind, and we were brought to as quickly as possible. A gleam of hope arose within me on observing that the mass I had thrown overboard continued still to burn; but when I saw how quickly it went astern, notwithstanding our vigorous efforts to stop the ship, my heart began to sink, and when, a few moments after, the light suddenly disappeared, despair seized upon me, and I gave my friend up for lost.

At that moment, strange to say, thoughts of my mother came into my mind, I remembered her words, "Call upon the Lord, my dear boy, when you are in trouble." Although I had given but little heed to prayer, or to my Maker, up to that time, I did pray, then and there, most earnestly that my messmate might be saved. I cannot say that I had much hope that my prayer would be answered—indeed I think I had none,—still, the mere act of crying in my distress to the Almighty afforded me a little relief, and it was with a good deal of energy that I threw myself into the first boat that was lowered, and pulled at the oar as if my own life depended on it.

A lantern had been fastened to the end of an oar and set up in the boat, and by its faint light I could see that the men looked very grave. Tom Lokins was steering, and I sat near him, pulling the aft oar.

"Do you think we've any chance, Tom?" said I.

A shake of the head was his only reply.

"It must have been here away," said the mate, who stood up in the bow with a coil of rope at his feet, and a boat-hook in his hand. "Hold on, lads, did anyone hear a cry?"

No one answered. We all ceased pulling, and listened intently; but the noise of the waves and the whistling of the winds were all the sounds we heard.

"What's that floating on the water?" said one of the men, suddenly.

"Where away?" cried everyone eagerly.

"Right off the lee-bow—there, don't you see it?"

At that moment a faint cry came floating over the black water, and died away in the breeze.

The single word "Hurrah!" burst from our throats with all the power of our lungs, and we bent to our oars till we wellnigh tore the rollicks out of the boat.

"Hold hard! stern all!" roared the mate, as we went flying down to leeward, and almost ran over the hen-coop, to which a human form was seen to be clinging with the tenacity of a drowning man. We had swept down so quickly, that we shot past it. In an agony of fear lest my friend should be again lost in the darkness, I leaped up and sprang into the sea. Tom Lokins, however, had noticed what I was about; he seized me by the collar of my jacket just as I reached the water, and held me with a grip like a vice till one of the men came to his assistance, and dragged me back into the boat. In a few moments more we reached the hen-coop, and Fred was saved!

He was half dead with cold and exhaustion, poor fellow, but in a few minutes he began to recover, and before we reached the ship he could speak. His first words were to thank God for his deliverance. Then he added:

"And, thanks to the man that flung that light overboard. I should have gone down but for that. It showed me where the hen-coop was."

I cannot describe the feeling of joy that filled my heart when he said this.

"Aye, who wos it that throw'd that fire overboard?" enquired one of the men.

"Don't know," replied another, "I think it wos the cap'n."

"You'll find that out when we get aboard," cried the mate; "pull away, lads."

In five minutes Fred Borders was passed up the side and taken down below. In two minutes more we had him stripped naked, rubbed dry, wrapped in hot blankets, and set down on one of the lockers, with a hot brick at his feet, and a stiff can of hot rum and water in his hand.

CHAPTER VI

THE WHALE—FIGHTING BULLS, ETC.

As the reader may, perhaps, have been asking a few questions about the whale in his own mind, I shall try to answer them, by telling a few things concerning that creature which, I think, are worth knowing.

In the first place, the whale is not a fish! I have applied that name to it, no doubt, because it is the custom to do so; but there are great differences between the whales and the fishes. The mere fact that the whale lives in water is not sufficient to prove it to be a fish. The frog lives very much in water—he is born in the water, and, when very young, he lives in it altogether—would die, in fact, if he were taken out of it; yet a frog is not a fish.

The following are some of the differences existing between a whale and a fish:—The whale is a warm-blooded animal; the fish is cold-blooded. The whale brings forth its young alive; while most fishes lay eggs or spawn. Moreover, the fish lives entirely under water, but the whale cannot do so. He breathes air through enormous lungs, not gills. If you were to hold a whale's head under water for much longer than an hour, it would certainly be drowned; and this is the reason why it comes so frequently to the surface of the sea to take breath. Whales seldom stay more than an hour under water, and when they come up to breathe, they discharge the last breath they took through their nostrils or blowholes, mixed with large quantities of water which they have taken in while feeding. But the most remarkable point of difference between the whale and fishes of all kinds is, that it suckles its young.

The calf of one kind of whale is about fourteen feet long when it is born, and it weighs about a ton. The cow-whale usually brings forth only one calf at a time, and the manner in which she behaves to her gigantic baby shows that she is affected by feelings of anxiety and affection such as are never seen in fishes, which heartless creatures forsake their eggs when they are laid, and I am pretty sure they would not know their own children if they happened to meet with them.

The whale, on the contrary, takes care of her little one, gives it suck, and sports playfully with it in the waves; its enormous heart throbbing all the while, no doubt, with satisfaction.

I have heard of a whale which was once driven into shoal water with its calf and nearly stranded. The huge dam seemed to become anxious for the safety of her child, for she was seen to swim eagerly round it, embrace it with her fins, and roll it over in the waves, trying to make it follow her into deep water. But the calf was obstinate; it would not go, and the result was that the boat of a whaler pulled up and harpooned it. The poor little whale darted away like lightning on receiving the terrible iron, and ran out a hundred fathoms of line; but it was soon overhauled and killed. All this time the dam kept close to the side of its calf, and not until a harpoon was plunged into her own side would she move away. Two boats were after her. With a single rap of her tail she cut one of the boats in two, and then darted off. But in a short time she turned and came back. Her feelings of anxiety had returned, no doubt, after the first sting of pain was over, and she died at last close to the side of her young one.

There are various kinds of whales, but the two sorts that are most sought after are the common whale of the Greenland Seas, which is called the "right whale", and the sperm whale of the South Sea. Both kinds are found in the south; but the sperm whale never goes to the North Seas. Both kinds grow to an enormous size—sometimes to seventy feet in length, but there is considerable difference in their appearance, especially about the head. In a former chapter I have partly described the head of a right whale, which has whalebone instead of teeth, with its blowholes on the back of the head. The sperm whale has large white teeth in its lower jaw and none at all in the upper. It has only one blowhole, and that a little one, much farther forward on its head, so that sailors can tell, at a great distance, what kind of whales they see simply by their manner of spouting.

The most remarkable feature about the sperm whale is the bluntness of its clumsy head, which looks somewhat like a big log with the end sawn square off, and this head is about one-third of its entire body.

The sperm whale feeds differently from the right whale. He seizes his prey with his powerful teeth, and lives, to a great extent, on large cuttle-fish. Some of them have been seen to vomit lumps of these cuttle-fish as long as a whale-boat. He is much fiercer, too, than the right whale, which almost always takes to flight when struck, but the sperm whale will sometimes turn on its foes and smash their boat with a blow of his blunt head or tail.

Fighting-whales, as they are called, are not uncommon. These are generally old bulls, which have become wise from experience, and give the whalers great trouble—sometimes carrying away several harpoons and lines. The lower jaw of one old bull of this kind was found to be sixteen feet long, and it had forty-eight teeth, some of them a foot long. A number of scars about his head showed that this fellow had been in the wars. When two bull-whales take to fighting, their great effort is to catch each other by the lower jaw, and, when locked together, they struggle with a degree of fury that cannot be described.

It is not often that the sperm whale actually attacks a ship; but there are a few cases of this kind which cannot be doubted. The following story is certainly true; and while it shows how powerful a creature the whale is, it also shows what terrible risk and sufferings the whaleman has frequently to encounter.

In the month of August, 1819, the American whaleship Essex sailed from Nantucket for the Pacific Ocean. She was commanded by Captain Pollard. Late in the autumn of the same year, when in latitude 40 degrees of the South Pacific, a shoal, or "school", of sperm whales was discovered, and three boats were immediately lowered and sent in pursuit. The mate's boat was struck by one of the fish during the chase, and it was found necessary to return to the ship to repair damages.

While the men were employed at this, an enormous whale suddenly rose quite close to the ship. He was going at nearly the same rate with the ship—about three miles an hour; and the men, who were good judges of the size of whales, thought that it could not have been less than eighty-five feet long. All at once he ran against the ship, striking her bows, and causing her to tremble like a leaf. The whale immediately dived and passed under the ship, and grazed her keel in doing so. This evidently hurt his back, for he suddenly rose to the surface about fifty yards off, and commenced lashing the sea with his tail and fins as if suffering great agony. It was truly an awful sight to behold that great monster lashing the sea into foam at so short a distance.

In a short time he seemed to recover, and started off at great speed to windward. Meanwhile the men discovered that the blow received by the ship had done her so much damage, that she began to fill and settle down at the bows; so they rigged the pumps as quickly as possible. While working them one of the men cried out:

"God have mercy! he comes again!"

This was too true. The whale had turned, and was now bearing down on them at full speed, leaving a white track of foam behind him. Rushing at the ship like a battering-ram, he hit her fair on the weather bow and stove it in, after which he dived and disappeared. The horrified men took to their boats at once, and in ten minutes the ship went down.

The condition of the men thus left in three open boats far out upon the sea, without provisions or shelter, was terrible indeed. Some of them perished, and the rest, after suffering the severest hardships, reached a low island called Ducies on the 20th of December. It was a mere sand-bank, which supplied them only with water and sea-fowl. Still even this was a mercy, for which they had reason to thank God; for in cases of this kind one of the evils that seamen have most cause to dread is the want of water.

Three of the men resolved to remain on this sand-bank, for dreary and uninhabited though it was, they preferred to take their chance of being picked up by a passing ship rather than run the risks of crossing the wide ocean in open boats, so their companions bade them a sorrowful farewell, and left them. But this island is far out of the usual track of ships. The poor fellows have never since been heard of.

It was the 27th of December when the three boats left the sand-bank with the remainder of the men, and began a voyage of two thousand miles, towards the island of Juan Fernandez. The mate's boat was picked up, about three months after, by the ship Indian of London, with only three living men in it. About the same time the captain's boat was discovered, by the Dauphin of Nantucket, with only two men living; and these unhappy beings had only sustained life by feeding on the flesh of their dead comrades. The third boat must have been lost, for it was never heard of; and out of the whole crew of twenty men, only five returned home to tell their eventful story.

Before resuming the thread of my narrative, I must not omit to mention, that in the head of the sperm whale there is a large cavity or hole called the "case", which contains pure oil that does not require to be melted, but can be baled at once into casks and stowed away. This is the valuable spermaceti from which the finest candles are made. One whale will sometimes yield fifteen barrels of spermaceti oil from the "case" of its head. A large fish will produce from eighty to a hundred barrels of oil altogether, sometimes much more; and when whalemen converse with each other about the size of whales, they speak of "eighty-barrel fish", and so on.

Although I have written much about the fighting powers of the sperm whale, it must not be supposed that whales are by nature fond of fighting. On the contrary, the "right" whale is a timid creature, and never shows fight except in defence of its young. And the sperm whale generally takes to flight when pursued. In fact, most of the accidents that happen to whalemen occur when the wounded monster is lashing the water in blind terror and agony.

The whale has three bitter enemies, much smaller, but much bolder than himself, and of these he is terribly afraid. They are: the swordfish, the thrasher, and the killer. The first of these, the sword-fish, has a strong straight horn or sword projecting from his snout, with which he boldly attacks and pierces the whale. The thrasher is a strong fish, twenty feet long, and of great weight. Its method of attack is to leap out of the water on the whale's back, and deal it a tremendous blow with its powerful tail.

The sword-fish and thrasher sometimes act together in the attack; the first stabbing him below, and the second belabouring him above, while the whale, unable, or too frightened to fight, rushes through the water, and even leaps its whole gigantic length into the air in its endeavours to escape. When a whale thus leaps his whole length out of the water, the sailors say he "breaches", and breaching is a common practice. They seem to do it often for amusement as well as from terror.

But the most deadly of the three enemies is the killer. This is itself a kind of small whale, but it is wonderfully strong, swift, and bold. When one of the killers gets into the middle of a school of whales, the frightened creatures are seen flying in all directions. His mode of attack is to seize his big enemy by the jaw, and hold on until he is exhausted and dies.

CHAPTER VII

TOM'S WISDOM—ANOTHER GREAT BATTLE

One day I was standing beside the windlass, listening to the conversation of five or six of the men, who were busy sharpening harpoons and cutting-knives, or making all kinds of toys and things out of whales' bones. We had just finished cutting in and trying out our third whale, and as it was not long since we reached the fishing-ground, we were in high hopes of making a good thing of it that season; so that everyone was in good spirits, from the captain down to the youngest man in the ship.

Tom Lokins was smoking his pipe, and Tom's pipe was an uncommonly black one, for he smoked it very often. Moreover, Tom's pipe was uncommonly short, so short that I always wondered how he escaped burning the end of his nose. Indeed, some of the men said that the redness of the end of Tom's nose was owing to its being baked like a brick by the heat of his pipe. Tom took this pipe from his mouth, and while he was pushing down the tobacco with the end of his little finger, he said:

"D'ye know, lads, I've been thinkin'——"

"No, have ye?" cried one of the men, interrupting him with a look of pretended surprise. "Well now, I do think, messmates, that we should ax the mate to make a note o' that in the log, for it's not often that Tom Lokins takes to thinkin'."

There was a laugh at this, but Tom, turning with a look of contempt to the man who interrupted him, replied:

"I'll tell you wot it is, Bill Blunt, if all the thoughts that you think, and especially the jokes that you utter, wos put down in the log, they'd be so heavy that I do believe they would sink the ship!"

"Well, well," cried Bill, joining in the laugh against himself, "if they did, your jokes would be so light and triflin' that I do believe they'd float her again. But what have you been a-thinkin' of, Tom?"

"I've been thinkin'," said Tom slowly, "that if a whale makes his breakfast entirely off them little things that you can hardly see when you get 'em into a tumbler—I forget how the captain calls 'em—wot a tree-mendous heap of 'em he must eat in the course of a year!"

"Thousands of 'em, I suppose," said one of the men.

"Thousands!" cried Tom, "I should rather say billions of them."

"How much is billions, mate?" enquired Bill.

"I don't know," answered Tom. "Never could find out. You see it's heaps upon heaps of thousands, for the thousands come first and the billions afterwards; but when I've thought uncommon hard, for a long spell at a time, I always get confused, because millions comes in between, d'ye see, and that's puzzlin'."

"I think I could give you some notion about these things," said Fred Borders, who had been quietly listening all the time, but never putting in a word, for, as I have said, Fred was a modest bashful man and seldom spoke much. But we had all come to notice that when Fred spoke, he had always something to say worth hearing; and when he did speak he spoke out boldly enough. We had come to have feelings of respect for our young shipmate, for he was a kind-hearted lad, and we saw by his conversation that he had been better educated than the most of us, so all our tongues stopped as the eyes of the party turned on him.

"Come, Fred, let's hear it then," said Tom.

"It's not much I have to tell," began Fred, "but it may help to make your minds clearer on this subject. On my first voyage to the whale fishery (you know, lads, this is my second voyage) I went to the Greenland Seas. We had a young doctor aboard with us—quite a youth; indeed he had not finished his studies at college, but he was cleverer, for all that, than many an older man that had gone through his whole course. I do believe that the reason of his being so clever was, that he was for ever observing things, and studying them, and making notes, and trying to find out reasons. He was never satisfied with knowing a thing; he must always find out why it was. One day I heard him ask the captain what it was that made the sea so green in some parts of those seas. Our captain was an awfully stupid man. So long as he got plenty oil he didn't care two straws for the reason of anything. The young doctor had been bothering him that morning with a good many questions, so when he asked him what made the sea green, he answered sharply, 'I suppose it makes itself green, young man,' and then he turned from him with a fling.

"The doctor laughed, and came forward among the men, and began to tell us stories and ask questions. Ah! he was a real hearty fellow; he would tell you all kinds of queer things, and would pump you dry of all you knew in no time. Well, but the thing I was going to tell you was this. One of the men said to him he had heard that the greenness of the Greenland Sea was caused by the little things like small bits of jelly on which the whales feed. As soon as he heard this he got a bucket and hauled some sea-water aboard, and for the next ten days he was never done working away with the sea-water; pouring it into tumblers and glasses; looking through it by daylight and by lamplight; tasting it, and boiling it, and examining it with a microscope."

"What's a microscope?" enquired one of the men.

"Don't you know?" said Tom Lokins, "why, it's a glass that makes little things seem big, when ye look through it. I've heerd that say beasts that are so uncommon small you that can't see them at all are made to come into sight and look quite big by means o' this glass. But I can't myself say that it's true."

"But I can," said Fred, "for I have seen it with my own eyes. Well, after a good while, I made bold to ask the young doctor what he had found out.

"'I've found,' said he, 'that the greenness of these seas is in truth caused by uncountable numbers of medusae——'"

"Ha! that's the word," shouted Tom Lokins, "Medoosy, that's wot the captain calls 'em. Heave ahead, Fred."

"Well then," continued Fred, "the young doctor went on to tell me that he had been counting the matter to himself very carefully, and he found that in every square mile of sea-water there were living about eleven quadrillions, nine hundred and ninety-nine trillions of these little creatures!"

"Oh! hallo! come now!" we all cried, opening our eyes very wide indeed.

"But, I say, how much is that?" enquired Tom Lokins.

"Ah! that's just what I said to the young doctor, and he said to me, 'I'll tell you what, Fred Borders, no man alive understands how much that is, and what's more, no man ever will; but I'll give you some notion of what it means'; and so he told me how long it would take forty thousand men to count that number of eleven quadrillions, nine hundred and ninety-nine trillions, each man of the forty thousand beginning 'one ', 'two', 'three', and going on till the sum of the whole added together would make it up. Now, how long d'ye think it would take them?—guess."

Fred Borders smiled as he said this, and looked round the circle of men.

"I know," cried one; "it would take the whole forty thousand a week to do it."

"Oh! nonsense, they could do it easy in two days," said another.

"That shows how little you know about big numbers," observed Tom Lokins, knocking the ashes out of his pipe. "I'm pretty sure it couldn't be done in much less than six months; workin' hard all day, and makin' allowance for only one hour off for dinner."

"You're all wrong, shipmates," said Fred Borders. "That young doctor told me that if they'd begun work at the day of creation they would only have just finished the job last year!"

"Oh! gammon, you're jokin'," cried Bill Blunt.

"No, I'm not," said Fred, "for I was told afterwards by an old clergyman that the young doctor was quite right, and that anyone who was good at 'rithmetic could work the thing out for himself in less than half an hour."

Just as Fred said this there came a loud cry from the mast-head that made us all spring to our feet like lightning.

"There she blows! There she breaches!"

The captain was on deck in a moment.

"Where away?" he cried.

"On the lee beam, sir. Sperm whale, about two miles off. There she blows!"

Every man was at his station in a moment; for, after being some months out, we became so used to the work, that we acted together like a piece of machinery. But our excitement never abated in the least.

"Sing out when the ship heads for her."

"Aye, aye, sir."

"Keep her away!" said the captain to the man at the helm. "Bob Ledbury, hand me the spy-glass."

"Steady," from the mast-head.

"Steady it is," answered the man at the helm.

While we were all looking eagerly out ahead we heard a thundering snore behind us, followed by a heavy splash. Turning quickly round, we saw the flukes of an enormous whale sweeping through the air not more than six hundred yards astern of us.

"Down your helm," roared the captain; "haul up the mainsail, and square the yards. Call all hands."

"All hands, ahoy!" roared Bill Blunt, in a voice of thunder, and in another moment every man in the ship was on deck.

"Hoist and swing the boats," cried the captain. "Lower away."

Down went the boats into the water; the men were into their places almost before you could wink, and we pulled away from the ship just as the whale rose the second time, about half a mile away to leeward.

From the appearance of this whale we felt certain that it was one of the largest we had yet seen, so we pulled after it with right good will. I occupied my usual place in the captain's boat, next the bow oar, just beside Tom Lokins, who was ready with his harpoons in the bow. Young Borders pulled the oar directly in front of me. The captain himself steered, and, as our crew was a picked one, we soon left the other two boats behind us.

Presently a small whale rose close beside us, and, sending a shower of spray over the boat, went down in a pool of foam. Before we had time to speak, another whale rose on the opposite side of the boat, and then another on our starboard bow. We had got into the middle of a shoal of whales, which commenced leaping and spouting all round us, little aware of the dangerous enemy that was so near.

In a few minutes more up comes the big one again that we had first seen. He seemed very active and wild. After blowing on the surface once or twice, about a quarter of a mile off, he peaked his flukes, and pitched down head foremost.

"Now then, lads, he's down for a long dive," said the captain; "spring your oars like men, we'll get that fish for certain, if you'll only pull."

The captain was mistaken; the whale had only gone down deep in order to come up and breach, or spring out of the water, for the next minute he came up not a hundred yards from us, and leaped his whole length into the air.

A shout of surprise broke from the men, and no wonder, for this was the largest fish I ever saw or heard of, and he came up so clear of the water that we could see him from head to tail as he turned over in the air, exposing his white belly to view, and came down on his great side with a crash like thunder, that might have been heard six miles off. A splendid mass of pure white spray burst from the spot where he fell, and in another moment he was gone.

"I do believe it's New Zealand Tom," cried Bill Blunt, referring to an old bull whale that had become famous among the men who frequented these seas for its immense size and fierceness, and for the great trouble it had given them, smashing some of their boats, and carrying away many of their harpoons.

"I don't know whether it's New Zealand Tom or not," said the captain, "but it's pretty clear that he's an old sperm bull. Give way, lads, we must get that whale whatever it should cost us."

We did not need a second bidding; the size of the fish was so great that we felt more excited than we had yet been during the voyage, so we bent our oars till we almost pulled the boat out of the water. The other boats had got separated, chasing the little whales, so we had this one all to ourselves.

"There she blows!" said Tom Lokins, in a low voice, as the fish came up a short distance astern of us.

We had overshot our mark, so, turning about, we made for the whale, which kept for a considerable time near the top of the water, spouting now and then, and going slowly to windward. We at last got within a few feet of the monster, and the captain suddenly gave the word, "Stand up."

This was to our harpooner, Tom Lokins, who jumped up on the instant, and buried two harpoons deep in the blubber.

"Stern all!" was the next word, and we backed off with all our might. It was just in time, for, in his agony, the whale tossed his tail right over our heads, the flukes were so big that they could have completely covered the boat, and he brought them down flat on the sea with a clap that made our ears tingle, while a shower of spray drenched us to the skin. For one moment I thought it was all over with us, but we were soon out of immediate danger, and lay on our oars watching the writhings of the wounded monster as he lashed the ocean into foam. The water all round us soon became white like milk, and the foam near the whale was red with blood.

Suddenly this ceased, and, before we could pull up to lance him, he went down, taking the line out at such a rate that the boat spun round, and sparks of fire flew from the loggerhead from the chafing of the rope.

"Hold on!" cried the captain, and next moment we were tearing over the sea at a fearful rate, with a bank of white foam rolling before us, high above our bows, and away on each side of us like the track of a steamer, so that we expected it every moment to rush inboard and swamp us. I had never seen anything like this before. From the first I had a kind of feeling that some evil would befall us.

While we were tearing over the water in this way, we saw the other whales coming up every now and then and blowing quite near to us, and presently we passed close enough to the first mate's boat to see that he was fast to a fish, and unable, therefore, to render us help if we should need it.

In a short time the line began to slack, so we hauled it in hand over hand, and Tom Lokins coiled it away in the tub in the stern of the boat, while the captain took his place in the bow to be ready with the lance. The whale soon came up, and we pulled with all our might towards him. Instead of making off again, however, he turned round and made straight at the boat. I now thought that destruction was certain, for, when I saw his great blunt forehead coming down on us like a steamboat, I felt that we could not escape. I was mistaken. The captain received him on the point of his lance, and the whale has such a dislike to pain, that even a small prick will sometimes turn him.

For some time we kept dodging round this fellow; but he was so old and wise, that he always turned his head to us, and prevented us from getting a chance to lance him. At last he turned a little to one side, and the captain plunged the lance deep into his vitals.

"Ha! that's touched his life," cried Tom, as a stream of blood flew up from his blowholes, a sure sign that he was mortally wounded. But he was not yet conquered. After receiving the cruel stab with the lance, he pitched right down, head foremost, and once more the line began to fly out over the bow. We tried to hold on, but he was going so straight down that the boat was almost swamped, and we had to slack off to prevent our being pulled under water.

Before many yards of the line had run out, one of the coils in the tub became entangled.

"Look out, lads!" cried Tom, and at once throwing the turn off the logger-head, he made an attempt to clear it. The captain, in trying to do the same thing, slipped and fell. Seeing this, I sprang up, and, grasping the coil as it flew past, tried to clear it. Before I could think, a turn whipped round my left wrist. I felt a wrench as if my arm had been torn out of the socket, and in a moment I was overboard, going down with almost lightning speed into the depths of the sea. Strange to say, I did not lose my presence of mind. I knew exactly what had happened. I felt myself rushing down, down, down with terrific speed; a stream of fire seemed to be whizzing past my eyes; there was a dreadful pressure on my brain, and a roaring as if of thunder in my ears. Yet, even in that dread moment, thoughts of eternity, of my sins, and of meeting with my God, flashed into my mind, for thought is quicker than the lightning flash.

Of a sudden the roaring ceased, and I felt myself buffeting the water fiercely in my efforts to reach the surface. I know not how I got free, but I suppose the turn of the line must have slackened off somehow. All this happened within the space of a few brief moments; but oh! they seemed fearfully long to me. I do not think I could have held my breath a second longer.

When I came to the surface, and tried to look about me, I saw the boat not more than fifty yards off, and, being a good swimmer, I struck out for it, although I felt terribly exhausted. In a few minutes my comrades saw me, and, with a cheer, put out the oars and began to row towards me. I saw that the line was slack, and that they were hauling it in—a sign that the whale had ceased running and would soon come to the surface again. Before they had pulled half-a-dozen strokes I saw the water open close beside the boat, and the monstrous head of the whale shot up like a great rock rising out of the deep.

He was not more than three feet from the boat, and he came up with such force, that more than half his gigantic length came out of the water right over the boat. I heard the captain's loud cry—"Stern all!" But it was too late, the whole weight of the monster's body fell upon the boat; there was a crash and a terrible cry, as the whale and boat went down together.

For a few moments he continued to lash the sea in his fury, and the fragments of the boat floated all round him. I thought that every man, of course, had been killed; but one after another their heads appeared in the midst of blood and foam, and they struck out for oars and pieces of the wreck.

Providentially, the whale, in his tossings, had shot a little away from the spot, else every man must certainly have been killed.

A feeling of horror filled my heart, as I beheld all this, and thought upon my position. Fortunately, I had succeeded in reaching a broken plank; for my strength was now so much exhausted, that I could not have kept my head above water any longer without its assistance. Just then I heard a cheer, and the next time I rose on the swell, I looked quickly round and saw the mate's boat making for the scene of action as fast as a stout and willing crew could pull. In a few minutes more I was clutched by the arm and hauled into it. My comrades were next rescued, and we thanked God when we found that none were killed, although one of them had got a leg broken, and another an arm twisted out of joint. They all, however, seemed to think that my escape was much more wonderful than theirs; but I cannot say that I agreed with them in this.

We now turned our attention to the whale, which had dived again. As it was now loose, we did not know, of course, where it would come up: so we lay still awhile. Very soon up he came, not far from us, and as fierce as ever.

"Now, lads, we must get that whale," cried the mate; "give way with a will."

The order was obeyed. The boat almost leaped over the swell, and, before long, another harpoon was in the whale's back.

"Fast again, hurrah!" shouted the mate, "now for the lance."

He gave the monster two deep stabs while he spoke, and it vomited up great clots of blood, besides spouting the red stream of life as it rolled on the sea in its agony, obliging us to keep well out of its way.

I could not look upon the dying struggles of this enormous fish without feelings of regret and self-reproach for helping to destroy it. I felt almost as if I were a murderer, and that the Creator would call me to account for taking part in the destruction of one of His grandest living creatures. But the thought passed quickly from my mind as the whale became more violent and went into its flurry. It began to lash the sea with such astonishing violence, that all the previous struggles seemed as nothing. The water all round became white like milk, with great streaks of red blood running through it, and the sound of the quick blows of its tail and fins resembled that of dull hollow thunder. We gazed at this scene in deep silence and with beating hearts.

All at once the struggles ceased. The great carcass rolled over belly up, and lay extended on the sea in death. To me it seemed as if a dead calm had suddenly fallen around us, after a long and furious storm, so great was the change when that whale at length parted with its huge life. The silence was suddenly broken by three hearty cheers, and then, fastening a rope to our prize, we commenced towing it to the ship, which operation occupied us the greater part of the night, for we had no fewer than eight miles to pull.

CHAPTER VIII

DEATH ON THE SEA

The whale which we had taken, as I have related in the last chapter, was our largest fish of that season. It produced ninety barrels of oil, and was worth about 500 pounds, so that we did not grieve much over the loss of our boat.

But our next loss was of a kind that could not be made up for by oil or money, for it was the loss of a human life. In the whale-fishery men must, like soldiers, expect to risk their lives frequently, and they have too often, alas! to mourn over the loss of a shipmate or friend. Up to this time our voyage had gone prosperously. We had caught so many fish that nearly half our cargo was already completed, and if we should be as lucky the remainder of the voyage, we should be able to return home to Old England much sooner than we had expected.

Of course, during all this time we had met with some disappointments, for I am not describing everything that happened on that voyage. It would require a much thicker volume than this to tell the half of our adventures. We lost five or six fish by their sinking before we could get them made fast to the ship, and one or two bolted so fast that they broke loose and carried away a number of harpoons and many a fathom of line. But such misfortunes were what we had to look for. Every whaler meets with similar changes of luck, and we did not expect to fare differently from our neighbours. These things did not cause us much regret beyond the time of their occurrence. But it was far otherwise with the loss that now befell us.

It happened on a Sunday forenoon. I was standing close to the starboard gangway early that morning, looking over the side into the calm water, for there was not a breath of wind, and talking to the first mate, who was a gruff, surly man, but a good officer, and kind enough in his way when everything went smooth with him. But things don't go very smooth generally in whaling life, so the mate was oftener gruff than sweet.

"Bob Ledbury," said he, "have you got your cutting-in gear in order? I've got a notion that we'll 'raise the oil' this day."

"All right, sir," said I; "you might shave yourself with the blubber-spades. That was a good fish we got last, sir, wasn't it?"

"Pretty good, though I've seen bigger."

"He gave us a deal of trouble too," said I.

"Not so much as I've seen others give," said he. "When I was fishing in the Greenland Seas we made fast to a whale that cost us I don't know how many hundred dollars." (You must know the first mate was a Yankee, and he reckoned everything in dollars.)

"How was that, sir?" asked I.

"Well, it was something in this fashion. We were floating about in the North Atlantic one calm, hot day, just something like this, only it was the afternoon, not the morning. We were doing nothing, and whistling for a breeze, when, all of a sudden, up comes five or six whales all round the ship, as if they had spied her from the bottom of the sea, and had come up to have a squint at her. Of course the boats were manned at once, and in less than no time we were tearing after them like all alive. But them whales were pretty wildish, I guess. They kept us pullin' the best part of five hours before we got a chance at them. My boat was out of sight of the ship before we made fast to a regular snorer, a hundred-barreller at the least. The moment he felt the iron, away he went like the shot out of a gun; but he didn't keep it up long, for soon after another of our boats came up and made fast. Well, for some two or three hours we held fast, but could not haul on to him to use the lance, for the moment we came close up alongside of his tail he peaked flukes and dived, then up again, and away as fast as ever. It was about noon before we touched him again; but by that time two more harpoons were made fast, and two other boats cast tow-lines aboard of us, and were hauled along. That was four boats, and more than sixteen hundred fathoms of line, besides four harpoons that was fast to that whale, and yet, for all that, he went ahead as fast as we could have rowed, takin' us along with him quite easy.

"A breeze having sprung up, our ship overhauled us in the course of the afternoon, and towards evening we sent a line on board, to see if that would stop the big fish, and the topsails were lowered, so as to throw some of the ship's weight on him, but the irons drew out with the strain. However, we determined to try it again. Another line was sent aboard about eight o'clock, and the topsails were lowered, but the line snapped immediately. Well, we held on to that whale the whole of that night, and at four o'clock next morning, just thirty-six hours after he was first struck, two fast lines were taken aboard the ship. The breeze was fresh, and against us, so the top-gallant sails were taken in, the courses hauled up, and the topsails clewed down, yet, I assure you, that whale towed the ship dead against the wind for an hour and a half at the rate of two miles an hour, and all the while beating the water with his fins and tail, so that the sea was in a continual foam. We did not kill that fish till after forty hours of the hardest work I ever went through."

Some of my shipmates seemed to doubt the truth of this story; but, for my part, I believed it, because the mate was a grave, truthful man, though he was gruff, and never told lies, as far as I knew. Moreover, a case of the same kind happened some years afterwards, to a messmate of mine, while he was serving aboard the Royal Bounty, on the 28th of May, 1817.

I know that some of the stories which I now tell must seem very wild and unlikely to landsmen; but those who have been to the whale-fishery will admit that I tell nothing but the truth, and if there are any of my readers who are still doubtful, I would say, go and read the works of Captain Scoresby. It is well known that this whaling captain was a truly religious man, who gave up the fishing, though it turned him in plenty of money, and became a minister of the gospel with a small income, so it is not likely that he would have told what was untrue. Well, in his works we find stories that are quite as remarkable as the one I have just told, some of them more so.

For instance, he tells us of one whale, in the Greenland Seas, which was not killed till it had drawn out ten thousand four hundred and forty yards, or about six miles of line, fastened to fifteen harpoons, besides taking one of the boats entirely under water, which boat was never seen again.

The mate told us two or three more stories, and a lot of us were gathered round him, listening eagerly, for there is nothing Jack likes so much as a good yarn, when all of a sudden, the man at the mast-head sang out that a large sperm whale was spouting away two points off the lee-bow. Of course we were at our posts in a moment.

"There she blows! there she breaches!" sung the look-out.

"Lower away!" roared the captain.

The boats were in the water, and the men on their seats in a moment.

The whale we were after was a very large one, we could see that, for after two hours' hard pulling we got near enough to throw a harpoon, and after it was fixed he jumped clean out of the water. Then there was the usual battle. It was fierce and long; so long that I began to fear we would have to return empty-handed to the ship. We put ten harpoons into him, one after another, and had a stiff run between the fixing of each.

It is astonishing the difference between the fish. One will give you no trouble at all. I have often seen a good big fellow killed in half an hour. Another will take you half a day, and perhaps you may lose him after all. The whale we were now after at last took to showing fight. He made two or three runs at the boat, but the mate, who was in command, pricked him off with the lance cleverly. At last we gave him a severe wound, and immediately he dived.

"That was into his life," remarked Tom Lokins, as we sat waiting for him to come up again. The captain's boat was close to ours, about ten yards off. We had not to wait long. The sudden stoppage and slacking off of all the lines showed that the whale was coming up. All at once I saw a dark object rising directly under the captain's boat. Before I could make out what it was, almost before I could think, the boat flew up into the air, as if a powder magazine had exploded beneath it. The whale had come up, and hit it with his head right on the keel, so that it was knocked into pieces, and the men, oars, harpoons, lances, and tackle shot up in confusion into the air.

Immediately after that the whale went into his flurry, but we paid no attention to him, in our anxiety to pick up our companions. They all came to the surface quickly enough, but while some made for the boats vigorously, others swam slowly and with pain, showing that they were hurt, while one or two floated, as if dead, upon the water.

Most of the men had escaped with only a few cuts and bruises, but one poor fellow was hauled out of the water with a leg broken, and another was so badly knocked about the head that it was a long time before he was again fit for duty. The worst case, however, was that of poor Fred Borders. He had a leg broken, and a severe wound in the side from a harpoon which had been forced into the flesh over the barbs, so that we could hardly get it drawn out. We laid him in the stern of the boat, where he lay for some time insensible; but in a short time he revived, and spoke to us in a faint voice. His first words were:

"I'm dying, messmates. It is into my life, too."

"Don't say that, Fred," said I, while my heart sank within me. "Cheer up, my boy, you'll live to be the death of many a whale yet. See, put your lips to this can—it will do you good."

He shook his head gently, being too weak to reply.

We had killed a big fish that day, and we knew that when he was "tried in" we should have completed our cargo; but there was no cheer given when the monster turned over on his side, and the pull to the ship that evening seemed to us the longest and heaviest we ever had, for our hearts were very sad.

Next day Fred was worse, and we all saw that his words would come true—he was dying; and before the sun had again set poor Fred had left us for ever.

We buried our shipmate in the usual sailor fashion. We wrapped him in his hammock, with a cannon-ball at his feet to sink him. The captain read the burial-service at the gangway, and then, in deep silence, we committed his corpse to the deep.

CHAPTER IX

NEWS FROM HOME—A GAM

Shoregoing people have but little notion of the ease with which the heart of a jack-tar is made to rejoice when he is out on a long voyage. His pleasures and amusements are so few that he is thankful to make the most of whatever is thrown in his way. In the whale-fisheries, no doubt, he has more than enough of excitement, but after a time he gets used to this, and begins to long for a little variety—and of all the pleasures that fall to his lot, that which delights him most is to have a GAM with another ship.

Now, a gam is the meeting of two or more whale-ships, their keeping company for a time, and the exchanging of visits by the crews. It is neither more nor less than a jollification on the sea—the inviting of your friends to feast and make merry in your floating house. There is this difference, however, between a gam at sea and a party on land, that your friends on the ocean are men whom you perhaps never saw before, and whom you will likely never meet again. There is also another difference—there are no ladies at a gam. This is a great want, for man is but a rugged creature when away from the refining influence of woman; but, in the circumstances, of course, it can't be helped.

We had a gam one day, on this voyage, with a Yankee whale-ship, and a first-rate gam it was, for, as the Yankee had gammed three days before with another English ship, we got a lot of news second-hand; and, as we had not seen a new face for many months, we felt towards those Yankees like brothers, and swallowed all they had to tell us like men starving for news.

It was on a fine calm morning, just after breakfast, that we fell in with this ship. We had seen no whales for a day or two, but we did not mind that, for our hold was almost full of oil-barrels. Tom Lokins and I were leaning over the starboard bulwarks, watching the small fish that every now and then darted through the clear-blue water like arrows, and smoking our pipes in silence. Tom looked uncommonly grave, and I knew that he was having some deep and knowing thoughts of his own which would leak out in time. All at once he took his pipe from his mouth and stared earnestly at the horizon.

"Bob," said he, speaking very slowly, "if there ain't a ship right off the starboard beam, I'm a Dutchman."

"You don't mean it!" said I, starting with a feeling of excitement.

Before another word could be uttered, the cry of "Sail ho!" came ringing down from the mast-head. Instantly the quiet of the morning was broken; sleepers sprang up and rubbed their eyes, the men below rushed wildly up the hatchway, the cook came tearing out of his own private den, flourishing a soup-ladle in one hand and his tormentors in the other, the steward came tumbling up with a lump of dough in his fist that he had forgot to throw down in his haste, and the captain bolted up from the cabin without his hat.

"Where away?" cried he, with more than his usual energy.

"Right off the starboard beam, sir."

"Square the yards! Look alive, my hearties," was the next order; for although the calm sea was like a sheet of glass, a light air, just sufficient to fill our top-gallant sails, enabled us to creep through the water.

"Hurrah!" shouted the men as we sprang to obey.

"What does she look like?" roared the captain.

"A big ship, sir, I think," replied the lookout: "but I can only just make out the top of her main t-gallan' s'l."—(Sailors scorn to speak of top-gallant sails.)

Gradually, one by one, the white sails of the stranger rose up like cloudlets out of the sea, and our hearts beat high with hope and expectation as we beheld the towering canvas of a full-rigged ship rise slowly into view.

"Show our colours," said the captain.

In a moment the Union Jack of Old England was waving at the mast-head in the gentle breeze, and we watched anxiously for a reply. The stranger was polite; his colours flew up a moment after, and displayed the Stripes and Stars of America.

"A Yankee!" exclaimed some of the men in a tone of slight disappointment.

I may remark, that our disappointment arose simply from the fact that there was no chance, as we supposed, of getting news from "home" out of a ship that must have sailed last from America. For the rest, we cared not whether they were Yankees or Britons—they were men who could speak the English tongue, that was enough for us.

"Never mind, boys," cried one, "we'll have a jolly gam; that's a fact."

"So we will," said another, "and I'll get news of my mad Irish cousin, Terrence O'Flannagan, who went out to seek his fortin in Ameriky with two shillin's and a broken knife in his pocket, and it's been said he's got into a government situation o' some sort connected with the jails—whether as captain or leftenant o' police, or turnkey, I'm not rightly sure."

"More likely as a life-tenant of one of the cells," observed Bill Blunt, laughing.

"Don't speak ill of a better man than yerself behind his back," retorted the owner of the Irish cousin.

"Stand by to lower the jolly-boat," cried the captain.

"Aye, aye, sir."

"Lower away!"

In a few minutes we were leaping over the calm sea in the direction of the strange ship, for the breeze had died down, and we were too eager to meet with new faces, and to hear the sound of new voices, to wait for the wind.

To our joy we found that the Yankee had had a gam (as I have already said) with an English ship a few days before, so we returned to our vessel loaded with old newspapers from England, having invited the captain and crew of the Yankee to come aboard of us and spend the day.

While preparation was being made for the reception of our friends, we got hold of two of the old newspapers, and Tom Lokins seized one, while Bill Blunt got the other, and both men sat down on the windlass to retail the news to a crowd of eager men who tried hard to listen to both at once, and so could make nothing out of either.

"Hold hard, Tom Lokins," cried one. "What's that you say about the Emperor, Bill?"

"The Emperor of Roosia," said Bill Blunt, reading slowly, and with difficulty, "is—stop a bit, messmates, wot can this word be?—the Emperor of Roosia is——"

"Blowed up with gunpowder, and shattered to a thousand pieces," said Tom Lokins, raising his voice with excitement, as he read from his paper an account of the blowing up of a mountain fortress in India.

"Oh! come, I say, one at a time, if you please," cried a harpooner; "a feller can't git a word of sense out of sich a jumble."

"Come, messmates," cried two or three voices, as Tom stopped suddenly, and looked hard at the paper, "go ahead! wot have ye got there that makes ye look as wise as an owl? Has war been and broke out with the French?"

"I do believe he's readin' the births, marriages, and deaths," said one of the men, peeping over Tom's shoulder.

"Read 'em out, then, can't ye?" cried another.

"I say, Bill Blunt, I think this consarns you," cried Tom: "isn't your sweetheart's name Susan Croft?"

"That's a fact," said Bill, looking up from his paper, "and who has got a word to say agin the prettiest lass in all Liverpool?"

"Nobody's got a word to say against her," replied Tom; "but she's married, that's all."

Bill Blunt leaped up as if he had been shot, and the blood rushed to his face, as he seized the paper, and tried to find the place.

"Where is it, Tom? let me see it with my own two eyes. Oh, here it is!"

The poor man's face grew paler and paler as he read the following words:—

"Married at Liverpool, on the 5th inst., by the Rev. Charles Manson, Edward Gordon, Esq., to Susan, youngest daughter of Admiral Croft——"

A perfect roar of laughter drowned the remainder of the sentence.

"Well done, Bill Blunt—Mister Blunt, we'll have to call him hereafter," said Tom, with a grim smile; "I had no notion you thought so much o' yourself as to aim at an admiral's daughter."

"All right, my hearties, chaff away!" said Bill, fetching a deep sigh of relief, while a broad grin played on his weather-beaten visage. "There's two Susan Crofts, that's all; but I wouldn't give my Susan for all the admirals' daughters that ever walked in shoe-leather."

"Hallo! here come the Yankees," cried the captain, coming on deck at that moment.

Our newspapers were thrown down at once, and we prepared to receive our guests, who, we could see, had just put off from their ship in two boats. But before they had come within a mile of us, their attention, as well as ours, was riveted on a most extraordinary sight.

Not more than a hundred yards ahead of our ship, a whale came suddenly to the surface of the water, seeming, by its wild motions, to be in a state of terror. It continued for some time to struggle, and lash the whole sea around it into a white foam.

At once the boats were lowered from both ships, and we went after this fish, but his motions were so violent, that we found it utterly impossible to get near enough to throw a harpoon. When we had approached somewhat closely, we discovered that it had been attacked by a killer fish, which was fully twenty feet long, and stuck to it like a leech. The monster's struggles were made in trying to shake itself free of this tremendous enemy, but it could not accomplish this. The killer held him by the under jaw, and hung on there, while the whale threw himself out of the water in his agony, with his great mouth open like a huge cavern, and the blood flowing so fast from the wound that the sea was dyed for a long distance round. This killer fought like a bulldog. It held on until the whale was exhausted, but they passed away from us in such a confused struggle, that a harpoon could not be fixed for an hour after we first saw them. On this being done, the killer let go, and the whale, being already half dead, was soon killed.

The Yankee boats were the first to come up with this fish, so the prize belonged to them. We were well pleased at this, as we could afford to let them have it, seeing that we could scarcely have found room to stow away the oil in our hold. It was the Yankee's first fish, too, so they were in great spirits about it, and towed it to their ship, singing "Yankee-doodle" with all their might.

As they passed our boat the captain hailed them.

"I wish you joy of your first fish, sir," said he to the Yankee captain.

"Thank you, stranger. I guess we're in luck, though it ain't a big one. I say, what sort o' brute was that that had hold of him? Never seed sich a crittur in all my life."

"He's a killer," said our captain.

"A killer! Guess he just is, and no mistake: if we hadn't helped him, he'd have done the job for himself! What does he kill him for?"

"To eat him, but I'm told he only eats the tongue. You'll not forget that you've promised to gam with us to-night," cried our captain, as they were about to commence pulling again.

"All right, stranger, one half will come to-night, before sundown; t'other half to-morrow, if the calm holds. Good day. Give way, lads."

The men dipped their oars, and resumed their song, while we pulled back to our ship. We did not offer to help them, because the fish was a small one, and the distance they had to go not great.

It was near sunset when, according to promise, the Yankees came on board, and spent a long evening with us. They were a free, open-hearted, boastful, conceited, good-humoured set of fellows, and a jolly night we had of it in the forecastle, while the mates and captains were enjoying themselves and spinning their yarns in the cabin.

Of course, we began with demands for home-news, and, when we had pumped out of them every drop they had, we began to songs and spinning yarns. And it was now that my friend Tom Lokins came out strong, and went on at such a rate, that he quite won the hearts of our guests. Tom was not noisy, and he was slow in his talk, but he had the knack of telling a good story; he never used a wrong word, or a word too many, and, having a great deal of humour, men could not help listening when he began to talk.

After this we had a dance, and here I became useful, being able to play Scotch reels and Irish jigs on the fiddle. Then we had songs and yarns again. Some could tell of furious fights with whales that made our blood boil; others could talk of the green fields at home, until we almost fancied we were boys again; and some could not tell stories at all. They had little to say, and that little they said ill; and I noticed that many of those who were perfect bores would cry loudest to be heard, though none of us wanted to hear them. We used to quench such fellows by calling loudly for a song with a rousing chorus.

It was not till the night was far spent, and the silver moon was sailing through the starry sky, that the Yankees left us, and rowed away with a parting cheer.

CHAPTER X

RETURN HOME

Six months after our "gam" with the Yankees Tom Lokins and I found ourselves seated once more in the little garret beside my dear old mother.

"Deary me, Robert, how changed ye are!"

"Changed, Mother! I should think so! If you'd gone through all that I've done and seen since we last sat together in this room, you'd be changed too."

"And have ye really seen the whales, my boy?" continued my mother, stroking my face with her old hand.

"Seen them? aye, and killed them too—many of them."

"You've been in danger, my son," said my mother earnestly, "but the Lord has preserved you safe through it all."

"Aye, Mother, He has preserved my life in the midst of many dangers," said I, "for which I am most thankful."

There was a short silence after this, during which my mother and I gazed earnestly at each other, and Tom Lokins smoked his pipe and stared at the fire.

"Robert, how big is a whale?" enquired my mother suddenly.

"How big? why, it's as big as a small ship, only it's longer, and not quite so fat."

"Robert," replied my mother gravely, "ye didn't use to tell untruths; ye must be jokin'."

"Joking, Mother, I was never more in earnest in my life. Why, I tell you that I've seen, aye, and helped to cut up, whales that were more than sixty feet long, with heads so big that their mouths could have taken in a boat. Why, Mother, I declare to you that you could put this room into a whale's mouth, and you and Tom and I could sit round this table and take our tea upon his tongue quite comfortable. Isn't that true, Tom?"

My mother looked at Tom, who removed his pipe, puffed a cloud of smoke, and nodded his head twice very decidedly.

"Moreover," said I, "a whale is so big and strong, that it can knock a boat right up into the air, and break in the sides of a ship. One day a whale fell right on top of one of our boats and smashed it all to bits. Now that's a real truth!"

Again my mother looked at Tom Lokins, and again that worthy man puffed an immense cloud of smoke, and nodded his head more decidedly than before. Being anxious to put to flight all her doubts at once, he said solemnly, "Old ooman, that's a fact!"

"Robert," said my mother, "tell me something about the whales."

Just as she said this the door opened, and in came the good old gentleman with the nose like his cane-knob, and with as kind a heart as ever beat in a human breast. My mother had already told me that he came to see her regularly once a week, ever since I went to sea, except in summer, when he was away in the country, and that he had never allowed her to want for anything.

I need scarcely say that there was a hearty meeting between us three, and that we had much to say to each other. But in the midst of it all my mother turned to the old gentleman and said:

"Robert was just going to tell me something about his adventures with the whales."

"That's capital!" cried the old gentleman, rubbing his hands. "Come, Bob, my boy, let's hear about 'em."

Being thus invited, I consented to spin them a yarn. The old gentleman settled himself in his chair, my mother smoothed her apron, folded her hands, and looked meekly into my face. Tom Lokins filled his pipe, stretched out his foot to poke the fire with the toe of his shoe, and began to smoke like a steam-engine; then I cleared my throat and began my tale, and before I had done talking that night, I had told them all that I have told in this little book to you, good reader, almost word for word.

Thus ended my first voyage to the South Seas. Many and many a trip have I made since then, and many a wonderful sight have I seen, both in the south and in the north. But if I were to write an account of all my adventures, my little book would grow into a big one; I must therefore come to a close.

The profits of this voyage were so great, that I was enabled to place my mother in a position of comfort for the rest of her life, which, alas! was very short. She died about six months after my return. I nursed her to the end, and closed her eyes. The last word she uttered was her Saviour's name. She died, as she had lived, trusting in the Lord; and when I laid her dear head in the grave my heart seemed to die within me.

I'm getting to be an old man now, but, through the blessing of God, I am comfortable and happy. As I have more than enough of this world's goods, and no family to care for, my chief occupation is to look after the poor, and particularly the old women who live in my neighbourhood. After the work of the day is done, I generally go and spend the evening with Tom Lokins, who lives near by, and is stout and hearty still; or he comes and spends it with me, and, while we smoke our pipes together, we often fall to talking about those stirring days when, in the strength and hope of youth, we sailed together to the South Seas, and took to—Fighting the Whales.

Chapter One.

The Beginning—in which Several Important Personages are Introduced.

There existed, not many years ago, a certain street near the banks of old Father Thames which may be described as being one of the most modest and retiring little streets in London.

The neighbourhood around that street was emphatically dirty and noisy. There were powerful smells of tallow and tar in the atmosphere, suggestive of shipping and commerce. Narrow lanes opened off the main street affording access to wharves and warehouses, and presenting at their termini segmentary views of ships’ hulls, bowsprits, and booms, with a background of muddy water and smoke. There were courts with unglazed windows resembling doors, and massive cranes clinging to the walls. There were yards full of cases and barrels, and great anchors and chains, which invaded the mud of the river as far as was consistent with safety; and adventurous little warehouses, which stood on piles, up to the knees, as it were, in water, totally regardless of appearances, and utterly indifferent as to catching cold. As regards the population of this locality, rats were, perhaps, in excess of human beings; and it might have been observed that the former were particularly frolicsome and fearless.

Farther back, on the landward side of our unobtrusive street, commercial and nautical elements were more mingled with things appertaining to domestic life. Elephantine horses, addicted to good living, drew through the narrow streets wagons and vans so ponderous and gigantic that they seemed to crush the very stones over which they rolled, and ran terrible risk of sweeping little children out of the upper windows of the houses. In unfavourable contrast with these, donkeys, of the most meagre and starved aspect, staggered along with cartloads of fusty vegetables and dirty-looking fish, while the vendors thereof howled the nature and value of their wares with deliberate ferocity. Low pawnbrokers (chiefly in the “slop” line) obtruded their seedy wares from doors and windows halfway across the pavement, as if to tempt the naked; and equally low pastry-cooks spread forth their stale viands in unglazed windows, as if to seduce the hungry.

Here the population was mixed and varied. Busy men of business and of wealth, porters and wagoners, clerks and warehousemen, rubbed shoulders with poor squalid creatures, men and women, whose business or calling no one knew and few cared to know except the policeman on the beat, who, with stern suspicious glances, looked upon them as objects of special regard, and as enemies; except, also, the earnest-faced man in seedy black garments, with a large Bible (evidently) in his pocket, who likewise looked on them as objects of special regard, and as friends. The rats were much more circumspect in this locality. They were what the Yankees would call uncommonly “cute,” and much too deeply intent on business to indulge in play.

In the lanes, courts, and alleys that ran still farther back into the great hive, there was an amount of squalor, destitution, violence, sin, and misery, the depth of which was known only to the people who dwelt there, and to those earnest-faced men with Bibles who made it their work to cultivate green spots in the midst of such unpromising wastes, and to foster the growth of those tender and beautiful flowers which sometimes spring and flourish where, to judge from appearances, one might be tempted to imagine nothing good could thrive. Here also there were rats, and cats too, besides dogs of many kinds; but they all of them led hard lives of it, and few appeared to think much of enjoying themselves. Existence seemed to be the height of their ambition. Even the kittens were depressed, and sometimes stopped in the midst of a faint attempt at play to look round with a scared aspect, as if the memory of kicks and blows was strong upon them.

The whole neighbourhood, in fact, teemed with sad yet interesting sights and scenes, and with strange violent contrasts. It was not a spot which one would naturally select for a ramble on a summer evening after dinner; nevertheless it was a locality where time might have been profitably spent, where a good lesson or two might have been learned by those who have a tendency to “consider the poor.”

But although the neighbourhood was dirty and noisy, our modest street, which was at that time known by the name of Redwharf Lane, was comparatively clean and quiet. True, the smell of tallow and tar could not be altogether excluded, neither could the noises; but these scents and sounds reached it in a mitigated degree, and as the street was not a thoroughfare, few people entered it, except those who had business there, or those who had lost their way, or an occasional street boy of an explorative tendency; which last, on finding that it was a quiet spot, invariably entered a protest against such an outrageous idea as quietude in “the City” by sending up a series of hideous yells, and retiring thereafter precipitately.

Here, in Redwharf Lane, was the office of the firm of Denham, Crumps, and Company.

Mr Denham stood with his back to the fire, for it was a coldish autumn day, with his coat-tails under his arms. He was a big bald man of five-and-forty, with self-importance enough for a man of five-hundred-and-forty. Mr Crumps sat in a small back-office, working so diligently that one might have supposed he was endeavouring to bring up the arrears of forty years’ neglect, and had pledged himself to have it done before dinner. He was particularly small, excessively thin, very humble, rather deaf, and upwards of sixty. Company had died of lockjaw two years previous to the period of which we write, and is therefore unworthy of farther notice. A confidential clerk had taken, and still retained, his place.

Messrs Denham, Crumps, and Company, were shipowners. Report said that they were rich, but report frequently said what was not true in those days. Whether it has become more truthful in the present days, remains an open question. There can be no question, however, that much business was done at the office in Redwharf Lane, and that, while Denham lived in a handsome mansion in Russell Square, and Crumbs dwelt in a sweet cottage in Kensington, Company had kept a pony phaeton, and had died in a snug little villa on Hampstead Heath.

The office of Denham, Crumps, and Company was small and unpretending, as was the street in which it stood. There was a small green door with a small brass plate and a small brass knocker, all of which, when opened by their attendant, a small tiger in blue, with buttons, gave admittance to a small passage that terminated in a small room. This was the outer office, and here sat the four clerks of the establishment on four tall stools, writing in four monstrous volumes, as furiously as if they were decayed authors whose lives depended on the result. Their salaries did, poor fellows, and that was much the same thing!

A glass door, with scratches here and there, through which the head of the firm could gaze unseen, separated “the office” from Denham’s room, and a wooden door separated that from Crumps’ room, beyond which there was a small closet or cell which had been Company’s room before that gentleman died. It was now used as a repository for ancient books and papers.

“Very odd,” said Mr Denham, and as he said so he touched a small silver bell that stood on his writing-table.

The tiger in blue and buttons instantly appeared.

“Here, Peekins, post these letters. Has no one called this afternoon; I mean, no one resembling a sailor?”

The boy in blue started, and his face became very red.

“Why, what’s the matter, boy? What do you mean by staring at me, instead of answering my question?”

“Please, sir,” stammered Peekins meekly, “I didn’t mean no ’arm, sir, but you see, sir, his face was so drefful fierce, and he looked sich a wild—”

“Boy, are you mad?” interrupted Mr Denham, advancing and seizing the tiger by his blue collar; “what are you talking about? Now, answer my question at once, else I’ll shake the little life you have out of your body. Did any sailor-like man call at the office this afternoon?”

“Oh, sir, yes, sir,—I—I—thought he was drunk and wouldn’t let ’im in, sir; he’s bin a standin’ stampin’ at the door for more than—”

The end of the sentence was cut short by Mr Denham suddenly ejecting the boy from the room and shouting, “Let him in!”

In a few seconds a heavy tread was heard in the outer office, and the boy ushered in a tall young man, of unusually large proportions, with extremely broad shoulders, and apparently about twenty-three years of age, whose rough pilot-coat, wide pantaloons, and glazed hat bespoke him a sailor. His countenance was flushed, and an angry frown contracted his brow as he strode into the room, pulled off his hat and stood before the head of the house of Denham, Crumps, and Company.

“I beg pardon, sir,” began the sailor, somewhat sharply, yet without disrespect, “when I am asked to come—”

“Yes, yes, Bax,” interposed Mr Denham, “I know what you would say. Pray calm yourself. It is a pity you should have been kept waiting outside, but the fact is that my boy is a new one, and apparently he is destitute of common sense. Sit down. I sent for you to say that I wish you to take the ‘Nancy’ to Liverpool. You will be ready to start at once, no doubt—”

“Before the schooner is overhauled?” inquired Bax, in surprise.

“Of course,” said Denham, stiffly; “I see no occasion for another overhaul. That schooner will cost us more than she is worth if we go on repairing at the rate we have been doing the last two years.”

“She needs it all, sir,” rejoined Bax, earnestly. “The fact is, Mr Denham, I feel it to be my duty to tell you that there ain’t a sound plank or timber in her from stem to stern, and I’m pretty sure that if she costs you money, she’s likely to cost me and the men aboard of her our lives. I strongly advise you to strike her off the books, and get a new one.”

“Mr Bax,” said Denham, pompously, “you are too young a man to offer your advice unless it is asked. I believe the engineer employed by me to examine into the condition of my vessels is quite competent to judge in these matters, and I have unbounded confidence in him. When I placed you in command of the ‘Nancy,’ I meant you to navigate, not to criticise her; but if you are afraid to venture—”

“Afraid!” cried the young sailor, reddening. “Is anxiety about the lives of your men and the safety of your property to be called fear? I am willing to sail in the ‘Nancy’ as long as a plank of her will hold to her ribs, but—”

Bax paused and bit his lip, as if to keep back words which had better not be spoken.

“Well, then,” rejoined Mr Denham, affecting to disregard the pause, “let me hear no more about repairs. When these require to be done, they shall be done. Meanwhile, go and make preparation to sail by the morning tides which serves about—what hour, think you?”

“Flood at half after six,” said Bax, curtly.

“Very well, come up here at half-past five, one of the clerks will see you. You will have to run down to Dover in the first place, and when there my agent will give you further instructions. Good afternoon!”

Bax rose and quitted the room with a stern “Good day, sir.”

As he passed through the outer office he was arrested by one of the clerks laying a hand on his shoulder.

“Well, Mr Foster,” said Bax, a bright smile chasing the frown from his face, “it seems we’re to swim if we can, or sink if we can’t this winter;—but what want ye with me?”

“You are to call me Guy, not Mister Foster,” said the lad, gaily. “I want to know where you are to be found after six this evening.”

“At the ‘Three Jolly Tars,’” answered Bax, clapping on his glazed hat.

“All right, I’ll look you up. Good-day.”

“Guy Foster,” shouted Mr Denham from the inner room.

“Yes, uncle,” and in another moment the youth was standing, pen in hand, in the august presence of his relative, who regarded him with a cold stare of displeasure.

There could scarcely have been conceived a stronger contrast in nature than that which existed between the starched, proud, and portly uncle, and the tall, handsome, and hearty young nephew, whose age was scarcely twenty years.

“How often am I to tell you, sir,” said Mr Denham, “that ‘yes, uncle,’ is much too familiar and unbusinesslike a phrase to be used in this office in the hearing of your fellow-clerks?”

“I beg pardon, uncle, I’m sure I had no intention of—”

“There, that will do, I want no apology, I want obedience and attention to my expressed wishes. I suppose that you expect to get away for a few days’ holiday?”

“Well, unc—, sir, I mean, if it is quite convenient I should—”

“It is not quite convenient,” interrupted the uncle. “It cannot possibly, at any time, be convenient to dispense with the services of a clerk in a house where no supernumeraries are kept to talk slang and read the newspapers. I see no reason whatever in young men in ordinary health expecting as a right, two or three weeks’ leave each year without deduction of salary. I never go to the country or to the sea-side from one year’s end to the other.”

“You’d be much the better for it if you did, uncle,” interposed Guy.

“That, sir,” retorted Denham with emphasis, “is your opinion, and you will allow me to say that it is erroneous, as most of your opinions, I am sorry to find, are. I find that no change is necessary for my health. I am in better condition than many who go to Margate every summer. I thrive on town air, sir, and on city life.”

There was much truth in these observations. The worthy merchant did indeed seem to enjoy robust health, and there could be no question that, as far as physical appearances went, he did thrive on high living, foul air, and coining money. Tallow and tar sent forth delicious odours to him, and thick smoke was pleasant to his nostrils, for he dealt largely in coal, and all of these, with many kindred substances, were productive of the one great end and object of his life—gold.

“However,” pursued Mr Denham, leaning back on the mantle-piece, “as the tyrannical customs of society cannot be altogether set at nought, I suppose I must let you go.”

“Thank you, unc— sir,” said Guy, who, having been chained to the desk in the office of Redwharf Lane for the last eleven months, felt his young heart bounding wildly within him at the prospect of visiting, even for a brief period, his mother’s cottage on the coast of Kent.

“You have no occasion to thank me,” retorted Mr Denham; “you are indebted entirely to the tyrannical customs and expectations of society for the permission. Good-bye, you may convey my respects to your mother.”

“I will, sir.”

“Have you anything further to say?” asked Mr Denham, observing that the youth stood looking perplexedly at the ground, and twirling his watch-key.

“Yes, uncle, I have,” answered Guy, plucking up courage. “The fact is—that, is to say—you know that wrecks are very common off the coast of Kent.”

“Certainly, I do,” said Denham with a frown. “I have bitter cause to know that. The loss occasioned by the wreck of the ‘Sea-gull’ last winter was very severe indeed. The subject is not a pleasant one; have you any good reason for alluding to it?”

“I have, uncle; as you say, the loss of the ‘Sea-gull’ was severe, for, besides the loss of a fine vessel and a rich cargo, there was the infinitely more terrible loss of the lives of twenty-two human beings.”

As Mr Denham had not happened to think of the loss of life that occurred on the occasion, and had referred solely to the loss of ship and cargo, which, by a flagrant oversight on the part of one of his clerks, had not been insured; he made no rejoinder, and Guy, after a moment’s pause, went on—

“The effect of this calamity was so powerful on the minds of the people of Deal and Walmer, near which the wreck took place, that a public meeting was called, and a proposal made that a lifeboat should be established there.”

“Well?” said Mr Denham.

“Well,” continued the youth, “my mother gave a subscription; but being poor she could not give much.”

“Well, well,” said Mr Denham impatiently.

“And—and I gave a little, a very little, towards it too,” said Guy.

“Your salary is not large; it was very foolish of you to waste your money in this way.”

“Waste it, uncle!”

“Come, sir, what does all this tend to?” said Denham, sternly.

“I thought—I hoped—indeed I felt assured,” said Guy earnestly, “that you would give something towards this good object—”

“Oh, did you?” said the merchant, cutting him short; “then, sir, allow me to say that you were never more mistaken in your life. I never give money in charity. I believe it to be a false principle, which tends to the increase of beggars and criminals. You can go now.”

“But consider, uncle,” entreated Guy, “this is no ordinary charity. A lifeboat there might be the means of saving hundreds of lives; and oh! if you could have seen, as I did, the despairing faces of these poor people as they clung to the rigging scarcely a stone’s-cast from the shore, on which the waves beat so furiously that no boat except a lifeboat could have lived for a moment; if you could have heard, as I did, the wild shriek of despair as the masts went by the board, and plunged every living soul into the raging sea, I am certain that you would gladly give a hundred pounds or more towards this philanthropic object.”

“Nephew,” said Denham, “I will not give a sixpence. Your inexperience and enthusiasm lead you astray, sir, in this matter. Lifeboats are capable of being upset as well as ordinary boats, and there are cases on record in which the crews of them have been drowned as well as the people whom they recklessly went out to save. My opinion is, that persons who devote themselves to a sea-faring life must make up their minds to the chances and risks attending such a life. Now you have my answer—good-bye, and give my best regards to your sister. I will expect you back next Saturday week.”

“I have still another favour to ask, sir,” said Guy, after some hesitation.

“Has it anything to do with what you are pleased to term a philanthropic object?”

“It has.”

“Then,” said Mr Denham, “save me the trouble of refusing, and yourself the pain of a refusal, by holding your tongue,—and retiring.”

Guy coloured, and was about to turn away in disgust, but, repressing his indignation by a powerful effort, he advanced with a cheerful countenance, and held out his hand.

“Well, good-bye, uncle. If ever you go to the coast, and happen to see a storm and a shipwreck, you’ll change your mind, I think, in regard to this matter.”

Mr Denham did go to the coast, and, did see a storm and a shipwreck, but whether this prediction ever came true is a point that shall not be revealed at this part of our narrative.

Chapter Two.

In Which more Important Personages are Introduced, and Display their Characters by their Actions More or Less.

The “Three Jolly Tars” was one of those low taverns where seamen were wont to congregate—not because it was a low tavern, but because there was no other sort of tavern—high or low—in that neighbourhood.

The world (that is to say, the delicately-nurtured and carefully-tended world) is apt to form erroneous opinions in regard to low taverns, and degradation, and sin in general,—arising from partial ignorance and absolute inexperience, which it is important that we should correct in order that the characters of our story may not be falsely judged. God forbid that it should be for a moment supposed that we have a word to say in favour of low taverns. Our aim just now is, not to consider these, but, to convince the reader, if possible, that every man who enters one of them is not necessarily a lost or utterly depraved creature.

It is undoubtedly true that these low taverns are moral pig-sties. Nay, we owe an apology to the pigs for the comparison. Sties appear to be places of abode suited to the nature and tastes of their occupants, and the grumps who inhabit them seem not only to rejoice in them (for this alone would be no argument, inasmuch as the same may be affirmed of men who rejoice in low taverns), but to be utterly incapable of higher enjoyment out of them. Let a pig out of his stye, afford him every conceivable opportunity of intellectual and physical improvement, and he will carefully search out the nearest mudhole—unhappy until he finds it—will thrust not only his nose but his body into it, and will find supreme enjoyment in wallowing in the mire; and no blame to him for this; he is grumpish by nature. Yes, a low tavern is beneath the level of a pig-stye!

Nevertheless, as it is possible that, for a time, man may, through sin, or circumstances, or both, be reduced to such a condition as to take shelter in a pig-stye, without exposing himself to the charge of being a pig; so, it is possible that a man may frequent a low tavern, not without detriment, but, without becoming thereby worthy of being classed with the lowest of the low. Do not misunderstand us, gentle reader. We do not wish in the slightest degree to palliate the coarse language, the debasement, the harsh villainy, which shock the virtuous when visiting the haunts of poverty. Our simple desire is to assure the sceptical that goodness and truth are sometimes found in strange questionable places, although it is undoubtedly true that they do not deliberately search out such places for an abode, but prefer a pure atmosphere and pleasant companionship if they can get it.

It must not be supposed, then, that our friend John Bax—sometimes called “captain,” sometimes “skipper,” not unfrequently “mister,” but most commonly “Bax,” without any modification—was a hopeless castaway, because he was found by his friend Guy Foster in a room full of careless foul-mouthed seamen, eating his bread and cheese and drinking his beer in an atmosphere so impregnated with tobacco smoke that he could scarcely see, and so redolent of gin that he could scarcely smell the smoke!

In those days there were not so many sailors’ homes and temperance coffee-houses as there are now. In the locality about which we write there were none. If Jack wanted his lunch or his dinner he found the low tavern almost the only place in which he could get it comfortably. Tobacco smoke was no objection to him;—he rather liked it. Swearing did not shock him;—he was used to it. Gentle folk are apt to err here too. Being shocked at gross sin does not necessarily imply goodness of heart; it implies nothing more than the being unused to witness gross sin. Goodness of heart may go along with this capacity of being shocked, so, equally, may badness of heart; but neither of them is implied by it.

What a grand thing is truth—simple abstract truth! and yet how little do we appreciate it in regard to the inconceivably important matter of reasoning. We analyse our chemicals and subject them to the severest tests in order to ascertain their true properties;—truth is all we aim at; but how many of us can say that we analyse our thoughts and subject our reasoning to the test of logic in order simply to ascertain the truth.

“Smoke for ever! I say, Bill, open that there port a bit, else we’ll be choked,” cried a stentorian voice, as Guy entered the little apartment, where some dozen of noisy sailors were creating the cloud, which was a little too strong for them.

For some moments Guy glanced round inquiringly, unable to pierce the dim curtain that enshrouded everything, as with a veil of dirty gauze.

“Lost your reckoning, I guess,” drawled a Yankee skipper.

“Never mind, let go your anchor, my lad,” cried a voice from the densest quarter of the smoke, “it’s not a bad berth, and good holdin’ ground.”

“What’ll you take to drink, my boy, supposin’ you gits the offer?” inquired another man, giving him a facetious poke in the ribs.

“Is John Bax here?” inquired Guy.

“Hallo, messmate—here you are, port your helm and heave a-head—steady! rocks to leeward; starboard hard! ah, I knew you’d never clear these rocks without touchin’,” said Bax, as his young friend tripped over three or four spittoons, and plunged into the corner from which the sailor’s deep bass voice issued. “There now, sit down; what’ll you have?”

“Nothing, Bax; what a horrible hole to feed in! Couldn’t you come out and talk with me in the fresh air?”

It must indeed have been a wonderfully impure place when Guy could venture by contrast to speak of the air outside as being fresh.

“Couldn’t do it, my lad,” replied Bax, with his mouth full. “I haven’t had a bit since six o’clock this morning, and I’m only half through.”

The fact was evident, for a large plate of biscuit and cheese stood on the small table before the seaman, with a tumbler of hot gin and water. So Guy sat down, and, observing that the waiter stood at his elbow, ordered half a pint of stout. Guy did not drink spirits, but he had no objection to beer, so he took occasion to remonstrate with Bax on his tendency to drink gin, and recommended beer instead, as it would “do him more good.” It did not occur to Guy that a young man in robust health does not require physical good to be done to him at all, beyond what food, and rest, and exercise can achieve, and that, therefore, artificial stimulant of any kind is unnecessary!

“Skipper ahoy!” shouted, a gruff voice in the doorway.

“Ay, ay!” cried several of the party in reply.

“Is John Bax in this here port?”

“Here you are,” replied the man in request, “port your helm, old boy! rocks on the lee bow, look out!”

“Steady, so,” said a fat burly seaman, as he steered in obedience to these sailing directions, and finally “cast anchor” beside our two friends.

“How are ye, Captain Bluenose?” said Bax, holding out his hand.

“Same to you, lad,” replied the Captain, seizing the offered hand in his own enormous fist, which was knotty and fleshy, seamed with old cuts and scars, and stained with tar. “Hallo! Guy, is this you?” he added, turning suddenly to the youth. “Why, who’d ’a thought to see you here? I do b’lieve I han’t seen ye since the last time down at the coast. But, I say, Guy, my boy, you han’t took to drinkin’, have ye?”

“No, Captain,” said Guy, with a smile, “nothing stronger than beer, and not much of that. I merely came here to meet Bax.”

Captain Bluenose—whose name, by the way, had no reference to his nose, for that was small and red—scratched his chin and stared into vacancy, as if he were meditating.

“Why, boy,” he said at length, “seems to me as if you’d as good cause to suspec’ me of drinkin’ as I have to suspec’ you, ’cause we’re both here, d’ye see? Howsever, I’ve been cruisin’ after the same craft, an’ so we’ve met, d’ye see, an’ that’s nat’ral, so it is.”

“Well, and now you have found me, what d’ye want with me?” said Bax, finishing the bread and cheese, and applying to the gin and water.

“Shipmet, I’m goin’ home, and wants a berth a-board the ‘Nancy,’” said Bluenose.

“Couldn’t do it, Captain,” said Bax, shaking his head, “’gainst rules.”

“I’ll go as a hextra hand—a suppernummerary,” urged the Captain.

“Why, Captain,” said Guy, “is it not strange that I should have come here to make the very same request? Come, Bax, you’re a good fellow, and will take us both. I will guarantee that my uncle will not find fault with you.”

“Ah, that alters the case,” said Bax, “if you choose to take the responsibility on your own shoulders, Guy, you’re welcome to the best berth a-board the old ‘Nancy.’ D’ye know, I’ve a fondness for that old craft, though she is about as unseaworthy a schooner as sails out o’ the port of London. You see, she’s the only craft bigger than a Deal lugger that I ever had command of. She’s my first love, is the old ‘Nancy,’ and I hope we won’t have to part for many a day.”

“Quite right, young man,” said Captain Bluenose, nodding his head approvingly, and filling his pipe from a supply of tobacco he always carried in the right pocket of his capacious blue waistcoat. The Captain gazed with a look of grave solemnity in the manly countenance of the young sailor, for whom he entertained feelings of unbounded admiration. He had dandled Bax on his knee when he was a baby, had taught him to make boats and to swim and row when he became a boy, and had sailed with him many a time in the same lugger when they put off in wild storms to rescue lives or property from ships wrecked on the famous Goodwin Sands.

“Quite right, young man,” repeated the Captain, as he lighted his pipe, “your sentiments does you credit. W’en a man’s got his first love, d’ye see, an’ finds as how she’s all trim and ship-shape, and taut, and well ballasted, and all that sort o’ thing, stick to her to the last, through thick and thin. That’s wot I say, d’ye see? There’s no two ways about it, for wot’s right can’t be wrong. If it can, show me how, and then I’ll knock under, but not before.”

“Certainly not, Captain,” cried Bax, laughing, “never give in—that’s my motto.”

“There,” said Bluenose, gravely, “you’re wrong—’cause why? You’re not right, an’ w’en a man’s not right he ought always to give in.”

“But how is a fellow to know when he’s right and when he’s wrong?” asked Bax.

“Con-sideration,” said Bluenose.

“Bravo! Captain,” cried Guy, with a laugh, “if it be true that ‘brevity is the soul of wit,’ you must be the wittiest fellow on Deal beach.”

“I dun-know,” retorted the Captain, slowly, “whether it’s the soul or the body o’ wit, an’ wot’s more, I don’t care; but it’s a fact, d’ye see, that consideration’ll do it; least-wise if consideration won’t, nothin’ will. See now, here it is,”—(he became very earnest at this point),—“w’en a thing puzzles people, wot does people do? why, they begins right off to talk about it, an’ state their opinions afore they han’t got no opinions to state. P’raps they takes the puzzler up by the middle an’ talks wild about that part of it; then they give a look at the end of it, an’ mayhap they’ll come back and glance at the beginnin’, mayhap they won’t, and then they’ll tell you as grave as owls that they’ve made up their minds about it, and so nail their colours to the mast.”

At this stage in the elucidation of the knotty point, Bluenose observed that his pipe was going out, so he paused, pulled at it vigorously for a few seconds, and then resumed his discourse.

“Now, lads, wot ought you for to do w’en you’ve got hold of a puzzler? Why, you ought to sit down and consider of it, which means you should begin at the beginnin’; an’ let me tell you, it’s harder to find the beginnin’ of a puzzler than p’raps you suppose. Havin’ found the beginnin’, you should look at it well, and then go on lookin’, inch by inch, and fut by fut, till you comes to the end of it; then look it back, oncommon slow, to the beginnin’ again, after which turn it outside in, or inside out,—it don’t much matter which way,—and go it all over once more; after which cram your knuckles into yer two eyes, an’ sit for half-an-hour (or three-quarters, if it’s tremendous deep) without movin’. If that don’t do, and you ha’nt got time to try it over again, give in at once, an haul your colours down, but on no occasion wotiver nail them to the mast,—’xceptin’ always, w’en you’re cocksure that you’re right, for then, of coorse, ye can’t go far wrong.”

This little touch of philosophy convinced Bax that if he did not wish to sit there half the night, the sooner he changed the subject the better, so he called the waiter, and paid his bill, saying to his companions that it was time to go aboard if they wanted a snooze before tripping the anchor.

“What have you had, sir?” said the waiter, turning to Bluenose.

The man said this with a sneer, for he knew that the captain had taken nothing since he entered the house, and was aware, moreover, that he was a water-drinker.

“I’ve had nothin’,” replied the Captain, “nor don’t want any, thank ’ee.”

“Oh! beg pardon, sir,” the waiter bowed and retired impressively.

“The house couldn’t keep goin’ long with some customers,” stammered a rough-looking, half-tipsy fellow who had overheard these remarks.

“Might do something for the good of the house,” said another, who was equally drunk.

“Who bade you put in your oar?” cried the first speaker fiercely, for he had reached that condition of intoxication which is well known as the fighting stage. The other man was quite ready to humour him, so, almost before one could understand what had been said, a savage blow was given and returned, oaths and curses followed, and in two seconds one of the combatants had his opponent by the throat, threw him on his back, with his neck over the fender and his head thrust into the ashes.

Instantly the room was a scene of wild confusion, as some of the friends of both men endeavoured to separate them, while others roared in drunken glee to “let ’em have fair play, and fight it out.”

The result of this quarrel might have been serious had not Bax thrust the yelling crowd aside, and, exerting to the utmost the extraordinary muscular power with which he had been endowed, tore the combatants asunder by main force, and hurled them violently to opposite sides of the room.

“Shame on you; lads,” said he, “can you not drink your grog without quarrelling about nothing?”

The towering size and the indignant look of Bax, as he said this, were sufficient to quell the disturbance, although some of the more irascible spirits could not refrain from grumbling about interference, and the Yankee roundly asserted that “before he’d go into a public, and sit down and smoke his pipe without doin’ somethin’ for the good o’ the ’ouse, he’d like to see himself chawed up pretty slick, he would.”

“Waiter a-hoy!” shouted Captain Bluenose sternly, on hearing this.

“Yes-sir.”

“Bring me a tumbler o’ gin and a pot o’ cold water.”

“Tum’ler—o’—gin—sir—an’—a—por—o’—col’ wa’r, sir? Yes—sir.”

The waiter stopped suddenly and turned back.

“Mixed, sir?”

“No, not mixed, sir,” replied Bluenose, with a look and tone of withering sarcasm; “contrairywise, wery much separated.”

When the gin and water were placed on the table, the Captain quietly took up the former and cast it, glass and all, under the grate, after which he raised the pot of water to his lips, and, looking round on the company with a bland smile, said:—

“There, I’ve took somethin’ for the good of the house, and now, lads, I’ll drink to your better health and happiness in my favourite tipple, the wich I heartily recommend to you.”

Bluenose drained the pot, flung a half-crown on the table, and swaggered out of the house with his hands deep in the pockets of his rough pea-jacket.

The fact was that the worthy Captain felt aggrieved, and his spirit was somewhat ruffled at the idea of being expected to drink in a house where he had oftentimes, for years past, regaled himself with, and expended his money upon, bread and cheese and ginger-beer!

Chapter Three.

In which the Introduction of Important Personages is Continued, in Rather Exciting Circumstances.

“Where away’s the boat, lad?” said Captain Bluenose to Bax, on recovering his equanimity.

“Close at hand; mind the fluke of that anchor. The owner of this spot should be put in limbo for settin’ man-traps. Have a care of your shins, Guy; it’s difficult navigation here on a dark night.”

“All right, Bax,” replied Guy; “I’ll keep close in your wake, so if you capsize we shall at least have the comfort of foundering together.”

The place through which the three friends were groping their way was that low locality of mud and old stores, which forms the border region between land and water, and in which dwelt those rats which have been described as being frolicsome and numerous.

“Hold hard!” roared Bluenose, as he tripped over the shank of an anchor, “why don’t you set up a lighthouse, or a beacon o’ some sort on these here shoals?”

“Starboard, old boy, starboard hard, steady!” cried Bax.

With seaman-like promptitude the Captain obeyed, and thus escaped tumbling off the end of the wharf at which they had arrived.

“Nancy, a-hoy!” cried Bax in a subdued shout.

A juvenile “Ay, ay, sir!” instantly came back in reply from the dark obscurity that overhung the river. The sound of oars followed.

“Smart little fellow that nephew of yours; he’ll do you credit some day,” said Bax, turning towards Bluenose, who, although close at his side, was scarcely visible, so dark was the night.

The Captain’s rejoinder was cut short by the boy in question sending the bow of the boat crash against the wharf, an exploit which had the effect of pitching him heels over head into the bottom of it.

“Why didn’t you give us a hail, uncle?” remonstrated the boy, as he rose and rubbed his elbows.

“Good practice, my lad, it’s good practice,” replied Bluenose, chuckling, as he stepped in.

A few seconds sufficed to take them alongside of the “Nancy,” in two narrow berths of which the Captain and Guy were quickly stowed away and sound asleep, while Bax paced the deck slowly overhead, having relieved the watch and sent him below.

Just half an hour or so before dawn—that mysterious, unreal and solemn period of the night or morning—Captain Bluenose came on deck minus his coat and shoes, in order to have a look at “how things were getting on,”—as if the general operations of nature had been committed to his charge, and he were afraid lest the sun should not be able to rise without his assistance.

“Light air, west-sou’-west,” muttered the Captain as he stepped on deck, cast a glance up at the vane on the mast-head, and then swept his eye round the (imaginary) horizon.

There was not much to be seen, except the numerous lights of the shipping, and the myriad lamps of the great city, whose mighty hum of life had not yet begun to awaken. It was the deadest hour of night (if we may use the expression), although advanced towards morning. The latest of late sitters-up had gone to bed and got to sleep, and the earliest of early risers had not yet been aroused. None save night-workers and night-watchers were astir, and these did not disturb in any appreciable degree the deep quiet of the hour.

While Bax and his friend were conversing in subdued tones near the binnacle, they were startled by a piercing shriek, followed by a heavy plunge in the water, which, from the sound, appeared to be not far distant. They sprang to the bow, which was pointing down the river,—the flood-tide was running strong up at the time. On reaching it they heard a gurgling cry, not twenty yards ahead of the vessel.

“Hold on!” cried Bax to Bluenose, sharply, at the same time fastening the end of a rope round his waist with the speed of thought, and plunging over the side head-foremost. The cry and the plunge brought Guy Foster on deck instantly. He found the Captain holding on with all his might to the end of the rope, on which there seemed to be a tremendous strain.

“Take a turn round that belayin’ pin,” gasped the Captain.

Guy obeyed, and the moment his companion was relieved, he shouted, “All hands a-hoy!”

It was unnecessary. The four men who formed the crew of the “Nancy” were already springing up the fore-hatch. There was bustle among the shipping too. Lights danced about, the sound of oars was heard in various directions, and sharp eager shouts, as of men who felt that life was in danger, but knew not where to hasten in order to afford aid.

“Haul now, lads, with a will,” cried the Captain; “so, steady, avast heaving. Ah! that’s a smart lad.”

While the men were hauling on the rope, little Tommy had bounded over the side into the boat, which he quickly brought close to the rope, and, seizing it, guided his craft to the end to which Bax was fastened. He found him buffeting the strong current stoutly, and supporting a head on his shoulder in such a way that the mouth should not get below water.

“All right, Tommy,” said Bax, quietly. “Don’t get excited, my lad; lend a hand to raise her a bit out o’ the water. Now, can you hold her there for one moment?”

“Yes, if you just give me the end of that shawl in my teeth,—so.”

Tommy could say no more, for he was squeezed flat against the gunwale of the boat, with his stout little arms tight round the neck and waist of a female figure, the fingers of his left hand grasping her hair, and his legs twisted in a remarkable manner round the thwart to keep him from being dragged out of the boat, besides which his mouth was full of the shawl.

Bax at once grasped the gunwale, and moved hand over hand to the stern, where, by a powerful effort, he raised himself out of the water and sprang inboard. A few minutes more sufficed to enable him to drag the female (a young girl) into the boat, and place her in safety on the schooner’s deck.

The whole thing was done in much less time than is required to tell it. Only one of the boats that were out searching discovered the schooner, just as the female was got on board.

“All right?” inquired one of the men.

“All right—saved,” was the answer, and the boat pulled away into the obscurity of the morning mist with a cheer of congratulation. Then all was again silent, and the sluggish tide glided slowly past the dark hulls that rested on the bosom of the Thames.

On carrying the girl into the small cabin of the “Nancy” it was found that she was still in a state of insensibility. The dim light of the swinging lamp fell on her pale face, and revealed to the surprised and sympathetic beholders features of great beauty and delicate form, over which masses of dark brown hair straggled in wild confusion.

“Now, lads, clear out o’ the way,” cried Captain Bluenose, pulling off his coat energetically. “Leave this here little craft to me. I know ’xactly wot’s got to be done, d’ye see. Turn her on her face—there; never go for to put a drownded body on its back, be it man or woman. Stick that coat under her breast, and her arm under her forehead. So, now we’ll go to work.”

There is no doubt that the worthy captain understood precisely what he meant to do, and was working on a systematic plan; but what the result of his labours might have been it is impossible to say, for at that moment he was interrupted by the tread of hurried footsteps on deck, and the sudden entrance of a silvery-haired man, whose black coat, vest, and pantaloons contrasted strangely with his heavy oilskin coat and sou’-wester, and tended to puzzle the beholder as to whether he was a landsman in nautical outer garments, or a seaman clothed partly in what Jack calls “shore-going toggery.”

There was an expression of wild anxiety on the man’s face as he sprang towards the prostrate form of the girl, fell on his knees, and, seizing her hand, exclaimed, “Lucy, dearest Lucy!” He stopped suddenly as if he had been choked, and, bending his ear close to Lucy’s lips, listened for a few seconds with knitted brow and compressed lips. At that moment there was a flutter on the eyelids of the girl, and a broken sigh escaped her.

The man kneeling at her side sprang convulsively to his feet, raised his hands high above his head, and exclaimed, “O God, in Christ’s name I thank thee,” in tones so fervent, as almost to approach to a shout.

With this irrepressible cry of gratitude every trace of strong emotion appeared to vanish from the countenance and the manner of the stranger. Turning to Bluenose, who had been gazing at this scene in much surprise, not unmingled with anxiety, he said in a calm but quick voice:—

“My friend, this child is my daughter. Pray leave me alone with her for a few minutes.”

“Excuge a oldish man, sir,” said the Captain; “p’raps you’d better let me stay, ’cause why, I knows how to treat drownded—”

“Thank you, it is unnecessary,” said the stranger. “Besides, I myself am acquainted with the rules of the Humane Society. But you can aid me by getting hot blankets and warm coffee.”

“Come along, Captain,” cried Bax, seizing his friend by the arm and dragging him out of the cabin.

Guy had quitted it, followed by Tommy, the instant the old man had expressed a wish to be left alone with his child.

“There, now, you obstinate man,” cried Bax, relaxing his grasp on gaining the foot of the companion ladder; “up with you, and send Tommy to look after coffee and blankets. He knows where to get ’em. I’ll go and put on dry toggery; the best thing that you can do, is to keep out of people’s way.”

This latter piece of advice was not very agreeable to one whose heart was tender, and his desire to engage in works of active benevolence very strong. But feeling that the advice was good, and thoroughly appreciating the fact that, having shipped as a “suppernummerary hand,” he was bound to obey his young commander, he went on deck without remonstrance, walked aft to the binnacle, and began to fill his pipe.

Guy and Tommy were already there, engaged in earnest conversation. The ruddy light of the binnacle lamp streamed up in the face of the latter, and revealed his curly fair hair clustering in wild disorder over his flushed brow, as, with fire gleaming in his blue eyes, he stared up in his companion’s face and related how that Bax, in the coolest manner possible, had kept treading water with the girl in his arms, knowing quite well that not even his strength, great though it was, could enable him to pull himself by the rope to the ship against the tide, and knowing that, in a few minutes, some one would get into the boat and pick them up.

“And so some one did, and very cleverly and bravely done it was, Tommy,” said Guy, laying his hand kindly on the boy’s shoulder.

“Well, I don’t think much o’ that,” replied Tommy. “It don’t call for much courage to jump into a boat of a fine night, twist your legs round a thort, and hold on to a girl by claws and teeth till somebody comes to yer help.”

It was all very well for Tommy to disclaim credit for what he had done; but the glad triumphant expression of his face, and his firm erect gait, proved that he was very much satisfied indeed with the share he had had in that night’s adventure.

“Ah, sir,” continued the boy, “there never was a man like Bax!”

“You appear to admire him very much,” said Guy; “and from the little that I have seen of him I think you have good reason.”

“Admire him!” cried Tommy, with a look of scorn; “no, I don’t. I like him. He’s a trump!”

“Who’s a trump?” inquired Bluenose, coming up at that moment.

“Bax,” replied the boy, with the air of one who takes up an impregnable position, and defies the whole world in arms to overthrow him.

“So he is, so he is, a reg’lar trump,” said the Captain, “an’ wot’s more, there ain’t no more of them there trumps in the pack, for he’s the king of ’arts, he is. An’ you’re a trump, too, Tommy; you’re the knave of ’arts, you are, ye little beggar. Go and git blankets and hot coffee for that gal, and look sharp, my lad.”

“I have heard you speak once or twice of Bax and his exploits,” said Guy Foster, when the boy left them, “but this is the first time I have seen him perform. I did not see much of him when down on the coast last summer, but I saw enough to make me like him. Is he really the wonderful fellow that Tommy makes him out to be?”

“Wonderful?” echoed the Captain, puffing his pipe vigorously, as was his wont when a little puzzled for an expression or an idea. “No, he ain’t wonderful; that’s not the word. He’s a life-preserver, that’s wot he is. None o’ your hinflated injinrubber or cork affairs, but a reg’lar, hanimated, walkin’, self-actin’ life-preserver. Why, I’ve know’d him, off and on, since he was the length of a marline spike, d’ye see—an’ I’ve seed him save dozens, ay dozens, of lives—men, women, and children,—in lifeboats, an’ in luggers, an’ swimmin’. Why, he thinks no more o’ that wot he’s done to-night, than he does of eatin’ salt junk. He’s got a silver medal from the Royal Life-Boat Institution, an’ another from the Queen of Spain, and a gold ’un from some other king or queen, I don’t ’xactly know who—besides no end o’ thanks, written on paper, also on wot they calls wellum, in beautiful German text and small-hand;—ho! you know, nobody knows wot that feller’s been a-doin’ of all his life. If he was hung round with all the gold and silver medals he deserves to have, he’d go to the bottom—life-preserver though he is—like the sheet-anchor of a seventy-four, he would.”

“What’s that about going to the bottom?” said Bax, who came aft at the moment.

“That’s just wot you’ve got nothin’ to do with,” replied Bluenose, resuming his pipe, which, in the ardour of his discourse, he had removed from his lips, and held out at arm’s length before him.

“Well, I have not much to do with going to the bottom,” said Bax, laughing. “But where’s Tommy?—oh! here you are. Have you attended to orders?”

“Blankits, hot, just bin sent in. Coffee, hot, follers in five minits.”

“Brayvo,” ejaculated Bluenose, with an approving smile. “I wonder who the old man is?” said Guy. “He neither looks like a landsman nor a seaman, but a sort of mixture of both.”

“So he is,” said Bax. “I happen to know him, though he does not know me. He is a Scripture reader to sailors (Burton by name), and has spent many years of his life at work on the coast, in the neighbourhood of Ramsgate. I suppose he was goin’ down the coast in the vessel out of which his daughter tumbled. I didn’t know he had a daughter. By the way, she’s not a bad one to begin with, Tommy; a regular beauty,” continued Bax, with a smile. “You’ve often wondered whether the first would be a man, or a woman, or a child. The point is settled now!”

“Yes,” replied the boy, with a grave meditative look. “I suppose I may say she’s my first, for you know you could not have done it without me.”

There was something ludicrous, as well as sublime, in this little chip of humanity gravely talking of poor Lucy Burton being “his first,” as if he had just entered on a new fishing-ground, and were beginning to take account of the creatures he had the good fortune to haul out of the sea!

And in very truth, reader, this was the case. Under the training of a modest, lion-hearted British sailor, the boy was beginning to display, in unusual vigour, those daring, enthusiastic, self-sacrificing qualities which, although mingled with much that is evil, are marked characteristics of our seamen; qualities which have gone far to raise our little island to her present high position of commercial prosperity and political importance, and which, with God’s blessing, will continue to carry our flag, our merchandise, and our bibles, to the ends of the earth, and guard our shores, as in days of old, from the foot of every foreign foe. England can never fully appreciate how much she owes to her seamen. The thousands of our inland population have a very inadequate conception of the race of heroes by which our coasts are peopled. Bax is no exaggerated specimen, got up, in these sensation days, for effect. It is a glorious fact,—proved by the hard and bare statistics furnished annually by the Board of Trade, and from other sources,—that his name is legion, and that the men of whom he is a type swarm all round our coasts, from the old Ultima Thule to the Land’s End.

Yes, Tommy was in good training. He had begun well. He was evidently a chip of the elder block. It did not, indeed, occur to his young imagination to suppose that he could ever become anything in the most distant degree resembling his idol Bax. Neither did he entertain any definite idea as to what his young heart longed after; but he had seen life saved; he had stood on the sea-shore when storms cast shattered wrecks upon the sands, and had witnessed the exploits of boatmen in their brave efforts to save human life; he had known what it was to weep when the rescuer perished with those whom he sought to save, and he had helped to swell with his tiny voice, the bursting cheer of triumph, when men, women, and children were plucked, as if by miracle, from the raging sea! To take part in those deeds of heroism was the leading desire in the boy’s life; and now it seemed as if his career were commencing in earnest, and the day-dreams in which he had so long indulged were at last about to become waking realities.

Chapter Four.

In which Introductions still go on, and Coming Events Cast their Shadows Before.

Mrs Maria Foster,—the widow of James Foster (formerly captain in the merchant service), the mother of Guy Foster (clerk in the firm of Denham, Crumps, and Company), and the promoter or supporter of every good cause,—was a little woman of five-and-forty or thereabouts, with mild blue eyes, a philanthropic heart, and pale blue ribbons in her cap.

Mrs Foster may be said to have been in easy circumstances. That is to say, she had sufficient (being a thrifty and economical lady) to “make the two ends meet,” even to overlap somewhat, though not,—as a friend of ours once observed,—to tie in a handsome bow, so that she had a little to spare for charitable purposes. It must not be supposed, however, that the good lady was possessed of a small fortune. The “circumstances,” which were easy to her, would have proved remarkably uneasy to many; but she possessed the rare and tailorly quality of being able and willing to cut her coat according to her cloth. There was no deeper mystery than that in the “ease” with which we have characterised her “circumstances.”

The coast of Kent was her locality; the environs of the town of Deal, her neighbourhood; and a small—almost miniature but pretty—cottage, her habitation. The cottage stood in the middle of a little garden, close to that wide extent of waste land, lying to the north of Deal, which is known by the name of the Sandhills, and on the seaward edge of which formerly stood the pile—and now lie the remains—of Sandown Castle.

Everything in and around the cottage was remarkably neat—including its mistress, who, on the evening of the day in which her son sailed with Bax in the “Nancy,” was seated at a little table in her small parlour, summing up an account on a sheet of note-paper,—an operation which appeared to cause her much perplexity, if one might judge from her knitted brows, her deep sighs, and her frequent remarks of “it won’t do,” and “what can it be?”

These observations were apparently addressed to the cat, which sat in front of the fire, watching the tea-kettle and the buttered toast; but although the good lady was addicted to talking to her cat, in a general way, about her love for it and its state of health, we cannot suppose that she really appealed to it on such a grave subject as arithmetical calculation. If she did she got no answer from the cat—not even a sign of recognition; but she did from a bright-faced, fair-haired girl, of about eighteen, who at that moment entered the room, with a teapot in one hand, and a cream-jug in the other.

“What is it that puzzles you, mamma?” said the girl, setting down the pot and jug, and preparing to attend to the duties of the tea-table.

To this Mrs Foster replied, in an absent way, that she didn’t know, that it was quite beyond her comprehension, and that she was utterly perplexed; but that she would find it out, if she should sit all night over it. Whereupon she proceeded to state that “three and two made five, and seven made—made”—she wasn’t quite sure how much that made, until her companion told her it made twelve; which piece of information she received with an—“Oh! of course it does. Dear me, Amy, how silly I am!”—just as if she had known the fact all her life, and had only forgotten it at that moment, unaccountably, for the first time! Mrs Foster then went on to add a variety of other figures to this,—with an occasional word of assistance from Amy,—until the whole amounted to the sum of one hundred and thirty-three.

“There,” said Mrs Foster, with a pleased expression, as she put the figures down, “now how many twelves are in that—eh? let me see. Twelve times twelve are a hundred and forty,—no, that’s too much; twelve times eleven—how much is twelve times eleven?”

Mrs Foster did not ask this of Amy; no, she gazed up at the ceiling, where an uncommonly large spider was affixing its web,—with the design, no doubt, of lowering itself down to the tea-table,—and demanded the solution of the problem, apparently, from that creature.

“I think it is a hundred and thirty-two, mamma,” said Amy, pouring out the tea.

“Oh, of course, how stupid!” said Mrs Foster, who was quite struck with the obviousness of the fact—on being told it. “There now, that comes to eleven shillings and one penny, which settles the Soup Kitchen. One pound two does the Hospital for the Blind, and there’s one pound due to the Sailors’ Home. But still,” continued Mrs Foster, with a return of the perplexed expression, “that does not get me out of my difficulty.”

“Come to tea, dear,” said Amy, “and we will try to clear it up together afterwards.”

“Impossible, child. I could not eat with appetite while this is puzzling my brain. Let me see; there were fifteen pounds, apparently, spent last year, when I put it on paper, and yet here is a sovereign over,” said Mrs Foster, holding up the coin, and looking at it reproachfully, as if the blame lay with it and not with herself.

“Well, mamma,” said Amy, laughing, “but where is your difficulty?”

“Don’t you see, child? by rights I ought to give fifteen pounds away; well, my book tells me that fifteen pounds have been given, and yet here is a sovereign left over to give!”

“Then don’t give it, mamma, just put it back into your purse, and that will make the thing right, won’t it?”

“No, dear, it won’t, because, you see, the money must be right, so the book must be wrong; oh! here it is. I declare I have forgot to carry one. There, that’s right. Now, dear, we shall have tea.”

It may be necessary to explain here, that although Amy called Mrs Foster “mamma,” she was in fact not related to her at all, being only an adopted daughter. Poor Amy Russell was a child of the sea.

Two years previous to the time of which we write, she, with her father and mother, had been wrecked on the coast of Kent while returning from a long residence in New Zealand. Their vessel filled the moment she struck, and the seas buried the hull so completely that passengers and crew were obliged to take to the rigging. Here they remained all night exposed to the fury of the storm. Many of the unfortunates, unable to withstand the exposure of that terrible night, fell or were washed out of the rigging and perished. Among these were Amy’s father and mother. Amy herself was taken care of by the captain, with whom she was a great favourite, and, along with those who remained until the morning, was saved by one of the lifeboats stationed on that coast.

They had a narrow escape from drowning even after being taken into the boat, for, just as they were approaching the entrance to the harbour, where crowds of the inhabitants of the town were anxiously watching them, a tremendous sea completely filled the boat, swept away the starboard oars, and carried several of the wrecked passengers overboard, Amy being one of them. This happened close under the head of the pier. All the passengers were recovered by the lifeboat’s crew in a few seconds, with the exception of Amy, who, being exhausted by previous exposure, began to sink at once. The boatmen, in the turmoil of raging water and howling wind, did not observe this, and a cry of consternation was uttered by the people on the pier, who saw the whole thing clearly from their elevated position; but the cry was either drowned by the noise of the tempest, or not understood by the boatmen.

At that moment a tall stripling on the pier raced to the edge of it, shot like a rocket head-foremost into the sea, and in a second or two reappeared with the young girl in his arms. They were both dragged into the lifeboat, amid ringing cheers of delight and admiration.

The stripling who did this brave deed was none other than our friend Guy Foster, who chanced to be lodging with his mother in the neighbouring town at that time. Guy insisted on having Amy conveyed to his mother’s place of abode. Mrs Foster soon discovered that the poor orphan had neither relations nor friends in England, and having taken a fancy to her, adopted her as a daughter. Thus did she come to call Mrs Foster “mamma,” and to preside at the tea-table in Sandhill Cottage.

But, to return from this digression:— Mrs Foster was congratulating herself on having discovered the error in her accounts, when the door opened and a stout florid woman, of fifty or thereabouts, with a shiny red skin, presented herself and said:

“Please, ma’am, here’s a gentleman as wants to see you, and won’t go away, though I told him you was at tea, w’ich is a fact, though it had no impression whatever on him, such is his imprence, goin’ for to reflect on my character for truth, as never told a lie since I was a baby in long frocks, so I didn’t; but it’s always the way with these men that go tax-gatherin’, though I don’t know that he’s that neether, so I don’t; what shall I say, ma’am?”

Mrs Laker, having uttered the foregoing without pause or inflection of voice from beginning to end, came to an abrupt stop. Whether from want of breath or ideas it is difficult to say; perhaps from both.

“Show the gentleman in, Laker,” said Mrs Foster; “no doubt he has good reason for wishing to see me.”

Laker vanished. She was impulsive in her actions as well as in her words. She was her mistress’s factotum—her cook, housemaid, sempstress, and confidential adviser; in addition to which she was somewhat of a bore, being stubborn and opinionated, but a good and faithful servant on the whole.

The individual who was presently introduced was a bustling little old gentleman with a shining bald head and a cheerful countenance.

“Excuse my rudeness—madam—” he began, bowing low, as he advanced with a hesitating step—“this intrusion, really—”

“Do not mention it, sir, pray be seated,” said Mrs Foster; “you are welcome—surely I have met with you before?”

She put on a pair of gold spectacles as she said this, and looked earnestly at her visitor, who, having placed his hat on the floor and bowed to Amy, sat down and pulled out a bundle of papers.

“You have, madam,” replied the visitor. “My name is Summers—David Summers, ma’am, at your service. I had the pleasure of being introduced to you at a meeting in a town not far distant, where an effort was being made to raise contributions towards the establishment of a lifeboat—”

“Oh! I recollect,” cried Mrs Foster, whose sympathetic heart at once opened to the man who had made (as she had thought) such an eloquent appeal at the meeting in question; “I am delighted to see you, Mr Summers. If I mistake not, I invited you to come and see me when you should visit this part of the coast.”

“You were kind enough to do so, madam, hence my venturing to call at this hour. I quit Deal to-morrow, early, and I am anxious to re-plead my old cause with you; but indeed I know this to be unnecessary, your own sympathies being already enlisted in my favour.”

Mrs Foster assured Mr Summers that he was right, but begged of him, notwithstanding, to plead with her as if she were an enemy, in order that she might hear all he had to say on the subject, adding, that she hoped he would stay and have a cup of tea.

Hereupon Mr Summers bowed, drew in his chair, remarked to Amy that the lifeboat service was one of the most interesting and important topics of the day, and the National Lifeboat Institution one of the most valuable institutions in the kingdom, and at once launched into his favourite theme with all the gusto of an enthusiast who has gained the ear of a sympathetic audience.

We will, however, spare the reader the details and statistics which afforded so much pleasure to Mrs Foster and her adopted daughter, knowing full well that there is an immense difference between these when set down in hard type, and when poured forth in rich energetic tones, backed by twinkling eyes and a beaming countenance.

“Do you really mean to tell me, Mr Summers,” said Mrs Foster—when the old gentleman came to the end of a long statement, “that about a thousand ships are wrecked, and nearly a thousand lives lost, besides more than a million pounds worth of property, on the shores of this country every year?”

“It is a sad but incontrovertible fact,” replied Mr Summers. “Official lists are drawn up annually by the Board of Trade, which give the number and positions of wrecks—cold dry lists they are too. Matter-of-fact columns and figures, without a touch of softness about them. They are not meant to appeal to the feelings; they are a mere record of facts. So many vessels went ashore in such and such a gale—they were sunk, dismasted, dashed to pieces. So many persons were saved, so many drowned,—that is all. Ah! who can picture to himself the awful realities that are condensed in those brief accounts?

“When a magnificent steamer, after a fine voyage from the antipodes, comes within hail of port, is caught in a fearful hurricane, cast ashore and dashed to pieces, leaving hundreds of passengers, men, women, and children, to perish in the dark night, grasping the very rocks of their native land, the event is too awful to escape notice. So numerous are the crushed and broken hearts in the land, that their cry awakens public attention, and the newspapers teem for a time with graphic details of the wreck; details which, graphic though they be, fall inconceivably short of the dread reality; but no notice is taken, except in the way of brief record, of the dozens of small coasting vessels that shared the fate of that steamer in the same terrific gale. No one reads the fate of yonder little schooner, one mast of which is seen just peeping out of the sea under that frowning cliff, and yet there is a terrible tale connected with it. Who shall tell or conceive of the agonies endured, before the morning light came, by the skipper and his crew of four men and a boy, as their little ship was lifted and flung upon the rocks by each succeeding wave? And who can conceive their feelings when the longed for light did come at last, and daring fishermen on the shore sought to render aid in vain, for their boats were overturned and cast back upon the beach, and themselves barely escaped with their lives, and so the perishing men stood in helpless misery and gazed landward in despair until a mighty wave carried away the mast to which they clung, and, with a last wild shriek they sank in sight of friends and home, because there was no lifeboat there.”

“Can this be true?” said Mrs Foster, in a tone of deep sympathy.

“True!” echoed Mr Summers, “would God that it were not. I have mentioned but one case, yet it is a fact that for every gale that blows dozens of wrecks take place on our coasts, each with its more or less tragic history. You remember the last gale? It is not three weeks since it blew. No fewer than one hundred and ninety-five wrecks took place on the shores of the United Kingdom on that night and the following day, and six hundred and eighty-four lives were lost, many of which would undoubtedly have been saved had there been a sufficient number of lifeboats stationed along our shores; for you must bear in remembrance, that although hundreds of lives are annually saved by ordinary shore boats, and by ships’ boats, hundreds also are saved by lifeboats in circumstances in which ordinary boats would be utterly useless.

“Here is a newspaper paragraph,” continued the old gentleman, unfolding a paper and preparing to read, “which shows the brief way in which the public prints at times notice events of the most stirring and heroic nature:— ‘On the morning of the 3rd December last, after a stormy and rainy night, the wind shifted to the North West and blew a hurricane. Many vessels got on shore near Holyhead, from various causes. The lifeboat of the National Lifeboat Institution was launched and proceeded to their assistance. She got ahead of one, a schooner, and anchored, but the intense violence of the wind blew her to leeward, anchor and all, and she was unable to communicate, and had great difficulty in returning ashore. She again put off to the schooner Elizabeth of Whitehaven, which had a signal of distress flying, having parted one chain, and brought her crew of four men on shore. The hurricane continued unabated well into the night. The weather having moderated, the lifeboat was despatched at 2 a.m., and brought on shore twenty-three men from the Confiance of Liverpool; then again put off and brought ashore nineteen men from the barque Elizabeth Morrow of Glasgow; next proceeded to the schooner L’Espérance of Nantes, and saved two men, making altogether a total of forty-eight lives saved by the lifeboat in this hurricane only.’

“Dear madam,” observed Mr Summers, looking at Mrs Foster over his spectacles, “surely it is unnecessary for me to point out that this brief narrative does not give us the most distant conception of the terrors, the endurance, the heroism, incident to that night! Permit me to read you another paragraph. It is given more in detail and does better justice to the scene.”

The old gentleman selected another paper, opened it, and read as follows:—

“‘The sum of 9 pounds has recently been given by the National Lifeboat Institution to a boat’s crew, in appreciation of their gallant conduct in putting off in a salmon-coble, during a heavy gale of wind, and rescuing, at great risk of life, the crew of four men of the schooner Thankful of Sunderland, which was totally wrecked off Burghead, n.b., on the 19th July. Every moment the position of the ship was becoming more dangerous as the advancing tide drove her in among the small rocks at the back of the sea-wall, and no boat could live in the terrible surge that was fast breaking up the vessel. The crew, four in number, along with the pilot, took to the fore-rigging, and in a short time the beach was strewn with pieces of the wreck—the bulwarks were nearly all destroyed—the boat washed overboard—and the deck broken up. Though only forty yards from the pier, not the least assistance could be rendered to the crew, whose faces were quite distinguishable as they clung to the swaying rigging. At twenty minutes past six the fore-mast cracked, and its living freight had hardly time to crawl down to the only bulwark above water (for the schooner now lay on her beam-ends with her bilge towards the sea), when it fell by the board. In about five minutes more the main-topmast was snapped by the gale as if it had been a reed, while the bowsprit and other gear were carried away, leaving nothing but the gutted hull with the mainmast standing. Another hour of awful suspense passed, during which the five men lashed themselves to the bulwark, the sea every other minute breaking over their heads in huge masses. At half-past seven, one of the sailors, a young man, was washed from the wreck, but fortunately succeeded in catching the floating rigging, by which he was able to regain his former position. Another young heroic sailor seemed to be the life of the whole company in this trying emergency, and his efforts to keep up the spirits of his companions were signally successful. About eight o’clock the waves broke over the ship with renewed violence, but still those on the shore could return no answer in the affirmative to the piercing cry that came from the wreck, “Can’t we get a boat?” The voice was that of the gallant sailor already referred to; the others were too much exhausted to utter a word. McIntosh, the pilot from Burghead, expired from sheer cold and exhaustion. None who saw him perish soon forgot the fearful agony of his daughter as she bade her father farewell from the parapet of the breakwater. After renewed efforts a boat was got over the breakwater, and at great risk succeeded in saving the other men, who were in a very exhausted condition.’

“And now, dear madam,” pursued the old gentleman, tying up his papers, “I will not run the risk of wearying you with more details, but come to the point at once by soliciting from you a contribution towards the establishment of a lifeboat on the coast here, where I am sure you must be well aware there is very great need for one.”

“I am sure there is,” said Mrs Foster, opening her box; “alas! I fear the wind is rising even now. The rattling of the window-frames will bring what you have told me to remembrance ever after this night. How much does it require to establish a lifeboat?”

“Between five and six hundred pounds,” replied Mr Summers. “After which about twenty pounds annually will suffice to maintain it in working order.”

“So much!” exclaimed Mrs Foster. “I fear that you will find it difficult to raise so large a sum.”

“I trust not, but if we raise a pretty large proportion of it, the Lifeboat Institution will make up the balance. Perhaps”—here the old gentleman paused and looked dubiously at Mrs Foster—“perhaps you would like to know the precise nature of the objects for which the Lifeboat Institution has been founded. Will you do me the favour to listen for five minutes longer? The operations of the Institution are of deep importance to the national welfare.”

Mrs Foster at once expressed her willingness to listen, and the old gentleman, re-opening his bundle of papers, selected one from which he read sundry interesting details regarding the National Lifeboat Institution.

It need scarcely be said, that with such a sympathetic mind to address as that of Mrs Foster, Mr Summers prolonged his visit for another hour, and it is perhaps equally unnecessary to say that the worthy lady found a suitable object on which to bestow the sovereign which had perplexed her so much at an earlier part of the evening. She not only gave the money with the air of a “cheerful giver,” but she begged Mr Summers to send her as many papers on the subject of lifeboats and wrecks as he happened to be possessed of, and promised to become an active agent in pleading with her friends in behalf of the object he had in view.

The wind was rising while the party in Sandhill Cottage were thus engaged. It came in ominous and heavy gusts, rattling the window-frames and moaning in the chimneys to such an extent that Mrs Laker, who was of a timid and superstitious nature, was fain to sit outside the parlour door in order to be near the other inmates of the cottage.

“About a thousand lives lost in each year on the shores of this kingdom!” thought Mrs Foster, as she lay in bed that night listening to the rising storm with feelings of awe and solemnity which she had never before experienced.

If Mrs Foster had been acquainted with the subject in detail, she might have had further food for solemn reflection in the fact that the greater part of those lives were lost unnecessarily; that their loss was owing not nearly so much to the direct providence of God as to the incompetence, the ignorance, the false economy, and the culpable carelessness of man.

Mrs Foster’s head lay on a soft pillow while the tempest raged around her humble dwelling. She little thought that one around whom her heart-strings were entwined was out on the wild sea that night, exposed to its utmost fury and in urgent need of the aid of that species of boat which had filled her thoughts that evening, and still continued to influence her dreams.

Chapter Five.

The Gale—False Economy and its Results—A Wreck on the Goodwin Sands.

What seamen style a “whole gale” seemed to be brewing when the “Nancy” tripped her anchor and shook out her sails.

Sailors have a quiet, matter-of-fact, and professional way of talking about the weather. Landsmen would be surprised (perhaps something more!) if exposed to what Jack calls a stiff breeze, or a capful of wind. A “whole gale” may sound peculiar to some ears, but if the said gale were to sound in the same ears, the hearers would be apt to style it, in consternation, “a most tremendous hurricane!”

On board the “Nancy,” Bax and Bluenose had some suspicion that something was brewing, but whether a “whole gale,” or “half a gale,” or a “stiff breeze,” they could not be expected to divine, not being possessed of supernatural gifts.

Had they been possessed of a good barometer they would have been able to foretell what was coming without supernatural gifts; but Messrs Denham, Crumps, and Company were economical in their tendencies, and deemed barometers superfluous. Being, to some extent, ignorant of nautical affairs (as well as of scientific), and being to a large extent indifferent to the warning voices of those who knew better, they thought fit to intrust the “Nancy” to the unaided wisdom of the intelligent young seaman who commanded her.

Of course, being acute men of business, they took every “needful” precaution, and being men of experience, they were not blind to the fact that many vessels were annually lost; they therefore insured schooner and cargo to their full value. Having done so, Messrs Denham, Crumps, and Company felt at ease. If the “Nancy” should happen to go down—no matter; it would perhaps be a more rapid and satisfactory way of terminating a doubtful venture! It was just possible that in the event of the “Nancy” going down lives might be lost, and other lives rendered desolate. What then? The “Firm” had nothing to do with that! The lives embarked in the “Nancy” did not belong to Denham, Crumps, and Company. If they should go to the bottom, there would be nothing to lose, and nothing to pay; perhaps a trifle to the widows and children, that was all! In regard to this also they felt quite at ease.

On the strength of such views and opinions the tackling of the “Nancy” was allowed to become rotten; the cables and the anchors of the “Nancy” were economically weak and insufficient; the charts of the “Nancy” were old and inaccurate, and the “Nancy” herself was in all respects utterly unseaworthy.

It could scarcely be expected, however, that the operations of Nature were to be suspended because of the unprepared condition of this vessel; not to mention hundreds of others in similar condition. The gale continued to “brew.” A stiff breeze carried the “Nancy” down the Thames towards the open sea; then a sudden calm left her to float without progressive motion on the water. As evening approached the breeze sprang up again and freshened. Then it chopped round to the east, and when night fell it began to blow hard right in the teeth of the little vessel.

Bax was a good and a bold seaman. He knew the coast well, and hoped, in due course, to double the North Foreland, and find shelter in the Downs. He knew the channels and buoys thoroughly, and had often run the same course in stormy weather. But the gale which now began to buffet the little schooner was of more than ordinary violence. It was one of those fierce hurricanes which, once in a year, or, it may be, once in three or four years, bursts upon our island, strews the coast with wrecks, fills many homes and hearts with desolation, and awakens the inhabitants of the inland counties to a slight sense of the terrible scenes that are of constant occurrence on the shores which form the bulwark of their peaceful homes.

“We shall have rough weather to-night, I fear,” observed Mr Burton, coming on deck some time after sunset, and addressing Bax; “doubtless you know the channels well, young sir?”

“I do,” replied the sailor, with a peculiar smile. “Twelve years’ experience has not been altogether thrown away on me. I have sailed these waters in old Jeph’s lugger since I was a little boy.”

“Is that old Jeph the smuggler, sometimes called the mad philosopher, from the circumstance of his mind being much taken up with odd notions about lifeboats?” inquired the missionary.

“The same,” replied Bax, “though I’ll go bound for it there’s not an honester man in Deal than old Jeph is now, whatever he may have done in the smuggling way when he was young. I have known him only as a good old man; and in regard to these same notions he has about lifeboats, it’s my firm belief that we’ll see his plans, or something like them, carried out before long. He’s not so mad as folk think, and certainly not half so mad as the people who give no thought whatever to these subjects.”

Bax said this warmly, for there was a strong bond of sympathy between him and his old friend, whom he could not bear to hear mentioned in a slighting manner.

“I meant not to say a word against old Jeph,” replied Mr Burton, quickly. “I merely spoke of him in the way in which seamen in these parts commonly refer to him. It pleases me much to hear so good a character of him from one who, I have no doubt, has had good opportunity of judging.”

Here Guy Foster, who was standing near the binnacle, turned round and said earnestly:—

“I can testify to the fact that old Jeph is a good Christian man; at least if love to our Saviour, and anxiety for the salvation of souls, is to be accepted as evidence.”

The missionary said that there was no better evidence than that, and was about to question Bax further in regard to the old man who bore such a peculiar character, when a loud peal of thunder drew the attention of all to the threatening aspect of the weather.

“Heave the lead, Bill!” cried Bax to one of the men.

“Ha! that’s wot I’ve been lookin’ for,” observed Bluenose, spitting his quid over the lee bulwarks, and replacing it with a fresh one. “I’ve never got no confidence in a skipper as don’t keep his lead a-goin’ in shoal water. Specially in sich waters as them ’ere, wot shifts more or less with every gale.”

The command to heave the lead was followed by an order to reduce sail, and as the gale freshened and the night closed in, this order was repeated more than once, until the schooner was beating to windward under the smallest possible amount of canvas.

An anxious expression rested on Bax’s face as he stood by the steersman, glancing alternately at the sails and at the horizon where clouds of the blackest kind were gathering.

“Does your barometer indicate very bad weather?” inquired Mr Burton.

“I have no barometer,” replied Bax, bitterly.

The missionary looked surprised, and Guy Foster bit his lip, for he felt that this piece of false economy was a blot on the firm to which he belonged. In order to change the subject, he inquired for Lucy, who, since the time of her rescue, had remained in bed.

“My daughter does well, thanks be to God!” said Burton. “I think that no evil will flow from her accident, for she was but a short time in the water; thanks to you, friend Bax.”

“And to my ’prentice, Tommy Bogey,” said Bax, with an arch smile which was peculiar to him when he felt humorously disposed.

The smile fled, however, and was replaced by an anxious look, as Tommy himself came aft and reported that the schooner had sprung a leak.

Bax instantly went below, and returned with the assurance that the leak was trifling.

“The ‘Nancy’ is a sorry old hulk,” said he, “but half an hour more on this tack, and I’ll ’bout ship and run for the Downs, where we will be comparatively safe.”

The gale had by this time increased so much that the little craft lay over with her lee bulwarks almost under water at times.

Little fear would her gallant commander have felt had she been tight, and trim and sound; but he knew that her rigging was old, and one of her masts unsound, and he felt that the best seamanship could be of no avail whatever against her numerous defects. His experienced eye told him that a storm of no ordinary severity was coming, and he trembled for the life of the young girl who had been so unexpectedly placed under his care.

Had the dangers attendant upon an unseaworthy vessel and the difficulty of navigating the channels of these celebrated Sands, been all that Bax had to fear, he would have felt comparatively at ease; but the economical spirit of Denham, Crumps, and Company had supplied him with anchors and chains which he feared were neither new enough nor sufficiently powerful to hold his vessel after she had gained her anchorage-ground. In these circumstances, he resolved to run for the shelter of Ramsgate Harbour.

Before he could carry out his intentions the wind chopped round to the north, and for some time blew so hard as to threaten the capsizing of the schooner. The cross sea also rendered her almost unmanageable, so that, ere long, she was driven to leeward of the outer lightship that marks the north end of the Goodwins.

Again the wind shifted a few points to the eastward, and soon the “Nancy” was flying like a racehorse towards the shore.

Pilots and seamen alone can properly comprehend the peculiar dangers that attend the navigation of this part of our coast. It would only perplex a landsman to be told in detail the proceedings of the “Nancy” and her crew after this point. Suffice it to say that Bax handled her with consummate skill, and did all that man could do for the safety of his vessel, and the human lives that were dependent on his knowledge and care.

“Is your daughter dressed?” inquired Bax of Mr Burton, as a fiercer gust than usual nearly laid the schooner on her beam-ends, and deluged the decks with water.

“No, she sleeps soundly, and I am loth to disturb her. Do you think we are in much danger?”

“In none, if the schooner were seaworthy, but in much, seeing that she has not got a sound plank or spar. Go down, sir, and get her dressed at once; and, harkee, let her put on every wrap she happens to have with her.”

The missionary needed no second bidding. He went below to rouse and assist Lucy, while Bluenose, Guy, and the rest of those on board, held on to ropes, and belaying pins, and awaited the result in silence. The noise of the wind, and the peals of thunder that seemed to tear the heavens asunder, rendered conversation impossible. They all felt that a few minutes would decide whether this terrible rush landward would terminate in safety or disaster, and they knew that everything, as far as human skill had to do with it, depended on Bax.

With a look of calm, sober gravity the young seaman stood grasping the weather-shrouds of the mainmast, and looking intently towards the light-ship called the Gull Light, which is anchored off the North-sand-head.

During this period of suspense the lead was kept constantly going, and reported almost every half-minute. Precious, significant, half-minutes those, as much so as are the last few grains of sand in the hour-glass!

“Keep her away two points,” cried Bax.

“Ay, ay, sir,” answered the steersman. At that moment a violent gust snapped the topsail-yard, and the sail was instantly blown to ribbons. The dashing of this spar about carried away the foretop-mast, and almost as a necessary consequence, the jib with the jib-boom went along with it.

The schooner instantly became unmanageable, and was driven bodily to leeward.

Seizing an axe, Bax, with the prompt assistance of the crew and his friends, soon cleared away the wreck, and once more got the head of his vessel round towards the Gull Light, the lanterns of which were seen faintly gleaming through the murky atmosphere. But it was too late. The breakers of the North-sand-head were already roaring under their lee, and also right ahead of them.

“Port! port! hard a-port!” shouted Bax.

“Port it is,” replied the steersman, with that calm professional sing-song tone peculiar to seamen.

At that instant, the schooner struck the sand, passed over the first line of breakers, and rushed onwards to certain destruction.

“Bring Lucy on deck,” cried Bax.

Mr Burton ran below to obey, but the words had scarce been spoken when Guy Foster entered the cabin, and seizing the trembling girl in his arms, bore her gently but swiftly to the deck.

Here the scene that met her gaze was truly awful. It seemed as if above and below there were but one wild chaos of waters over which brooded a sky of ebony. The schooner had by this time got into the hideous turmoil of shallow water, the lurid whiteness of which gleamed in the dark like unearthly light. As yet the vessel was rushing fiercely through it, the rudder had been carried away by the first shock, and she could not be steered. Just as Lucy was placed by Bax in a position of comparative shelter under the lee of the quarter-rails, the “Nancy” struck a second time with fearful violence; she remained hard and fast on the sands, and the shock sent her foremast overboard.

If the condition of the little vessel was terrible before, its position now was beyond description awful. The mad seas, unable to hurl her onward, broke against her sides with indescribable fury, and poured tons of water on the deck; so that no one could remain on it. Having foreseen this, Bax had prepared for it. He had warned all on board to keep close by the main shrouds, and take to the mast when the schooner should strike. He himself bore Lucy aloft in his strong arms as if she had been a little child, and placed her on the main cross-trees. Here she clung with a convulsive grasp to the main-topmast, while Guy secured her in her position with a rope.

Sitting down on the cross-trees and holding on to them by his legs—a matter of no little difficulty, as the vessel was rolling violently from side to side, Bax began to strip off his thick pilot-coat, intending to cover the girl with it. But he was arrested by the boy Tommy Bogey.

“Hold on,” he shouted into his commander’s ear, “I fetched up this un; I know’d ye’d want it for ’er.”

Tommy had thoughtfully carried up one of Bax’s spare coats, and now handed it to his master, who, assisted by Mr Burton, wrapped it carefully round Lucy, and then descended the rigging to examine the state of the vessel.

She heeled very much over to leeward, but the form of the bank on which she lay fortunately prevented her being thrown altogether on her beam-ends. Had this happened, the cross-trees would have been buried in water, and all must have perished.

When Bax re-ascended the mast, Bluenose put his mouth close to his ear and shouted:

“Couldn’t ye send up a rocket?”

“Han’t got any,” replied Bax.

There had been a signal-gun aboard, but at the first shock it tore its fastenings out of the old planks, and went crashing through the lee bulwarks into the sea.

“Couldn’t we get up a glim no-how?” pursued Bluenose. “Ay, couldn’t that be done?” cried Guy, who clambered towards them in order to take part in the consultation, for the shrieking of the storm rendered every voice inaudible at the distance of anything more than an inch or two from the ear.

“The matches were in the cabin, and that’s flooded now,” said Bax.

Guy replied by taking a tin box from his pocket, in which were a few matches.

“Ha! that’ll do,” cried Bax eagerly, “there’s a can of turpentine just under the fore-hatch, which can’t have been damaged by water. I’ll go and fetch it.”

“Stay, I will go. Do you look after Lucy and her father,” said Guy; and, without waiting for a reply, he slid down one of the back-stays and gained the deck.

To traverse this was an act involving great danger and difficulty. The waves broke over it with such force that Guy’s arms were nearly torn out of their sockets while he held to the bulwarks. He attained his object, however, and in a short time returned to the cross-trees with the can. Bax had in the meantime cut off some of the drier portions of his clothing. These, with a piece of untwisted rope, were soaked in turpentine, and converted hastily into a rude torch; but it was long before a light could be got in such a storm. The matches were nearly exhausted before this was accomplished. Only those who have been in similar circumstances can adequately appreciate the intense earnestness with which each match was struck, the care with which it was guarded from the wind, and the eager anxiety with which the result was watched; also the sinking of heart that followed each effort, as, one by one, they flared for an instant and went out!

At last the saturated mass caught fire, and instantly a rich flame of light flashed over the wild scene, and clearly revealed to them the appalling circumstances in which they were placed. Poor Lucy shuddered, and covering her eyes cast herself in prayer on Him who is “mighty to save.” Bax raised the burning mass high over his head, and waved it in the black air. He even clambered to the top of the broken mast, in order to let it be seen far and wide over the watery waste. The inflammable turpentine refused to be quenched by the raging storm, and in a few seconds they had the comfort of seeing the bright flame of a rocket shoot up into the sky. At the same moment a flash in the distance showed that their signal had been observed by the light-ship.

The sound of the gun was not heard by those on the wreck, but both it and the rocket were observed from the shore, where many a hardy seaman and pilot, knowing full well the dangers of such a night, kept watch and ward in order to render prompt assistance to their fellow-men in distress.

It would be a matter of some interest to ascertain how many of the inhabitants of this busy, thickly-populated isle are aware of the fact that during every storm that blows, while they are slumbering, perchance, in security and comfort in their substantial dwellings, there are hundreds, ay, thousands, of hardy seamen all round our coasts, standing patiently in such sheltered spots as they can find, encased in oilskin, and gazing anxiously out into the dark sea, regardless of the pelting storm, indifferent to the bitter cold, intent only on rendering aid to their fellow-men, and ready at a moment’s notice to place life and limb in the most imminent jeopardy,—for what? Can any one suppose that they do this for the sake of the silver medal, or the ten or twenty shillings awarded to those who thus act by the Lifeboat Institution? Do men in other circumstances hold their lives so cheap? Assuredly there is a higher, a nobler motive that prompts the heroes of our coast to their deeds of self-sacrifice and daring.

To those who clung to the main-top of the “Nancy” these signals were a bright gleam of hope, with the exception of Lucy, whose spirit sank when she endeavoured in vain to penetrate the thick darkness that followed. Suspecting this, Bluenose, who clung to the cross-trees beside the missionary, and assisted him to shelter his daughter from the storm, shouted in her ear to keep her mind easy, “for the people on shore would be sure to send off the lifeboat, and there would be no danger if the mast held on!”

“If the mast held on!” Ha! little did Lucy know how much anxiety filled the heart of Bax in regard to the mast holding on! With much difficulty he had persuaded Denham, Crumps, and Company, about a year before the events we are now relating, that the mainmast of the “Nancy” was utterly useless, and obtained their unwilling consent to have it renewed. But for this it would have shared the fate of the foremast, and those who now clung to it would have been in eternity. But although the mast was strong, its step and holdfasts, Bax knew, were the reverse of sound; and while he stood there cheering his companions with hopeful remarks, he alone knew how frail was the foundation on which his hopes were founded.

Fortunately for Lucy and her father, they looked to a higher source of comfort than the young skipper of the “Nancy.” They knew that it was no uncommon thing for men, women, and children to be saved, on the coasts of Britain, “as if by miracle,” and they felt themselves to be in the hands of Him “whom the winds and the sea obey.”

Guy held on to the weather-shrouds close to Bax. Speaking so as not to be heard by the others, he said:

“Is there much chance of a boat putting off to us?”

“Not much,” replied Bax. “A lugger could scarcely live in such a sea. Certainly it could not come near us in this shoal water. I doubt even if the lifeboat could come here.”

For two hours after this they remained silently in their exposed position, their limbs stiffening with cold, drenched continually with spray, and occasionally overwhelmed by the crest of a monstrous wave. Sometimes a rocket from the lightship shot athwart the dark sky, and at all times her lights gleamed like faint stars far away to windward. When the sea broke around them in whiter sheets than usual, they could see the head of the broken foremast drawn against it like a black line to leeward. Everything else above and below, was thick darkness.

One of the seamen, who had been for some time in bad health, was the first to give way. Without uttering a word he loosened his hold of the shrouds and fell backwards. Guy saw him falling, and, making a desperate grasp at him, caught him by the breast of his shirt, but the garment gave way, and next moment he was down in the boiling flood. Guy, with an impulse that was natural to him, was about to leap off to his rescue, but Bluenose caught him by the collar and held him forcibly back. In another moment the man was gone for ever.

So silently did all this pass, and so furious was the tumult of the storm, that Lucy and her father were not aware of what had occurred.

Our brave little friend Tommy Bogey was the next who failed. Whether it was that witnessing the seaman’s death had too powerful an effect on his spirit, or that the cold acted more severely on his young muscles than on those of his companions, it is impossible to say, but, soon after the loss of the man, the boy felt his strength giving way. Turning with instinctive trust to his friend in this extremity, he shouted:—

“Bax, give us a hand!”

Before his friend could do so, his grasp relaxed and he fell back with a piercing shriek that rose above even the howling wind.

Almost an instant after he struck the water, Bax dived head-foremost into it, and came up with him in his arms. Both man and boy went to leeward instantly. The former had counted on this. The fate of the seaman who had just perished had led him to reflect that a vigorous effort might have enabled him to gain the stump of the fore-mast, which still stood, as we have said, to leeward of the main-mast. Acting on this thought, he had plunged without hesitation when the moment for action came, although it did come unexpectedly.

A faint shout soon told his horror-stricken companions that he had gained the point of safety.

“It won’t do to leave ’em there,” cried Bluenose, starting up, and clambering as far out on the cross-trees as he dared venture; “even if the mast holds on, them seas would soon wash away the stoutest man living.”

“Oh! save my preserver!” cried Lucy, who, regardless of the storm, had sprung wildly up, and now stood clinging to a single rope, while her garments were almost torn from her limbs by the fury of the hurricane.

“Can nothing be done to save them?” cried the missionary as he kindly but firmly dragged his daughter back to her former position.

“Nothin’, sir,” said one of the sailors. “There ain’t a cask, nor nothin’ to tie a rope to an’ heave to wind’ard—an’ it’s as like as not it wouldn’t fetch ’em if there wos. They’d never see a rope if it wos veered to ’em—moreover, it wouldn’t float. Hallo! Master Guy, wot are ye up to?”

Guy had hauled in the slack of one of the numerous ropes attached to the main-mast that were floating away to leeward, and was fastening the end of it round his waist. Bluenose and the missionary turned quickly on hearing the seaman’s shout, but they were too late to prevent the bold youth from carrying out his design, even if they had wished to do so.

Taking a vigorous spring to windward, Guy was in the sea in a moment. In another instant he was lost to view in darkness. Bluenose seized the end of the rope, and awaited the result in breathless suspense. Presently a shout so faint that it seemed miles away, was heard to leeward, and the rope was jerked violently.

“Now lads, all hands a-hoy!” cried Bluenose in wild excitement. “Just give ’em time to haul in the slack, and tie it round ’em, and then pull with a will.”

The incident and the energy of the Captain seemed to act like a spell on the men who had up to this time clung to the shrouds in a state of half-stupor. They clustered round Bluenose, and each gaining the best footing possible in the circumstances, seized hold of the rope.

Again the rope was shaken violently, and a heavy strain was felt on it. The men pulled it in with difficulty, hand over hand, and in a short time Bax, Guy, and Tommy were once more safe in their former position on the cross-trees.

Terrible indeed their danger, when such a position could be spoken of as one of safety!

Another hour passed away. To those who were out on that fatal night the minutes seemed hours—the hours days.

Still no succour came to them. The storm instead of abating seemed to be on the increase. Had it not been for the peculiar form of the shoal on which they lay, the old vessel must have been dashed to pieces in the first hour of that terrible gale.

Gradually Bax ceased to raise his encouraging voice—indeed the whistling wind would have rendered it inaudible—and the party on the cross-trees clung to their frail spar almost in despair. As the gale increased so did the danger of their position. No chance of deliverance seemed left to them; no prospect of escape from their dreadful fate; the only ray of hope that came to them fitfully through the driving storm, was the faint gleaming of the lightship that guards the Goodwin Sands.

Chapter Six.

Heroes of the Kentish Coast—The Lifeboat—The Rescue.

Deal beach is peculiar in more respects than one. There are a variety of contradictory appearances about it which somewhat puzzle a visitor, especially if he be accustomed to sea-coast towns and villages in other parts of the country.

For one thing, all the boats seem hopelessly high and dry on the beach, without the chance, and apparently without any intention, of ever being got off again. Then there is, at certain seasons of the year, nothing whatever doing. Great hard-fisted fellows, with nautical garments and bronzed faces, are seen lounging about with their hands in their pockets, and with a heavy slowness in their gait, which seems to imply that they are elephantine creatures, fit only to be looked at and wondered at as monuments of strength and laziness.

If the day happens to be fine and calm when the stranger visits the beach, he will probably be impressed with the idea that here is an accumulation of splendid sea-going matériel, which has somehow got hopelessly stranded and become useless.

Of course, in the height of summer, there will be found bustle enough among the visitants to distract attention from the fact to which I allude; but in spring, before these migratory individuals arrive, there is marvellously little doing on Deal beach in fine weather. The pilots and boatmen lounge about, apparently amusing themselves with pipes and telescopes; they appear to have no object in life but to kill time; they seem a set of idle hulking fellows;—nevertheless, I should say, speaking roughly, that at least the half of these men are heroes!

The sturdy oak, in fine weather, bends only its topmost branches to the light wind, and its leaves and twigs alone are troubled by the summer breeze; but when the gale lays low the trees of the forest and whirls the leaves about like ocean spray, then the oak is stirred to wild action; tosses its gnarled limbs in the air, and moves the very earth on which it stands. So the heroes on Deal beach are sluggish and quiescent while the sun shines and the butterflies are abroad; but let the storm burst upon the sea; let the waves hiss and thunder on that steep pebbly shore; let the breakers gleam on the horizon just over the fatal Goodwin Sands, or let the night descend in horrid blackness, and shroud beach and breakers alike from mortal view, then the man of Deal bestirs his powerful frame, girds up his active loins, and claps on his sou’-wester; launches his huge boat that seemed before so hopelessly high and dry; hauls off through the raging breakers, and speeds forth on his errand of mercy over the black and stormy sea with as much hearty satisfaction as if he were hasting to his bridal, instead of, as is too often the case, to his doom.

Near the north end of Deal beach, not very far from the ruins of Sandown Castle, there stood an upturned boat, which served its owner as a hut or shelter whence he could sit and scan the sea. This hut or hovel was a roomy and snug enough place even in rough weather, and although intended chiefly as a place of out-look, it nevertheless had sundry conveniences which made it little short of a veritable habitation. Among these were a small stove and a swinging oil lamp which, when lighted, filled the interior with a ruddy glow that quite warmed one to look at. A low door at one end of the hovel faced the sea, and there was a small square hole or window beside it, through which the end of a telescope generally protruded, for the owners of the hovel spent most of their idle time in taking observations of the sea. There was a bench on either side of the hut which was lumbered with a confused mass of spars, sails, sou’westers, oil-skin coats and trousers; buoys, sea-chests, rudders, tar-barrels, and telescopes.

This hovel belonged jointly to old Jeph and Captain Bluenose. Bax had shared it with them before he was appointed to the command of the “Nancy.” In the olden time the owners of these nautical huts dwelt in them, hence the name of “hoveller” which is used at the present day. But with the progress of civilisation the hovellers have come to reside in cottages, and only regard the hovels as their places of business. Hovellers, as a class, do little else than go off to ships in distress and to wrecks; in which dangerous occupation they are successful in annually saving much property and many human lives. Their livelihood from salvage, as may be supposed, is very precarious. Sometimes they are “flush of cash,” at other times reduced to a low enough ebb. In such circumstances it almost invariably follows that men are improvident.

Not many years ago the hovellers were notorious smugglers. Many a bold deed and wild reckless venture was made on Deal beach in days of old by these fellows, in their efforts to supply the country with French lace, and brandy, and tobacco, at a low price! Most of the old houses in Deal are full of mysterious cellars, and invisible places of concealment in walls, and beams, and chimneys; showing the extent to which contraband trade was carried on in the days of our fathers. Rumour says that there is a considerable amount of business done in that way even in our own days; but everybody knows what a story-teller Rumour is.

The only thing that gives any colour to the report is the fact that there is still a pretty strong coast-guard force in that region; and one may observe that whenever a boat comes to the beach a stout fellow in the costume of a man-of-war’s man, goes up to it and pries into all its holes and corners, pulling about the ballast-bags and examining the same in a cool matter-of-course manner that must be extremely irritating, one would imagine, to the owner of the boat!

At night, too, if one chances to saunter along Deal beach by moonlight, he will be sure to meet, ere long, with a portly personage of enormous breadth, enveloped in many and heavy garments, with a brace of pistols sticking out of his breast pockets, and a short cutlass by his side. But whatever these sights and symptoms may imply, there can be no question that smuggling now is not, by any means, what it was thirty or forty years ago.

On the night of the storm, described in the last chapter, the only individual in old Jeph’s hovel was old Jeph himself. He was seated at the inner end of it on a low chest near the stove, the light of which shone brightly on his thin old face and long white locks, and threw a gigantic black shadow on the wall behind. The old man was busily engaged in forming a model boat out of a piece of wood with a clasp knife. He muttered to himself as he went on with his work, occasionally pausing to glance towards the door, the upper half of which was open and revealed the dark storm raging without.

On one of these occasions old Jeph’s eyes encountered those of a man gazing in upon him.

“Is that you, Long Orrick? Come in; it’s a cold night to stand out i’ the gale.”

He said this heartily, and then resumed his work, as if he had forgotten the presence of the other in an instant. It is not improbable that he had, for Jeph was very old. He could not have been far short of ninety years of age.

Long Orrick entered the hovel, and sat down on a bench opposite the old man. He was a very tall, raw-boned, ill-favoured fellow, of great muscular strength, and with a most forbidding countenance. He was clad in oiled, rough-weather garments.

“You seem busy, old man,” said he abruptly.

“Ay, I had need be busy,” said old Jeph without looking up; “there are many lives to save; many lives bein’ lost this very night, and no means of savin’ ’em; leastwise not sufficient.”

“Humph! ye’re eternally at that bit o’ humbug. It’s bam, old man, all bam; bosh and gammon,” said Orrick. “It’ll never come to no good, I tell ye.”

“Who knows?” replied the old man meekly, but going on with his work not the less diligently because of these remarks.

“Jeph,” said Orrick, leaning forward until his sharp features were within a few inches of his companion’s face, “Jeph, will ye tell me where the ‘hide’ is in yer old house?”

“No, Long Orrick, I won’t,” replied the old man with an amount of energy of which he seemed, a few seconds before, quite incapable.

The reply did not seem to please Long Orrick, neither did the steady gaze with which it was accompanied.

“You won’t?” said Orrick between his set teeth.

“No,” replied the old man, dropping his eyes on the little boat and resuming his work.

“Why not,” continued the other after a pause, “you don’t require the hide, why won’t you lend it to a chum as is hard up?”

“Because I won’t encourage smugglin’,” said Jeph. “You’ve smuggled enough in yer young days yerself, you old villain; you might help a friend a bit; it won’t be you as does it.”

“It’s because I have smuggled w’en I was young that I won’t do it now that I’m old, nor help anyone else to,” retorted Jeph; “besides, you’re no friend o’ mine.”

“What if I turn out to be an enemy?” cried Orrick, fiercely; “see here,” said he, drawing out a long knife, and holding it up so that the light of the stove glittered on its keen blade, “what if I give you a taste of this, old man?”

“You won’t,” said Jeph, calmly.

“No! why not?”

“Because you’re a coward,” replied Jeph, with a quiet chuckle; “you know that you wouldn’t like to be hanged, ha! ha! and you know that Bax would be down on you if you touched my old carcase.”

Long Orrick uttered a savage oath, and said, “I’m brave enough, anyhow, to let you taste the cold steel to-night—or desperate enough if ye prefer it.”

He seized Jeph by the throat as he spoke, and pressed the blade of the knife against his breast. The old man did not shrink, neither did he struggle. He knew that he was in the hands of one whose type is but too common in this world, a bully and a coward, and, knowing this, felt that he was safe.

It seemed, however, as if the very elements scorned the man who could thus raise his hand against unprotected age, for the wind shrieked louder than usual in its fury, and a blinding flash of lightning, accompanied by a deep crash of thunder, added to the horror of the scene.

Just then an exclamation was heard at the door of the hovel. Long Orrick released his hold hastily, and turning round, observed a round ruddy visage scowling at him, and the glittering barrel of a pistol levelled at his head.

“Ha! ha!” he laughed hoarsely, endeavouring to pass it off as a jest, “so you’ve caught us jokin’, Coleman,—actin’ a bit—and took it for arnest, eh?”

“Well, if it is actin’, it’s oncommon ugly actin’, I tell ye; a deal too nat’ral for my tastes, so I’d advise ye to drop it here, an’ carry yer talents to a theaytre, where you’ll be paid according to your desarts, Long Orrick.”

“Ah! the night air don’t agree with ye, Coleman, so I’ll bid ye good-bye,” said the other, rising and quitting the hut.

“Wot’s he bin’ a doin’ of, old man?” inquired Coleman, who was a huge, ruddy, good-humoured coast-guardsman, with the aspect of a lion and the heart of a lamb; whose garments were of the roughest and largest kind, and who was, to adopt a time-honoured phrase, armed to the teeth,—that is to say, provided with a brace of pistols, a cutlass, and a port-fire, which last could, on being struck against a rock, burst into flame, and illuminate the region for many yards around him.

“Oh, he’s bin’ actin’,” replied the old man, with a quiet chuckle, as he resumed his work on the boat; “he’s bin’ actin’, that’s all.”

At this moment the boom of a gun fired by the Gull lightship broke on the ears of the men of Deal, and a moment later the bright flash of a rocket was seen. It was the well-known signal that there was a ship in distress on the sands.

Instantly the hardy boatmen were at work. One of their largest boats was launched through the wild surf, as if by magic, and its stout crew were straining at the oars as if their lives depended on the result.

The boat happened to be the one belonging to Captain Bluenose and his comrades, and the first man who leaped into her, as she was driven down into the sea, was Long Orrick; for, bad man though he was, he was not without his redeeming points, and, coward though he was before the face of man, he was brave enough in facing the dangers of the sea.

It was a fearful struggle in which the Deal lugger engaged that night. The sea threatened to bury her altogether as she pushed off through the breakers, and some of the men seemed to think it would be too much for them. A man named Davis took the helm; he had saved many a life on that coast in his day.

The intense darkness of the night, coupled with the fury of the winds and waves, were such that no men, save those who were used to such scenes, would have believed it possible that any boat could live in so wild a storm. In addition to this the cold was excessive, and the spray broke over them so continuously that the pump had to be kept going in order to prevent their getting filled altogether.

It was a long weary pull to the Gull light-ship. When they reached it they hailed those on board, and asked where away the wreck was.

“Right down to leeward, on the Sand-head,” was the reply.

Away went the lugger before the gale with just a corner of the foresail hoisted. It was not long before they came in sight of the breakers on the Sands. Here they were obliged to put out the oars and exercise the utmost caution, lest they should incur the fate from which they had come out to rescue others. Davis knew the shoals and channels well, and dropped down as far as he dared, but no wreck of any kind was to be seen.

“D’ye see anything?” shouted Davis to Long Orrick, who was in the bow.

Orrick’s reply was inaudible, for the shrieking of the gale, and the roar of breakers drowned his voice.

At that moment a huge wave broke at a considerable distance ahead of them, and against its white crest something like the mast of a vessel was discerned for an instant.

“God help them!” muttered Davis to himself; “if they’re as far as that on the sands there’s no chance for them, unless, indeed, the Broadstairs or Ramsgate lifeboat finds ’em out. Let go the anchors!” he shouted; “look sharp, lads!”

The anchor was let go, and the lugger was veered down by its cable as far in the direction of the wreck as possible, but the boat was so large and drew so much water that they could not even get within sight of the wreck. In these circumstances the men nestled as they best might under the lee of the boat’s sides, and prepared to ride out the storm, or at least to remain at anchor there until day-light should enable them to act with more precision and safety.

Fortunately for all parties concerned, other eyes and ears had been on the watch that night. At Broadstairs, which lies a little to the north of Deal, the crew of the lifeboat had been on the look-out, and no sooner did they see the rocket and hear the gun, than they launched their boat and put off to the rescue.

It is generally found that there are more men to man the lifeboats on many parts of our coasts than are required, and this is specially the case on the Kentish coast. Hence, when the signal-rocket goes up on a stormy night, many eager eyes are on the watch, and there is a rush to the boat in order to secure a place. On this occasion there were one or two men who, rather than wait to pull on their oilskin coats and pantaloons, had run down just as they happened to be clothed at the time, and in a very unfit state to face the inclemency of a night which might involve hours of unremitting and exhaustive labour. These jumped into their places, however, and their less fortunate comrades, who arrived too late, supplied them with garments. In five minutes the lifeboat was flying under sail towards the Goodwin Sands.

Seldom had the Broadstairs boat faced so wild a storm as that which blew on this occasion. The sea broke over her in cataracts. Again and again she was more than half-filled with water, but this was speedily got rid of, and in the course of an hour she was beside the lugger.

“Where away?” shouted the coxswain of the lifeboat as they passed.

“Right ahead, not two cables’ lengths,” roared Davis.

The sails of the lifeboat had already been lowered, and the oars were out in a second. Gradually and slowly they dropped down towards the breakers, and soon caught sight of the mast of the “Nancy,” still towering up in the midst of the angry waters.

The danger to the lifeboat was now very great, for there was such a wild chopping sea on the sands that it ran great risk of being upset. The boat was one of the old-fashioned stamp, which, although incapable of being sunk, was not secure against being overturned, and it did not possess that power of righting itself which characterises the lifeboats of the present day.

In a few minutes they were near enough to see the mast of the “Nancy” dimly in the dark. The coxswain immediately gave the order to let go the anchor and veer down towards the wreck. Just as he did so, a terrific sea came rolling towards them like a black mountain.

“Look out, men!” he shouted.

Every man let go his oar, and, throwing himself on the thwart, embraced it with all his might. The wave went right over them, sweeping the boat from stem to stern; but as it had met the sea stern-on it was not overturned. It was completely filled however, and some time was necessarily lost in freeing it of water. The oars, being attached to the sides of the boat by lanyards, were not carried away.

In a few minutes they had veered down under the lee of the wreck.

The crew and passengers of the “Nancy” were still clinging to the cross-trees, benumbed and almost unable to speak or move when the lifeboat approached. With the exception of Bax and Bluenose, they were all so thoroughly exhausted as to have become comparatively indifferent to, and therefore ignorant of, all that was going on around them. All their energies were required to enable them simply to retain their position on the rigging. At first the sight of the rockets from the light-ship, and her lanterns gleaming in the far distance, had aroused feelings of hope, but as hour after hour passed away the most of the unhappy people fell into a sort of stupor or indifference, and the lights were no longer regarded with hopeful looks.

When the lugger came towards them and anchored outside the Sands, it was so dark that none but sharp eyes could make her out through the blinding spray. Bax and Bluenose descried her, but both of them were so well aware of the impossibility of a large boat venturing among the shoals and breakers that they tacitly resolved not to acquaint their comrades with its presence, lest they should raise false hopes, which, when disappointed, might plunge them into still deeper despair.

Very different, however, were the feelings with which they beheld the approach of the lifeboat, which the practised eye of Bax discerned long before she came alongside.

“The lifeboat!” said Bax sharply in the ear of Bluenose, who was close beside him. “Look! am I right?”

“So ’tis, I do believe,” cried the captain, staring intently in the direction indicated by his friend’s outstretched hand.

“Lifeboat ahoy!” shouted Bax, in a voice that rang loud and strong above the whistling winds, like the blast of a brazen trumpet.

“Wreck ahoy!” cried the coxswain of the boat, and the cry, borne towards them by the gale, fell upon the ears of those on the mast like the voice of Hope shouting “Victory!” over the demon Despair.

“Cheer up, Lucy! Ho! comrades, look alive, here comes the lifeboat!”

Bax accompanied these words with active preparations for heaving a rope and otherwise facilitating their anticipated escape. Guy was the first to respond to the cry. Having placed himself in a very exposed position in order that his person might shelter Lucy Burton, he had been benumbed more thoroughly than his comrades, but his blood was young, and it only wanted the call to action to restore him to the full use of his powers and faculties. Not so with the missionary. He had become almost insensible, and, but for the effort to protect his child which animated and sustained him, must certainly have fallen into the sea. Some of the men, too, were utterly helpless. Their stiffened hands, indeed, maintained a death-like gripe of the ropes, but otherwise they were quite incapable of helping themselves.

As for Lucy, she had been so well cared for and protected from the bitter fury of the wind, that, although much exhausted, terrified, and shaken, she was neither so be-numbed nor so helpless as some of her less fortunate companions.

Presently the lifeboat was close on the lee side of the mast, and a cheer burst from her crew when they saw the number of survivors on the cross-trees.

“Look out!” cried the man in the bow of the boat, as he swung a heavily-loaded stick round his head, and flung it over the mast. The light line attached to this was caught by Bax, and by means of it a stout rope was drawn from the boat to the mast of the “Nancy” and made fast.

And now came the most dangerous and difficult part of the service. Besides the danger of the mast being broken by the violence of the increasing storm and hurled upon the lifeboat, an event which would have insured its destruction, there was the risk of the boat herself being stove against the mast by the lashing waves which spun her on their white crests or engulfed her in their black hollows, as if she had been a cork. The greatest care was therefore requisite in approaching the wreck, and when this was accomplished there still remained the difficulty of getting the exhausted crew into the boat.

Had they all been young and strong like Bax or Guy, they could have slid down the rope at the risk of nothing worse than a few bruises; but with several of them this method of escape was impossible;—with Lucy and her father it was, in any circumstances, out of the question. A block and tackle was therefore quickly rigged up by Bluenose, by which they were lowered.

Poor Lucy had not the courage to make the attempt until one or two of the seamen had preceded her, it seemed so appalling to be swung off the mast into the black raging chaos beneath her feet, where the lifeboat, shrouded partially in darkness and covered with driving spray, appeared to her more like a phantom than a reality.

“Come, Miss Lucy,” said Bax, tenderly, “I’ll fasten the rope round myself and be swung down with you in my arms.”

Lucy would not hear of this. “No,” said she, firmly, “I will conquer my silly fears; here, put the rope round me.”

At that moment a wave tossed the boat so high that it came up almost to the level of the mast-head, and an involuntary cry rose from some of the men, who thought she must infallibly be dashed against it and upset. One of the men on the mast, seeing the boat at his very feet, made a sudden spring towards it, but it plunged into the hollow of the passing wave, and, missing his grasp, he fell with a wild shriek into the water. He was swept away instantly. This so unnerved Lucy that she almost fainted in her father’s arms.

“Come,” cried Bax, putting the end of the rope round his waist, “we must not trifle thus.”

“The rope won’t bear ye both,” said Bluenose. “You’re too heavy, lad.”

“True,” interrupted Guy, “let me do it. I’m light, and strong enough.”

Bax, at once admitting the force of the argument, undid the rope without hesitation, and fastened it quickly round Guy’s waist. The latter seized Lucy in his arms, and in a moment they were both swinging in the air over the wild sea.

Every incident in this thrilling scene now passed with the speed almost of thought. The boat rose under them. Bax at once let the rope run. Down they went, but a swirl in the treacherous waves swept the boat two or three fathoms to leeward. Instantly they were both in the sea, but Guy did not loosen his hold or lose his presence of mind for a moment. Bax hauled on the rope and raised him half out of the water for a few seconds; the boat made a wild sheer towards them, and the missionary uttered a cry of agony as he fancied his child was about to be run down, perhaps killed, before his eyes; but the cry was transformed into a shout of joy and thanksgiving when he saw one of the lifeboat’s crew seize Guy by the hair, and another catch his daughter by a portion of her dress. They were quickly pulled into the boat.

To save the remainder was now a matter of less difficulty. The missionary was the only one left on the mast who was not able more or less to take care of himself; but the joy consequent on seeing his daughter saved infused new vigour into his frame. He and the others were finally got off—Bax being the last to quit the wreck—and then the lifeboat pulled away from the dangerous shoals and made for the land.

Finding it impossible to reach Broadstairs, owing to the direction of the gale, they pulled in an oblique direction, and, after narrowly escaping an upset more than once, gained Deal beach not far from Sandown Castle, where the boat was run ashore.

Here there was a large concourse of boatmen and others awaiting them. The men in the lugger,—seeing the lifeboat come up and feeling that the storm was almost too much for them, and that their services were not now required,—had returned to the shore and spread the news.

The instant the lifeboat touched the shingle, a huge block and tackle were hooked on to her, the capstan connected with these was already manned, and the boat was run up high and dry with the crew in her.

The cheers and congratulations that followed were checked however, when the discovery was made that Guy Foster was lying in a state of insensibility!

When the boat sheered towards him and Lucy, as already described, he had seen the danger and warded it away from the girl by turning his own person towards it. No one knew that he had been hurt. Indeed, he himself had scarcely felt the blow, but a deep cut had been made in his head, which bled so copiously that he had lain down and gradually became insensible.

His head was bandaged by Bluenose in a rough and ready fashion; a couple of oars with a sail rolled round them were quickly procured, and on this he was borne off the beach, followed by his friends and a crowd of sympathisers.

“Where to?” inquired one of the men who supported the litter.

“To Sandhill Cottage,” said Bax; “it’s his mother’s house, and about as near as any other place. Step out, lads!”

Before they were off the beach the dull report of a cannon-shot was heard. It came from the light-ship, and immediately after a rocket flew up, indicating by the direction in which it sloped that another vessel was in distress on the shoals.

All thought of those who had just been rescued was forgotten by the crew of the lifeboat. Those of them who had not been too much exhausted by previous toil and exposure leaped into their seats. The places of those who were unable to go off again were instantly filled by eager boatmen. Dozens of stout arms thrust her—crew and all seated as they were—down into the lashing surf. There was a short sharp struggle between the sturdy men and the heavy rollers, which threatened not only to swamp the boat but to hurl her back, stem over stern, upon the shingle, and in a few minutes more she was forcing her way through wind, and waves, and spray, on this her second errand of mercy that night to the Goodwin Sands.

Chapter Seven.

The Widow’s Cottage.

“About a thousand ships are wrecked, and nearly a thousand lives are lost on the shores of this country every year,” was still the burden of Mrs Foster’s dreams when she was aroused by a loud knocking at the door of her cottage, and the sound of confused voices and trampling of many feet outside.

“Ho! goodness gracious me, ma’am,” cried worthy Mrs Laker, bursting into her mistress’s apartment—“if here ain’t a thousand robbers as is come for to pillidge the ouse an’ trample down the garding. It’s from the hattic winder, I see ’em with the moon, if w’ant the lightenin’ a glanshin’ on their ’orrid faces as is never shaved nor washed, and it’s bin my dream from the years of unsuspectious hinfancy, as is come for to pass now in the days of my womanhood, with dead bodies carryin’ too, w’ich is wuss. Ho! dear, wot shall I do!”

“Go and put on your clothes while I open the door,” said Amy Russell, entering hastily at the moment in a state of comparative dishabille, with a shawl thrown round her. “Dear mamma, don’t be alarmed; it must be a mistake. They cannot mean us any harm, I am certain. May I go and open the door?”

“Open the door!” shrieked Mrs Laker in the tone of one almost paralysed by astonishment; “open the door to a thousand robbers with swords, and guns, and blood, and dead bodies!”

As Mrs Laker was robed in her night-gown, and stood erect, with her arms extended and her hair dishevelled, she looked dreadfully tragic and awful, while these fearful words flowed from her pale lips.

“Hush, Laker,” said Mrs Foster, hastily throwing on her garments with trembling hands, while she made a strong effort to restrain her agitation, “go, dear Amy, and ask what they want; but don’t open the door.”

She followed Amy to the landing outside, leaving Mrs Laker, glaring in sceptical amazement, in the middle of the room. Presently, Amy was heard downstairs speaking through the key-hole. A man’s voice replied; there was a suppressed scream and immediately the outer door was unlocked, the chain removed, and the bolts withdrawn. This was followed by the heavy tramp of men in the passage below, and a wild shriek from Mrs Foster.

Mrs Laker, still standing with uplifted arms in the middle of the bedroom, and livid with terror, glared round in search of a place of refuge, and gasped horribly. Her eye fell on the bed from which her mistress had issued. With a spring that would have done her credit in the days of her girlhood, she plunged into it, head first, and rolled herself tight up in the clothes, where she lay, quaking and listening intently.

“It’s only a cut on the head, and a little blood, ma’am, don’t be alarmed,” said the gruff voice of Bluenose, as the footsteps ascended the stair, and approached the bedroom.

“Cut” and “blood” were the only words in this speech which made any impression on poor Mrs Laker, who trembled so violently that the curtains around her shook again.

“Lay him in my bed,” said Mrs Foster, in an agitated voice.

“W’y, the bed’s all alive—O!” exclaimed Bluenose, in surprise.

“O Laker! what are you doing there? get out, quick.”

“Mercy, good men, mercy; I—”

The sentence was cut short by a wild yell, as her eye fell on the pale and bloody face of Guy. She tumbled, clothes and all, over the side of the bed in a dead faint, and rolled, in a confused white heap, to the very feet of her astounded brother, Captain Bluenose.

“Well, if this don’t beat Trafalgar all to sticks!” exclaimed the Captain.

“Come, attend to Guy,” said Bax, in a deep, commanding voice.

He lifted up Mrs Laker and the bed-clothes as if she had been a large washing, and carried her down to her own apartment,—guided by Tommy Bogey, who knew the way,—where he placed her in bed, and left her to recover as she best might.

Bax had taken the precaution to despatch a messenger for a doctor before they left the beach, so that Guy’s hurt was soon examined, dressed, and pronounced to be a mere trifle which rest would heal in a few days. Indeed, Guy recovered consciousness soon after being brought into the cottage, and told his mother with his own lips that he was “quite well.” This, and the doctor’s assurances, so relieved the good lady, that she at once transferred much of her anxious care to the others who had been wrecked along with her son.

Lucy was placed in the hands of the sympathetic Amy Russell, and conducted by her to her own room, where she obtained dry clothing. As for the others, they dried themselves by the kitchen fire, which was stirred up vigorously by the now restored and repentant Laker, who also busied herself in spreading a repast for the shipwrecked men. Mrs Foster did the same for a select few, whom she meant to entertain in the parlour.

“Who is that handsome sailor,” said Amy, as she assisted Lucy Burton to dress, “the one, I mean, who came up with Guy?”

“There were four who came up with Guy,” replied Lucy, smiling.

“True,” said Amy, blushing (she blushed easily), “but I mean the very tall, dark man, with the black curling hair.”

“Ah! you mean the man who carried good Mrs Laker downstairs in a bundle,” said Lucy, with a merry laugh.

“Yes,” cried Amy, echoing the laugh, “who is he?”

“Why, you ought to know him,” said Lucy, with a look of surprise, “he resides near you; at least he was one of the boatmen of your own coast, before he became captain of the ‘Nancy’. His name is Bax.”

“Bax!” echoed Amy. “Is he Bax? Oh, I know Bax well by name. He is a friend of Guy, and a celebrated man on this coast. He is sometimes called the Stormy Petrel, because he is always sure to be found on the beach in the wildest gales; sometimes he is called the Life Preserver, on account of the many lives he has saved. Strange,” said Amy musingly, “that I should have pictured him to myself so like what he turns out to be. He is my beau-idéal of a hero!”

“He is a hero,” said Lucy, with such sudden enthusiasm that her new friend looked up in her face in surprise. “You do not know,” continued Lucy, in some confusion, “that he saved my life not much more than twenty-four hours ago.”

Amy expressed deep interest in this matter, and begged to hear all about it. Lucy, nothing loath, related the event circumstantially; and Amy, gazing earnestly in her beautiful animated countenance, sighed and regarded her with an expression of sad interest,—also with feelings which she herself could not understand.

“But how comes it that you have never seen Bax till to-night?” inquired Lucy, when she had finished her narrative.

“Because I have not been very long here,” said Amy, “and Bax had ceased to dwell regularly on the coast about the time I was saved, and came to live with Mrs Foster.”

“Saved!—Mrs Foster!” exclaimed Lucy.

“Yes, Mrs Foster is not my mother.”

“And Guy is not your brother?” said Lucy, with a glance so quick and earnest, that Amy felt a little confused.

“No, he is not,” said she, “but he saved my life at the end of Ramsgate pier, and ever since then I have lived with his mother.”

It was now Lucy’s turn to express deep interest. She begged to have the circumstances related to her, and Amy, nothing loath, told her how Guy had plunged into the sea when no one else observed her danger, and caught her just as she was sinking.

As Amy told her story with animation, and spoke of Guy, with sparkling eyes, and a rich glow on her fair cheek, Lucy gazed at her with grave interest, and felt sensations in her breast, which were quite new to her, and altogether incomprehensible.

Three times had Mrs Laker been sent to knock at Amy’s door, and inform the young ladies that supper awaited them, before they completed their toilet, and descended to the drawing-room.

Laker called it supper, because she could not conscientiously give the name of breakfast to a meal extemporised about four o’clock in the morning!

Mr Burton and Bluenose were already seated at the table. Bax stood near the fireplace bending down to Mrs Foster, who was looking up in his face, shaking his hand, and thanking him, with tears in her eyes, for having saved her son’s life! Bax was much perplexed by this view of the matter, taken and obstinately held to by the widow.

“Really, ma’am,” said he, with a deprecatory smile, “you are mistaken, I assure you. I did not save Guy’s life—on the contrary, he saved mine this night; for if he had not jumped well to wind’ard with the line and caught hold of the old foremast, where Tommy and I were perched like two birds—”

“Ha,” interrupted Bluenose, bluntly, “you’d both’s bin in Davy Jones’ locker by this time; for I seed the old stick myself, not three minits arter, go by the board like the stem of a baccy pipe.”

It was just as Bluenose concluded this speech that the young ladies entered the room.

“Come,” cried Bax, turning quickly towards Lucy, who advanced first, “here is another witness to the fact. Do try, Miss Burton, to convince Mrs Foster that I did not—”

Bax paused, for his glance fell at that moment on Amy Russell, whom he had not observed in the confusion of their first appearance in the cottage.

“My adopted daughter,” said Mrs Foster, taking Amy by the hand and leading her forward; “shake hands with Mr Bax, darling, who has saved Guy’s life to-night.”

Bax held Amy’s white little hand for one moment as tenderly as if he were afraid his own iron muscles might injure it.

“I see,” said he, with a smile, “that I must submit to be misrepresented until Guy himself comes to defend me.”

Amy glanced at Lucy and blushed. Lucy glanced at Amy and looked confused; then the whole party laughed, and Bluenose said that for his part he didn’t see no savin’ o’ life one way or other, ’xcepting as regarded the lifeboat, which he wos bound for to say had saved the whole lot of ’em, and that was all about it; whereupon they all sat down to supper, and the missionary asked a blessing; thanking God for their recent deliverance, and praying in a few earnest words for continued favour.

Bluenose was a man of peculiar and decided character. He did not at all relish his position in the drawing-room when he thought of his sister Mrs Laker supping in the kitchen. Being an impulsive man, he seized his cap, and said abruptly to his hostess:

“I’ll tell ’ee wot it is, marm, I aint used to this ’ere sort o’ thing. If you’ll excudge me, marm, I’ll go an’ ’ave my snack with Bess i’ the kitchen. Bax, there, he’s a sort o’ gen’leman by natur’ as well as hedication; but as for me I’m free to say as I prefers the fo’gs’l to the cabin—no offence meant. Come along, Tommy, and bring yer pannikin along with ’ee, lad, you’re like a fish out o’ water too.”

So saying, Captain Bluenose bowed to the company with what he meant to be an affable and apologetic air, and quitted the room without waiting for a reply.

“Ah, Bluenose,” said Mrs Laker, as her brother entered, cap in hand, and seated himself among the men of the “Nancy,” who were doing full justice to Mrs Foster’s hospitality, “I thought ye wouldn’t be long in the parlour, for you aint bin used to ’igh life, an’ w’y should you? as was born of poor but respectible parients, not but that the parients of the rich may be respectible also, I don’t go for to impinge no one, sit down, Tommy, my dear child, only think! ee’s bin ’alf drownded, an’ ’is mother dead only two year next Whitsuntide; sit down, Tommy, wot’ll ye ’ave?”

Tommy said he would have a bit of beef-steak pie;—got it, and set to work immediately.

It may be as well to state here that Mrs Laker was not a married woman, but, having reached a certain age, she deemed it advisable, in order to maintain the dignity of her character and personal appearance (which latter was stout and matronly) to dub herself Mrs—Laker being her maiden name. This statement involves a further explanation, inasmuch as it establishes the fact that Bluenose ought, in simple justice and propriety, to have gone by the name of Laker also.

But on the beach of Deal justice and propriety in regard to names are not necessarily held in great repute. At least they were not so a few years ago. Smuggling, as has been said, was rather prevalent in days gone by. Indeed, the man who was not a smuggler was an exception to the rule, if such a man ever existed. During their night expeditions, boatmen were often under the necessity of addressing each other in hoarse whispers, at times and in circumstances when coast-guard ears were uncommonly acute. Hence, in order to prevent inconvenient recognition, the men were wont to give each other nicknames, which nicknames descended frequently to their offspring.

The father of Captain Bluenose and of Mrs Laker had been a notorious scamp about the beginning of this century, at which period Deal may be said to have been in full swing in regard to smuggling and the French war. The old smuggler was uncommonly well acquainted with the towns of Calais, Gravelines, Dunkerque, Nieuport, and Ostende—notwithstanding that they lay in the enemy’s country. He had also enough of bad French to enable him to carry on his business, and was addicted to French brandy. It was the latter circumstance which turned his nose purple; procuring for him, as well as entailing on his son, the name of Bluenose, a name which our Captain certainly did not deserve, seeing that his nose was fiery red in colour,—perhaps a little too fat to be styled classic, but, on the whole, a most respectable nose.

Few of the boatmen of Deal went by their right names; but such soubriquets as Doey, Jack Onion, Skys’lyard Dick, Mackerel, Trappy, Rodney Nick, Sugarplum, etcetera, were common enough. Perchance they are not obsolete at the present day!

While the crew of the “Nancy” were making merry in the kitchen, the parlour bell rang violently, and Laker disappeared from the scene.

“You’re wanted, Tommy, darling,” said the worthy woman, returning promptly.

Tommy rose and was ushered into the parlour.

“Little boy,” said Mrs Foster, “my son Guy has sent a message requiring your attendance. I tried to prevent him seeing you; but he insists on it. Come, I will take you to his room. You must try, child, and not encourage him to talk. It will be bad for him, I fear.”

“Leave us, mother, dear,” said Guy, as they entered; “I wish to be alone with Tommy, only for ten minutes—not longer.”

Mrs Foster tried to remonstrate, but an impatient gesture from her son induced her to quit the room.

“You can write, Tommy?”

“Yes, sir. I—I hope you ain’t much hurt, sir?”

“Oh no!—a mere scratch. It’s only the loss of blood that weakens me. I’ll be all right in a few days. Now, sit down at that table and take a pen. Are you ready?”

Tommy said that he was, and Guy Foster dictated the following note to Mr Denham, of the house of Denham, Crumps, and Company:—

“Deal.

“DEAR UNCLE,—I’m sorry to have to inform you that the ‘Nancy’ has become a total wreck on the Goodwin Sands. The cargo has been entirely lost—also two of the hands.

“I am at present disabled, from the effects of a blow on the head received during the storm. No doubt Bax will be up immediately to give you particulars.

“The cause of the loss of your schooner was, in my opinion, unseaworthiness of vessel and stores.

“Your affectionate nephew, GUY FOSTER.”

“Hallo!” thought Tommy, “that’s a stinger!”

“There,” said Guy, as he attached his signature, “fold and address that, and be off with it as fast as you can to the post.”

Tommy vanished in an instant, and was quickly at the post-office, which stood, at that time, near the centre of the town. He dropped the letter in, and having thus fulfilled his mission, relapsed into that easy swagger or roll that seems to be the natural and characteristic gait of Jack when ashore. He had not proceeded far when the sound of voices in dispute attracted his ear. The gale was still at its height, and the noise occasioned by its whistling among the chimneys and whirling round street corners was so great that the words uttered by the speakers were not distinguishable. Still there was some peculiarity in the tone which irresistibly attracted the boy. Perhaps Tommy was unusually curious that night; perhaps he was smitten, like Haroun Alraschid, with a desire for adventure; but whatever was the truth in regard to this, it is certain that, instead of passing on, as most people would naturally have done, Tommy approached the place whence the sounds proceeded with cautious steps—keeping as much in the shade of the houses as possible, although owing to the darkness of the night, this latter precaution was unnecessary.

Chapter Eight.

The Living Left Among the Dead—A Wild Chase on a Wild Night Stopped by a Ghost.

On turning the corner of one of those houses on the beach of Deal which stand so close to the sea that in many cases they occupy common ground with the boats, Tommy found himself suddenly close to a group of men, one of whom, a very tall man, was addressing the others in an excited tone.

“I’ll tell ’ee wot it is, lads, let’s put ’im in a sack an’ leave him in the Great Chapel Field to cool hisself.” (The “Great Chapel Field” was the name formerly applied by the boatmen to Saint George’s Churchyard.)

“Sarve him right, the beggar,” said another man, with a low laugh, “he’s spoilt our game many a night. What say, boys? heave ’im shoulder high?”

The proposal was unanimously agreed to, and the party went towards an object which lay recumbent on the ground, near to one of those large capstans which are used on this part of the Kentish coast to haul up the boats. The object turned out to be a man, bound hand and foot, and with a handkerchief tied round the mouth to insure silence. Tommy was so near that he had no difficulty in recognising in this unfortunate the person of old Coleman, the member of the coast-guard who had been most successful in thwarting the plans of the smugglers for some years past. Rendered somewhat desperate by his prying disposition, they had seized him on this particular night, during a scuffle, and were now about to dispose of him in a time-honoured way.

Tommy also discovered that the coast-guard-man’s captors were Long Orrick, Rodney Nick, and a few more of his boatmen acquaintances. He watched them with much interest as they enveloped Coleman’s burly figure in a huge sack, tied it over his head, and, raising him on their shoulders bore him away.

Tommy followed at a safe distance, but he soon stopped, observing that two of the party had fallen behind the rest, engaged apparently in earnest conversation. They stood still a few minutes under the lee of a low-roofed cottage. Tommy crept as close to them as possible and listened.

“Come, Rodney Nick,” said one of the two, whose height proclaimed him to be Long Orrick, “a feller can’t talk in the teeth o’ sich a gale as this. Let’s stand in the lee o’ this old place here, and I’ll tell ye in two minits wot I wants to do. You see that old sinner Jeph refuses pint-blank to let me use his ‘hide;’ he’s become such a hypocrite that he says he won’t encourage smugglin’.”

“Well, wot then?” inquired Rodney Nick.

“W’y, I means to make ’im give in,” returned Long Orrick.

“An’ s’pose he won’t give in?” suggested Rodney.

“Then I’ll cut his throat,” replied Orrick, fiercely.

“Then I’ll have nothin’ to do with it.”

“Stop!” cried the other, seizing his comrade by the arm as he was turning to go away. “A feller might as well try to joke with a jackass as with you. In coorse I don’t mean that; but I’ll threaten the old hypocrite and terrify him till he’s half dead, and then he’ll give in.”

“He’s a frail old man,” said Rodney; “suppose he should die with fright?”

“Then let him die!” retorted Long Orrick.

“Humph; and s’pose he can’t be terrified?”

“Oh! get along with yer s’posin’. Will ye go or will ye not? that’s the question, as Shukspere’s ghost said to the Hemperer o’ Sweden.”

“Just you an’ me?” inquired Rodney.

“Ain’t we enough for an old man?”

“More nor enough,” replied Rodney, with a touch of sarcasm in his tone, “if the old boy han’t got friends with him. Don’t ye think Bax might have took a fancy to spend the night there?”

“No,” said Long Orrick; “Bax is at supper in Sandhill Cottage, and he ain’t the man to leave good quarters in a hurry. But if yer afraid, we’ll go with our chums to the churchyard and take them along with us.”

Rodney Nick laughed contemptuously, but made no reply, and the two immediately set off at a run to overtake their comrades. Tommy Bogey followed as close at their heels as he prudently could. They reached the walls of Saint George’s Church, or the “Great Chapel,” almost at the same moment with the rest of the party.

The form of the old church could be dimly seen against the tempestuous sky as the smugglers halted under the lee of the churchyard wall like a band of black ghosts that had come to lay one of their defunct comrades, on a congenial night.

At the north end of the burying-ground of Saint George’s Church there is a spot of ground which is pointed out to visitors as being the last resting-place of hundreds of the unfortunate men who fell in the sea-fights of our last war with France. A deep and broad trench was dug right across the churchyard, and here the gallant tars were laid in ghastly rows, as close together as they could be packed. Near to this spot stands the tomb of one of Lord Nelson’s young officers, and beside it grows a tree against which Nelson is said to have leaned when he attended the funeral.

It was just a few yards distant from this tree that the smugglers scaled the wall and lifted over the helpless body of poor Coleman. They did it expeditiously and in dead silence. Carrying him into the centre of the yard, they deposited the luckless coast-guard-man flat on his back beside the tomb of George Philpot, a man who had done good service in his day and generation—if headstones are to be believed. The inscription, which may still be seen by the curious, runs thus:—

A Tribute to the

Skill and Determined Courage

Of the Boatmen of Deal,

And in Memory of

George Philpot,

Who Died March 22, 1850.

“Full many lives he saved

With his undaunted crew;

He put his trust in Providence,

And cared not how it blew.”

In the companionship of such noble dead, the smugglers left Coleman to his fate, and set off to finish their night’s work at old Jeph’s humble cottage.

Tommy Bogey heard them chuckle as they passed the spot where he lay concealed behind a tombstone, and he was sorely tempted to spring up with an unearthly yell, well knowing that the superstitious boatmen would take him for one risen from the dead, and fly in abject terror from the spot; but recollecting the importance of discretion in the work which now devolved on him, he prudently restrained himself.

The instant they were over the wall Tommy was at Coleman’s side. He felt the poor man shudder, and heard him gasp as he cut the rope that tied the mouth of the sack; for Coleman knew well the spot to which they had conveyed him, and his face, when it became visible, was ghastly white and covered with a cold sweat caused by the belief that he was being opened out for examination by some inquisitive but unearthly visitor.

“It’s only me,” said Tommy with an involuntary laugh. “Hold on, I’ll set you free in no time.”

“Hah!” coughed Coleman when the kerchief was removed from his mouth, “wot a ’orrible sensation it is to be choked alive!”

“It would be worse to be choked dead,” said Tommy.

“Cut the lines at my feet first, lad,” said Coleman, “they’ve a’most sawed through my ankle bones. There, that’s it now, help me to git up an’ shake myself.”

A few minutes elapsed before he recovered the full use of his benumbed limbs. During this period, the boy related all he had heard, and urged his companion to “look alive.” But Coleman required no urging. The moment he became aware of what was going on he felt for his cutlass, which the smugglers had not taken the trouble to remove, and, slapping Tommy on the back, stumbled among the tombs and over the graves towards the wall, which he vaulted with a degree of activity that might have rendered a young man envious. Tommy followed like a squirrel, and in a very few minutes more they were close at the heels of Long Orrick and his friends.

While they hurried on in silence and with cautious tread Coleman matured his plans. It was absolutely necessary that the utmost circumspection should be used, for a man and a boy could not hope to succeed in capturing six strong men.

“Run, Tommy, to the beach and fetch a friend or two. There are sure to be two of the guard within hail.”

Tommy was off, as he himself would have said, like a shot, and on gaining the beach almost ran into the arms of a young coast-guard-man named Supple Rodger, to whom he breathlessly told his tale.

“Stop, I’ll call out the guard,” said Rodger, drawing a pistol from the breast-pocket of his overcoat. But Tommy prevented him, explained that it was very desirable to catch the villains in the very act of breaking into old Jeph’s cottage, and hurried him away.

At the back of the cottage they found Coleman calmly observing the proceedings of the smugglers, one of whom was calling in a hoarse whisper through the keyhole. Apparently he received no reply, for he swore angrily a good deal, and said to his comrades more than once, “I do b’lieve the old sinner’s dead.”

“Come, I’ll burst in the door,” said the voice of Long Orrick, savagely.

The words were followed by a crash; and the trampling of feet in the passage proved that the slender fastenings of the door had given way.

“Now, lads,” cried Coleman, “have at ’em!”

He struck a species of port-fire, or bluelight, against the wall as he spoke; it sprang into a bright flame, and the three friends rushed into the cottage.

The smugglers did not wait to receive them. Bursting the fastenings of the front window Long Orrick leaped out into the street. Supple Rodger dashed aside the man who was about to follow and leaped after him like an avenging spirit. All the men but two were over the window before Coleman gained it. He seized the man who was in the act of leaping by the collar, but the treacherous garment gave way, and in a moment the smuggler was gone, leaving only a rag in Coleman’s grasp.

Meanwhile Tommy flung himself down in front of the only man who now remained, as he made a dash for the window. The result was that the man tumbled over the boy and fell to the ground. Having accomplished this feat, Tommy leaped up and sprang through the window to aid in the chase. As the smuggler rose, the disappointed Coleman turned round, flourished the rag in the air with a shout of defiance, and hit his opponent between the eyes with such force as to lay him a second time flat on the floor. A fierce struggle now ensued, during which the light was extinguished. The alarmed neighbours found them there, a few minutes later, writhing in each other’s arms, and punching each other’s heads desperately; Coleman, however, being uppermost.

When Tommy Bogey leaped over the window, as has been described, all the smugglers had disappeared, and he was at a loss what to do; but the faint sound of quick steps at the north end of the street led him to run at the top of his speed in that direction. Tommy was singularly fleet of foot. He ran so fast on this occasion that he reached the end of the street before the fugitive had turned into the next one. He saw distinctly that two men were running before him, and, concluding that they were Long Orrick and Supple Rodger, he did his best to keep them in view.

Long Orrick and his pursuer were well matched as to speed. Both were good runners; but the former was much the stronger man. Counting on this he headed for the wild expanse of waste ground lying to the north of Deal, already mentioned as the sand hills.

Here he knew that there would be no one to interfere between him and his antagonist.

Tommy Bogey thought of this too, as he sped along, and wondered not a little at the temerity of Supple Rodger in thus, as it were, placing himself in the power of his enemy. He chuckled, however, as he ran, at the thought of being there to render him assistance to the best of his power. “Ha!” thought he, “for Long Orrick to wollop Supple Rodger out on the sandhills is one thing; but for Long Orrick to wallop Supple Rodger with me dancin’ round him like a big wasp is quite another thing!”

Tommy came, as he thought thus, upon an open space of ground on which were strewn spare anchors and chain cables. Tumbling over a fluke of one of the former he fell to the earth with a shock that well-nigh drove all the wind out of his stout little body. He was up in a moment, however, and off again.

Soon the three were coursing over the downs like hares. It was difficult running, for the ground was undulating and broken, besides being covered in a few places with gorse, and the wind and rain beat so fiercely on their faces as almost to blind them.

About a mile or so beyond the ruins of Sandown Castle there is an old inn, called the “Checkers of the Hope,” or “The Checkers,” named after, it is said, and corrupted from, “Chaucer’s Inn” at Canterbury. It stands in the midst of the solitary waste; a sort of half-way house between the towns of Sandwich and Deal; far removed from either, however, and quite beyond earshot of any human dwelling. This, so says report, was a celebrated resort of smugglers in days gone by, and of men of the worst character; and as one looks at the irregular old building standing, one might almost say unreasonably, in that wild place, one cannot help feeling that it must have been the scene of many a savage revelry and many a deed of darkness in what are sometimes styled “the good old times.”

Some distance beyond this, farther into the midst of the sandhills, there is a solitary tombstone; well known, both by tradition and by the inscription upon it, as “Mary Bax’s tomb.”

Here Long Orrick resolved to make a stand; knowing that no shout that Rodger might give vent to could reach the Checkers in the teeth of such a gale.

The tale connected with poor Mary Bax is brief and very sad. She lived about the end of the last century, and was a young and beautiful girl. Having occasion to visit Deal, she set out one evening on her solitary walk across the bleak sandhills. Here she was met by a brutal foreign seaman, a Lascar, who had deserted from one of the ships then lying in the Downs. This monster murdered the poor girl and threw her body into a ditch that lies close to the spot on which her tomb now stands. The deed, as may well be supposed, created great excitement in Deal and the neighbourhood; for Mary Bax, being young, beautiful, and innocent, was well known and much loved.

There was, at the time this murder was perpetrated, a youth named John Winter, who was a devoted admirer of poor Mary. He was much younger than she, being only seventeen, while she was twenty-three. He became almost mad when he heard of the murder. A little brother of John Winter, named David, happened to be going to the Checkers’ Inn at the time the murder was committed and witnessed it. He ran instantly to his brother to tell him what he had seen. It was chiefly through the exertions of these two that the murderer was finally brought to justice.

John Winter rested neither night nor day until he tracked the Lascar down, and David identified him. He was hanged on a gallows erected close to the spot where he murdered his innocent victim. On the exact spot where the murder took place Mary’s grave was dug, and a tombstone was put up, which may be seen there at the present time, with the following inscription upon it:—

On This Spot,

August the 25th 1782,

Mary Bax, Spinster,

Aged 23 Years,

Was Murdered by

Martin Lash, a Foreigner,

Who was Executed for the Same.

Poor John Winter left the country immediately after, and did not return until thirty years had elapsed, when the event was forgotten, and most of his old friends and companions were dead or gone abroad. His little brother David was drowned at sea.

This Mary Bax was cousin to the father of John Bax, who figures so conspicuously in our tale.

At the tomb of Mary Bax, then, as we have said, Long Orrick resolved to make a stand. Tommy Bogey had, by taking a short cut round a piece of marshy ground, succeeded in getting a little in advance of Orrick, and, observing that he was running straight towards the tombstone, he leaped into the ditch, the water in which was not deep at the time, and, coursing along the edge of it, reached the rear of the tomb and hid himself there, without having formed any definite idea as to what course he meant to pursue.

Whatever the intentions of the smuggler were, they were effectually frustrated by an apparition which suddenly appeared and struck terror alike to the heart of pursuer and pursued. As Long Orrick approached the tomb there suddenly arose from the earth a tall gaunt figure with silver hair streaming wildly in the gale. To Tommy, who crouched behind the tomb, and Rodger and Orrick, who approached in front, it seemed as if the spirit of the murdered girl had leaped out of the grave. The effect on all three was electrical. Orrick and Rodger, diverging right and left, fled like the wind in opposite directions, and were out of sight in a few seconds, while Tommy, crouching on the ground behind the tomb, trembled in abject terror.

The spirit, if such it was, did not attempt to pursue the fugitives, but turning fiercely towards the boy, seized him by the collar and shook him.

“Oh! mercy! mercy!” cried poor Tommy, whose heart quaked within him.

“Hallo! Tommy Bogey, is it you, boy?” said the spirit, releasing the lad from a grasp that was anything but gentle.

“What! old Jeph, can it be you?” exclaimed Tommy, in a tone of intense surprise, as he seated himself on the tombstone, and wiped the cold perspiration from his forehead with the cuff of his coat.

“Ay, it is me,” replied the old man, sadly, “although I do sometimes doubt my own existence. It ain’t often that I’m interrupted—but what brings ye here, lad, and who were these that I saw running like foul fiends across the sandhills on such a night as this?”

“They were Supple Rodger and Long Orrick,” replied Tommy, “and a foul fiend is one of ’em, anyhow, as you’d have found out, old Jeph, if ye’d bin at home this evenin’. As for bein’ out on sich a night as this, it seems to me ye han’t got much more sense to boast of in this respect than I have. You’ll ketch your death o’ cold, old man.”

“Old man!” echoed Jeph, with a peculiar chuckle. “Ha! yes, I am an old man, and I’ve bin used to such nights since I wos a young man. But come away, lad, I’ll go home with ye now.”

Old Jeph took the boy’s hand as he said this, and the two went over the moor together—slowly, for the way was rough and broken, and silently, for the howling of the gale rendered converse almost impossible.

It is not to be supposed that Tommy Bogey had such command over himself, however, as altogether to restrain his curiosity. He did make one or two attempts to induce old Jeph to explain why he was out in such a stormy night, and on such a lonely spot; but the old man refused to be communicative, and finally put a stop to the subject by telling Tommy to let other people’s business alone, and asking him how it happened that Long Orrick came to make an attempt on his house, and how it was he failed?

Tommy related all he knew with alacrity and for a time secured old Jeph’s attention, as was plain from the way in which he chuckled when he heard how his enemy had been outwitted; but gradually the narrative fell on uninterested ears, and before they regained the town the old man’s countenance had become grave and sad, and his mind was evidently wandering among the lights—mayhap among the shadows—of “other days.”

Chapter Nine.

Unbusinesslike Proceedings in “The Office”—Peekins Grows Desperate and Takes Refuge in the “Three Jolly Tars.”

Mr Denham stood in front of his office fire with a coat-tail, as usual, under each arm; his feet planted on two little roses that grew on each side of a large bouquet which flourished perennially on his rug, and his eyes fixed on the ceiling. He had just arrived at Redwharf Lane, and looked quite fresh and ruddy from the exercise of walking, for Denham was a great walker, and frequently did the distance between his house and his office on foot.

Mr Crumps sat shivering in his own room, looking the reverse of ruddy, for Crumps was old and his blood was thin, and there was no fire in his room. It is but justice to say, however, that this was no fault of Denham’s, for the apartment of his junior partner did not possess a fireplace, and it could not be expected that a fire should be lit, à la Red Indian, on the middle of the floor. At all events Crumps did not expect it. He was not, therefore, liable to disappointment in his expectations. He contented himself, poor old man, with such genial gusts of second-hand warmth as burst in upon him from time to time from Denham’s room when the door was open, or poured in upon him in ameliorating rivulets through the keyhole, like a little gulf-stream, when the door was shut.

“The letters, sir,” said Peekins, the meek blue tiger in buttons, entering at that moment and laying a pile of letters on the table.

Had Peekins been a little dog without a soul, capable of wagging his tail and fawning, Denham would have patted him, but, being only a boy in blue with a meek spirit, the great man paid no attention to him whatever. He continued to gaze at the ceiling as if he were reading his destiny there. Perhaps he would have looked as blank as the ceiling had he known what that destiny was to be; but he did not know, fortunately (or unfortunately, if the reader chooses), hence he turned with a calm undisturbed countenance to peruse his letters after the boy had retired.

We do not say that Denham was a hard man; by no means; he was only peculiar in his views of things in general; that was all!

For some time Denham broke seals, read contents, and made jottings, without any expression whatever on his countenance. Presently he took up an ill-folded epistle addressed to “Mister Denham” in a round and rather rugged hand.

“Begging,” he muttered with a slight frown.

“‘Dear Uncle’ (‘eh!’ he exclaimed,—turned over the leaf in surprise, read the signature, and turned back to the beginning again, with the least possible tinge of surprise still remaining), ‘I’m sorry’ (humph) ‘to have to inform you that the Nancy has become a total wreck,’ (‘indeed!’) ‘on the Goodwin Sands.’ (‘Amazing sands these. What a quantity of wealth they have swallowed up!’) ‘The cargo has been entirely lost,’—(‘ah! it was insured to its full value,’) ‘also two of the hands.’ (‘H’m, their lives wouldn’t be insured. These rough creatures never do insure their lives; wonderfully improvident!’) ‘I am at present disabled, from the effects of a blow on the head received during the storm.’ (Very awkward; particularly so just now.) ‘No doubt Bax will be up immediately to give you particulars.’” (Humph!)

“‘The cause of the loss of your schooner was, in my opinion,’ (Mr Denham’s eyebrows here rose in contemptuous surprise), ‘unseaworthiness of vessel and stores.’”

Mr Denham made no comment on this part of the epistle. A dark frown settled on his brow as he crumpled the letter in his hand, dropped it on the ground as if it had been a loathsome creature, and set his foot on it.

Denham was uncommonly gruff and forbidding all that day. He spoke harshly to old Mr Crumps; found fault with the clerks to such an extent, that they began to regard the office as a species of Pandemonium which ought to have smelt sulphurous instead of musty; and rendered the life of Peekins so insupportable that the poor boy occupied his few moments of leisure in speculating on the average duration of human life and wondering whether it would not be better, on the whole, to make himself an exception to the general rule by leaping off London Bridge at high water—blue-tights, buttons, and all!

Things continued in this felicitous condition in the office until five in the afternoon, when there was a change, not so much in the moral as in the physical atmosphere. It came in the form of a thick fog, which rolled down the crooked places of Redwharf Lane, poured through keyholes, curled round the cranes on the warehouses, and the old anchors, cables, and buoys in the lumber-yards; travelled over the mudflats, and crept out upon the muddy river among the colliers, rendering light things indistinct, black things blacker, dark places darker, and affording such an opportunity for unrestrained enjoyment to the rats, that these creatures held an absolute carnival everywhere.

About this period of the day Mr Denham rose, put on his hat and greatcoat, and prepared to go. Peekins observed this through a private scratch in the glass door, and signalised the gladsome news in dumb-show to his comrades. Hope at once took the place of despair in the office, for lads and very young men are happily furnished with extremely elastic spirits. The impulse of joy caused by the prospect of Denham’s departure was so strong in the breast of one youth, with red hair, a red nose, red cheeks, large red lips, blue eyes, and red hands (Ruggles by name), that he incontinently seized a sheet of blotting-paper, crumpled it into a ball, and flung it at the head of the youngest clerk, a dark little boy, who sat opposite to him on a tall stool, and who, being a new boy, was copying letters painfully but diligently with a heavy heart.

The missile was well aimed. It hit the new boy exactly on the point of the nose, causing him to start and prolong the tail of a y an inch and a quarter beyond its natural limits.

This little incident would not have been worth mentioning but for the fact that it was the hinge, so to speak, on which incidents of a more important nature turned. Mr Denham happened to open his door just as the missile was discharged and saw the result, though not the thrower. He had no difficulty, however, in discovering the offender; for each of the other clerks looked at their comrade in virtuous horror, as though to say, “Oh! how could you?—please, sir, it wasn’t me, it was him;” while Ruggles applied himself to his work with an air of abstraction and a face of scarlet that said plainly, “It’s of no use staring in that fashion at me, for I’m as innocent as the unborn babe.”

Denham frowned portentously, and that peculiarly dead calm which usually precedes the bursting of a storm prevailed in the office. Before the storm burst, however, the outer door was opened hastily and our friend Bax stood in the room. He was somewhat dishevelled in appearance, as if he had travelled fast. To the clerks in that small office he appeared more fierce and gigantic than usual. Peekins regarded him with undisguised admiration, and wondered in his heart if Jack the Giant-Killer would have dared to encounter such a being, supposing him to have had the chance.

“I’m glad I am not too late to find you here, sir,” said Bax, puffing off his hat and bowing slightly to his employer.

“Humph!” ejaculated Denham, “step this way.”

They entered the inner office, and, the door being shut, Ruggles internally blessed Bax and breathed freely. Under the influence of reaction he even looked defiant.

“So you have lost your schooner,” began Denham, sitting down in his chair of state and eyeing the seaman sternly. Bax returned the gaze so much more sternly that Denham felt disconcerted but did not allow his feelings to betray themselves.

“The schooner has been lost,” said Bax, “and I am here to report the fact and to present these letters, one from the seamen’s missionary at Ramsgate, the other from your nephew, both of which will show you that no blame attaches to me. I regret the loss, deeply, but it was un—”

Bax was going to have said unavoidable, but he felt that the expression would have been incorrect, and stopped.

“Finish your remark,” said Denham.

“I merely wished to say that it was out of my power to prevent it.”

“Oh!” interjected Denham, sarcastically, as he read the letters. “The seamen’s missionary is one of whom I know nothing. His opinion, therefore, carries no weight. As to my nephew, his remarks are simply unworthy of notice. But you say that no blame attaches to you. To whom then does blame attach, if not to the skipper of the vessel? Do you mean to lay it at the door of Providence?”

“No, sir, I do not,” replied Bax.

“Have you, then, the presumption to insinuate that it lies with me?”

Bax was silent.

“Am I to expect an answer?” said Denham.

“I make no insinuations,” said Bax, after a short pause; “I do but state facts. If the ‘Nancy’ had been fitted with a new tops’l-yard and jib-boom, as I advised last summer, I would have carried her safe into the Downs.”

“So,” said Denham, in a tone of increasing sarcasm, “you have the hardihood to insinuate that it was my fault?”

Bax reddened with indignation at the tone of insult in which these words were uttered. His bass voice grew deeper and sterner as he said:—

“If you insist on plain speaking, sir, you shall have it. I do think the blame of the loss of the ‘Nancy’ lies at your door, and worse than that, the loss of two human lives lies there also. There was not a sound timber or a seaworthy article aboard of the schooner from stem to stern. You know well enough that I have told you this,—in more civil language it may be,—again and again; and I hope that the telling of it now, flatly, will induce you to consider the immense responsibility that lies on your shoulders; for there are other ships belonging to your firm in much the same condition—ships with inferior charts and instruments, unsound spars, not enough of boats, and with anchors and chains scarce powerful enough to hold a Deal lugger in a moderate gale.”

Mr Denham was not prepared for this sudden and wholesale condemnation of himself and his property. He gazed at the seaman’s flushed countenance for a few seconds in mute surprise. At last he recovered self-possession, and said in a calm voice—

“You applied last year, if I remember rightly, for the situation of mate aboard our ship the ‘Trident’—now on her second voyage from Australia?”

“I did,” said Bax, shortly, not knowing how to take this sudden change of subject.

“Do you suppose,” said Denham, with a peculiar curl of his lip, “that this interview will tend to improve your chance of obtaining that situation?”

Denham put the question with the full expectation of humbling Bax, and with the further intention of following up his reply with the assurance that there was much greater probability of the moon being turned into green cheese than of his promotion taking place; but his intentions were frustrated by Bax starting, and, in a voice of indignation, exclaiming—“Sir, do you suppose I have come here to beg? If you were to offer me the command of the ‘Trident,’ or any other ship that you possess, I would refuse it with scorn. It is bad enough to risk one’s life in the rotten craft you send to sea; but that would be nothing compared with the shame of serving a house that thinks only of gain, and holds human life cheaper than the dirt I tread under my feet. No, sir; I came here to explain how the ‘Nancy’ was lost. Having done so, I take my leave.”

“Stay,” said Denham, as Bax turned to go. “Perhaps you will do me one more service before we part. Will you kindly inform my nephew that he need not be in a hurry to come back here. I extend his leave. He may continue to absent himself as long as he pleases—to all eternity if it suits him.”

Mr Denham flushed up with anger as he said the last words. Bax, without deigning a reply, turned on his heel and strode out of the room, slamming the glass-door behind him with such violence that every panel in it was shivered to atoms! He wheeled round and re-entered the room. Denham grew pale, supposing that the roused giant was about to assault him; but Bax only pointed to the door, and said sternly— “Part of the wages due me will pay for that. You can keep the balance, and buy yourself a Bible with it.”

Next moment he was gone, and Peekins stood staring at his master through the shattered door, trembling from head to foot. Immediately afterwards Denham took his hat and stick, and passed through the office. Pausing at the door he looked back:—

“Ruggles.”

“Yes, sir.”

“There are five or six foreign letters in my desk for tomorrow’s post. Copy them out to-night. See that you do it to-night. Peekins will remain with you, and lock up after you have done.”

Ruggles, who knew that this involved work till near midnight, humbly replied, “Yes, sir.”

Having thus secured the misery of at least two human beings, Denham went home, somewhat relieved, to dinner.

Bax unconsciously, but naturally, followed his example. He also went to dinner, but, having no home in that quarter, he went to the “Three Jolly Tars,” and found the landlord quite willing to supply all his wants on the shortest possible notice, namely, three-quarters of an hour.

In a snug box of that celebrated place of entertainment, he found Tommy Bogey (whom he had brought with him) awaiting his appearance. The precocious youth was deeply immersed in a three-days’-old copy of The Times.

“Hallo! Bax, you’ve been sharp about it,” said Tommy, laying down the paper and pulling a little black pipe out of his pocket, which he proceeded coolly and quietly to fill just as if he had been a bearded and grey-headed tar; for Tommy, being a worshipper of Bax, imitated, as all worshippers do, the bad as well as the good qualities of his hero, ignorant of, as well as indifferent to, the fact that it would have been more noble to imitate the good and avoid the bad.

“Ay, we’ve settled it all slick off in no time,” said Bax, sitting down beside his young companion, and proceeding also to fill his pipe.

“An’ wot about the widders and horphans?” inquired Tommy, beginning to smoke, and using his extremely little finger as a tobacco-stopper in a way that might have surprised a salamander.

“The widows!” exclaimed Bax.

“Ay, the widders—also the horphans,” repeated Tommy, with a grave nod of the head. “I ’ope he’s come down ’andsome.”

“Tommy,” said Bax, with a disconcerted look, “I’ve forgot ’em altogether!”

“Forgot ’em? Bax!”

“It’s a fact,” said Bax, with much humility, “but the truth is, that we got to loggerheads, an’ of course you know it was out of the question to talk on such a subject when we were in that state.”

“In course it was,” said Tommy. “But it’s a pity.”

The fact was that Bax had intended to make an appeal to Mr Denham in behalf of the widows and children of the poor men who had been drowned on the night when the “Nancy” was wrecked; but the unexpected turn which the conversation took had driven that subject utterly out of his mind.

“Well, Tommy, it can’t be helped now; and, after all, I don’t think the widows will come by any loss by my forgetfulness, for certain am I that Denham would as soon supply a best-bower anchor to the ‘Trident’ as give a sovereign to these poor people.”

Bax and his young friend here relapsed into a state of silent fumigation from which they were aroused by the entrance of dinner. This meal consisted of beef-steaks and porter. But it is due to Bax to say that he advised his companion to confine his potations to water, which his companion willingly agreed to, as he would have done had Bax advised him to drink butter-milk, or cider, or to go without drink altogether.

They were about done with dinner when a weak small voice in the passage attracted their attention.

“Is there one of the name of Bax ’ere,” said the meek voice.

“Here I am,” shouted Bax, “come in; what d’ye want with me?”

Peekins entered in a state of great agitation.

“Oh! sir, please sir,—I’ll never do it again; but I couldn’t help it indeed, indeed—I was dyin’, I was. It’s a great sin I knows, but—”

Here Peekins burst into tears, and sat down on the seat opposite.

“Wot a green ’un!” muttered Tommy, as he gazed at the tiger in blue through a volume of tobacco smoke.

“What’s the matter, boy?” inquired Bax, in some surprise. “Anything wrong at Redwharf Lane?”

“Ye-es—that’s to say, not exactly, only I’ve run’d away.”

“You han’t run far, then,” said Bax, smiling. “How long is’t since you ran away?”

“Just ten minutes.”

Tommy burst into a laugh at this, and Peekins, feeling somewhat relieved, smiled idiotically through his tears.

“Well now, my lad,” said Bax, leaning forward in a confidential way which quite won the affection of the tiger, and patting him on the shoulder, “I would advise you strongly to go back.”

“Oh! sir, but I can’t,” said Peekins dolefully. “I dursn’t. My life is miserable there. Mr Denham is so ’ard on me that I feels like to die every time I sees ’im. It ain’t o’ no use” (here Peekins became wildly desperate), “I won’t go back; ’cause if I do I’m sure to die slow; an’ I’d rather die quick at once and be done with it.”

Bax opened his eyes very wide at this. It revealed a state of things that he had never before imagined. Tommy Bogey puffed so large a cloud that his face was quite concealed by it, and muttered “you air a rum ’un!”

“Where d’ye stop, boy?” inquired Bax.

“In lodgin’s in Fenchurch Street.”

“D’ye owe ’em anything at the office?”

“No, nothin’; they owes me seventeen and six.”

“D’ye want it very much?”

“O no, I don’t mind that, bless ye,” said Peekins, earnestly.

“What d’ye mean to do?” inquired Bax.

“Go with you—to sea,” replied the tiger, promptly.

“But I’m not going to sea.”

“Then, I’ll go with you wherever you please. I like you,” said the boy, springing suddenly to his side and grasping his hand, “I’ve no one in the world to care for but you. I never heard any one speak like you. If you’ll only let me be your servant, I’ll go with you to the end of the world, and—and—”

Here poor Peekins was again overcome.

“Brayvo!” shouted Tommy Bogey in admiration. “You’re not such a bad fellow after all.”

“Poor boy,” said Bax, stroking the tiger’s head, “you are willing to trust too easily to a weak and broken reed. But, come, I’ll take you to the coast. Better to go there, after all, than stop with such a tender-hearted Christian as Mr Denham. Here, take a bit of dinner.”

Having tasted no food since breakfast, Peekins gladly accepted the invitation, and ate heartily of the remnants of the meal, to the great satisfaction of his companions, especially of Tommy, who regarded him as one might regard a pet canary or rabbit, which requires to be fed plenteously and handled with extreme gentleness and care.

Chapter Ten.

The “Hovel” on Deal Beach—A Storm Brewing—Plans to Circumvent the Smugglers.

On a calm, soft, beautiful evening, about a week after the events narrated in the last chapter, Guy Foster issued from Sandhill Cottage, and took his way towards the beach of Deal.

It was one of those inexpressibly sweet, motionless evenings, in which one is inclined, if in ordinary health, to rejoice in one’s existence; and in which the Christian is led irresistibly to join with the Psalmist in praising God, “for his goodness, and for his wonderful works to the children of men.”

Young Foster’s thoughts ran for a considerable time in this latter channel; for he was one of those youthful Christians whose love to our Saviour does not easily grow cold. He was wont to read the Bible as if he really believed it to be the Word of God, and acted in accordance with its precepts with a degree of bold simplicity and trustfulness, that made him a laughing-stock to some, and a subject of surprise and admiration to others, of his companions and acquaintance. In short, he was a Christian of a cheerful, straightforward stamp.

Yet Guy’s course was not all sunshine, neither was his conduct altogether immaculate. He was not exempt from the general rule, that “through much tribulation” men shall enter into the Kingdom. As he walked along, rejoicing in his existence and in the beauty of that magnificent evening, a cloud would rise occasionally and call forth a sigh, as he recollected the polite intimation of his uncle, that he had extended his leave of absence ad infinitum! He could not shut his eyes to the fact that a brilliant mercantile career on which he had recently entered, and on which he might naturally look as the course cut out for him by Providence, was suddenly closed against him for ever. He knew his uncle’s temper too well to expect that he would relent, and he felt that to retract a statement which he knew to be true, or to express regret for having boldly told the truth as he had done, was out of the question. Besides, he was well aware that such a course would not now avail to restore him to his lost position. It remained, therefore, that, being without influential friends, he must begin over again and carve his own way in the world.

But what then? Was this not the lot of hundreds of thousands? Little time had been lost; he was young, and strong, and hearty. God had written, “Commit thy way unto the Lord, trust also in Him, and He shall bring it to pass.” “Whatever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might, as unto the Lord, and not unto men.” Under the influence of such thoughts the clouds cleared away from Guy’s brow, and he raised his eyes, which for some minutes had been cast down, with a hopeful gaze to the heavens.

There he soon became lost in admiration of the clouds that were floating in masses of amber and gold; rising over each other—piled up, mass upon mass—grotesque sometimes in form, solid yet soft in aspect, and inexpressibly grand, as a whole, in their towering magnificence.

There were signs, however, among the gorgeous beauties of this cloud-land, that were significant to eyes accustomed to read the face of the sky. Various lurid and luminous clouds of grey and Indian-red hues told of approaching storm, and the men of Deal knew that the sea, which just then pictured every cloud in its glassy depths as clearly as if there had been another cloud-land below its surface, would, ere long, be ruffled with a stiffish breeze; perhaps be tossed by a heavy gale.

Men in general are not prone to meditate very deeply on what is going on around them beyond the reach of their own vision. This is natural and right to some extent. If we were to be deeply touched by the joys, sorrows, calamities, and incidents that at all times affect humanity, we should cease to enjoy existence. Life would become a burden. The end of our creation would not be attained. Yet there is an evil of an opposite kind which often mars our usefulness, and makes us unconsciously participators in acts of injustice. This evil is, partial ignorance of, and indifference to, much that goes on around us beyond the range of our vision, but which nevertheless claims our attention and regard.

Every one who reflects will admit that it is pleasant to think, when we retire to rest, that a splendid system of police renders our home a place of safety, and that, although there are villains more than enough who would do their best to get at our purses and plate, we need not make ourselves uneasy so long as the stout guardians of the night are on the beat. Do we not congratulate ourselves on this? and do we not pay the police-tax without grumbling, or at least with less grumbling than we vent when paying other taxes?

Should it, good reader, be less a subject of pleasant contemplation that, when the midnight storm threatens to burst upon our shores, there are men abroad who are skilled in the perilous work of snatching its prey from the raging sea; that, when the howling gale rattles our windows and shakes our very walls, inducing us perchance to utter the mental prayer, “God have mercy on all who are on the sea this night,” that then—at that very time—the heroes of our coast are abroad all round the kingdom; strong in the possession of dauntless hearts and iron frames, and ready to plunge at any moment into the foaming sea to the rescue of life or property?

Who can say, during any storm, that he may not be personally interested in the efforts of those heroes?

We knew a family, the members of which, like those of all the other families in the land, listened to the howling of that fearful storm which covered our shores with wrecks on the 25th of November, 1859. Their thoughts were sad and anxious, as must be the case, more or less, with all who reflect that in such nights hundreds of human beings are certainly perishing on our shores. But ah! what would the feelings of that family have been had they known—as they soon came to know—that two stalwart brothers of their own went down that night among the 450 human beings who perished in the wreck of the “Royal Charter?”

In regard to the “Royal Charter,” it may be truly said that there was no necessity for the loss of that vessel. God did not send direct destruction upon her. The engines were too weak to work her off the land in the face of the gale, and the cables could not hold her. These were among the causes of her loss. And when she did get ashore, every life might have been saved had there been a lifeboat or rocket apparatus at hand. We know not why there were neither; but may it not have been because lifeboats and rockets are not sufficiently numerous all along our shores? How many bleeding hearts there were that would have given drops of their life-blood to have provided the means of saving life on the coast of Anglesea on that terrible night! A few small coins given at an earlier date might have saved those lives! No individual in the land, however far removed from the coast, can claim exemption from the dangers of the sea. His own head may indeed lie safe from the raging billow, but at any moment the sea may grasp some loved one, and thus wreck his peace of mind, or engulf his property and wreck his fortune. Why, then, should not the whole nation take the affairs of the coast nearer to its heart? The Lifeboat Institution is not supported by taxation like our police force. It depends on the charity of the people. Don’t you think, reader, that it has a strong claim on the sympathies, the prayers, and the purse of every living soul in the kingdom? But to return, with many apologies, from this digression.

Guy Foster noted the peculiar appearance of the clouds, and concluded that “something was brewing.” All along the shores stout men in glazed and tarry garments noted the same appearances, and also concluded that it would be dirty weather before long. The lifeboat men, too, were on the qui vive; and, doubtless, the coxswain of each boat, from John o’ Groat’s to the Land’s-end, was overhauling his charge to see that all was right and in readiness for instant service.

“It’s going to blow to-night, Bax,” said Guy, on entering the hovel of the former.

“So ’tis,” replied Bax, who was standing beside his friends Bluenose and Tommy Bogey, watching old Jeph, as he busied himself with the model of his lifeboat.

Jeph said that in his opinion it was going to be a regular nor’-easter, and Bluenose intimated his adherence to the same opinion, with a slap on his thigh, and a huge puff of smoke.

“You’re long about that boat, Jeph,” said Bluenose, after a pause, during which he scanned the horizon with a telescope.

“So I am. It ain’t easy to carry out the notion.”

“An’ wot may the notion be?” inquired Bluenose, sitting down on a coil of rope, and gazing earnestly at the old man.

“To get lifeboats to right themselves w’en they’re upset,” replied Jeph, regarding his model with a look of perplexity. “You see it’s all very well to have ’em filled with air-chambers, which prevents ’em from sinkin’; but w’en they’re upset, d’ye see, they ain’t o’ no use till they gets on their keels again; and that ain’t easy to manage. Now I’ve bin thinkin’ that if we wos to give ’em more sheer, and raise the stem and stern a bit, they’d turn over natural-like, of their own accord.”

“I do believe they would,” said Bax. “Why, what put that into yer head, old man?”

“Well, it ain’t altogether my own notion,” said Jeph, “for I’ve heard, when I was in the port o’ Leith, many years ago, that a clergyman o’ the name of Bremer had made a boat o’ this sort in the year 1792, that answered very well; but, somehow or other, it never came to anything. There’s nothin’ that puzzles me so much as that,” said the old man, looking up with a wondering expression of countenance. “I don’t understand how, w’en a good thing is found out, it ain’t made the most of at once! I never could discover exactly what Mr Bremer’s plan was, so I’m tryin’ to invent one.”

As he said this, Jeph placed the model on which he was engaged in a small tub of water which stood at his elbow. Guy, who was much interested in the old man’s idea, bent over him to observe the result of the experiment. Tommy Bogey sat down beside the tub as eagerly as if he expected some wonderful transformation to take place. Bax and Bluenose also looked on with unusual interest, as if they felt that a crisis in the experimental labours of their old comrade had arrived.

“It floats first-rate on an even keel,” cried Tommy, with a pleased look as the miniature boat moved slowly round its little ocean, “now then, capsize it.”

Old Jeph quietly put his finger on the side of the little boat, and turned it upside down. Instead of remaining in that position it rolled over on one side so much, that the onlookers fully expected to see it right itself, and Tommy gave vent to a premature cheer, but he cut it suddenly short on observing that the boat remained on its side with one of the gunwales immersed, unable to attain an even keel in consequence of the weight of water inside of it.

“I tell ye wot it is, Jeph,” said Bluenose, with emphasis, “you’ll do it yet; if you don’t I’ll eat my sou’-wester without sauce, so I will. As the noospapers says, you’ll inaggerate a new era in lifeboats, old boy, that’s a fact, and I’ll live to see it too!”

Having delivered himself of this opinion in tones of much fervour, the captain delivered his mouth of a series of cloudlets, and gazed through them at his old friend with unfeigned admiration.

Guy and Bax were both impressed with the partial success of the experiment, as well as with Jeph’s idea, and said to him, encouragingly, that he had very near hit it, but Jeph himself only shook his head and smiled sadly.

“Lads,” said he, “very near is sometimes a long way farther off than folk suppose. Perpetual motion has bin very nearly discovered ever since men began to try their hands at engineerin’, but it ain’t discovered yet, nor never will be—’cause why? it ain’t possible.”

“Ain’t poss’ble!” echoed Bluenose, “you’re out there, old man. I diskivered it, years ago. Just you go up to Sandhill Cottage, and inquire for one Mrs Laker, a hupright and justifiable sister o’ mine. Open that ’ooman’s mouth an’ look in (she won’t bite if ye don’t bother her too much), and lyin’ in that there cavern ye’ll see a thing called a tongue,—if that ain’t an engine of perpetooal motion, shiver my timbers! that’s all.”

Just as the captain made this reckless offer to sacrifice his timbers, Peekins—formerly the blue tiger—entered the hovel, and going hastily to Bluenose, whispered in his ear.

A very remarkable transformation had taken place in the outward man of poor Peekins. After coming with Bax to Deal he had been adopted, as it were, by the co-partners of the hovel, and was, so to speak, shared equally by Bax, Bluenose, old Jeph, and Tommy. The wonderfully thin and spider-like appearance which he presented in his blue-tights and buttons on his arrival, created such a howl of derisive astonishment among the semi-nautical boys of Deal, that his friends became heartily ashamed of him. Bax, therefore, walked him off at once to a slop-shop, where sea-stores of every possible or conceivable kind could be purchased at reasonable prices, from a cotton kerchief, with the Union Jack in the middle of it, to the old anchor of a seventy-four gun ship, with a wooden stock big enough to make a canoe.

Here Peekins was disrobed of his old garments, and clad in canvas trousers, pilot-cloth jacket and vest, with capacious pockets, and a sou’-wester; all of which fitted him so loosely that he felt persuaded in his own mind he could easily have jumped out of them with an upward bound, or have slipped out of them downwards through either leg of the pantaloons. He went into that store a blue spider, he came out a reasonable-looking seafaring boy, rather narrow and sloping about the shoulders, it is true, but smart enough and baggy enough—especially about the nether garments—to please even Bax, who, in such matters, was rather fastidious.

The whispered communication, above referred to, had the effect of causing Bluenose to spring up from the coil of rope, and exclaim— “You don’t say so!”

Then, checking himself, and looking mysterious, he said he wanted to have a word with Bax in private, and would be obligated if he’d go with him a bit along shore.

“Well, what’s the news?” inquired Bax, when they were alone.

“We’ve heerd of Long Orrick,” said Bluenose, eagerly.

“That’s not much news,” said Bax; “you told me there wasn’t enough witnesses to swear to him, or something o’ that sort, and that it would be no use attempting to put him in limbo, didn’t you?”

“Ay,” replied the other, striking his clenched right hand into the palm of his left, “but the villain don’t the less deserve to be tied up, and get twelve dozen for all that. I’d content myself with knocking out both his daylights for his cowardly attempt to badger an old man, but that wouldn’t be safe; besides, I know’d well enough he’d take to smugglin’ again, an’ soon give us a chance to nab him at his old tricks; so Coleman and I have been keepin’ a look-out on him; and we’ve found that small yard o’ pump-water, Peekins, oncommon clever in the way o’ watchin’. He’s just brought me word that he heard Long Orrick talkin’ with his chum Rodney Nick, an’ plannin’ to run their lugger to-night into Pegwell Bay, as the coast at the Fiddler’s Cave would be too well watched; so I’m goin’ down to Fiddler’s Cave to-night, and I wants you to go with me. We’ll get Coleman to help us, for he’s savage to get hold of Long Orrick ever since the night they put him in a sack, an’ left him to air his timbers in the Great Chapel Field.”

“But if,” said Bax, “Long Orrick said he would run to Pegwell Bay, which is three or four miles to the nor’ard o’ this, and resolved that he would not go to Fiddler’s Cave, which is six miles to the s’uth’ard, why should you go to the very place he’s not likely to be found at?”

“Because I knows the man,” replied Bluenose, with a wink of deep meaning; “I knows him better than you do. W’en Long Orrick is seen bearin’ away due north with flying colours, you may take your Davy that his true course lies south, or thereby.”

Bax smiled, and suggested that they should take Guy Foster with them, and when Tommy Bogey heard what they were about he volunteered his services, which were accepted laughingly. Being of a sociable disposition, Tommy deemed it prudent to press Peekins into the service, and Peekins, albeit not pugnacious by nature, was quite willing and ready to follow wherever his sturdy little friend chose to lead.

So they all set off, along the road that skirts the beach, towards Saint Margaret’s Bay. The sun was just sinking as they started, and the red clouds were beginning to deepen in their colour and look ominous, though the sea was still quiet and clear like a sheet of glass.

After following the road for some time, they diverged into the footpath that leads to, and winds along the giddy edge of, the chalk cliffs which rise abruptly from the shore at this part of the Kentish coast to the height of several hundred feet.

The path being narrow, they were obliged to walk in single file, Bax leading, Bluenose and Guy following, and Tommy with his meek friend bringing up the rear.

The view seawards was indescribably magnificent from the elevated ridge along which they hastened. The Downs was crowded with hundreds of vessels of every form and size, as well as of every country, all waiting for a favourable breeze to enable them to quit the roadstead and put to sea. Pilot luggers and other shore-boats of various kinds were moving about among these; some on the look-out for employment, others intent on doing a stroke of business in the smuggling way, if convenient. Far away along the beach men of the coastguard might be seen, like little black specks, with telescopes actively employed, ready to pounce on and overhaul (more or less stringently according to circumstances) every boat that touched the shingle. Everything in nature seemed silent and motionless, with the exception of the sea-mews that wheeled round the summits of the cliffs or dived into the glassy sea.

All these things were noted and appreciated in various degrees by the members of the party who hastened towards Saint Margaret’s Bay, but none of them commented much on the scenery. They were too well accustomed to the face of nature in every varying mood to be much struck with her face on the present occasion. Perhaps we may except Guy Foster, who, being more of a city man than his companions, besides being more highly educated, was more deeply impressed by what he saw that evening. But Guy was too much absorbed by the object of the expedition to venture any remark on the beautiful aspect of nature.

“D’ye see that lugger, Bax?” said Bluenose, pointing to a particular spot on the sea.

“Between the Yankee and the Frenchman?” said Bax, “I see it well enough. What then?”

“That’s Long Orrick’s boat,” replied the Captain, “I’d know it among a thousand. Depend on it we’ll nab him to-night with a rich cargo of baccy and brandy a-board. The two B’s are too much for him. He’d sell his soul for baccy and brandy.”

“That’s not such an uncommon weakness as you seem to think,” observed Guy. “Every day men sell their souls for more worthless things.”

“D’ye think so?” said Bluenose, with a philosophical twist in his eyebrows.

“I know it,” returned Guy; “men often sell both body and soul (as far as we can judge) for a mere idea.”

Here Bax, who had been examining the lugger in question with a pocket-telescope, said that he had no doubt whatever Bluenose was right, and hastened forward at a smarter pace than before.

In less than two hours they descended the steep cliffs to the shingle of Saint Margaret’s Bay; and at the same time the wind began to rise, while the shades of night gradually overspread the scene.

Saint Margaret’s Bay is one of those small, quiet, secluded hamlets which are not unfrequently met with along our coasts, and in regard to which the stranger is irresistibly led to ask mentally, if not really, “Why did people ever come to build cottages and dwell here, and what do they do? How do they make a livelihood?”

No stranger ever obtains a satisfactory answer to these questions, for the very good reason that, short though they be, the answers to them would involve almost a volume, or a speech equal in length to that with which the Chancellor of the Exchequer introduces his annual budget. There would be various classes to describe, numerous wants to apprehend, peculiar circumstances and conditions of social life to explain; in short, the thing is a mystery to many, and we merely remark on the fact, without having any intention of attempting to clear the mystery away.

So narrow is the strip of shingle that lies between the sea and the cliffs in Saint Margaret’s Bay, that the cottages have been built close up to the latter—much too close, we venture to think, for safety; but perhaps men who live in constant peril of their lives, count the additional risk of being crushed along with their families under twenty or thirty tons of chalk, unworthy of consideration!

On descending to the beach the first thing our party saw was the burly figure of Coleman seated on his “donkey” by the “sad sea waves.”

It must not be supposed that the coast-guard-man was literally astride of a live ass! No; his “donkey” was an exceedingly ingenious contrivance invented specially for the use of a class of men who, being human, cannot avoid becoming fatigued—yet who, being sentinels, must not on any account whatever be permitted to encourage sleep.

The men of the coast-guard are subject to prolonged and frequent periods of watching, by night as well as by day, hence they are liable to become wearied. It has been wisely considered that the most self-denying mortal alive will, when hard pressed, sit down on a rock or on the ground, if need be, just to relieve his legs a little. The same wise consideration has recalled the fact that when men do this they become helplessly incapable of resisting the drowsy god, and will assuredly go to sleep, against their will and their judgment.

To meet this case, some truly great mind invented the “donkey.” This contrivance is simply a stool with one leg. The top of the stool is not round, but oblong, and very small. A hole in the centre receives the solitary leg, which is attached to it by a piece of cord, and can be pulled out when occasion requires, and the machine thrown over the arm as one would throw a cloak or scarf. The beauty of the donkey is, that it forms an excellent seat on which a man can balance himself and rest with great comfort as long as he keeps awake; but should he fall asleep, even for one instant, he infallibly comes to the ground with a shock so severe that he is quite certain to remain wakeful during the remainder of his vigil!

“What, ho! Coleman,” cried Bax, as he and his friends drew near, “have you actually acquired the art of sleeping on a donkey?”

Coleman rose and turned round with a good-humoured smile on his ruddy visage:

“Nay, not quite that,” said he, “but the hiss of the waves is apt to dull the hearin’ a bit, an’ one don’t naturally look for enemies from land’ard, d’ye see?”

“Mayhap not,” said Bluenose, taking a fresh quid of tobacco out of a brass box which he carried at all times in his waistcoat pocket; “but I expect an enemy from seaward to-night who’ll be oncommon glad to make your acquaintance, no doubt!”

Here the Captain chuckled, engulfed his fresh quid, and proceeded to explain the nature of their errand. Having done so, he asked Coleman what he thought of it.

The worthy coast-guard-man scratched his nose and stared at the shingle for some minutes before venturing to reply.

“I think,” said he at length, “that we’ll cook his goose to-night; that’s wot it is.”

Coleman paused, and looked thoughtfully at Bluenose. The Captain nodded his head pleasantly, but said nothing, and Coleman proceeded:—

“He’ll come in with the flood-tide no doubt, if the gale don’t drive him in sooner, an’ run ashore as near to the cave as possible; but he’ll be scared away if he sees anything like unusual watchin’ on the shore, so you’d better get out o’ sight as fast as ye can, and keep there.”

“Don’t you think it would be as well that you also should keep out of sight, and so leave the coast clear for him?” suggested Bax.

“Not so,” said Coleman with a grin, “he’d see that I’d done it for an object. Long Orrick keeps his weather eye too wide open to be caught so easy as that comes to.”

“Well, but come up for half-an-hour, and have a glass of beer while we talk over the business,” said Bax.

Coleman shook his head, “Can’t quit my post; besides, I don’t drink no beer.”

“Brayvo! old feller,” cried Bluenose, “give us your flipper. Water, cold, for ever! say I, as the whale remarked to the porpoise. But let’s go under the lee o’ the boat-’ouse an’ talk it out, for we shan’t nab Long Orrick this night, if we doesn’t go at ’im like a cat at a mouse.”

“Just listen to that old codfish,” said Tommy Bogey to Peekins, “takin’ credit to his-self for not drinkin’, though he smokes like a steam-tug, an’ chews like—like—I’m a Dutchman if I know what, unless it be like the bo’sun of a seventy-four gun ship.”

“Do bo’suns of seventy-four gun ships chew very bad?” inquired Peekins.

“Oh! don’t they!” exclaimed Tommy, opening his eyes very wide, and rounding his mouth so as to express his utter inability to convey any idea of the terrific powers of bo’suns in that particular line. “But Bluenose beats ’em all. He’d chew oakum, I do believe, if he didn’t get baccy, and yet he boasts of not drinkin’! Seems to me he’s just as bad as the rest of us.”

“D’you think so?” said Peekins, with a doubtful look; “don’t you think the man who does only two nasty things is better off than the one that does three?”

“Nasty things!” exclaimed Tommy in a tone of amazement. “Don’t Bax drink and smoke, and d’ye think he’d do one or t’other if they was nasty? Peekins, you small villian as was a blue spider only a week since, if you ever talks of them things being nasty again, I’ll wop you!”

“You hear that, Bax?” said Guy Foster, who, being only a few paces ahead of the boys, had overheard the remark, spoken as it was in rather a loud key.

Bax nodded his head, and smiled, but made no reply.

It is but just to say that Tommy’s threat was uttered more than half in jest. He would as soon have thought of “wopping” a little girl as of maltreating his meek companion. But Peekins was uncertain how to take his threat, so, not being desirous of a wopping, he held his tongue and humbly followed his comrades.

The party walked for some time at the foot of the cliffs under the lee of a boat-house, engaged in earnest conversation as to the best mode of proceeding in the meditated enterprise. It was evident to all of them that the hour for action could not now be far distant; for the gale increased every moment; the light on the South Foreland was already sending its warning rays far and wide over the angry sea, whence the floating lights that mark the sands sent back their nightly greeting, while dark thunderous clouds mantled over the sky and deepened the shades of night which, ere long, completely overspread land and sea.

Chapter Eleven.

The Smugglers’ Cave—A Surprise, a Deception, a Fight, and an Escape.

The Fiddler’s Cave, alias Canterbury Cave, alias the Smugglers’ Cave, is a cavern of unknown extent situated under the high chalk cliffs at the southern extremity of Saint Margaret’s Bay.

Tradition informs us that its first appellation was bestowed in consequence of a fiddler having gone into it with his dog many years ago, and never having come out again. Four days afterwards the dog crept out in a dying condition. It is supposed that the man must have wandered too far into the cavern, and been overpowered by foul air. Tradition also says that there is a passage from it, underground, all the way to Canterbury, a distance of eighteen miles; hence its second name. No one, however, seems to have verified this report. The Kentish smugglers, from whom the cave derives its last title, have undoubtedly made much use of it in days of old. At the period of our story, the entrance to Fiddler’s Cave was so much obstructed by rubbish and sand that a man had to stoop low on entering the passage which led to the interior. At the present day the entrance is so nearly closed up that a man could not creep along it even on his hands and knees.

Here, on the threatening night of which we are writing, a boatman stood on the watch, close under the rocks that overhung the entrance to the cavern. The man was habited, like most of his brethren of the coast, in rough garments, with long boots, sou’-wester cap, and oiled, tarred, and greased upper garments, suitable to the stormy night in which he had seen fit to hold his vigil.

A feeble ray of light that struggled in the cavern showed that the man clutched a pistol in his right hand, and with a frown on his brow, glanced alternately out to sea where all was darkness, and along shore where the only visible living object was the figure of old Coleman seated on his “donkey.” It need scarcely be added that the sight of the coast-guard-man was the cause of the smuggler’s frown.

The gale was now blowing stiffly, and rolling black clouds so covered the sky that the moon was entirely obscured by them, save when an occasional break permitted a few rays to stream down and reveal the elemental strife that was going on below.

Coleman, regardless of the storm, maintained his position on his one-legged companion, and bending his body to the blast, endeavoured to pierce the gloom that enshrouded everything seaward beyond the large breakers that sent their foam hissing up to his very feet. While he sat there he thought, or muttered, thus:—

“It’s odd, now, I’d ha’ thought he’d have run ashore afore this; seein’ that I’ve sat on this here donkey for more nor an hour, a-purpose to let him see that I’m only watchin’ here, and nowhere else. He can’t but see there’s a goodish lump o’ the coast free to him so long as I sit here. But he’s a sly feller; p’raps he suspects somethin’. An’ yet, I’ll go bound, he don’t guess that there’s six or seven of his worst enemies hidin’ all along the coast, with eyes like needles, and ears on full cock! How’sever, it won’t do to sit much longer. If he don’t come in five minutes, I’ll git up an’ walk along in an easy unsuspectin’ way. Dear me, wot a set o’ hypocrites we’ve got to be in the hexecution of our dooty!”

While Coleman moralised thus, in utter ignorance of the near proximity of an eye-witness, the smuggler at the mouth of the cave, who was no other than Orrick’s friend, Rodney Nick, muttered some remarks between his teeth which were by no means complimentary to the other.

“What are ye sittin’ there for, ye old idiot?” said he savagely. “I do b’lieve ye’ve larned to sleep on the donkey. Ha! there’s two of ye together, an’ the wooden one’s the best. Wouldn’t I just like to be yer leftenant, my boy? an’ I’d come to know why you don’t go on your beat. Why, there may be no end o’ cats and galleys takin’ the beach wi’ baccy an’ lush enough to smother you up alive, an’ you sittin’ there snuffin’ the east wind like an old ass, as ye are.”

The smuggler uttered the last sentence in deep exasperation, for the time appointed for signalising his comrades at sea had arrived, and yet that stolid coast-guard-man sat there as if he had become fastened to the shingle.

“I’ve a good mind to run out an’ hit ye a crack over yer figure-head,” he continued, grasping his pistol nervously and taking a step forward. “Hallo! one would a’most think you’d heard me speak,” he added and shrank back, as Coleman rose from his seat (the five minutes having expired), and sauntered with a careless air straight towards the cave.

On reaching it he paused and looked into it. Rodney Nick crouched in the shadow of a projecting rock, and grasped his pistol tightly for a moment, under the impression that he was about to be discovered. He was one of those fierce, angry men who are at all times ready to risk their lives in order to gratify revenge. Old Coleman had more than once thwarted Rodney Nick in his designs, besides having in other ways incurred his dislike, and there is no doubt that had the coast-guard-man discovered him at that moment, he would have paid for the discovery with his life. Fortunately for both of them Coleman turned after standing a few seconds at the mouth of the cave, and retraced his steps along the beach.

He prolonged his walk on this occasion to the extremity of his beat, but, long before reaching that point his figure was lost to the smuggler’s view in darkness.

“At last!” exclaimed Rodney Nick, taking a dark lantern from his breast, and peering cautiously in every direction. “Now then, Long Orrick, if ye look sharp we’ll cheat ’em again, and chew our quids and drink our grog free of dooty!”

As he muttered his words the smuggler flashed the lantern for an instant, in such a manner that its brilliant bull’s-eye was visible far out at sea. Again he let its light shine out for one instant; then he closed the lid and awaited the result.

Out upon the sea, not far from the wild breakers that thundered and burst in foam on the south end of the Goodwin Sands, a boat, of the size and form styled by men of the coast a “cat,” was tossing idly on the waves. The men in her were employed in the easy task of keeping her head to the wind, and in the anxious occupation of keeping a “bright look-out” on the shore.

“Time’s up,” said one of the men, turning suddenly towards his companions, and allowing the light of a dark lantern to fall on the face of a watch which he held in his hand.

“Dowse the glim, you lubber,” cried the angry voice of Long Orrick, “and keep a sharp look-out for the signal. If it don’t come we’ll run for Old Stairs Bay, an’ if they’re too sharp for us there we’ll make for Pegwell Bay, and drop the tubs overboard with sinkers at ’em.”

For nearly quarter of an hour the party in the boat watched in silence. It was evident that Long Orrick was becoming impatient from the way in which he turned, now to windward, to scan the threatening sky, and then to land-ward, to look for the expected signal. He felt, on the one hand, that if the gale continued to increase, it would be necessary to run for the nearest place of safety; and he felt, on the other hand, that if he did not succeed in landing the goods at Fiddler’s Cave, there would be small chance of his getting them ashore at all.

“There’s the glim,” cried one of the men.

“All right! up with a bit o’ the sail,” said Long Orrick, seizing the tiller from the man who held it.

In a second or two they were driving before the wind straight for the shore. With such a stiff breeze the boat was soon close to the breakers, and now the utmost care was necessary in order to prevent it from broaching-to and being capsized. No anxiety was felt, however, by the crew of the little craft. Deal boatmen are noted for their expertness in beaching their boats and in putting off to sea in rough weather, and the man who held the tiller of the little boat which danced on the white crests of the waves that night had many and many a time come through such trifling danger scatheless.

“Look out, Bill,” cried Orrick, as the thunder of the waves on the beach sounded in his ears, and the great chalk cliffs rose up, ghostlike and dim, before him. To one unaccustomed to such scenes it might have appeared an act of madness to run ashore on such a night. But the danger was not so great as it seemed.

The man at the bow stood ready with a boat-hook. In a moment the keel grated on the shingle. Instantly the men were over the side, and the boat was hauled up the beach.

“Now, then, for the tubs. Make for the cave straight. Rodney Nick will be here in a minute. Ah, here he comes! Well, Rodney, we’ve done it pretty smart,” said Long Orrick, wading with a keg of brandy towards a figure which approached him from the beach. “Here you are! there’s lots more of ’em. We’re in luck. Look alive. The coast’s clear, I suppose?”

“Hall right,” said the dark figure in a hoarse whisper, which terminated in a low chuckle, as Long Orrick placed the keg innocently in the arms of old Coleman and returned to the boat for more!

It may be as well to remark here—in order to clear up this mystery—that although Coleman had not observed the flash of Rodney Nick’s lantern, his sharp eye had observed the gleam of the light in the boat, when one of the men, as already mentioned, threw it on the face of his timepiece.

Supposing, erroneously, that this latter was a signal to the shore, Coleman, nevertheless, came to the correct conclusion that some one must be awaiting Long Orrick near at hand, and felt convinced that the Smugglers’ Cave must needs be the rendezvous.

Hastening cautiously to Bax, whose station was not far distant from the cave, he communicated his suspicions, and they went together towards the place.

“I’ll go in first,” said Coleman, “’cause I know the place better than you do.”

“Very good,” assented Bax, “I’ll stand by to lend a hand.”

Arrived at the cavern, Bax waited outside, and Coleman went in so stealthily that he was at Rodney Nick’s side before that worthy had the smallest suspicion of his presence. Indeed, Coleman would certainly have run against the smuggler in the dark, had not the latter happened to have been muttering savage threats against wind and tide, friends and foes, alike, in consequence of the non-appearance of the boat.

Seizing him suddenly from behind, Coleman placed his knee in the small of his back, forced him almost double, and then laid him flat on the ground.

At the same moment Bax knelt by his side, put one of his strong hands on the smuggler’s right arm—thereby rendering it powerless—and placed the other on his mouth.

So quickly was it all done that Rodney was bound and gagged in less than two minutes. Coleman then ran out just in time to receive the first instalment of the brandy, as already related. Being much the same in build and height with Rodney Nick, he found no difficulty in passing for him in the darkness of the night and violence of the wind, which latter rendered his hoarse whispers almost unintelligible.

In this way several kegs of brandy, boxes of cigars, and bundles of tobacco were landed and conveyed to the cavern by Coleman, who refused to allow Bax to act as an assistant, fearing that his great size might betray him.

On the fifth or sixth trip he found Long Orrick waiting for him somewhat impatiently.

“You might have brought a hand with ye, man,” said the latter, testily.

“Couldn’t git one,” said Coleman, taking the keg that was delivered to him.

“What say?” cried Orrick.

“Couldn’t git one,” repeated the other, as loudly and hoarsely as he could whisper.

“Speak out, man,” cried Long Orrick, with an oath; “you ain’t used to have delicate lungs.”

“I couldn’t git nobody to come with me,” said Coleman, in a louder voice.

The tone was not distinct, but it was sufficient to open the eyes of the smuggler. Scarcely had the last word left his lips when Coleman received a blow between the eyes that laid him flat on the beach. Fortunately the last wave had retired. There was only an inch or so of foam around him. Long Orrick knelt on his foe, and drew a knife from his girdle. Before the next wave came up, Coleman with one hand caught the uplifted arm of his adversary, and with the other discharged a pistol which he had drawn from his breast. In another instant they were struggling with each other in the wave which immediately swept over the beach, and Bax was standing over them, uncertain where to strike, as the darkness rendered friend and foe alike undistinguishable.

The men in the boat at once rushed to the rescue, omitting to take weapons with them in their haste. Seeing this, Bax seized the struggling men by their collars, and exerting his great strength to the utmost, dragged them both high upon the beach. He was instantly assailed by the crew, the first and second of whom he knocked down respectively with a right and left hand blow; but the third sprang on him behind and two others came up at the same moment—one on each side—and seized his arms.

Had Bax been an ordinary man, his case would have been hopeless; but having been endowed with an amount of muscular power and vigour far beyond the average of strong men, he freed himself in a somewhat curious manner. Bending forward, he lifted the man who grasped him round the neck from behind quite off his legs, and, by a sudden stoop, threw him completely over his head. This enabled him to hurl his other assailants to the ground, where they lay stunned and motionless. He then darted at Coleman and Long Orrick, who were still struggling together with tremendous fury.

Seeing his approach, the smuggler suddenly gave in, relaxed his hold, and exclaimed, with a laugh, as Bax laid hold of him—

“Well, well, I see it’s all up with me, so it’s o’ no use resistin’.”

“No, that it ain’t, my friend,” said Coleman, rising and patting his foe on the back. “I can’t tell ye how pleased I am to meet with ye. You’re gettin’ stouter, I think. Smugglin’ seems to agree with ye!—hey?”

He said this with a leer, and Bax laughed as he inspected Long Orrick more narrowly.

The fact was that the smuggler’s clothing was so stuffed in all parts with tobacco that his lanky proportions had quite disappeared, and he had become so ludicrously rotund as to be visibly altered even in a dark night!

“Well, it does agree with me, that’s a fact,” said Long Orrick, with a savage laugh; in the tone of which there was mingled however, quite as much bitterness as merriment.

Just at this moment the rest of Coleman’s friends, including Tommy Bogey and Peekins, appeared on the scene in breathless haste, having been attracted by the pistol-shot.

In the eager question and answer that followed, Long Orrick was for a moment not sufficiently guarded. He wrenched himself suddenly from the loosened grasp of Bax, and, darting between several of the party, one of whom he floored in passing with a left-handed blow, he ran along the shore at the top of his speed!

Bax, blazing with disappointment and indignation, set off in fierce pursuit, and old Coleman, bursting with anger, followed as fast as his short legs and shorter wind would permit him. Guy Foster and several of the others joined in the chase, while those who remained behind contented themselves with securing the men who had been already captured.

Chapter Twelve.

The Storm—The Wreck of the Homeward Bound—The Lifeboat.

A stern chase never was and never will be a short one. Old Coleman, in the course of quarter of a mile’s run, felt that his powers were limited and wisely stopped short; Bax, Guy, and Tommy Bogey held on at full speed for upwards of two miles along the beach, following the road which wound along the base of the chalk cliffs, and keeping the fugitive well in view.

But Long Orrick was, as we have seen, a good runner. He kept his ground until he reached a small hamlet named Kingsdown, lying about two and a half miles to the north of Saint Margaret’s Bay. Here he turned suddenly to the left, quitted the beach, and made for the interior, where he was soon lost sight of, and left his disappointed pursuers to grumble at their bad fortune and wipe their heated brows.

The strength of the gale had now increased to such an extent that it became a matter not only of difficulty but of danger to pass along the shore beneath the cliffs. The spray was hurled against them with great violence, and as the tide rose the larger waves washed up with a magnificent and overwhelming sweep almost to their base. In these circumstances Guy proposed to go back to Saint Margaret’s Bay by the inland road.

“It’s a bit longer,” said he, as they stood under the lee of a wall, panting from the effects of their run, “but we shall be sheltered from the gale; besides, I doubt if we could pass under the cliffs now.”

Bax made no reply, but, placing his hand on his friend’s arm, stood for a few seconds in the attitude of one who listens with profound attention.

“There it is,” said he at last. “Do ye hear that, Guy?”

“I hear it,” cried Tommy Bogey, with some excitement.

“I hear nothing but the howling of the wind,” said Guy, “and the roaring of the sea.”

“Hush! listen! the minute-gun,” said Bax in a low voice; “it comes from Saint Margaret’s Bay; there, did you not—”

“Ah! I heard it,” cried the other; “come, let us run down along the beach a bit, and see if we can make out whereabouts she is.”

Guy spoke as if he had no doubt whatever of the cause of the sounds which had attracted the attention of himself and his friends. Without another word they all bent their heads to the storm, and forced their way out upon the exposed beach, where they found some fishermen assembled in the lee of a boat-house, looking eagerly towards the direction whence the sounds came.

“I’m afear’d she’s got on the rocks to the nor’ard o’ the bay,” said one of the men, as Bax and his companions ran towards them; “there goes another gun.”

A faint flash was seen for an instant away to the southward. It was followed in a few seconds by the low boom of a distant gun. Almost at the same moment the black heavens seemed to be cleft by a sheet of vivid flame, which towered high into the sky, and then went out, leaving the darkness blacker than before.

“That’s a rocket,” cried the fishermen.

“Heaven help them,” said Bax, as he hastily buttoned his oilskin coat close up to his chin. “Come, Guy, we’ll away and do what we can. Will any of you lads join us?”

Most of the younger men on the ground at once volunteered.

“Stop,” cried one of the older men, “the tide’s too high; ye can’t pass the cliff, I tell ye.”

The man was left abruptly by the whole party, for they knew well enough that if they took the inland road they might be too late to render effectual assistance, and any needless delay in attempting the beach road could only make matters worse.

There was no lifeboat on this part of the Kentish coast at that time, and the great distance of the spot from Ramsgate or Broadstairs rendered it highly improbable that either of the lifeboats belonging to these ports could be in time to render effectual assistance. Besides, the men knew well that on such a night the crews of these boats would have enough of work to do in attending to the wrecks in their own immediate neighbourhood.

They followed Bax, therefore, at a steady trot until they reached a part of the perpendicular cliff which projected somewhat towards the sea. At the foot of this the waves which on this coast roll to the shore with tremendous volume and power, burst with a loud roar and rushed up in thick foam.

“Don’t any of you come on that don’t feel up to it,” cried Bax, as he awaited the retreat of a wave, and prepared to make a dash. At that moment he wheeled round with the look and air of one who had forgotten something.

“Tommy,” said he, laying his hand on the boy’s head, “go back, lad, round by the land road.”

“No, Bax, I won’t,” replied Tommy, with a fervour of determination that would at any other time have raised a laugh in those who heard it.

“Come along, then, you obstinate beggar,” said Bax, sternly, seizing the boy by the arms, and throwing him over his shoulder as if he had been a lamb!

Tommy’s dignity was hurt. He attempted to struggle, but he might as well have hoped to free himself from the hug of a brown bear as to escape from the vice-like grip of his big friend. In another moment Bax was whelmed in spray and knee-deep in rushing water.

It was a short dangerous passage, but the whole party got round the cliff in safety, and hastened as rapidly as possible towards the scene of the wreck.

We must now beg the reader to follow us to another scene, and to go back a few hours in time.

Shortly after the sun set that night, and before the full fury of the storm broke forth, a noble ship of two thousand tons’ burden beat up the Channel and made for the Downs. She was a homeward bound ship, just arrived from Australia with a valuable cargo, and between two and three hundred passengers, many of whom were gold-diggers returning to their native land, and nearly all of whom were possessed of a considerable sum in nuggets and gold-dust. The ship was owned by the house of Denham, Crumps, and Company. Her arrival had been already telegraphed to the firm in Redwharf Lane.

There was rejoicing that evening on board the “Trident.” Men and women and children crowded the high sides of the weather-worn ship, and, holding on by shrouds, ratlines and stays, standing on tip-toe, clambering on carronades, and peeping through holes, gazed long and ardently at the white cliffs of dear Old England.

Some of them had not set eyes on the “old country,” as it is affectionately called in our colonies, for many years. Some there were who had gone out as boys, and were returning bald-headed and grey-bearded men. There were others who had been out only a few years, but who, happening to be on the spot when the goldfields were discovered, had suddenly made fortunes. They were returning to surprise and gladden the hearts of those who, perchance, had sent them off to seek their fortunes with the sad feeling that there was little chance of seeing them again in this world.

There were ladies, also, who had gone out to the distant land with an unbelieving, almost despairing, hope of finding employment for those talents which they had, alas! found to be of but little value at home. These were, in some cases, returning with lucky gold-diggers and blooming children to their native land. In other cases they were merely about to visit home to induce some parent or sister, perhaps, to venture out to the land of gold.

But all, whether young or old, male or female, gentle or simple, were merry and glad of heart that night as they clustered on the bulwarks of the “Trident,” and gazed at the longed-for and much loved shore. There was no distinction of ranks now. The cabin and the ’tween-deck passengers mingled together and tried to relieve the feelings of their hearts by exchanging words of courtesy and goodwill.

The stormy and threatening aspect of the sky had no terrors now for the passengers on board the “Trident.” For weeks and months they had tossed on the bosom of the great deep. They were familiar with the varied moods of wind and wave; they had faced the dangers of the sea so often that they scarce believed that any real dangers could exist. The very children had become sailors; they were precociously weather-wise, and rather fond of being tossed on the waves than otherwise. The prospect of a storm no longer filled them with alarm, as it used to do at the beginning of the voyage, for they had encountered many storms and weathered them all. Yes, they had experienced all the dangers of the sea, but it was reserved for that night—that last night of the long, long voyage—to teach them the dangers of the land; the terrors of a storm in narrow waters, among shallows and on a lee-shore,—and to convince them that for man there is no real safety whatever in this life, save, only, in the favour and love of God.

There were some on board the “Trident,” however, who knew the danger of their position full well, but who were too considerate of the feelings of the women and children to let their knowledge appear even in their looks. The sailors knew the danger of a lee-shore; but sailors are to a large extent a reckless and hopeful class of men, whose equanimity is not easily upset. The captain, too, and the pilot, were alive to their critical position, but both were sanguine and hoped to get into the Downs before the storm should break.

A few of the male passengers also seemed to be aware of the fact that approaching the Downs on such a night was anything but matter of gratulation. One in particular, a tall strong man of about forty, with a bushy black beard and a stern aspect, walked about the quarterdeck with a frown on his countenance that betokened a mind ill at ease.

Going up to the captain, who stood near the wheel, this man asked him what he thought of the weather.

“It don’t look well; we shall have a dirty night, I fear,” replied the captain.

“Do you expect to make the Downs before the storm breaks?” inquired the passenger.

“Well, I hope so,” said the Captain.

“Supposing you do,” continued the dark man, “do you consider your cables and ground-tackle strong enough to hold the ship in the face of an easterly gale?”

“Why do you ask that?” said the Captain in surprise.

“Because,” replied the passenger, “I have my doubts on the point.”

“Well, to tell you the truth,” said the other, in a low tone, “I confess that my mind is more uneasy on that score than on any other. The cables are fit enough to hold her in ordinary weather; but if we were obliged to anchor off a lee-shore in a heavy gale on an exposed coast like this I would be somewhat anxious.”

“Why is the ground tackle not strong enough?” asked the passenger.

“Well, it’s not easy to answer that,” replied the Captain, with a smile, “and yet it ain’t difficult to conceive that it would cost a good deal to supply new and heavier chains and anchors to the ship.”

“Ay, the old story—economy!” said the passenger bitterly, almost fiercely; “a set of selfish land-lubbers who know nothing whatever about the sea, and care for nothing on earth but their own pockets and bellies, are allowed by the Government of this land to send ships loaded with human beings to sea in such a state that it almost calls for the performance of a miracle to secure their safe arrival in port. This is pointed out again and again to them without effect. The sea throws its dead by dozens on our shores every gale that blows, crying out, ‘Look here at the result of economy and selfishness!’ Goods to the extent of thousands of pounds are destroyed annually, and the waves that swallow them belch out the same complaint. Even the statistics that stare in the face of our legislators, and are published by their own authority, tell the same tale,—yet little or nothing is done to prevent misers from sending ships to sea in a totally unfit condition to face even ordinary dangers. Bah! the thing is past remedy, for the men who should act are deaf and blind. Mark my words, Captain; if we don’t weather the South Foreland before ten o’ the clock this night, the ‘Trident’ will be a total wreck before morning.”

The passenger turned on his heel with an angry fling and went below, while the Captain, who was somewhat overawed by his vehemence, walked aft to converse with the pilot.

The gale soon burst on the ship, sending nearly all the passengers below, and compelling the Captain to reduce sail. Darkness overspread the scene, and as the night wore on, the gale increased to such a degree that the ship laboured heavily. Soon the lights on the South Foreland were descried and passed in safety.

“Get the anchors clear,” said the pilot. “Ready about there!”

No one ever knew the reason of the order given at that time. Perhaps the pilot thought he was a little too near the land, and meant to haul off a little; but whatever the reason might have been, the command was only half carried out when the sheet of the jib gave way; the loosened sail flapped itself to shreds in a second, and the ship, missing stays, fell off towards the shore.

“Better wear ship,” cried the Captain, springing in alarm to the pilot’s side.

“Too late for that. Shore’s close under our lee. Let go the anchors!”

The shout with which the command was given proved the necessity of its being instantly obeyed; but the men needed no urging, for at that moment a temporary lull in the furious blast allowed them to hear the roaring of the breakers at the foot of the cliffs.

Two anchors were at once let go, and the ship was brought up with a tremendous shock.

And now commenced that prolonged struggle for life which is, alas! too often the lot of those who venture out upon the stormy sea. Yet it was some time before the passengers of the “Trident” could be brought fully to realise their danger. It was hard to believe that, after weathering the cyclones of the southern seas, and the gales of the Atlantic, they had reached home at last to be cast a wreck upon their own threshold, and to perish within hail almost of relatives and friends.

For a long time they refused to credit the appalling truth that their case was all but hopeless,—anchored as they were close to a lee shore, with inadequate ground tackle, and an increasing gale. When the chain of the smaller anchor snapped, and the Captain ordered the minute-gun to be fired, and rockets to be thrown up, then the wail of terror began:—

“Then shrieked the timid, and stood still the brave.”

“You’d better order the boats to be lowered, said the dark passenger to the Captain, with a sneer that seemed unnatural as well as unfeeling in the circumstances.

The Captain, who was standing by the starboard mizzen shrouds at the time, glanced angrily at him for a moment, and said:—

“Ha! You know well enough that there ain’t boats enough in the ship to carry all the passengers, and if there were, they could not live for a moment in such a sea.”

“Yes,” replied the dark man, vehemently, “I know that well enough; and I know, too, that there’s no lifeboat of any kind aboard, nor life-jackets, nor life-buoys, beyond what would suffice to float some half dozen men; and the owners knew this before sending their ship to sea, and, knowing it, they cared not a rap, because they had insured ship and cargo to the full value. Human life, not being counted part of the cargo, is of no value whatever to them.”

“Come, Mr Clelland,” said the Captain, reproachfully, “is this a time for a Christian man to encourage bitter feelings against his fellows because of systems and customs, bad or good?”

“Ay, it is the time,” answered the other; “at least if I don’t let out my mind now, it’s not likely I’ll find a fitter time to do it in this world.”

He said this somewhat sadly, and turned away, just as the Captain gave orders to throw up another rocket.

Far along that stormy coast the rocket was seen by hundreds who knew well what the signal meant, and many of whom, no doubt, offered up prayer to God for those who were in danger. Most of them, however, felt that they could do nothing in the way of affording aid. Our friend Bax and his companions were not of this mind, as we have seen.

Some of the stout-hearted boatmen of Deal also thought that something might be done, and launched their luggers, but were in some cases obliged to desist owing to the ever-increasing fury of the storm.

The rockets were seen also by another party of seamen, who stood grouped under the lee of a boat-house far away to the southward. This was the crew of a small lifeboat which stood ready to be launched. The boat was quickly run out of its house by command of its coxswain, and the crew hastily equipped themselves for their dangerous work.

They put on life-jackets made of a number of pieces of cork sewed on canvas, in such a way as to cover their bodies from shoulder to waist without interfering with the play of the arms. Some of the men objected to put these on at first, feeling afraid lest their courage should be called in question, in consequence of their using a contrivance which was not in such general use at that time as it is now. Their objections were overcome, however, except in the case of one young man, who exclaimed, “No, no, none o’ yer floats for me. When my time comes I must go, and them things won’t save me.”

The poor man did not see that the same argument, if correct, would have justified his going off in a coble instead of a lifeboat. The want of perception on this point, and false pride, cost him his life.

Several young women, wives of some of the men, had assembled there to dissuade their husbands from going out on such a terrible night. These were so alarmed at the terrific thunder of the surf on the shores of the little bay, and the howling of the wind, that they clung to the men and entreated them with tears not to venture. Is it a matter of wonder that these bold fellows, who could not be appalled by the storm, found it difficult to resist the power of woman’s tears? They wavered for a few seconds; but when the coxswain, who was a cool, intrepid old man-of-war’s man, cried in a hearty voice, “Now then, lads, look alive; shove off and jump in!” every man sprang to his post, and the lifeboat was afloat in an instant. Through some mismanagement, however, she turned broadside to the sea, was overturned instantly, and rolled over on the beach. The women shrieked; the men on shore ran to the rescue, and fortunately saved every man with the exception of the one who had refused to put on the life-jacket, and who being less able to support himself than his companions when washed back into deep water by each retiring wave, became at length exhausted and ceased to struggle for life. When he was at last laid hold of and dragged ashore, he was dead.

While some of the men were engaged in fruitless efforts to save this man, the rest of the crew, having suffered little, were about to launch the boat a second time, when the women again rushed forward and clung to them with such eager entreaties, that they began at last to entertain the idea of the storm being too wild for them to venture off.

Lest the reader should unjustly censure these men, we must remind him of the fact that the self-righting principle not having at that time been discovered, the danger incurred in case of an upset was very great, and the boat about which we are writing, being small, ran considerable risk of being capsized by the heavy seas. In fact, almost the only difference between lifeboats and ordinary boats, at this time, was the incapacity of the former to sink when filled with water, owing to the buoyancy of the air-chambers fitted round their sides. If filled by a sea, much valuable time had to be lost in baling out the water before the oars could be effectively resumed, and if overturned it was a matter of the greatest difficulty for the men in the water to right them again; in some cases it had proved impossible. All these defects are remedied now-a-days; but more on this head hereafter.

While the men were in this undecided state of mind, regardless alike of the commands and the taunts of the coxswain, two men were seen to leap down the slope that lay between the cliffs and the sea, and make for the group of boatmen at full speed. As they drew near they were recognised to be Mr Hamilton, a young midshipman, then on leave of absence, and his friend Thompson, an old college companion.

They ran straight to the boat, the former shouting, as he came up:—

“Ho! get her off, lads; a large ship ashore in Saint Margaret’s Bay; now then, all together, and with a will!”

So powerful was the influence of the young middy’s clear voice and prompt action, that the men with one accord shoved the lifeboat into the sea; succeeded in keeping her stern to the waves until they were beyond the roughest of the breakers; and then, laying to their oars manfully, pulled away for the scene of the wreck.

They were soon lost in darkness, and the poor women returned weeping to their homes, there to throw on some additional covering, and hasten towards the same spot by land.

Chapter Thirteen.

Saving the Passengers and Crew—Our Heroes Distinguish Themselves.

When Bax and his party arrived at Saint Margaret’s Bay, the scene of wreck and death had already begun.

The vessel was just discernible in the midst of the turmoil of warring elements that filled the dark air with misty spray. A boat had tried to reach the shore with a number of passengers—chiefly men—in her. Her fate was quickly sealed. A huge breaker upset her, and six of the dead bodies of her crew had already been plucked from the sea, and laid on the shingle. The rest were being hurled on the land and swept back by the force of the returning waves, until the people assembled there caught and dragged them also beyond their reach.

Messengers had already been sent to the nearest lifeboat stations, and the people who remained behind were either occupied in attempting to recover the bodies of the drowned, as above described, or in suggesting impossible plans for conveying a line on board the ill-fated vessel.

“Ha! here comes the man as’ll tell us wot’s to be done, and do it too!” cried one of the boatmen, “wot say, Bax, can we git a line off, think ’ee?”

Bax stood on the edge of the roaring sea, silent and motionless, with his arms crossed on his broad chest, and his bold gaze directed to the wreck.

“No,” said he, after standing a few moments thus, “it can’t be done. No mortal man could cross the surf on the inner rocks; but there’s a point o’ rocks not far to the nor’ard; does any one know how far the tide may cover ’em just now?”

“About half,” answered several voices eagerly.

“Ay, so’t does,” observed a coast-guard-man, “but with sich a surf beatin’ on ’em there ain’t a rock on the whole pint above water this minute.”

“Come, let’s go see,” cried Bax, snatching a coil of light rope from the hand of a man who stood close by, and hastening away with it in the direction of the rocky point referred to.

In a few seconds he stood on its outer extremity, with Guy Foster, Coleman, and a few of the more courageous men at his side.

The point on which Bax stood was indeed a position of great danger. Besides being whelmed in driving spray, so that it was a matter of extreme difficulty to see more than a few yards in any direction, the waves at times rushed up to and over them with such violence as to reach the knees of those who stood there, and threatened to wash them off. Nevertheless, from this point Bax thought it possible that the end of the line might be conveyed on board the “Trident,” which could be seen looming high and black in the murky air, lifting and falling with a heavy crash as each successive billow broke under and over her, carrying on with irresistible violence the work of destruction. Both chains had given way, and she was now rolling a helpless wreck on the rocks.

“D’ye mean to try it?” said Guy, anxiously, as he observed his friend fastening the line round his waist.

“Hold the end of it, Guy, and pay out,” said Bax, “mind you don’t haul in unless you’re sure I’m goin’ down.”

With this caution, Bax plunged into the surf, and struck out for the wreck, having previously placed an open clasp-knife between his teeth.

A cheer broke from the nearest group on the rocks when they witnessed this bold act. It was taken up and re-echoed by those farther up the beach, who knew that some hopeful effort was being made, although they were unable to perceive the precise nature of it. The people on the wreck also heard the cheer, and looked eagerly landward. But to them all was shrouded in darkness. Even Guy quickly lost sight of his friend, and was only made aware of his safety and onward progress by the continued running out of the line. Suddenly it stopped.

“He’s a-board,” cried Coleman.

“He would jerk on it if he was,” said Guy, with a doubtful shake of the head.

“He’s sunk,” cried one of those who stood by and held the slack of the rope.

A panic seemed to seize the others who stood by. “Haul ’im in!” cried one. “Look alive!” shouted another, “he’s a gone man.” Before Guy could interfere, they acted on the impulse, and drew in two or three fathoms.

Twisting his left arm suddenly round the rope, Guy planted his foot on a rock and stopped it; at the same time he raised his right hand, and threatened to fell the man nearest to him. The result was that the men desisted from hauling, but when the rope was again felt it became evident that there was no weight at the farther end of it. Guy’s heart sank with horror as the empty line was drawn in. For a moment he felt all the agony of despair; but a gleam of hope rushed in upon him on observing that the end of the rope was cut, as if with a sharp knife, not by the edge of a rock.

Animated by this hope he hastened back to the beach in quest of another line, resolved himself to attempt to carry it to the wreck.

Guy was right in his conjecture that Bax had cut the rope. On nearing the ship the latter had come unexpectedly on a large rock, under the lee of which he paused to recover breath before making the last gallant struggle towards the wreck. It was this pause that caused the alarm of those on shore. When Bax felt himself dragged violently back to the land, he at once divined the cause, and, knowing that there was no other resource, he seized the clasp-knife, and cut the rope. A few minutes later he swam under the lee of the wreck, and, catching hold of the rigging of the foremast, which had gone by the board when the ship struck, he clambered up the side and soon stood on the quarter-deck.

The hope raised among the passengers by the sudden appearance of the gigantic stranger in the midst of them, was quickly dispelled when he told them how he had failed in the main object of his effort. But it revived somewhat when they observed the active and energetic way in which Bax set about preparations for returning to the shore with a line from the ship. His first act was to ask for a blue-light, which after a few minutes was produced. This he set fire to, and, springing into the main rigging, held it aloft, and sent a bright glare for a few minutes, far and wide, over the scene.

The effect of this was twofold. It revealed to the shipwrecked people the dangers by which they were surrounded, and the active efforts that were being made by land and water for their deliverance. On shore, they saw crowds of men and women surrounding an instrument, which Bax, after giving vent to a hopeful cheer, explained was a rocket apparatus. Scarcely had they learned this, when Bax shouted and waved his hand seaward. On turning their eyes in that direction, they beheld a lifeboat bearing down towards them, her white-painted sides gleaming like the wings of an angel of light in the midst of the dark tempest.

The lifeboat was also seen by the people on shore, and Guy, who at once recognised the figure, and the vigour, of his friend with the blue-light, lent able assistance to those who managed the rocket.

Dennett’s Rocket Apparatus, which was being placed in position on the rocks, is an invention by which many human lives are saved on our coasts every year. Like Manby’s Mortar Apparatus, it is simple in its action and most effective in operation.

The grand difficulty in the case of a wreck near shore is to establish a communication, by means of a rope, between the wreck and the land; and this difficulty is, of course, much increased when the wreck occurs off a coast lined with rocks or steep cliffs. To swim off from the shore to the wreck, or vice versa, is, in most cases, an absolute impossibility. The rocket apparatus has been devised for the purpose of overcoming this difficulty. By means of it a light “line” as it is called, or rope, the thickness of the point of one’s little finger, can be thrown over a wreck lying at a distance of several hundred yards from the beach. This line, when caught, is the means by which many a life has been saved from the devouring sea. The modus operandi will be seen in the sequel.

The apparatus consists of five parts; the rocket, the stand, the line, the whip, and the hawser. The rocket is a strong metal cylinder, of about eighteen inches in length, and more than two in diameter. When about to be used a long stick is attached to it, and the principle on which it acts is precisely similar to that of the small rockets used in our pyrotechnic displays. The stand is a tripod supporting a rest for the rocket. The line, which is made of the best material, is coiled in a large box in a zig-zag manner on a number of pegs; these pegs, when withdrawn in a mass by removing the bottom of the box to which they are attached, leave the line loose and free to fly out with the utmost rapidity. The end of the line is fastened to the head of the rocket.

Any one who has stood near an ordinary rocket when it was being fired, can form some conception of the force and furor with which this iron monster springs into the air and dashes out to sea in the teeth of the wildest storm. So tremendous is the gush of fire and smoke, that it has to be let off by means of a lock, the trigger of which is pulled by a man standing some yards distant with a cord attached to it in his hand.

Before the rocket was quite ready for action, the lifeboat had approached the wreck, a hundred yards or so to windward of her. Here they cast anchor in such a position that by paying out cable they could veer down towards her slowly and endeavour to range up under her lee. Every different operation the lifeboat had to perform was fraught with extreme danger. The mere being overwhelmed by the furious sea and filled was comparatively a trifling risk. This it had been twice already, and, but for the time lost in bailing out, it would have been much earlier on the scene. While paying out cable there was the fear of the rope breaking or the anchor dragging; then, on nearing the wreck, there was the risk of being dashed to pieces on the rocks, and after getting under her lee, the surging of the waves kept them constantly on the verge of being hurled against the rigging. The wreck of the foremast, too, which still lay rolling alongside, was a source of constant anxiety, and the rolling of the ship itself rendered it probable that one or both of the remaining masts would give way and fall over the side, in which case the destruction of the boat would be almost inevitable. Add to this the intense darkness, the terrible uproar of wind and water, and the difficulty of acting effectively in a boat that pitched and swooped wildly on the broken seas like the plungings of a fiery charger,—and some faint idea may be formed of the horrors, as well as the dangers of the lifeboat service.

Gradually, but surely, the boat dropped nearer and nearer to the doomed ship, under the guidance of her able coxswain. As it passed under the stern a cheer burst from the crowd of eager faces that gazed over the side of the “Trident.” Yet there were many hearts there that grew faint and chill when they beheld the little white speck that seemed to be their only hope of rescue in that dark hour. “What hope was there that such a nutshell should save them all?” they thought, perchance, on seeing it approach. They little knew the wonderful vitality of a lifeboat!

Just as it passed under the quarter, a sea swept it right up into the mizzen-chains. The utmost efforts of the crew to fend off were unavailing. As the billow rolled on, the boat dropt swiftly, scraping against the ship’s side as it fell into the trough of the sea, and escaping an upset almost by a miracle.

“Throw a line aboard!” shouted Bax, who stood on the lee bulwarks, high above the crowd, holding on by the mizzen-shrouds.

The middy caught up the instrument used for this purpose, and threw a line on board at once. This steadied the boat a little, and, watching their opportunity, they succeeded in lowering three women and a child into it by means of a bow-line.

In this way, one by one, the females and children were placed in the boat until it was full. Then there was a cry to shove off, and a rush was made by the more timid and ignorant among the passengers, who thought they were about to be forsaken. Bax had foreseen this. He and several of the sailors met and checked the crowd, and before any mischief could be done the boat was away.

It made straight for the shore where hundreds of stout arms were ready to seize it. The midshipman stood on the bow with a rope in his hand. The sea through which they rushed was milk white with foam. To prevent the boat broaching-to and being rolled over on the beach was now the main effort of the coxswain. On they went steadily. A wave broke under them, carried them on its boiling crest with lightning speed, and launched them with a roar like thunder on the shingle. The rope was thrown before they touched. It was seized and manned; and before the retiring wave could suck them back, the lifeboat with her living freight was run high upon the beach.

She was soon emptied and relaunched, for there was no time to waste. Many lives were still in danger, and the “Trident” could not be expected to hold together long.

It was just as the boat quitted the side of the wreck, as above described, that the rocket was got in readiness to act.

“Stand by to fire,” said the coast-guard-man who had been engaged for some minutes in adjusting it carefully.

“Keep back! clear out o’ the road,” cried several of the seamen, as they pushed back the more curious among the crowd.

There was a flash, a mighty burst of flame and smoke, as the rocket trembled for an instant on its stand; then, with an impulse that seemed irresistible, and a hissing shriek that rose above the storm, it sprang into the air and described a bright curved line of light against the black sky.

Its own wild blaze served to show that it had been well aimed, and that the line had fallen across the wreck. This was all that could be done by the people on shore, until those on the wreck had performed their part of the work. But while they stood anxiously awaiting the result, they had no cause to fear that the ignorance of those whom they sought to rescue would render their efforts useless (as has unfortunately been the case more than once), for it was known now that Bax was on board.

The ignorance of some seamen as to what should be done with the line when it is caught, has been the cause of loss of life several times. On one occasion five men, the crew of a small vessel, being ignorant on this point, tied the rocket-line round them and leaped together into the sea! Of course those on shore could do nothing but haul them to land as quickly as possible; when they had done so, all were found to be drowned except one.

On the present occasion Bax seized the line as soon as it fell on the wreck and began to haul it in-board. Guy had attached to it a pulley or block with a stoutish rope rove through it, and soon those on shore had the satisfaction of seeing this second and double line (named the “whip”), hauled out by the people on the wreck. After a time it ceased to run out, and then they knew that Bax had got hold of the pulley, and would quickly attach it to the ship. This was soon done. Bax fastened the pulley to the mainmast, and then caused a lantern to be shown for a moment, to indicate that all was ready.

Still those on shore delayed to act for a minute, in order to make quite sure that ample time had been allowed for the fastening of the pulley. And now the all-important operation of conveying a thick hawser to the wreck was begun. With the tackle already fast to the ship this was comparatively easy. The whip being rove through a pulley, both ends were kept on shore and fastened together. It thus became a sort of endless rope, by which things could be passed to the wreck and back again. Even without any hawser at all, many lives might have been saved by this rope; but, being small, it was liable to get broken, therefore the end of the thick hawser was sent out and received by Bax, who bound it also securely to the mainmast close to the pulley, about fifteen feet above the deck.

The reader will understand that two ropes were now fastened to the mainmast of the “Trident,” their other ends being fixed to a heavy anchor buried in the sand on shore. One of these ropes was the thick hawser, the other the whip; but as this whip was an endless or revolving rope, as has been explained, to an onlooker it appeared that there were three ropes stretched between the vessel and the shore, two of them thin and one thick.

These preliminary arrangements having been made, much more rapidly than the description of them might lead one to suppose, the purpose for which they had been fixed soon began to be carried out. Just as the lifeboat arrived with its first cargo of passengers, a large block or pulley was run out along the hawser by means of the whip, having attached to it a circular lifebuoy with a canvas bag hanging from it. This was the contrivance into which one individual at a time was placed and drawn ashore. Two holes in the bag allowed the legs of the occupant to hang down, and as the belt reached almost up to the neck, there was not much chance of his being tossed out of it. It was in order to prevent this, however, that Bax had fastened the end of the hawser high on the mainmast, so that the travelling bag was raised sufficiently above the water, except when it neared the shore. Then, indeed, it was frequently immersed in the towering waves, but then, too, it was so near the land that a few seconds sufficed to draw it beyond the reach of the sea. (See Note 1.)

For two hours did these men of the coast toil in this arduous labour of love. More than a hundred persons had been saved; but nearly a hundred still remained on board the wreck.

The storm was now at its height, and the vessel rolled over on her bilge so violently that the lifeboat was more than once on the point of being crushed under her massive sides. On her last trip she came close up under the quarter as on former occasions, but before any one could be taken off a monstrous wave lifted the hull right over the rocks on which she lay, and let her fall with fearful violence on a bed of sand in such a position that one of her large timbers snapped across with a report like a cannon shot.

The lifeboat got entangled in the wreck and could not get clear. To make matters worse it grounded on a sandbank that rose close to the side of the “Trident,” and could not be hauled out of the dangerous position in which it was thus suddenly placed. The top-gallant masts of the ship were swaying wildly over it, the yards were swinging to and fro, threatening each moment to strike it, and the ragged sails flapped over it with a noise like thunder.

“Haul off! haul off!” shouted Bax, who observed the extreme danger in which the boat was placed.

The crew attempted to do so, but for some minutes were unsuccessful. At last they got into deep water, but just as this was accomplished the mainyard struck it on the side and overturned it in an instant.

Not being constructed on the self-righting principle, the boat remained keel up, but the men, buoyed up by their life-jackets, succeeded in climbing on board the wreck.

A cry of despair arose from those still on board the ill-fated “Trident” when this catastrophe happened. During the next half-hour the rocket apparatus was plied with great success, but although most of the women and children were saved by it (and by the boat before it was disabled), there were still upwards of fifty men on board the wreck.

“D’you think the ship will hold together long?” said Bax, going aft to the captain, who clung to the mizzen-shrouds superintending the operations of the men.

“Not long, I fear,” he replied. “If she had been thoroughly repaired before starting on this voyage she might have weathered the gale; but, but—”

“But,” interposed Mr Clelland,—the dark passenger, who during the whole of the proceedings which we have narrated had stood calmly beside the captain looking on—“but Messrs Denham, Crumps, and Company, being penny wise and pound foolish, thought that the ships were strong enough for their purpose, both ship and cargo being fully covered by insurance!”

There was a spice of bitterness in this man’s tone and manner which displeased Bax. He was about to administer a rebuke to him, when a larger wave than usual lifted the ship up, and let her fall with such force that another of her large timbers broke across like a pipe-stem, and the two remaining masts went by the board, sweeping several of the passengers and crew into the sea along with the wreck of spars and cordage.

Just under the quarter a child fell into the water. It had been wrenched from its mother’s arms by the coil of a flying rope. The mother leaped frantically on the bulwarks, and would have plunged into the sea had not Bax seized her. At that moment Mr Clelland passed a rope round his waist, tied it in that swift and perfect manner peculiar to seamen, and sprang into the sea. He seized the child in his arms. The captain of the “Trident” had caught the rope as Clelland sprang over the side. Bax assisted him, and in a few minutes both were hauled safely on board.

“You’re better stuff than I gave you credit for,” said Bax, as the dark passenger delivered the child to its mother.

“Indeed!” said Mr Clelland, with a touch of sarcasm in his tone; “I hope that I may be able to return you the like compliment at a more fitting season. At present there is other work for us to do. Come, lads, we must try to right the lifeboat, who will help me?”

Mr Clelland sprang into the sea as he spoke and swam towards the boat, which still lay under the lee of the wreck with its keel uppermost. Bax followed instantly, and so did nearly the whole crew of the boat. These latter, having on their cork-jackets, ran comparatively little risk of drowning, but they, as well as Bax and Clelland, were in danger of being disabled by the rolling spars that surrounded them. With great difficulty they succeeded in turning the boat over, but, as it was nearly full of water, much valuable time was wasted before it could be baled out sufficiently to render it once more serviceable. When this was accomplished they hauled clear of the wreck, intending to veer round towards the stern, where they could approach the ship with greater safety.

The remaining passengers seeing this, rushed upon the poop. At that moment the ship was lifted up, and hurled with such violence on a sunken rock that her back was broken; the sea dashed against her side, separating the poop from the fore part of the vessel, and turning it completely over, so that every soul on board was plunged suddenly into the sea.

A wild shriek of despair rose high above the howling of the storm, and most of the weaker among the passengers sank in the raging sea to rise no more. But the lifeboat was now in a condition to render effectual aid to those who were strong enough to struggle a few minutes for their lives, or to cling to broken portions of the wreck. She was soon as full as she could hold, and Bax, seizing the bow oar, forced her head round towards the shore. The coxswain sprang to the helm; “Give way, lads,” was shouted, and in a few seconds the boat was once again careering towards the shore on the crest of a towering billow. She took the beach in safety.

“Now, then, shove off again,” cried Bax, when the last of the passengers was assisted out of her.

“Stop!” cried a coast-guard-man, “some of the men are too much knocked up to go off again.”

This was evident, for when the lanterns were held up to the faces of the brave fellows it was seen that several of the less robust among them were deadly pale from sheer exhaustion and fatigue. They indignantly protested, however, that they were still “game for another bout”; but the coxswain firmly, though kindly, insisted that the cork belts should be taken off two or three of them and given to the stoutest of at least a dozen volunteers who eagerly stepped forward.

The boat was then relaunched, and after a careful search, and another sharp struggle with the angry sea, returned with six saved men and a woman, besides several apparently dead bodies, which were instantly removed to a neighbouring cottage, to be treated according to the rules laid down by the Royal Humane Society for the recovery of those who are apparently drowned. (See Note 2.)

After the back of the ship was broken, and the wreck overwhelmed, the rocket apparatus of course became useless, as the mast to which the ropes were attached broke off close to the deck, and the ropes themselves became so entangled with the wreck as to be unmanageable; but before this catastrophe occurred good service had been done, for no fewer than sixty of the passengers of the ill-fated “Trident” had been saved by this means alone. The lifeboat had been the means of saving one hundred and twenty lives; and fifteen men, who succeeded in swimming to the beach, were rescued with the utmost difficulty by the people on shore.

Among these last was the captain, who, with that heroic self-devotion which seems to be a common characteristic of British seamen, had made up his mind to be the last man to quit the ship. This intention was frustrated by the breaking up of the vessel. In the confusion he was swept beyond the reach of the lifeboat, and gained the beach he scarce knew how. Here he was launched on the shingle by a billow, and washed high up on the beach. He grasped the loose pebbles with the energy of despair, but the cataract of white water that rushed back as the wave retired, swept him with irresistible force into the sea. Again this happened and as he dug his fingers into the moving gravel, and felt how hopeless was his case, a cry of anguish burst from him.

The cry was heard by Guy Foster, who, with a rope round his waist, had been for the last half-hour engaged in rescuing men and women from the fatal grasp of these retiring waves.

“This way, lads, fetch the lantern, look alive!” he shouted, and sprang towards the part of the shore whence the cry had proceeded, followed by a crowd of seamen who had assisted him by holding the rope.

Guy was much exhausted. Six times already had he plunged into the boiling surf and been dragged out with a fellow-creature in his arms. He had removed the loop of the rope for a few minutes, and now held it in his hand as he ran along the beach looking anxiously at the surf.

Once again the captain was hurled on the beach, but in so exhausted a condition that he could make no effort to save himself. He rolled so near to Guy’s feet that the latter dropped the rope in his haste as he leaped towards the drowning man. He caught him round the waist just as the broken billow began to rush back. For one moment Guy stood firm, but as the retiring water gathered force his limbs quivered, the gravel rolled from beneath his feet, and he was swept off his legs!

Before he was engulfed in the surf, and almost before the cry of alarm had burst from his companions on the beach, a boy flung the loop of the rope over his shoulders, plunged headlong into the sea, and, catching Guy round the neck with both arms, held to him like a vice. It was Tommy Bogey! The men hauled gently on the rope at first, fearing to tear the little fellow from his grasp, but they need not have been so careful. Tommy’s grip was an uncommonly firm one. In half a minute the three were pulled beyond the reach of the waves—the captain still breathing, Guy able to walk, though much exhausted, and Tommy Bogey none the worse for his heroic and successful exertions.

This was the last incident worthy of note that occurred. Of the two hundred and fifty souls who had rejoiced that night in the prospect of a safe and speedy termination to their long voyage, fifty-five were drowned and one hundred and ninety-five were saved. Of these last the fifteen men who swam ashore would have been the sole survivors, in all human probability, if there had been no lifeboat or rocket apparatus on the coast.

For the service thus rendered, each man who risked his life that night in the lifeboat received 2 pounds from the Royal Lifeboat Institution. Others who had assisted in saving life on the beach received rewards proportioned to their services, and Bax, Guy, and Tommy Bogey were each awarded the gold medal of the Society for the distinguished gallantry displayed, and the great risks voluntarily encountered by them on this occasion. It was suggested that Denham, Crumps, and Company should give something to the men of the lifeboat in acknowledgment of their services, but Denham, Crumps, and Company did not act on the suggestion!

Note 1. In order to give those of our readers who happen to be interested in this subject a better idea of the manner of using the Rocket apparatus, we subjoin the Instructions given by the Board of Trade to masters and seamen in regard to it:—

In the event of your vessel stranding within a short distance of the United Kingdom, and the lives of the crew being placed in danger, assistance will, if possible, be rendered from the shore in the following manner, namely:

1. A rocket or shot with a thin line attached will be fired across your vessel. Get hold of this line as soon as you can, and when you have secured it let one of the crew be separated from the rest, and, if in the daytime, wave his hat or his hand, or a flag or handkerchief; or if at night let a rocket, a blue light, or a gun be fired, or let a light be shown over the side of the ship, and be again concealed, as a signal to those on shore.

2. When you see one of the men on shore, separated from the rest, wave a red flag, or (if at night) show a red light and then conceal it, you are to haul upon the rocket line until you get a tailed block with an endless fall rove through it.

3. Make the tail of the block fast to the mast about 15 feet above the deck, or if your masts are gone, to the highest secure part of the vessel; and when the tail block is made fast, and the rocket line unbent from the whip, let one of the crew, separated from the rest, make the signal required by Article 1 above.

4. As soon as the signal is seen on shore a hawser will be bent to the whip line, and will be hauled off to the ship by those on shore.

5. When the hawser is got on board, the crew should at once make it fast to the same part of the ship as the tailed block is made fast to, only about 18 inches higher, taking care that there are no turns of the whip line round the hawser.

6. When the hawser has been made fast on board, the signal directed by Article 1 above is to be repeated.

7. The men on shore will then pull the hawser taut, and by means of the whip line will haul off to the ship a sling life-buoy fitted with petticoat breeches. The person to be hauled ashore is to get into this sling, thrusting his legs through the breeches, and resting his armpits on the lifebuoy. When he is in and secure, one of the crew must be separated from the rest, and again signal to the shore as directed in Article I above. The people on shore will then haul the person in the sling to the shore, and when he has landed will haul back the empty sling to the ship for others. This operation will be repeated to and fro until all persons are hauled ashore from the wrecked vessel.

8. It may sometimes happen that the state of the weather and the condition of the ship will not admit of the hawser being set up, in which case the sling will be hauled off instead, and the persons to be rescued will be hauled in it through the surf instead of along the hawser.

Masters and crews of wrecked vessels should bear in mind that the success in landing them may in a great measure depend upon their coolness and attention to the rules here laid down; and that by attending to them many lives are annually saved by the Mortar and Rocket Apparatus on the coasts of the United Kingdom.

The system of signalling must be strictly adhered to; and all women, children, passengers, and helpless persons should be landed before the crew of the ship.—Board of Trade, 22nd December 1859.

Note 2. It is of immense importance that every man in the kingdom should possess some degree of knowledge on the subject of the restoration of persons apparently drowned, for no one can tell at what moment he may be called upon, in the absence of medical aid, to act in a case of this nature. We therefore make no apology for here giving in full the rules which have been adopted by the National Lifeboat Institution. They run as follows:

I. Send immediately for medical assistance, blankets, and dry clothing, but proceed to treat the patient instantly on the spot, in the open air, with the face downwards, whether on shore or afloat; exposing the face, neck, and chest to the wind, except in severe weather, and removing all tight clothing from the neck and chest, especially the braces.

The points to be aimed at are—first and immediately, the restoration of breathing; and secondly, after breathing is restored, the promotion of warmth and circulation.

The efforts to restore breathing must be commenced immediately and energetically, and persevered in for one or two hours, or until a medical man has pronounced that life is extinct. Efforts to promote warmth and circulation beyond removing the wet clothes and drying the skin must not be made until the first appearance of natural breathing. For if circulation of the blood be induced before breathing has recommenced, the restoration to life will be endangered.

II. To Restore Breathing.

To Clear The Throat.—Place the patient on the floor or ground with the face downwards, and one of the arms under the forehead, in which position all fluids will more readily escape by the mouth, and the tongue itself will fall forward, leaving the entrance into the windpipe free. Assist this operation by wiping and cleansing the mouth.

If satisfactory breathing commences, use the treatment described below to promote warmth. If there be only slight breathing, or no breathing, or if the breathing fail, then:—

To Excite Breathing—Turn the patient well and instantly on the side, supporting the head, and excite the nostrils with snuff, hartshorn, and smelling salts or tickle the throat with a feather, etcetera, if they are at hand. Rub the chest and face warm, and dash cold water, or cold and hot water alternately, on them.

If there be no success, lose not a moment, but instantly:—

To Imitate Breathing—Replace the patient on the face, raising and supporting the chest well on a folded coat or other article of dress.

Turn the body very gently on the side and a little beyond, and then briskly on the face, back again; repeating these measures cautiously, efficiently, and perseveringly about fifteen times in the minute, or once every four or five seconds, occasionally varying the side.

(By placing the patient on the chest the weight of the body forces the air out; when turned on the side this pressure is removed, and air enters the chest.)

On each occasion that the body is replaced on the face make uniform but efficient pressure with brisk movement, on the back between and below the shoulder-blades or bones on each side, removing the pressure immediately before turning the body on the side. During the whole of the operations let one person attend solely to the movements of the head, and of the arm placed under it.

(The first measure increases the expiration, the second commences inspiration.)

The result is respiration or natural breathing, and, if not too late, life.

Whilst the above operations are being proceeded with, dry the hands and feet; and as soon as dry clothing or blankets can be procured, strip the body and cover, or gradually re-clothe it, but taking care not to interfere with the efforts to restore breathing.

III. Should these efforts not prove successful in the course of from two to five minutes, proceed to imitate breathing by Dr Silvester’s method, as follows:—

Place the patient on the back on a flat surface, inclined a little upwards from the feet; raise and support the head and shoulders on a small firm cushion or folded article of dress placed under the shoulder-blades.

Draw forward the patient’s tongue, and keep it projecting beyond the lips; an elastic band over the tongue and under the chin will answer this purpose, or a piece of string or tape may be tied round them, or by raising the lower jaw the teeth may be made to retain the tongue in that position. Remove all tight clothing from about the neck and chest, especially the braces.

To Imitate the Movements of Breathing.—Standing at the patient’s head, grasp the arms just above the elbows, and draw the arms gently and steadily upwards above the head, and keep them stretched upwards for two seconds. (By this means air is drawn into the lungs.) Then turn down the patient’s arms, and press them gently and firmly for two seconds against the sides of the chest. (By this means air is pressed out of the lungs.)

Repeat these measures alternately, deliberately, and perseveringly about fifteen times in a minute, until a spontaneous effort to respire is perceived, immediately upon which cease to imitate the movements of breathing, and proceed to Induce Circulation and Warmth.

IV. Treatment after Natural Breathing has been Restored—to Promote Warmth and Circulation.

Commence rubbing the limbs upwards, with firm grasping pressure and energy, using handkerchiefs, flannels, etcetera: (by this measure the blood is propelled along the veins towards the heart.)

The friction must be continued under the blanket or over the dry clothing.

Promote the warmth of the body by the application of hot flannels, bottles or bladders of hot water, heated bricks, etcetera, to the pit of the stomach, the arm-pits, between the thighs, and to the soles of the feet.

If the patient has been carried to a house after respiration has been restored, be careful to let the air play freely about the room.

On the restoration of life a teaspoonful of water warm should be given; and then, if the power of swallowing have returned, small quantities of wine, warm brandy and water, or coffee, should be administered. The patient should be kept in bed, and a disposition to sleep encouraged.

General Observations.

The above treatment should be persevered in for some hours, as it is an erroneous opinion that persons are irrecoverable because life does not soon make its appearance, persons having been restored after persevering for many hours.

Appearances Which Generally Accompany Death.—Breathing and the heart’s action cease entirely, the eyelids are generally half-closed, the pupils dilated, the jaws clenched, the fingers semi-contracted; the tongue approaches to the under edges of the lips, and these, as well as the nostrils, are covered with a frothy mucus. Coldness and pallor of surface increase.

Cautions.—Prevent unnecessary crowding of persons round the body, especially if in an apartment.

Avoid rough usage, and do not allow the body to remain on the back unless the tongue is secured.

Under no circumstances hold the body up by the feet.

On no account place the body in a warm bath, unless under medical direction, and even then it should only be employed as a momentary excitement.

Chapter Fourteen.

The Morning after the Storm.

On the fifth morning that succeeded the breaking of the storm, described in the last chapter, the sun rose in gorgeous splendour and shone upon a sea that was clear and burnished like a sheet of glass. The wind had ceased suddenly, and a perfect calm prevailed; but although no breath of air ruffled the surface of the deep, the long swell rose and fell as if the breast of ocean were still throbbing from its recent agitation.

All along the east coast of England this swell met the shore in a succession of slow-rolling waves, which curled majestically over, and appeared almost to pause for a moment ere they fell, with deep solemn roar, in a magnificent burst of foam.

Everywhere the effects of the storm were painfully evident. Wrecks could be counted by the dozen from some of the bold headlands that commanded an extensive view of the shore. The work of destruction was not yet over. The services of our lifeboats could not yet be dispensed with although the fury of the winds had ceased.

It is a mistake to suppose that when a gale has ceased, all danger to man and destruction to his property is over. We are apt to attribute too much influence to the winds. Undoubtedly they are the origin of the evil that befalls us in storms, but they are not the immediate cause of the wholesale destruction that takes place annually among the shipping of the kingdom. It is the mighty hydraulic force of the sea,—the tremendous lifting power of the waves, that does it all.

Although the storm was over and the wind had gone down, the swell of the ocean had not yet ceased to act. On many a headland, and in many a rocky bay, brigs, schooners, barques, and ships of large size and stout frame, were that day lifted and battered, rent, torn, riven, and split by the sea as if they had been toys; their great timbers snapped like pipe-stems, and their iron bars and copper bolts twisted and gnarled as if they had been made of wire.

The hardy men of Deal were still out in those powerful boats, that seem to be capable of bidding defiance to most storms, saving property to the nation, and earning—hardly earning—salvage for themselves. The lifeboats, too, were out,—in some cases saving life, in others, saving property when there were no lives in danger.

How inadequate are our conceptions of these things when formed from a written account of one or two incidents, even although these be graphically described! How difficult it is to realise the actual scenes that are presented all along the coast during and immediately after each great storm that visits our shores.

If we could, by the exercise of supernatural power, gaze down at these shores as from a bird’s-eye point of view, and take them in, with all their stirring incidents, at one glance; if we could see the wrecks, large and small—colliers with their four or five hands; emigrant ships with their hundreds of passengers—beating and grinding furiously on rocks that appear to rise out of and sink into a sea of foam; if we could witness our lifeboats, with their noble-hearted crews, creeping out of every nook and bay in the very teeth of what seems to be inevitable destruction; if we could witness the hundred deeds of individual daring done by men with bronzed faces and rough garments, who carry their lives habitually in their hands, and think nothing of it; if we could behold the flash of the rockets, and hear the crack of the mortars and the boom of minute guns from John o’ Groat’s to the Land’s End, at the dead and dark hours of night, when dwellers in our inland districts are abed, all ignorant, it may be, or thoughtless, in regard to these things; above all, if we could hear the shrieks of the perishing, the sobs and thanksgivings of the rescued, and the wild cheers of the rescuers; and hear and see all this at one single glance, so that our hearts might be more filled than they are at present with a sense of the terrible dangers of our shores, and the heroism of our men of the coast, it is probable that our prayers for those who “go down to the sea in ships” would be more frequent and fervent, and our respect for those who risk life and limb to save the shipwrecked would be deeper. It is also probable that we might think it worth our while to contribute more largely than we do to the support of that noble Institution whose work it is to place lifeboats where they are wanted on our coasts, and to recognise, reward, and chronicle the deeds of those who distinguish themselves in the great work of saving human life.

Let us put a question to you, good reader. If France, or any other first-rate Power, were to begin the practice of making a sudden descent on us about once a month, on an average, all the year round, slaying some hundreds of our fishermen and seamen each time; occasionally cutting off some of our first-class emigrant ships, and killing all on board—men, women, and children,—thus filling the land with repeated wails of sorrow, with widows and with fatherless children: What would you do?

What!—do you say that you “would fortify every island on the coast, plant Martello towers on every flat beach, crown every height with cannon, and station iron-clads in every harbour and bay, so that the entire coast should bristle with artillery?” That sounds well, but what guarantee have we that you really would act thus if France were to become so outrageous?

“Common sense might assure me of it,” you reply.

So it might, and so it would, if we had not evidence to the contrary in the fact that our country is thus assailed month after month—year after year—by a more inveterate enemy than France ever was or will be, and yet how little is done to defend ourselves against his attacks, compared with what might be, with what ought to be, done!

This enemy is the storm; but, like France, he is not our natural enemy. We have only chosen in time past to allow him to become so. The storm has been wisely and beneficently ordained by God to purify the world’s atmosphere, and to convey health and happiness to every land under heaven. If we will not take the obvious and quite possible precautions that are requisite to secure ourselves from his violence, have we not ourselves to blame?

There are far too few harbours of refuge on our exposed coasts; the consequence is that our fishing-boats are caught by the storm and wrecked, and not unfrequently as many as a hundred lives are lost in a few hours: Who is to blame? A large vessel goes on the rocks because there is no lighthouse there to give warning of danger; a post has been neglected and the enemy has crept in: Who neglected that post? After the ship has got on the rocks, it is made known to the horrified passengers that there are no ship’s lifeboats aboard, neither are there any life-belts: Whose blame is that? Still there seems hope, for the shore is not far off, and anxious people line it; but no ordinary boat can live in such a sea. There is no rocket apparatus on this part of the coast; no mortar apparatus by which a line might be sent on board: Why not? The nearest lifeboat station is fifteen miles off: Whose fault is that? Is the storm our enemy here? Is not selfish, calculating, miserly man his own enemy in this case? So the ship goes to pieces, and the result is that the loss of this single vessel makes 60 widows and 150 fatherless children in one night! not to speak of thousands of pounds’ worth of property lost to the nation.

If you doubt this, reader, consult the pages of the Lifeboat Journal, in which you will find facts, related in a grave, succinct, unimpassioned way, that ought to make your hair stand on end!

Thoughts strongly resembling those recorded in the last few pages filled the mind and the heart of Bax, as he stood on that calm bright morning on the sea-shore. It was a somewhat lonely spot at the foot of tall cliffs, not far from which the shattered hull of a small brig lay jammed between two rocks. Tommy Bogey stood beside him, and both man and boy gazed long and silently at the wrack which lined the shore. Every nook, every crevice and creek at the foot of the cliff was filled choke full of broken planks and spars, all smashed up into pieces so small that, with the exception of the stump of a main-mast and the heel of a bowsprit, there was not a morsel that exceeded three feet in length, and all laid side by side in such regular order by the swashing of the sea in and out of the narrower creeks, that it seemed as if they had been piled there by the hand of man.

They gazed silently, because they had just come upon a sight which filled their hearts with sadness. Close beside a large rock lay the form of an old white-haired man with his head resting on a mass of sea-weed, as if he were asleep. Beside him lay a little girl, whose head rested on the old man’s breast, while her long golden hair lay in wild confusion over his face. The countenances of both were deadly pale, and their lips blue. It required no doctor’s skill to tell that both were dead.

“Ah’s me! Tommy, ’tis a sad sight,” said Bax.

Tommy made no reply for a few seconds, but after an ineffectual effort to command himself, he burst into tears.

“If we had only been here last night,” he sobbed at length, “we might have saved them.”

“So we might, so we might, Tommy; who knows? Some one should have been here anyhow. It seems to me that things ain’t well managed in these days. They haven’t half enough of appliances to save life, that’s a fact.”

Bax said this somewhat sternly.

“Whose fault is it, Bax?” said Tommy, looking up in his friend’s face.

“Ha, Tommy,” replied the other with a smile, “it don’t become the like o’ you or me to say who’s to blame. You’re too young to understand the outs and ins o’ such matters, and I’m too ignorant.”

The boy smiled incredulously. The idea of Bax being “ignorant” was too gross and absurd to be entertained for a moment, even although stated by himself.

“Well, but,” urged Tommy stoutly, “if things are wrong, it’s clear that they ain’t right, and surely I’ve a right to say so.”

“True, lad, true,” returned Bax, with an approving nod; “that’s just the point which I’d like you and me to stick to: when we see things to be wrong don’t let’s shirk sayin’ so as flat as we can; but don’t let us go, like too many shallow-pates, and say that we know who’s wrong and why they’re wrong, and offer to put them all right on the shortest notice. Mayhap” (here Bax spoke in a soft meditative tone, as if he had forgotten his young friend, and were only thinking aloud) “mayhap we may come to understand the matter one of these days, and have a better right to speak out—who knows?”

“That I’m certain of!” cried Tommy, in a tone and with an air that made Bax smile despite the sad sight before him.

“Come, lad,” he said, with sudden energy, “we must get ’em removed. Away! and fetch a couple of men. I’ll arrange them.”

Tommy was off in a moment, and Bax proceeded with gentle care to arrange the dress and limbs of the old man and the child. Two men soon arrived, and assisted to carry them away. Who they were no one knew and few cared. They were only two of the many who are thus cast annually, and by no means unavoidably, on our stormy shores.

Do not misunderstand us, good reader. Compared with what is done by other lands in this matter, Britain does her duty well; but, compared with what is required by God at the hands of those who call themselves Christians, we still fall far short of our duty, both as a nation and as individuals.

Chapter Fifteen.

Relates to Love, Cross Purposes and Mistakes, etcetera.

Storms may rage, orphans and widows may weep, but the world must not pause in its regular routine of business and of pleasure. This is natural and right. It was not intended that men should walk perpetually in sackcloth and ashes because of the sorrows that surround them. But equally true is it that they were never meant to shut their eyes and ears to those woes, and dance and sing through life heedlessly, as far too many do until some thunderbolt falls on their own hearts, and brings the truth home.

The command is twofold: “Weep with those that weep, and rejoice with those that do rejoice.”

Come then, reader, let us visit good Mrs Foster, and rejoice with her as she sits at her tea-table contemplating her gallant son with a mother’s pride. She has some reason to be proud of him. Guy has just received the gold medal awarded him by the Lifeboat Institution. Bax and Tommy have also received their medals, and all three are taking tea with the widow on the occasion. Lucy Burton and Amy Russell are there too, but both of these young ladies are naturally much more taken up with Tommy’s medal than with those of Guy or of Bax!

And well they may be, for never a breast, large or small, was more worthy of the decoration it supported.

“My brave boy,” said the widow, referring to Tommy, and taking him by the arm as he sat beside her, but looking, irresistibly, at her son, “it was a noble deed. If I had the giving of medals I would have made yours twice the size, with a diamond in the middle of it.”

“What a capital idea!” said Lucy, with a silvery laugh, that obliged her to display a double row of brilliant little teeth.

“A coral ring set with pearls would be finer, don’t you think?” said Guy, gravely.

Tommy grinned and said that that was a toothy remark!

Lucy blushed, and said laughingly, that she thought Mrs Foster’s idea better, whereupon the widow waxed vainglorious, and tried to suggest some improvements.

Guy, fearing that he had been presumptuous in paying this sly compliment, anxiously sought to make amends by directing most of his conversation to Amy.

Bax, who was unusually quiet that evening, was thus left to make himself agreeable to Lucy. But he found it hard work, poor fellow. It was quite evident that he was ill at ease.

On most occasions, although habitually grave, Bax was hearty, and had always plenty to say without being obtrusive in his conversation. Moreover, his manners were good, and his deportment unconstrained and easy. But when he visited the widow’s cottage he became awkward and diffident, and seemed to feel great difficulty in carrying on conversation. During the short time he had been at Deal since the wreck of the “Nancy,” he had been up at the cottage every day on one errand or another, and generally met the young ladies either in the house or in the garden.

Could it be that Bax was in love? There was no doubt whatever of the fact in his own mind; but, strange to say, no one else suspected it. His character was grave, simple, and straightforward. He did not assume any of those peculiar airs by which young men make donkeys of themselves when in this condition! He feared, too, that it might be interfering with the hopes of his friend Guy, whose affections, he had latterly been led to suspect, lay in the same direction with his own. This made him very circumspect and modest in his behaviour. Had he been quite sure of the state of Guy’s heart he would have retired at once, for it never occurred to him for a moment to imagine that the girl whom Guy loved might not love Guy, and might, possibly, love himself.

Be this as it may, Bax resolved to watch his friend that night closely, and act according to the indications given. Little did poor Guy know what a momentous hour that was in the life of his friend, and the importance of the part he was then performing.

Bax rose to go sooner than usual.

“You are very kind, ma’am,” he said, in reply to Mrs Foster’s remonstrances; “I have to visit an old friend to-night, and as it is probable I may never see him again, I trust you’ll excuse my going so early.”

Mrs Foster was obliged to acquiesce. Bax shook hands hurriedly, but very earnestly, with each of the party, and quitted the cottage in company with Guy.

“Come, Guy, let us walk over the sandhills.”

“A strange walk on so dark a night; don’t you think it would be more cheerful on the beach?”

“So it would, so it would,” said Bax, somewhat hastily, “but I want to be alone with you, and we’re likely to meet some of our chums on the beach. Besides, I want to have a quiet talk, and to tell ye something.—You’re in love, Guy.”

Bax said this so abruptly that his friend started, and for a few seconds was silent. Then, with a laugh, he replied—

“Well, Bax, you’ve a blunt way of broaching a subject, but, now that you put the thing to me, I feel inclined to believe that I am. You’re a sharper fellow than I gave you credit for, to have found me out so soon.”

“It needs but little sharpness to guess that when two young folk are thrown much together and find each other agreeable, they’re likely to fall in love.”

Bax’s voice sank to its deepest tones; he felt that his hopes had now received their deathblow, and in spite of himself he faltered. With a mighty effort he crushed down the feeling, and continued in a tone of forced gaiety—

“Come, I’m rejoiced at your good luck, my boy; she’s one of a thousand, Guy.”

“So she is,” said Guy, “but I’m not so sure of my good luck as you seem to be; for I have not yet ventured to speak to her on the subject of love.”

“No?” exclaimed Bax in surprise, “that’s strange.”

“Why so?” said Guy.

“Because you’ve had lots of time and opportunity, lad.”

“True,” said Guy, “I have had enough of both, but some folk are not so bold and prompt as others in this curious matter of love.”

“Ah, very true,” observed Bax, “some men do take more time than others, and yet it seems to me that there has been time enough for a sharp fellow like you to have settled that question. However, I’ve no doubt myself of the fact that she loves you, Guy, and I do call that uncommon good luck.”

“Well, it may seem a vain thing to say, but I do fancy that she likes me a bit,” said the other, in a half jocular tone.

The two friends refrained from mentioning the name of the fair one. The heart and mind of each was filled with one object, but each felt a strange disinclination to mention her name.

“But it seems to me,” continued Guy, “that instead of wanting to tell me something, as you said, when you brought me out for a walk in this dreary waste of furze and sand at such a time of night, your real object was to pump me!”

“Not so,” replied Bax, in a tone so deep and sad as to surprise his friend; “I brought you here because the lonely place accords with my feelings to-night. I have made up my mind to go to Australia.”

Guy stopped abruptly. “You jest, Bax,” said he.

“I am in earnest,” replied the other, “and since I have forced myself into your confidence, I think it but fair to give you mine. The cause of my going is love! Yes, Guy, I too am in love, but alas! my love is not returned; it is hopeless.”

“Say not so,” began Guy, earnestly; but his companion went on without noticing the interruption.

“The case is a peculiar one,” said he. “I have known the sweet girl long enough to know that she does not love me, and that she does love another man. Moreover, I love that man too. He is my friend; so, the long and the short of it is, I’m going to up-anchor, away to the gold-fields, and leave the coast clear to him.”

“This must not be, Bax; you may be wrong in supposing your case hopeless. May I ask her name?”

“Forgive me, Guy, I must not mention it,” said Bax.

It is not necessary to weary the reader with the variety of arguments with which Guy plied his friend in order to turn him from his purpose, as they wandered slowly over the sandhills together. He was unsuccessful in his efforts to arouse hope in the bosom of his friend, or to induce him to suspend his determination for a time. Nor was he more fortunate in attempting to make Bax say who was the friend—for whom he was about to make so great a sacrifice,—little suspecting that it was himself!

“Now,” said Bax, after having firmly resisted his companion’s utmost efforts, “I want you to leave me here alone. I may seem to you to be obstinate and ungracious to-night” (he stopped and seized Guy’s hand), “but, believe me, I am not so. My heart is terribly down, and you know I’m a rough matter-of-fact fellow, not given to be sentimental, so I can’t speak to you as I would wish on this subject; but wherever I may go in this world, I will never cease to pray for God’s blessing on you and yours, Guy.”

“I like to hear you say that, Bax,” returned the other; “it will rejoice my heart to think that love for me will be the means of taking you often to the throne of God.”

“You’re a good fellow, Guy; perhaps what you have often said to me has not been thrown away as much as you suppose. Come, now, instead of you having to urge the subject on me, I’ll ask you to give me a text. Supposing that you and I were parting to-night for the last time, and that I were going off to Australia to-morrow, what would you say to me in the way of advice and encouragement?”

Guy paused thoughtfully for a moment, and then said, “Delight thyself in the Lord, trust also in Him, and He will give thee the desires of thine heart.”

“Thank ’ee, lad, I’ll not forget the words,” said Bax, wringing his friend’s hand.

“Perhaps I’ll think of another and more suitable text when the time for parting really comes,” said Guy, sadly. “Good-night, Bax; mind you come up to the cottage to-morrow, and let me know your plans.”

“I shall be busy to-morrow, but I’ll write,” said Bax, as his friend left him. “Ay,” he added, “there goes a real Christian, and a true-hearted friend. Ah’s me! I’ll never see him more!”

Bax wandered slowly and without aim over the dark waste for some time. Almost unintentionally he followed the path that led past the Checkers of the Hope. A solitary light burned in one of the lower windows of the old inn, but no sound of revelry issued from its doors. Leaving it behind him, Bax soon found himself standing within a few yards of the tombstone of the ill-fated Mary whose name he bore.

“Poor thing, ’twas a sad fate!” he murmured, as he contemplated the grave of the murdered girl, who had been a cousin of his own grandfather. “Poor Mary, you’re at rest now, which is more than I am.”

For some minutes Bax stood gazing dreamily at the grave which was barely visible in the faint light afforded by a few stars that shone through the cloudy sky. Suddenly he started, and every fibre of his strong frame was shaken with horror as he beheld the surface of the grave move, and saw, or fancied he saw, a dim figure raise itself partially from the earth.

Bax was no coward in any sense of that word. Many brave men there are who, although quite fearless in regard to danger and death, are the most arrant cowards in the matter of superstition, and could be made to flee before a mere fancy. But our hero was not one of these. His mind was strong, like his body, and well balanced. He stood his ground and prepared to face the matter out. He would indeed have been more than human if such an unexpected sight, in such circumstances, had failed to horrify him, but the effect of the shock soon passed away.

“Who comes here to disturb me?” said a weak voice that evidently belonged to this ghost.

“Hallo! Jeph, is that you?” exclaimed Bax, springing forward and gazing into the old man’s face.

“Ay, it’s me, and I’m sorry you’ve found me out, for I like to be let alone in my grief.”

“Why, Jeph, you don’t need to be testy with your friend. I’ll quit ye this moment if you bid me; but I think you might find a warmer and more fitting bed for your old bones than poor Mary Bax’s grave. Come, let me help you up.”

Bax said this so kindly, that old Jeph’s temporary anger at having been discovered passed away.

“Well, well,” said he, “the only two people who have found me out are the two I like best, so it don’t much matter.”

“Indeed,” exclaimed the young man in surprise, “who is number two, Jeph?”

“Tommy Bogey. He found me here on the night when Long Orrick was chased by Supple Jim.”

“Strange, he never told me about it,” said Bax.

“’Cause I told him to hold his tongue,” replied Jeph, “and Tommy’s a good fellow and knows how to shut his mouth w’en a friend asks him to—as I now ask you, Bax, for I don’t want people know that I come here every night.”

“What! do you come here every night?” cried Bax in surprise.

“Ay, every night, fair weather and foul; I’ve been used to both for a long time now, and I’m too tough to be easily damaged.”

“But why do you this, Jeph? You are not mad! If you were, I could understand it.”

“No matter, no matter,” said the old man, turning to gaze at the tombstone before quitting the place. “Some people are fond of having secrets. I’ve got one, and I like to keep it.”

“Well, I won’t try to pump it out of you, my old friend. Moreover, I haven’t got too much time to spare. I meant to go straight to your house to-night, Jeph, to tell you that I’m off to Australia to-morrow by peep o’ day.”

“Australia!” exclaimed Jeph, with a perplexed look in his old face.

“Ay, the blue peter’s at the mast-head and the anchor tripped.”

Here Bax related to his old comrade what he had previously told to Guy. At first Jeph shook his head, but when the young sailor spoke of love being the cause of his sudden departure, he made him sit down on the grave, and listened earnestly.

“So, so, Bax,” he said, when the latter had concluded, “you’re quite sure she’s fond o’ the other feller, are ye?”

“Quite. I had it from his own lips. At least he told me he’s fond of her, and I could see with my own eyes she’s fond of him.”

“Poor lad,” said Jeph, patting his friend’s shoulder as if he had been a child, “you’re quite right to go. I know what love is. You’ll never get cured in this country; mayhap foreign air’ll do it. I refused to tell you what made me come out here lad; but now that I knows how the wind blows with you, I don’t mind if I let ye into my secret. Love! ay, it’s the old story; love has brought me here night after night since ever I was a boy.”

“Love!” exclaimed his companion; “love of whom?”

“Why, who should it be but the love o’ the dear girl as lies under this sod?” said the old man, putting his hand affectionately on the grave. “Ay, you may well look at me in wonderment, but I wasn’t always the wrinkled old man I am now. I was a good-lookin’ lad once, though I don’t look like it now. When poor Mary was murdered I was nineteen. I won’t tell ye how I loved that dear girl. Ye couldn’t understand me. When she was murdered by that”—(he paused abruptly for a moment, and then resumed)—“when she was murdered, I thought I should have gone mad. I was mad, I believe, for a time; but when I came back here to stay, after wanderin’ in foreign parts for many years, I took to comin’ to the grave at nights. At first I got no good. I thought my heart would burst altogether, but at last the Lord sent peace into my soul. I began to think of her as an angel in heaven, and now the sweetest hours of my life are spent on this grave. Poor Mary! She was gentle and kind, especially to the poor and the afflicted. She took a great interest in the ways and means we had for savin’ people from wrecks, and used often to say it was a pity they couldn’t get a boat made that would neither upset nor sink in a storm. She had read o’ some such contrivance somewhere, for she was a great reader. Ever since that time I’ve bin trying, in my poor way, to make something o’ the sort, but I’ve not managed it yet. I like to think she would have been pleased to see me at it.”

Old Jeph stopped at this point, and shook his head slowly. Then he continued—

“I find that as long as I keep near this grave my love for Mary can’t die, and I don’t want it to. But that’s why I think you’re right to go abroad. It won’t do for a man like you to go moping through life as I have done. Mayhap there’s some truth in the sayin’, Out o’ sight out o’ mind.”

“Ah’s me!” said Bax; “isn’t it likely that there may be some truth too in the words o’ the old song, ‘Absence makes the heart grow fonder.’ But you’re right, Jeph, it wouldn’t do for me to go moping through life as long as there’s work to do. Besides, old boy, there’s plenty of this sort o’ thing to be done; and I’ll do it better now that I don’t have anybody in particular to live for.”

Bax said this with reckless gaiety, and touched the medal awarded to him by the Lifeboat Institution, which still hung on his breast where it had been fastened that evening by Lucy Burton.

The two friends rose and returned together to Jeph’s cottage, where Bax meant to remain but a few minutes, to leave sundry messages to various friends. He was shaking hands with the old man and bidding him farewell, when the door was burst open and Tommy Bogey rushed into the room. Bax seized the boy in his arms, and pressed him to his breast.

“Hallo! I say, is it murder ye’re after, or d’ye mistake me for a polar bear?” cried Tommy, on being put down; “wot a hug, to be sure! Lucky for me that my timbers ain’t easy stove in. Wot d’ye mean by it?”

Bax laughed, and patted Tommy’s head. “Nothin’, lad, only I feel as if I should ha’ bin your mother.”

“Well, I won’t say ye’re far out,” rejoined the boy, waggishly, “for I do think ye’re becomin’ an old wife. But, I say, what can be wrong with Guy Foster? He came back to the cottage a short while ago lookin’ quite glum, and shut himself up in his room, and he won’t say what’s wrong, so I come down here to look for you, for I knew I’d find ye with old Jeph or Bluenose.”

“Ye’re too inquisitive,” said Bax, drawing Tommy towards him, and sitting down on a chair, so that the boy’s face might be on a level with his. “No doubt Guy will explain it to you in the morning. I say, Tommy, I have sometimes wondered whether I could depend on the friendship which you so often profess for me.”

The boy’s face flushed, and he looked for a moment really hurt.

“Tutts, Tommy, you’re gettin’ thin-skinned. I do but jest.”

“Well, jest or no jest,” said the boy, not half pleased, “you know very well that nothing could ever make me turn my back on you.”

“Are you sure?” said Bax, smiling. “Suppose, now, that I was to do something very bad to you, something unkind, or that looked unkind—what then?”

“In the first place you couldn’t do that, and, in the second place, if you did I’d like you just as well.”

“Ay, but suppose,” continued Bax, in a jocular strain, “that what I did was very bad.”

“Well, let’s hear what you call very bad.”

Bax paused as if to consider, then he said: “Suppose, now, that I were to go off suddenly to some far part of the world for many years without so much as saying good-bye to ye, what would you think?”

“I’d find out where you had gone to, and follow you, and pitch into you when I found you,” said Tommy stoutly.

“Ay, but I did not ask what you’d do; I asked what you’d think?”

“Why, I would think something had happened to prevent you lettin’ me know, but I’d never think ill of you,” replied Tommy.

“I believe you, boy,” said Bax, earnestly. “But come, enough o’ this idle talk. I want you to go up to the cottage with a message to Guy. Tell him not to speak to any one to-night or to-morrow about what I said to him when we were walking on the sandhills; and be off, lad, as fast as you can, lest he should let it out before you get there.”

“Anything to do with smugglers?” inquired the boy, with a knowing look, as they stood outside the door.

“Why, n–no, not exactly.”

“Well, good-night, Bax; good-night, old Jeph.”

Tommy departed, and the two men stood alone.

“God bless the lad. You’ll be kind to him, Jeph, when I’m away?”

“Trust me, Bax,” said the old man, grasping his friend’s hand.

Without another word, Bax turned on his heel, and his tall, stalwart figure was quickly lost to view in the dark shadows of the night.

Chapter Sixteen.

Tommy Bogey forms a Mighty Resolve, and Mr Denham, being Perplexed, becomes Liberal.

When Tommy Bogey discovered the terrible fact that his friend Bax had really gone from him, perhaps for ever, he went straight up to the cottage, sat down on the kitchen floor at the feet of Mrs Laker, laid his head on her lap, and wept as if his heart would break.

“My poor boy!” said the sympathising Laker, stroking his head, and endeavouring to comfort him more by tone and manner than by words.

But Tommy refused to be comforted. The strongest affection he had ever known was rudely and suddenly crushed. It was hard in Bax to have done it; so Tommy felt, though he would not admit it in so many words. So Bax himself felt when the first wild rush of sorrow was past, and he had leisure to consider the hasty step he had taken, while sailing away over the distant sea towards the antipodes. Bitterly did he blame himself and repent when repentance was of no avail.

Tommy’s grief was deep, but not loud. He did not express it with a howling accompaniment. It burst from him in gasping sobs for a time, then it subsided into the recesses of his young heart and gnawed there. It did not again break bounds, but it somewhat changed the boy’s character. It made him almost a man in thought and action. He experienced that strong emotion which is known to most young hearts at certain periods of early life, and which shows itself in the formation of a fixed resolve to take some prompt and mighty step! What that step should be he did not know at first, and did not care to know. Sufficient for him, that coming to an unalterable determination of some indefinite sort afforded him great relief.

After the first paroxysm was over, Tommy rose up, kissed Mrs Laker on the cheek, bade her goodnight with unwonted decision of manner, and went straight to the amphibious hut of his friend Bluenose, whom he found taking a one-eyed survey of the Downs through a telescope, from mere force of habit.

The Captain’s name was more appropriate that day than it had been for many years. He was looking uncommonly “blue” indeed. He had just heard of the disappearance of Bax, for the news soon spread among the men on Deal beach. Being ignorant of the cause of his friend’s sudden departure, and knowing his deliberate, sensible nature, the whole subject was involved in a degree of mystery which his philosophy utterly failed to clear up. Being a bachelor, and never having been in love, or met with any striking incidents of a tender nature in his career, it did not occur to him that woman could be at the bottom of it!

“Uncle,” said Tommy, “Bax is gone!”

“Tommy, I knows it,” was the brief reply, and the telescope was shut up with a bang, as the seaman sat down on a little chest, and stared vacantly in the boy’s face.

“Why did he do it?” asked Tommy.

“Dun’ know. Who knows? S’pose he must ha’ gone mad, though it don’t seem likely. If it wasn’t Guy as told me I’d not believe it.”

“Does Guy not know why he’s gone?”

“Apperiently he does, but he says he’s bound not to tell. Hope Bax han’t bin and done somethin’ not ’xactly right—”

“Bax do anything not exactly right!” cried Tommy, with a look and tone of amazed indignation.

“Right, lad, you’re right,” said Bluenose apologetically. “I’ve no doubt myself he could explain it all quite clear if he wos here for to do so. That’s my opinion; and I’ve no doubt either that the first letter he sends home will make all straight an’ snug, depend on it.”

“Uncle,” said Tommy, “I am going to Australia.”

Bluenose, who had just lighted his pipe, looked at the boy through the smoke, smiled, and said, “No, Tommy, you ain’t.”

“Uncle,” repeated Tommy, “I am. I once heard Bax say he’d rather go there than anywhere else, if he was to go abroad; so I’m certain he has gone there, and I’m going to seek for him.”

“Wery good, my lad,” said the Captain coolly; “d’ye go by steamer to-night, or by rail to-morrow mornin’? P’raps you’d better go by telegraph; it’s quicker, I’m told.”

“You think I’m jokin’, Uncle, but I’m not, as you’ll very soon find out.”

So saying, Tommy rose and left the hut. This was all he said on the subject. He was a strong-minded little fellow. He at once assumed the position of an independent man, and merely stated his intentions to one or two intimate friends, such as Bluenose, Laker, and old Jeph. As these regarded his statement as the wild fancy of an enthusiastic boy in the first gush of disappointment, they treated it with good-natured raillery. So Tommy resolved, as he would have himself have expressed it, “to shut up, and keep his own counsel.”

When Guy told Lucy Burton that the man who had saved her life had gone off thus suddenly, she burst into tears; but her tears had not flowed long before she asked Guy the reason of his strange and abrupt departure.

Of course Guy could not tell. He had been pledged to secrecy as to the cause.

When Lucy Burton went to tell Amy Russell, she did so with a trembling heart. For some time past she had suspected that Amy loved Bax and not Guy, as she had at first mistakenly supposed. Knowing that if her suspicions were true, the news would be terrible indeed to her friend, she considerately went to her room and told her privately.

Amy turned deadly pale, stood speechless for a few seconds, and then fainted in her friend’s arms.

On recovering she confessed her love, but made Lucy solemnly pledge herself to secrecy.

“No one shall ever know of this but yourself, dear Lucy,” said Amy, laying her head on her friend’s bosom, and finding relief in tears.

Time passed away, as time is wont to do, and it seemed as if Tommy Bogey had forgotten to carry out his determination. From that day forward he never referred to it, and the few friends to whom he had mentioned it supposed that he had given up the idea altogether as impracticable.

They did not know the mettle that Tommy was made of. After maturely considering the matter, he had made up his mind to delay carrying out his plan until Bax should have time to write home and acquaint him with his whereabouts. Meanwhile, he would set himself to make and save up money by every means in his power, for he had sense enough to know that a moneyless traveller must be a helpless creature.

Peekins was permanently received into Sandhill Cottage as page-in-buttons, in which capacity he presented a miserably attenuated figure, but gave great satisfaction. Tommy and he continued good friends; the former devoting as much of his leisure time to the latter as he could spare. He had not much to spare, however, for he had, among other things, set himself energetically to the study of arithmetic and navigation under the united guidance of old Jeph and Bluenose.

Lucy Burton paid a long visit to Mrs Foster, and roamed over the Sandhills day after day with her friend Amy, until her father, the missionary, came and claimed her and carried her back to Ramsgate. During Lucy’s stay, Guy Foster remained at the cottage, busily engaged in various ways, but especially in making himself agreeable to Lucy, in which effort he seemed to be very successful.

When the latter left, he suddenly discovered that he was wasting his time sadly, and told his mother that he meant to look out for something to do. With this end in view he set out for London, that mighty hive of industry and idleness into which there is a ceaseless flow of men who “want something to do,” and of men who “don’t know what to do.”

And what of Denham, Crumps, and Company during this period?

The rats in and around Red Wharf Lane could have told you, had they been able to speak, that things prospered with that firm. These jovial creatures, that revelled so luxuriously in the slime and mud and miscellaneous abominations of that locality, could have told you that, every morning regularly, they were caught rioting in the lane and sent squealing out of it, by a boy in blue (the successor of poor Peekins) who opened the office and prepared it for the business of the day; that about half an hour later they, the rats, were again disturbed by the arrival of the head-clerk, closely followed by the juniors, who were almost as closely followed by Crumps—he being a timid old man who stood in awe of his senior partner; that, after this, they had a good long period of comparative quiet, during which they held a riotous game of hide-and-seek across the lane and down among sewers and dust holes, and delightfully noisome and fetid places of a similar character; interrupted at irregular intervals by a vagrant street boy, or a daring cat, or an inquisitive cur; that this game was stopped at about ten o’clock by the advent of Mr Denham, who generally gave them, the rats, a smile of recognition as he passed to his office, concluding, no doubt, by a natural process of ratiocination, that they were kindred spirits, because they delighted in bad smells and filthy garbage, just as he (Denham) rejoiced in Thames air and filthy lucre.

One fine morning, speaking from a rat’s point of view, when the air was so thick and heavy and moist that it was difficult to see more than a few yards in any direction, Denham came down the lane about half-an-hour later than usual, with a brisk step and an unusually smiling countenance.

Peekins’ successor relieved him of his hat, topcoat, and umbrella, and one of the clerks brought him the letters. Before opening these he shouted—

“Mr Crumps!”

Crumps came meekly out of his cell, as if he had been a bad dog who knew he deserved, and expected, a whipping.

“Nothing wrong, I trust,” he said anxiously.

“No; on the contrary, everything right,” (Crumps’ old face brightened), “I’ve succeeded in getting that ship at what I call a real bargain—500 less than I had anticipated and was prepared to give.” (Crumps rubbed his hands.) “Now, I mean to send this ship out to Australia, with a miscellaneous cargo, as soon as she can be got ready for sea. The gold fever is at its height just now, and it strikes me that, with a little judgment and prudence, a good thing may be made out there. At any rate, I mean to venture; for our speculations last year have, as you know, turned out well, with the exception of that unfortunate ‘Trident,’ and we are sufficiently in funds just at this time to afford to run considerable risk.”

Crumps expressed great satisfaction, and agreed with all that Denham said. He also asked what the name of the new ship was to be.

“The ‘Trident,’” said Mr Denham.

“What! the name of the ship we lost in Saint Margaret’s Bay?” exclaimed Crumps, in surprise.

“I thought you knew the name of the ship we lost in Saint Margaret’s Bay,” said Denham sarcastically.

“Of course, of course,” replied Crumps, in some confusion, “but I mean—that is, don’t you think it looks like flying in the face of Providence to give it the same name?”

“Mr Crumps,” said Denham, with an air of dignified reproof, “it is most unnatural, most uncalled for, to talk of Providence in connexion with business. It is a word, sir, that may be appropriately used on Sundays and in churches, but not in offices, and I beg that you will not again allude to it. There is no such thing, sir, as Providence in business matters—at least such is my opinion; and I say this in order that you may understand that any remarks of that kind are quite thrown away on me. I am a plain practical man of business, Mr Crumps; once for all, allow me to say that, I object to the very unbusinesslike remarks of a theological nature which you are sometimes pleased to introduce into our conversations. I again repeat that there is no such thing as Providence in business,—at all events, not in my business.”

“I will not again offend you,” said poor Crumps, who stood looking confused and moving his legs uneasily during the delivery of this oration, “but as you have condescended to argue the matter slightly, may I venture to hint that our ships are propelled chiefly by means of sails, and that the winds are in the hands of Providence.”

“There, sir, I utterly disagree with you,” retorted Denham, “the winds are guided in their courses by the fixed laws of Nature, and cannot be altered or modified by the wishes or powers of man; therefore, it is quite unnecessary, because useless, to regard them in matters of business. I am utterly devoid, sir, of superstition; and it is partly in order to make this clear to all with whom I have to do, that I intend to name our new ship the ‘Trident,’ and to order her to sail on a Friday.”

As Mr Denham accompanied his last word with an inclination of the head which was equivalent to a dismissal, Mr Crumps sighed and retired to his den. His practical and unsuperstitious partner opened and read the letters.

While Denham was thus engaged a tap came to the door, and old Mr Summers entered the room.

“Ah! Summers, glad to see you, how are you?” said Denham, somewhat heartily—for him.

“Thank you, Denham, I’m well,” replied the benign old gentleman with a smile, as he fixed a pair of gold spectacles on his nose, and sat down in a most businesslike way to examine a bundle of papers which he pulled out of his coat-pocket.

Mr Summers was a very old friend of Denham, and had been the friend of his father before him; but that was not the reason of Denham’s regard for him. The old gentleman happened to be a merchant in the city, with whom Denham, Crumps, and Company did extensive and advantageous business. This was the cause of Denham’s unwonted urbanity. He cared little for the old man’s friendship. In fact, he would have dispensed with it without much regret, for he was sometimes pressed to contribute to charities by his philanthropic friend.

“See, I have settled that matter for you satisfactorily,” said Mr Summers; “there are the papers, which you can look over at your leisure.”

“Thank you, Mr Summers,” said Denham impressively, “this is indeed very kind of you. But for your interference in this affair I am convinced that I should have lost a thousand pounds, if not more.”

“Indeed!” exclaimed the old gentleman with a bright smile, “come, I’m glad to hear you say so, and it makes my second errand all the more easy.”

“And what may your second errand be?” said Denham, with a sudden gravity of countenance, which showed that he more than suspected it.

“Well, the fact is,” began Summers, “it’s a little matter of begging that I have undertaken for the purpose of raising funds to establish one or two lifeboats on parts of our coast where they are very much needed. (Denham fidgeted in his chair.) You know I have a villa near Deal, and frequently witness the terrible scenes of shipwreck that are so common and so fatal on that coast. I am sorry to say that my begging expedition has not been attended with so much success as I had anticipated. It is not such agreeable work as one might suppose, I assure you, one gets so many unexpected rebuffs. Did you ever try begging, Denham?”

Denham said he never had, and, unless reduced to it by circumstances, did not mean to do so!

“Ah,” continued Mr Summers, “if you ever do try you’ll be surprised to find how difficult it is to screw money out of some people.” (Mr Denham thought that that difficulty would not surprise him at all.) “But you’ll be delighted to find, on the other hand, what a number of truly liberal souls there are. It’s quite a treat, for instance, to meet with a man,—as I did the other day,—who gives his charity in the light of such principles as these:— ‘The Lord loveth a cheerful giver;’ ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive;’ ‘He that giveth to the poor lendeth to the Lord,’—one who lays aside a certain proportion of his income for charitable purposes, and who, therefore, knowing exactly how much he has to give at any moment, gives or refuses, as the case may be, promptly and with a good grace.”

“Ha!” exclaimed Denham, whose soul abhorred this sort of talk, but whose self-interest compelled him to listen to it.

“Really,” pursued Mr Summers, “it is quite interesting to study the outs and ins of Christian philanthropy. Have you ever given much attention to the subject, Mr Denham? Of course, I mean in a philosophical way.”

“Ha a-hem! well, I cannot say that I have, except perhaps in my capacity of a poor-law guardian in this district of the city.”

“Indeed, I would recommend it to you. It is quite a relief to men of business like you and me, who are necessarily swallowed up all day in the matter of making money, to have the mind occasionally directed to the consideration of the best methods of getting rid of a little of their superabundance. It would do them a world of good—I can safely say so from experience—to consider such matters. I daresay that you also know something of this from experience.”

“Ha!” ejaculated Mr Denham, who felt himself getting internally warm, but was constrained (of course from disinterested motives) to keep cool and appear amiable.

“But forgive my taking up so much of your time, my dear sir,” said Mr Summers, rising; “what shall I put you down for?”

Denham groaned inaudibly and said, “Well, I’ve no objection to give twenty pounds.”

“How much?” said the old gentleman, as though he had heard imperfectly, at the same time pulling out a notebook.

There was a slight peculiarity in the tone of the question that induced Denham to say he would give fifty pounds.

“Ah! fifty,” said Summers, preparing to write, “thank you, Mr Denham (here he looked up gravely and added), the subject, however, is one which deserves liberal consideration at the hands of society in general; especially of ship owners. Shall we say a hundred, my dear sir?”

Denham was about to plead poverty, but recollecting that he had just admitted that his friend had been the means of saving a thousand pounds to the business, he said, “Well, let it be a hundred,” with the best grace he could.

“Thank you, Mr Denham, a thousand thanks,” said the old gentleman, shaking his friend’s hand, and quitting the room with the active step of a man who had much more business to do that day before dinner.

Mr Denham returned to the perusal of his letters with the feelings of a man who has come by a heavy loss. Yet, strange to say, he comforted himself on his way home that evening with the thought that, after all, he had done a liberal thing! that he had “given away a hundred pounds sterling in charity.”

Given it! Poor Denham! he did not know that, up to that period, he had never given away a single farthing of his wealth in the true spirit of liberality—although he had given much in the name of charity.

Chapter Seventeen.

Dark Deeds are done upon the Sea—Tommy Bogey in Great Danger.

“Well, Bluenose, hoo d’ye find yerself to-day?” inquired Supple Rodger one fine morning, as the Captain sauntered slowly along the beach in front of his hut, with his hands deep in the pockets of his pilot-coat.

“Thankee, I amongst the middlings. How’s yerself?”

“I like myself,” said Rodgers; “how’s old Jeph?”

“Rather or’nary; but I dessay he’ll come all square after a day or two in dock,” answered the Captain; “I left him shored up in bed with bolsters.”

“So Tommy’s slipped his cable, I’m told?” said Rodgers interrogatively.

“Ay, he’s off, an’ no mistake. I thought he was jokin’, for I heard him talk o’ goin’ after Bax some time past, but nothin’ more come of it till yesterday, when he comes to me and bids me good day, and then off like a galley after a French smuggler. It’s o’ no use tryin’ to catch him. That boy’ll make his way and have his will somehow, whether we let him or no. Ay, ay,” said Bluenose, lighting his pipe with a heavy sigh, “Tommy Bogey’s gone for good.”

That was the last that was heard of poor Tommy for many a long day on the beach of Deal. But as there is no good reason why the readers should be kept in the dark regarding his movements, we shall follow him on the rugged path he had selected, and leave the men of Deal to wonder for a time, and talk, and then forget him.

Having waited as long as his patience could hold out, and no letter having come from Bax, Tommy at last prepared to carry out his plan. By dint of hard labour among the boats at any odd jobs that people would give him, and running messages, and making himself generally useful to the numerous strangers who visited that fine and interesting part of the coast, he had scraped together a few pounds. By persevering study at nights he had acquired a fair knowledge of figures and a smattering of navigation. Thus equipped in mind and purse he went off to seek his fortune.

His intention was in the first place to go to London and visit the “Three Jolly Tars,” where, he doubted not, every possible and conceivable sort of information in regard to shipping could be obtained.

There chanced at the time to be a certain small collier lying in the downs, awaiting a fair wind to carry her into the port of London. This collier (a schooner) was named the “Butterfly,” perhaps because the owner had a hazy idea that there was some resemblance between an insect flitting about from flower to flower and a vessel sailing from port to port! Black as a chimney from keelson to truck, she was as like to a butterfly as a lady’s hand is to a monkey’s paw.

The skipper of the “Butterfly” was a friend of Bluenose, and knew Tommy. He at once agreed to give him a passage to London, and never thought of asking questions.

Soon after the boy went aboard the wind changed to the south-west; the “Butterfly” spread her black wings, bore away to the nor’ard, and doubled the North Foreland, where she was becalmed, and left to drift with the tide just as night was closing in.

“I’m tired, Jager” (this was the skipper’s name); “I’ll go below and take a snooze,” said Tommy, “for I’ve lots o’ work before me to-morrow.”

So Tommy went below and fell asleep. The three men who formed the crew of this dingy craft lay down on the deck, the night being fine, and also fell asleep, Jager being at the helm.

Now Jager was one of those careless, easy-going, reckless seamen, who, by their folly, ignorance, and intemperance are constantly bringing themselves to the verge of destruction.

He sat near the tiller gazing up at the stars dreamily for some time; then he looked round the horizon, then glanced at the compass and up at the sails, which hung idly from the yards, after which he began to mutter to himself in low grumbling tones—

“Goin’ to blow from the nor’ard. Ay, allers blows the way I don’t want it to. Driftin’ to the southward too. If this lasts we’ll drift on the Sands. Comfr’able to think on, that is. Come, Jager, don’t you go for to git into the blues. Keep up yer sperits, old boy!”

Acting on his own suggestion, the skipper rose and went below to a private locker, in which he kept a supply of rum,—his favourite beverage. He passed Tommy Bogey on the way. Observing, that the boy was sleeping soundly, he stopped in front of him and gazed long into his face with that particularly stupid expression which is common to men who are always more or less tipsy.

“Sleep away, my lad, it’ll do ye good.”

Accompanying this piece of unnecessary advice with a sagacious nod of the head, the skipper staggered on and possessed himself of a case-bottle about three-quarters full of rum, with which he returned to the deck and began to drink.

While he was thus employed, a breeze sprang up from the north-east.

“Ease off the sheets there, you lubbers!” shouted the drunken man, as he seized the tiller and looked at the compass. “What! sleeping again, Bunks? I’ll rouse ye, I will.”

With that, in a burst of anger, he rushed forward and gave one of the sleepers a severe kick in the ribs. Bunks rose sulkily, and with a terrible imprecation advised the skipper “not to try that again”; to which the skipper retorted, that if his orders were not obeyed more sharply, he would not only try it again, but he would “chuck him overboard besides.”

Having applied a rope’s-end to the shoulders of one of the other sleepers, he repeated his orders to ease off the sheets, as the wind was fair, and staggered back to his place at the helm.

“Why, I do believe it is a sou’-wester,” he muttered to himself, attempting in vain to read the compass.

It was in reality north-east, but Jager’s intellects were muddled; he made it out to be south-west and steered accordingly, almost straight before it. The three men who formed the crew of the little vessel were so angry at the treatment they had received, that they neither cared nor knew how the ship’s head lay. A thick mist came down about the same time, and veiled the lights which would otherwise have soon revealed the fact that the skipper had made a mistake.

“Why, wot on airth ails the compass?” muttered Jager, bending forward intently to gaze at the instrument, which, to his eye, seemed to point in all directions at once; “come, I’ll have another pull at the b–bottle to steady me.”

He grasped the bottle to carry out this intention, but in doing so thrust the helm down inadvertently. The schooner came up to the wind at once, and as the wind had freshened to a stiff breeze and a great deal of canvas was set, she heeled violently over to starboard. The skipper was pitched into the lee scuppers, and the case-bottle of rum was shivered to atoms before he had time to taste a drop.

“Mind your helm!” roared Bunks, savagely. “D’ye want to send us to the bottom?”

The man sprang to the helm, and accompanied his remark with several fierce oaths, which need not be repeated, but which had the effect of rousing Jager’s anger to such a pitch, that he jumped up and hit the sailor a heavy blow on the face.

“I’ll stop your swearin’, I will,” he cried, preparing to repeat the blow, but the man stepped aside and walked forward, leaving his commander alone on the quarter-deck.

Bunks, who was a small but active man, was a favourite with the other two men who constituted the crew of the “Butterfly,” and both of whom were strong-limbed fellows. Their anger at seeing him treated thus savagely knew no bounds. They had long been at deadly feud with Jager. One of them, especially (a tall, dark, big-whiskered man named Job), had more than once said to his comrades that he would be the death of the skipper yet. Bunks usually shook his head when he heard these threats, and said, “It wouldn’t pay, unless he wanted to dance a hornpipe on nothing,” which was a delicate reference to being hung.

When the two men saw Bunks come forward with blood streaming from his mouth, they looked at each other and swore a tremendous oath.

“Will ye lend a hand, Jim?” sputtered Job between his clenched teeth.

Jim nodded.

“No, no,” cried Bunks, interposing, but the two men dashed him aside and rushed aft.

Their purpose, whatever it might have been, was arrested for a moment by Bunks suddenly shouting at the top of his lungs—

“Light on the starboard bow!”

“That’s a lie,” said Jager, savagely; “use yer eyes, you land-lubber.”

“We’re running straight on the North Foreland,” cried Job, who, with his companion, suddenly stopped and gazed round them out ahead in alarm.

“The North Foreland, you fool,” cried the skipper roughly, “who ever saw the North Foreland light on the starboard bow, with the ship’s head due north?”

“I don’t believe ’er head is due north,” said Job, stepping up to the binnacle, just as Tommy Bogey, aroused by the sudden lurch of the vessel and the angry voices, came on deck.

“Out o’ the way,” cried Jager roughly, hitting Job such a blow on the head that he sent him reeling against the lee bulwarks.

The man, on recovering himself, uttered a fierce yell, and rushing on the skipper, seized him by the throat with his left hand, and drove his right fist into his face with all his force.

Jager, although a powerful man, and, when sober, more than a match for his antagonist, was overborne and driven with great violence against the binnacle, which, being of inferior quality and ill secured, like everything else in the miserable vessel, gave way under his weight, and the compass was dashed to pieces on the deck.

Jim ran to assist his comrade, and Bunks attempted to interfere. Fortunately, Tommy Bogey’s presence of mind did not forsake him. He seized the tiller while the men were fighting furiously, and steered away from the light, feeling sure that, whatever it might be, the wisest thing to be done was to steer clear of it.

He had not got the schooner quite before the wind when a squall struck her, and laid her almost on her beam-ends. The lurch of the vessel sent the struggling men against the taffrail with great violence. The skipper’s back was almost broken by the shock, for his body met the side of the vessel, and the other two were thrown upon him. Job took advantage of his opportunity: seizing Jager by the leg, he suddenly lifted him over the iron rail, and hurled him into the sea. There was one wild shriek and a heavy plunge, and the miserable man sank to rise no more.

It is impossible to describe the horror of the poor boy at the helm when he witnessed this cold-blooded murder. Bold though he was, and accustomed to face danger and witness death in some of its most appalling forms, he could not withstand the shock of such a scene of violence perpetrated amid the darkness and danger of a stormy night at sea. His first impulse was to run below, and get out of sight of the men who had done so foul a deed; but reflecting that they might, in their passion, toss him into the sea also if he were to show his horror, he restrained himself, and stood calmly at his post.

“Come, out o’ the way, younker,” cried Job, seizing the helm.

Tommy shrank from the man, as if he feared the contamination of his touch.

“You young whelp, what are ye affeared on? eh!”

He aimed a blow at Tommy, which the latter smartly avoided.

“Murderer!” cried the boy, rousing himself suddenly, “you shall swing for this yet.”

“Shall I? eh! Here, Jim, catch hold o’ the tiller.”

Jim obeyed, and Job sprang towards Tommy, but the latter, who was lithe and active as a kitten, leaped aside and avoided him. For five minutes the furious man rushed wildly about the deck in pursuit of the boy, calling on Bunks to intercept him, but Bunks would not stir hand or foot, and Jim could not quit the helm, for the wind had increased to a gale; and as there was too much sail set, the schooner was flying before it with masts, ropes, and beams creaking under the strain.

“Do your worst,” cried Tommy, during a brief pause, “you’ll never catch me. I defy you, and will denounce you the moment we got into port.”

“Will you? then you’ll never get into port alive,” yelled Job, as he leaped down the companion, and returned almost instantly, with one of the skipper’s pistols.

He levelled it and fired, but the unsteady motion of the vessel caused him to miss his aim. He was about to descend for another pistol, when the attention of all on board was attracted by a loud roar of surf.

“Breakers ahead!” roared Bunks.

This new danger—the most terrible, with perhaps the exception of fire, to which a seaman can be exposed—caused all hands to forget the past in the more awful present. The helm was put down, the schooner flew up into the wind, and sheered close past a mass of leaping, roaring foam, the sight of which would have caused the stoutest heart to quail.

“Keep her close hauled,” shouted Job, who stood on the heel of the bowsprit looking out ahead.

“D’ye think it’s the North Foreland?” asked Bunks, who stood beside him.

“I s’pose it is,” said Job, “but how it comes to be on our lee bow, with the wind as it is, beats me out and out. Anyhow, I’ll keep her well off the land,—mayhap run for the coast of Norway. They’re not so partikler about inquiries there, I’m told.”

“I’ll tell ye what it is, Bunks,” said Tommy, who had gone forward and overheard the last observation, but could not bring himself to speak to Job, “you may depend on it we’re out of our course; as sure as you stand there the breakers we have just passed are the north end of the Goodwin Sands. If we carry on as we’re going now, and escape the sands, we’ll find ourselves on the coast o’ France, or far down the Channel in the morning.”

“Thank’ee for nothin’,” said Job, with a sneer; “next time ye’ve got to give an opinion wait till it’s axed for, an’ keep well out o’ the reach o’ my arm, if ye don’t want to keep company with the skipper.”

Tommy made no reply to this. He did not even look as if he had heard it; but, addressing himself to Bunks, repeated his warning.

Bunks was disposed to attach some weight to it at first, but as the compass was destroyed he had no means of ascertaining the truth of what was said, and as Job laughed all advice to scorn, and had taken command of the vessel, he quietly gave in.

They soon passed the breakers, and went away with the lee-gunwale dipping in the water right down the Channel. Feeling relieved from immediate danger, the murderer once more attempted to catch Tommy, but without success. He then went below, and soon after came on deck with such a flushed face and wild unsteady gaze, that it was evident to his companions he had been at the spirit locker. Jim was inclined to rebel now, but he felt that Job was more than a match for him and Bunks. Besides, he was the best seaman of the three.

“Don’t ’ee think we’d better close-reef the tops’l?” said Bunks, as Job came on deck; “if you’ll take the helm, Jim and me will lay out on the yard.”

There was truly occasion for anxiety. During the last hour the gale had increased, and the masts were almost torn out of the little vessel, as she drove before it. To turn her side to the wind would have insured her being thrown on her beam-ends. Heavy seas were constantly breaking over the stern, and falling with such weight on the deck that Tommy expected to see them stove in and the vessel swamped. In other circumstances the boy would have been first to suggest reefing the sails, and first to set the example, but he felt that his life depended that night (under God) on his watchfulness and care.

“Reef tops’l!” cried Job, looking fiercely at Bunks, “no, we shan’t; there’s one reef in’t, an’ that’s enough.” Bunks shuddered, for he saw by the glare of the murderer’s eyes that the evil deed, coupled with his deep potations, had driven him mad.

“P’raps it is,” said Bunks, in a submissive voice; “but it may be as well to close reef, ’cause the weather don’t seem like to git better.”

Job turned with a wild laugh to Tommy:

“Here, boy, go aloft and reef tops’l; d’ye hear?”

Tommy hesitated.

“If you don’t,” said Job, hissing out the words in the extremity of his passion, and stopping abruptly, as if unable to give utterance to his feelings.

“Well, what if I don’t?” asked the boy sternly.

“Why, then—ha! ha! ha!—why, I’ll do it myself.”

With another fiendish laugh Job sprang into the rigging, and was soon out upon the topsail-yard busy with the reef points.

“Why, he’s shakin’ out the reef,” cried Jim in alarm. “I’ve half a mind to haul on the starboard brace, and try to shake the monster into the sea!”

Job soon shook out the reef, and, descending swiftly by one of the backstays, seized the topsail-halyards.

“Come, lay hold,” he cried savagely.

But no one would obey, so, uttering a curse upon his comrades, he passed the rope round a stanchion, and with his right hand partially hoisted the sail, while with his left he hauled in the slack of the rope.

The vessel, already staggering under much too great a press of canvas, now rushed through the water with terrific speed; burying her bows in foam at one moment, and hurling off clouds of spray at the next as she held on her wild course. Job stood on the bowsprit, drenched with spray, holding with one hand to the forestay, and waving the other high above his head, cheering and yelling furiously as if he were daring the angry sea to come on, and do its worst.

Jim, now unable to speak or act from terror, clung to the starboard bulwarks, while Bunks stood manfully at the helm. Tommy held on to the mainmast shrouds, and gazed earnestly and anxiously out ahead.

Thus they flew, they knew not whither, for several hours that night.

Towards morning, a little before daybreak, the gale began to moderate. Job’s mood had changed. His wild yelling fit had passed away, and he now ranged about the decks in moody silence, like a chained tiger; going down every now and then to drink, but never resting for a moment, and always showing by his looks that he had his eye on Tommy Bogey.

The poor boy knew this well, and watched him intently the whole of that terrible night.

Bunks, who had never once quitted his post, began to yawn, and suggested to Jim that he might take a spell at the helm now, when the progress of the schooner was suddenly arrested with a shock so violent that those on board were hurled prostrate on the deck, the fore-topmast snapped and went over the side, carrying the main-topmast and the jib-boom along with it, and the sea made a clean breach over the stern, completely sweeping the deck.

Job, who chanced to have gone down below, was hurled against the cabin bulkhead, and the glass bottle he held to his lips was shivered to atoms. With his face cut and bleeding he sprang up the companion-ladder.

“On the rocks!” he shouted.

“On the sand, anyhow,” answered Bunks.

“The boat! the boat! she won’t last ten minutes,” cried Jim.

One of the two boats belonging to the “Butterfly” had been washed away by the last wave, the other remained in its place. To this the three men rushed, and launched it quickly into the water. Job was first to get into it.

“Jump in, jump in,” he cried to the others, who were prompt enough to obey.

Tommy Bogey stood motionless and silent close to the main-mast. His face was very pale; but a stern pursing of the lips and compression of the eyebrows showed that it was not cowardly fear that blanched his cheek.

“The boy! the boy!” cried Bunks, as Job let go his hold of the schooner.

A wild stern laugh from Job showed that he had made up his mind to leave Tommy to perish.

“Shame!” cried Jim, seizing one of the oars; “pull, Bunks, pull to wind’ard a bit; we’ll drop down and save him yet. Pull, you murderer!” shouted Jim, with a burst of anger so sudden and fierce that Job was cowed. He sat down and obeyed.

The boat was very small, and might have been easily pulled by so strong a crew in ordinary circumstances; but the strength of wind and sea together was so great, that they were in great danger of being swamped, and it required their utmost efforts to pull a few yards to windward of the schooner.

“Now then, look out!” cried Jim, endeavouring to turn the boat.

As he said this a wave caught its side and upset it. The men uttered a loud cry; a moment later, and they were swept against the bow of the “Butterfly.” Tommy had sprung to the side, caught up a rope, and cast it over. Bunks did not see it; he made a wild grasp at the smooth wet side of the vessel, but his hands found nothing to lay hold of, and he was carried quickly away to leeward. Jim caught the rope, but was brought up so suddenly by it that it was torn from his grasp. He also went to leeward and perished.

Job had caught hold of the cutwater, and, digging his fingers into the wood, held on by main strength for a few minutes.

“Here, lay hold o’ the rope,” cried Tommy, whose only desire now was to save the life of the wretched man; “there, don’t you feel it?”

He had rubbed the rope against Job’s face in order to let him know it was there, but the man seemed to have lost all power to move. He simply maintained his death-grip until his strength gave way. Tommy understood his case, and looked quickly round for one of those ring-shaped lifebuoys which we are accustomed to see in our passenger steamers tied up so securely that they would in most cases of sudden emergency be utterly useless. But the owners of the “Butterfly” were economists. They did not think life-preserving worth the expenditure of a few shillings, so there was no lifebuoy to be found. There was a round cork fender, however, which the boy seized and flung into the sea, just as Job’s grasp loosened. He uttered a wild shriek, and tossed up his arms imploringly, as he was carried away. The buoy fell close beside him, and he caught it. But it was scarce sufficient to sustain his weight, and merely prolonged the agonising struggle. Tommy soon lost sight of him in the darkness. Soon after there arose a wild fierce cry, so loud and strong that it seemed to have been uttered at the boy’s elbow. Tommy shuddered, for it suggested the idea of a despairing soul.

He listened intently, and twice again that thrilling cry broke on his ear, but each time more faintly. Still he continued to listen for it with a feeling of horror, and once or twice fancied that he heard it rising above the turmoil of wind and waves. Long before he ceased to listen in expectancy, the murderer’s dead body lay tossing in that great watery grave in which so many of the human race—innocent and guilty alike—lie buried.

Ere long Tommy was called to renewed exertion and trial.

The tide happened to be rising when the schooner struck. While the incidents above related were taking place, the “Butterfly” was being dashed on the sand so violently, that her breaking up in the course of a short time was a matter of certainty. Tommy knew this well, but he did not give way to despair. He resolved not to part with his young life without a struggle, and therefore cast about in his mind what was best to be done.

His first idea was to construct a raft. He had just begun this laborious work when the rising tide lifted the schooner over the sand-bank, and sent her off into deep water. This raised Tommy’s hopes and spirits to an unnaturally high pitch; he trimmed the foresail—the only one left—as well as he could, and then, seizing the tiller, kept the vessel running straight before the wind.

Standing thus at the helm he began to reflect on his position, and the reflection did not tend to comfort him. He was out in a gale on the stormy sea, without companions, without compass to guide him, and steering he knew not whither—possibly on rocks or shoals. This latter idea induced him to attempt to lie-to till day-break, but the crippled condition of the schooner rendered this impossible. There was nothing for it, therefore, but to run before the gale.

In a short time his attention was attracted to a peculiar sound in the hold. On examination he found that the vessel had sprung a leak, and that the water was rising slowly but steadily. The poor boy’s heart sank, and for the first time his courage began to give way; but quickly recovering himself he lashed the helm in position, and manfully set to work at the pump. He was somewhat relieved to find that the leak was small. In an hour he had pumped out nearly all the water. Then he returned to the helm and rested there for an hour, at the end of which the water in the hold had increased so much that he had to ply the pump again.

The day broke while he was thus engaged, but the morning was so thick that he could see no land. On returning to the helm the second time, Tommy felt that this state of things could not go on much longer. The excitement, the watching, the horrors of the past night were beginning to tell on him. His muscles were exhausted, and he felt an irresistible desire to sleep. He struggled against this till about noon, by which time the wind had moderated to a steady breeze, and the sun shone through the mist as if to cheer him up a little.

He had eaten nothing for many hours, as he did not dare to quit his post to go below for food, lest the schooner should come suddenly on some other vessel and be run down. Hunger and exhaustion, however, soon rendered him desperate; he ran below, seized a handful of biscuit, filled a can with water, and returned hastily on deck to break his fast. It was one of the sweetest meals he ever ate, and refreshed him so much that he was able to go on alternately steering and pumping till late in the afternoon. Then he suddenly broke down. Exhausted nature could bear up no longer. He lashed the helm, pumped out the water in the hold for the last time, and went below to rest.

He was half asleep as he descended the companion-ladder. A strange and sad yet dreamy feeling that everything he did was “for the last time,” weighed heavily on his spirit, but this was somehow relieved by the knowledge that he was now at last about to rest! There was delight in that simple thought, though there mingled with it a feeling that the rest would terminate in death; he lay down to sleep with a feeling that he lay down to die, and a half-formed prayer escaped his lips as his wearied head fell upon the pillow.

Instantly he was buried in deep repose.

The sun sank in the ocean, the stars came out and spangled all the sky, and the moon rose and sank again, but Tommy lay, regardless of everything, in profound slumber. Again the sun arose on a sea so calm that it seemed like oil, ascended into the zenith, and sank towards its setting. Still the boy continued to sleep, his young head resting quietly on the pillow of the dead skipper; his breath coming gently and regularly through the half-opened lips that smiled as if he were resting in peace on his mother’s bosom.

Being dashed on the rocks, or run into by steamers, or whelmed in the waves, were ideas that troubled him not, or, if they did, they were connected only with the land of dreams. Thus the poor boy rested calmly in the midst of danger—yet in safety, for the arm of God was around him.

Chapter Eighteen.

The Antipodes.

A new scene breaks upon us now, patient reader. We are among the antipodes in that vast and wonderful region where the kangaroo reigns in the wilderness, and gold is sown broadcast in the land. The men we see are, to a large extent, the same men we saw before leaving the shores of Old England, but they are wonderfully changed! Red flannel shirts, long boots, leathern belts, felt hats, and unshorn chins meet us at every turn; so do barrows and pick-axes and shovels. It seems as if we had got into a region inhabited solely by navvies. Many of them, however, appear to be very gentlemanly navvies!

There are no ladies here; scarcely any females at all, for we have left the thriving settlements of Australia far behind us, and are now wandering over the Daisy Hill gold-diggings. The particular section of that busy spot to which our attention is directed at this moment, is named the “Kangaroo Flats.”

None but strong men can get on here. Let us go forward, and see how they obtain this yellow metal that turns the world upside down!

Here is a man issuing from a hole in the earth close at our feet, like a huge ground-squirrel. He is tall; stout, and fair, with broad shoulders and a fine manly countenance, which is ornamented by a thick beard and moustache of glossy yellow hair. The silken curly hair of this man, contrasted with his great size and manliness, is very striking. He seats himself on a mass of clay, wipes the perspiration from his forehead, and shouts to some one down in the earth.

“Hallo! Jack, let’s hoist out the stuff now.”

“Ay, ay, Harry,” replies a strong voice, with a sailor-like ring in it, from below, “I’ll be on deck in a jiffy.”

Let us descend and look at this miner. The hole is narrow and deep; at the bottom of it is a dark tunnel two feet broad, between two and three feet high, and twenty-five feet long. At the farther extremity of it crouches a man with a pickaxe in his hands, and a candle beside him. It is a very awkward position in which to work, and the result is that this man pants and blows and sighs, and sometimes laughs quietly to himself at the comicality of his attitudes, while the perspiration pours over his face in large beads continuously. It seems very hard work, and so, indeed, it is, but the man is an unusually big and strong fellow, larger even than his fair companion above ground. His hair is short, black, and curly, as are his beard and whiskers, but at this moment his whole head and face are so besmeared with clay that his aspect is piebald and not more becoming than his attitude. Still, there is a massive grandeur in the outline of his features which cannot be destroyed by incrustations of clay, although his complexion is obscured by it.

Like his comrade above, his costume consists of flannel shirt, dark trousers, and big boots. His shirt sleeves being rolled up to the shoulders, display a pair of arms that a sculptor might gaze on with admiration.

This strong man pants and gasps more than ever with the heat as he drives the pick and tears up the earth for gold. Presently the candle burns dim; the air is getting foul.

“Hallo, the candle’s going out!” cries the dark miner, scrambling towards the bottom of the shaft on his hands and knees.

“Ha! time to take a mouthful o’ fresh air, Jack,” remarks the fair miner, looking into the hole.

In another moment a wild dishevelled clay-bespattered figure comes to the surface, rises like a giant out of the earth, and the countenance and proportions of our friend John Bax are revealed, in spite of the strange costume and black moustache and beard and incrustations of clay which more than half disguise him.

“Whew! how hot it is,” said Bax, as he stepped out of the hole.

“You may say that,” observed his friend, rising; “but come along, Jack, let’s get up the stuff and wash out as much as we can before dinner. Mind, you’ve got to write home this afternoon, and won’t be able to help me much in the evening.”

“Come along then,” said Bax, going to work again with redoubled energy.

There was a windlass over the hole by which the clay was raised to the surface. Bax wrought at this, and his mate went below to fill the buckets. Then they washed it out, and flooded away cartloads of worthless soil, until a small residue of clear shining particles remained behind. This they gathered carefully together, added it to the bag that held their fortune, remarked that there were “no nuggets this time,” and that it was “hard work and little pay;” after which they flung down their tools, washed their hands and faces, and went into their tent to dine.

Thus did Bax and his mate (an old acquaintance unexpectedly met with after arrival in Australia) dig, and sweat, and toil for gold.

But Bax and his friend worked thus hard, only because it was their nature so to work at whatever their hands found to do. They had not set their hearts upon the gold.

After dinner Harry went out to drive his pick and shovel. Bax remained in the tent to drive the quill.

That night the two friends lay chatting and smoking in their tent after supper, with a solitary candle between them, and the result of the day’s work—a small pile of shining dust—before them.

“We’ll not make our fortunes at this rate,” observed Harry, with a sigh.

“There’s no saying what good fortune may be in store for us,” observed Bax; “but put away the gold, it will do us no good to gaze at it.”

Harry rolled the little heap in a piece of paper, and tossed it into the leathern bag which contained their earnings.

“Come now,” said he, replenishing his pipe, “let’s hear the letter, Bax, who d’ye say’s the friend you’ve written to?”

“He’s a boy,” said Bax, “Tommy Bogey by name, of which name, by the way, he has no reason to be proud—but he’s a first-rate fellow, and I fear will have set me down as a faithless friend, for I left him without saying good-bye, and the letter I wrote to him on my arrival here went to the bottom with the unfortunate ship that carried it. However, here is the epistle. I’m open to correction, Harry, if you think any part of it not ship-shape.”

“All right,” said Harry, “go ahead.”

Bax read as follows:—

“Kangaroo Flats, Daisy Hill Diggings,

“Australia, 10th January, 18—.

“MY DEAR TOMMY,—The mail is just about to leave us, so I write to let you know where I am and what doing—also to tell you that I have just heard of the wreck of the ship that conveyed my first letter to you, which will account for my apparent neglect.

“Gold digging is anything but a paying affair, I find, and it’s the hardest work I’ve ever had to do. I have only been able to pay my way up to this time. Everything is fearfully dear. After deducting the expenses of the last week for cartage, sharpening picks, etcetera, I and my mate have just realised 15 shillings each; and this is the first week we have made anything at all beyond what was required for our living. However, we live and work on in the hope of turning up a nugget, or finding a rich claim, singing—though we can’t exactly believe—‘There’s a good time coming.’” Here Bax paused. “I won’t read the next paragraph,” said he, with a smile, “because it’s about yourself, Harry, so I’ll skip.”

Nevertheless, reader, as we wish you to hear that passage, we will make Bax read on.

“My mate, Harry Benton, is an old schoolfellow, whom I met with accidentally in Melbourne. We joined at once, and have been together ever since. I hope that nothing may occur to part us. You would like him, Tommy. You’ve no idea what a fine, gentle, lion-like fellow he is, with a face like a true, bold man in expression, and like a beautiful woman in form. I’m not up to pen-and-ink description, Tommy, but I think you’ll understand me when I say he’s got a splendid figure-head, a strong frame, and a warm heart.

“Poor fellow, he has had much sorrow since he came out here. He is a widower, and brought out his little daughter with him, an only child, whose sweet face was once like sunshine in our tent. Not long ago this pretty flower of the desert sickened, drooped, and died, with her fair head on her father’s bosom. For a long time afterwards Harry was inconsolable; but he took to reading the Bible, and the effect of that has been wonderful. We read it regularly every night together, and no one can tell what comfort we have in it, for I too have had sorrow of a kind which you could not well understand, unless I were to go into an elaborate explanation. I believe that both of us can say, in the words of King David, ‘It was good for me that I was afflicted.’

“I should like very much that you and he might meet. Perhaps you may one of these days! But, to go on with my account of our life and doings here.”

(It was at this point that Bax continued to read the letter aloud.)

“The weather is tremendously warm. It is now (10th January) the height of summer, and the sun is unbearable; quite as hot as in India, I am told; especially when the hot winds blow. Among other evils, we are tormented with thousands of fleas. Harry stands them worse than I do,” (“untrue!” interrupted Harry), “but their cousins the flies are, if possible, even more exasperating. They resemble our own house flies in appearance—would that they were equally harmless! Myriads of millions don’t express their numbers more than ten expresses the number of the stars. They are the most persevering brutes you ever saw. They creep into your eyes, run up your nose, and plunge into your mouth. Nothing will shake them off, and the mean despicable creatures take special advantage of us when our hands are occupied in carrying buckets of gold-dust, or what, alas! ought to be gold-dust, but isn’t! On such occasions we shake our heads, wink our eyes, and snort and blow at them, but all to no purpose—there they stick and creep, till we get our hands free to attack them.

“A change must be coming over the weather soon, for while I write, the wind is blowing like a gale out of a hot oven, and is shaking the tent, so that I fear it will come down about my ears. It is a curious fact that these hot winds always blow from the north, which inclines me to think there must be large sandy deserts in the interior of this vast continent. We don’t feel the heat through the day, except when we are at the windlass drawing up the pipeclay, or while washing our ‘stuff,’ for we are generally below ground ‘driving.’ But, although not so hot as above, it is desperately warm there too, and the air is bad.

“Our drives are two and a half feet high by about two feet broad at the floor, from which they widen a little towards the top. As I am six feet three in my stockings, and Harry is six feet one, besides being, both of us, broader across the shoulders than most men, you may fancy that we get into all sorts of shapes while working. All the ‘stuff’ that we drive out we throw away, except about six inches on the top where the gold lies, so that the quantity of mullock, as we call it, or useless material hoisted out is very great. There are immense heaps of it lying at the mouth of our hole. If we chose to liken ourselves to gigantic moles, we have reason to be proud of our mole-hills! All this ‘stuff’ has to be got along the drives, some of which are twenty-five feet in length. One of us stands at the top, and hoists the stuff up the shaft in buckets. The other sits and fills them at the bottom.

“This week we have taken out three cart-loads of washing stuff, which we fear will produce very little gold. Of course it is quite dark in the drives, so we use composition candles. Harry drives in one direction, I in another, and we hammer away from morning till night. The air is often bad, but not explosive. When the candles burn low and go out, it is time for us to go out too and get fresh air, for it makes us blow terribly, and gives us sore eyes. Three-fourths of the people here are suffering from sore eyes; the disease is worse this season than it has been in the memory of the oldest diggers.

“We have killed six or seven snakes lately. They are very numerous, and the only things in the country we are absolutely afraid of! You have no idea of the sort of dread one feels on coming slap upon one unexpectedly. Harry put his foot on one yesterday, but got no hurt. They are not easily seen, and their bite is always fatal.

“From all this you will see that a gold-digger’s life is a hard one, and worse than that, it does not pay well. However, I like it in the meantime, and having taken it up, I shall certainly give it a fair trial.

“I wish you were here, Tommy; yet I am glad you are not. To have you and Guy in the tent would make our party perfect, but it would try your constitutions I fear, and do you no good mentally, for the society by which we are surrounded is anything but select.

“But enough of the gold-fields. I have a lot of questions to ask and messages to send to my old friends and mates at Deal.”

At this point the reading of the letter was interrupted by an uproar near the tent. High above the noise the voice of a boy was heard in great indignation.

For a few minutes Bax and his friend did not move; they were too much accustomed to scenes of violence among the miners to think of interfering, unless things became very serious.

“Come, Bill, let him alone,” cried a stern voice, “the lad’s no thief, as you may see if you look in his face.”

“I don’t give a straw for looks and faces,” retorted Bill, who seemed to have caused the uproar, “the young rascal came peeping into my tent, and that’s enough for me.”

“What!” cried the boy, in an indignant shout, “may I not search through the tents to find a friend without being abused by every scoundrel who loves his gold so much that he thinks every one who looks at him wants to steal it? Let me go, I say!”

At the first words of this sentence Bax started up with a look of intense surprise. Before it was finished he had seized a thick stick, and rushed from the tent, followed by his mate.

In two seconds they reached the centre of a ring of disputants, in the midst of which a big, coarse-looking miner held by the collar the indignant lad, who proved to be an old and truly unexpected acquaintance.

“Bax!” shouted the boy.

“Tommy Bogey!” exclaimed Bax.

“Off your hands,” cried Bax, striding forward.

The miner, who was a powerful man, hesitated. Bax seized him by the neck, and sent him head over heels into his own tent, which stood behind him.

“Serves him right!” cried one of the crowd, who appeared to be delighted with the prospect of a row.

“Hear, hear!” echoed the rest approvingly.

“Can it be you, Tommy?” cried Bax, grasping the boy by both arms, and stooping to gaze into his face.

“Found you at last!” shouted Tommy, with his eyes full and his face flushed by conflicting emotions.

“Come into the tent,” cried Bax, hastening away and dragging his friend after him.

Tommy did not know whether to laugh or cry. His breast was still heaving with recent indignation, and his heart was bursting with present joy; so he gave utterance to a wild hysterical cheer, and disappeared behind the folds of his friend’s tent, amid the cheers and laughter of the miners, who thereafter dispersed quietly to their several places of abode.

“Tommy,” said Bax, placing the boy directly in front of him, on a pile of rough coats and blankets, and staring earnestly into his face, “I don’t believe it’s you! I’m dreaming, that’s what I am, so the sooner you pinch me out of this state the better.”

It were vain to attempt to give the broken and disjointed converse that here took place between the two friends. After a time they became more rational and less spasmodic in their talk, and Tommy at last condescended to explain the way in which he had managed to get there.

“But before I begin,” said he, “tell me who’s your friend?”

He turned as he spoke to Harry, who, seated on a provision cask, with a pleasant smile on his handsome face and a black pipe in his mouth, had been enjoying the scene immensely.

“Ah! true, I forgot; this is my mate, Harry Benton, an old school-fellow. You’ll know more of him and like him better in course of time.”

“I hope he will,” said Harry, extending his hand, which Tommy grasped and shook warmly, “and I hope to become better acquainted with you, Tommy, though in truth you are no stranger to me, for many a night has Bax entertained me in this tent with accounts of your doings and his own, both by land and sea. Now go on, my boy, and explain the mystery of your sudden appearance here.”

“The prime cause of my appearance is the faithlessness of Bax,” said Tommy. “Why did you not write to me?”

When it was explained that Bax had written by a vessel which was wrecked, the boy was mollified; and when the letter which had just been written was handed to him, he confessed that he had judged his old friend hastily. Thereafter he related succinctly his adventures in the “Butterfly” up to the point where we left him sound asleep in the skipper’s berth.

“How long I slept,” said Tommy, continuing the narrative, “I am not quite sure; but it must have been a longish time, for it was somewhere in a Tuesday when I lay down, and it was well into a Thursday when I got up, or rather was knocked up by the bow of a thousand-ton ship! It was a calm evening, with just a gentle breeze blowin’ at the time, and a little hazy. The look out in the ship did not see the schooner until he was close on her; then he yelled ‘hard-a-lee!’ so I was told, for I didn’t hear it, bein’, as I said, sound asleep. But I heard and felt what followed plain enough. There came a crash like thunder. I was pitched head-foremost out o’ the berth, and would certainly have got my neck broken, but for the flimsy table in the cabin, which gave way and went to pieces under me, and thus broke my fall. I got on my legs, and shot up the companion like a rocket. I was confused enough, as you may suppose, but I must have guessed at once what was wrong—perhaps the rush of water told it me—for I leaped instantly over the side into the sea to avoid being sucked down by the sinking vessel. Down it went sure enough, and I was so near it that in spite of my struggles I was carried down a long way, and all but choked. However, up I came again like a cork. You always said I was light-headed, Bax, and I do believe that was the reason I came up so soon!

“Well, I swam about for ten minutes or so, when a boat rowed up to the place. It had been lowered by the ship that ran me down. I was picked up and taken aboard, and found that she was bound for Australia!

“Ha! that just suited you, I fancy,” said Bax.

“Of course it did, but that’s not all. Who d’ye think the ship belonged to? You’ll never guess;—to your old employers, Denham, Crumps, and Company! She is named the ‘Trident,’ after the one that was lost, and old Denham insisted on her sailing on a Friday. The sailors said she would be sure to go to the bottom, but they were wrong, for we all got safe to Melbourne, after a very good voyage.

“Well, I’ve little more to tell now. On reaching Melbourne I landed—”

“Without a sixpence in your pocket?” asked Bax.

“By no means,” said Tommy, “I had five golden sovereigns sewed up in the waist-band of my trousers, not to mention a silver watch like a saucepan given to me by old Jeph at parting, and a brass ring that I got from Bluenose! But it’s wonderful how fast this melted away in Melbourne. It was half gone before I succeeded in finding out what part of the country you had gone to. The rest of it I paid to a party of miners, who chanced to be coming here, for leave to travel and feed with them. They left me in the lurch, however, about two days’ walk from this place; relieving me of the watch at parting, but permitting me to keep the ring as a memorial of the pleasant journey we had had together! Then the rascals left me with provisions sufficient for one meal. So I came on alone; and now present myself to you half-starved and a beggar!”

“Here is material to appease your hunger, lad,” said Harry Benton, with a laugh, as he tossed a mass of flour cake, known among diggers as “damper,” towards the boy.

“And here,” added Bax, pitching a small bag of gold-dust into his lap, “is material to deliver you from beggary, at least for the present. As for the future, Tommy, your own stout arms must do the rest. You’ll live in our tent, and we’ll make a gold-digger of you in a couple of days. I could have wished you better fortune, lad, but as you have managed to make your way to this out-o’-the-way place, I suppose you’ll want to remain.”

“I believe you, my boy!” said Tommy, with his mouth full of damper.

So Tommy Bogey remained with his friends at the Kangaroo Flats, and dug for gold.

For several years they stuck to the laborious work, during which time they dug up just enough to keep themselves in food and clothing. They were unlucky diggers. Indeed, this might have been said of most of the diggers around them. Those who made fortunes, by happening to find rich spots of ground, were very few compared with the host of those who came with light hearts, hoping for heavy pockets, and went away with heavy hearts and light pockets.

We shall not follow the fortunes of those three during their long period of exile. The curtain was lifted in order that the Reader might take a glance at them in the far-off land. They are a pleasant trio to look upon. They do not thirst feverishly for the precious metal as many do. Their nightly reading of the Word saves them from that. Nevertheless, they work hard, earn little, and sleep soundly. As we drop the curtain, they are still toiling and moiling, patiently, heartily, and hopefully, for gold.

Chapter Nineteen.

Denham Longs for Fresh Air, and Finds it.

There came a day, at last, in which foul air and confinement, and money-making, began to tell on the constitution of Mr Denham; to disagree with him, in fact. The rats began to miss him, occasionally, from Redwharf Lane, at the wonted hour, and, no doubt, gossiped a good deal on the subject over their evening meals, after the labours and depredations of the day were ended!

They observed too (supposing them to have been capable of observation), that when Mr Denham did come to his office, he came with a pale face and an enfeebled step; also with a thick shawl wrapped round his neck. These peculiarities were so far taken advantage of by the rats that they ceased to fly with their wonted precipitancy when his step was heard, and in course of time they did not even dive into their holes as in former days, but sat close to them and waited until the merchant had passed, knowing well that he was not capable of running at them. One large young rat in particular—quite a rattling blade in his way—at length became so bold that he stood his ground one forenoon, and deliberately stared at Mr Denham as he tottered up to the office-door.

We notice this fact because it occurred on the memorable day when Mr Denham admitted to himself that he was breaking down, and that something must be done to set him up again. He thought, as he sat at his desk, leaning his head on his right hand, that sea-air might do him good, and the idea of a visit to his sister at Deal flitted across his mind; but, remembering that he had for many years treated that sister with frigid indifference, and that he had dismissed her son Guy harshly and without sufficient reason from his employment a few years ago, he came to the conclusion that Deal was not a suitable locality. Then he thought of Margate and Ramsgate, and even ventured to contemplate the Scotch Highlands, but his energy being exhausted by illness, he could not make up his mind, so he sighed and felt supremely wretched.

Had there been any one at his elbow, to suggest a plan of some sort, and urge him to carry it out, he would have felt relieved and grateful. But plans for our good are usually suggested and urged by those who love us, and Denham, being a bachelor and a misanthrope, happened to have no one to love him. He was a very rich man—very rich indeed; and would have given a great deal of gold at that moment for a very small quantity of love, but love is not a marketable commodity. Denham knew that and sighed again. He felt that in reference to this thing he was a beggar, and, for the first time in his life, experienced something of a beggar’s despair.

While he sat thus, musing bitterly, there came a tap at the door.

“Come in.”

The tapper came in, and presented to the astonished gaze of Mr Denham the handsome face and figure of Guy Foster.

“I trust you will forgive my intrusion, uncle,” said Guy in apologetic tones, as he advanced with a rather hesitating step, “but I am the bearer of a message from my mother.”

Denham had looked up in surprise, and with a dash of sternness, but the expression passed into one of sadness mingled with suffering. He pointed to a chair and said curtly, “Sit down,” as he replaced his forehead on his hand, and partially concealed his haggard face.

“I am deeply grieved, dear uncle,” continued Guy, “to see you looking so very ill. I do sincerely hope—”

“Your message?” interrupted Denham.

“My mother having heard frequently of late that you are far from well, and conceiving that the fresh air of Deal might do you good, has sent me to ask you to be our guest for a time. It would afford us very great pleasure, I assure you, uncle.”

Guy paused here, but Mr Denham did not speak. The kindness of the unexpected and certainly unmerited invitation, put, as it was, in tones which expressed great earnestness and regard, took him aback. He felt ill at ease, and his wonted self-possession forsook him. Probably much of this was owing to physical weakness.

“Come, uncle,” said Guy affectionately, “you won’t refuse us? We all live together in the cottage now, but we don’t quite fill it; there is still one room to spare, and my wife will be delighted to—”

“Your wife!” exclaimed Denham in amazement.

“Yes, uncle,” replied Guy in some surprise. “Did you not get our cards?”

Mr Denham rested his forehead again in his hand in some confusion, for he remembered having received a letter long ago, the address of which he knew to be in his nephew’s hand, and supposing it to be an application to be taken back into the office, he had tossed it into the fire without opening it. Feeling much perplexed, he said— “Oh, ah,—what is the lady’s name?”

“Lucy Burton was her maiden name,” said Guy; “she is the daughter of an Independent minister, who was formerly a scripture-reader in Ramsgate.”

“Humph!” ejaculated Denham. “Pray, may I ask what your profession is now?”

“I am cashier in the office of a very intimate friend of ours—Mr Summers.”

“What! the house with which we do so much business?”

“The same,” said Guy with a smile; “but tell me, uncle, will you come and stay with us? Do say you will, if it were only for a week or two.”

“I’ll think of it, nephew.”

Mr Denham did think of it. More than that, he went, and said he would stay a week. He stayed a week, and found himself in such comfortable quarters that he resolved to stay a fortnight. He did so, and then agreed to remain a month. Finally, it became a standing joke with Bluenose, who was a frequent visitor at the cottage kitchen, that he (Denham) was no better than the play-actors, who were always at their “last week but one,” and never could get any farther.

But Mr Denham’s health did not improve. He had imbibed so much tar and fog and filth through his nostrils that his constitution could not recover from the effects, and at last it began to dawn upon him that health was of greater value than gold; that the accumulation of wealth was not the main object for which man had been created; that there was a future in regard to which it would be well that he should now make some inquiries.

Here Mr Denham turned by a sort of instinct to Amy Russell, whose face was like a beam of sunshine in Sandhill cottage, and whose labours among the poor and the afflicted showed that she regarded life in this world as a journey towards a better; as an opportunity of doing good; as a ladder leading to a higher and happier sphere. In regard to this sphere he (Denham) knew next to nothing—except, of course, intellectually. Mr Denham turned to the right quarter for comfort, and found it.

Still the merchant’s health did not improve, so his physicians recommended a sea-voyage. At an earlier period in his career he would as soon—sooner perhaps—have taken a balloon voyage, but sickness had taught him wisdom. He gave in; consented to take a passage in one of his own ships, the “Trident” (which had made several good voyages to Australia), and ere long was ploughing over the billows of the South Seas on his way to the antipodes. Such is life!

Wonderful coincidences are of constant occurrence in this world. It chanced that in the same year that Mr Denham made up his mind to take a voyage to Australia and back, Bax and Tommy Bogey made up their minds to give up digging for gold, and return to their native land. Their companion, Harry Benton, preferred to remain in the colony.

Bax and Tommy had only made enough to keep themselves alive in the gold-fields until their last year; but, during this year they had been more successful. They hit on a good “claim,” worked it out, and cleared two thousand pounds! With this they resolved to retire, and push their fortunes at home. Believing that they could realise more by carrying their gold home in dust and nuggets than by selling it in the colony, they had it packed in boxes, and took it aboard ship along with them. The ship that chanced to be ready to sail for England at this time was the “Trident,” and almost the first face they saw on going aboard was the well-known visage of Mr Denham!

Sea air had done him good. He looked strong and well—comparatively. Bax and he started, and gazed in surprise on each other.

“How are you?” said Denham with some stiffness of manner.

“Thank you, very well,” answered Bax.

Then both men felt and looked a little awkward.

“A-hem!” coughed Denham.

“Hope you’re well, sir?” said Bax.

There was little in the words, but there was much in the tone in which this was said. Mr Denham advanced and held out his hand. Bax shook it warmly. They were sufficiently good friends during the whole of that voyage, although there was just enough of remembrance of former days in the breast of each to prevent anything like cordiality between them.

The homeward voyage was prosperous. Favouring gales wafted them on their way. No storms arose to cause anxiety to the brave, or to terrify the timid, and few incidents worthy of notice occurred until after they had doubled the Cape of Good Hope. But soon after this they met with an adventure which deserves record.

Chapter Twenty.

A Fire at Sea.

On the troubled breast of the Atlantic, a little to the southward of that great collection of sea-weed, known by the name of the Sargasso Sea, lay a large ship.

She was in distress, for her flag was hoisted with the Union Jack down. The nature of her distress was apparent from a column of thick smoke that issued from the fore-hatch. The most terrible of all calamities had befallen her—she was on fire!

That she was an emigrant ship was apparent from the great number of human beings—men, women, and children—who crowded her decks. Before the fire broke out she had weathered a severe gale, the effects of which had not yet passed away, for, although there was little wind, the waves were still high, and the burning ship rolled and plunged heavily.

How the fire originated no one could tell, but the instant it was discovered, the captain, who was a brave and able man, took prompt measures for its extinction. But his utmost efforts failed of success, because (the old story) there was no suitable machinery on board for the extinction of fire! The owners of this ship, however, were not, like too many, utterly regardless of human life. On the contrary they had done a great deal—much more than is done by many ship-owners—for the comfort and safety of those who had entrusted their lives to them. There were boats on board sufficient to carry the entire crew and passengers; and two of these were lifeboats. There was also a large supply of life-buoys and life-jackets; the latter being made of cork, in such a form that the wearers might be able to work in them without inconvenience. But in preparing the ship for sea, fire had not been sufficiently considered. There was no fire-engine aboard. Buckets there were, and these were plied with vigour, but, as we have said, without success.

Finding that the fire continued to gain strength, the captain ordered the ship to be scuttled; in other words, to be flooded by opening the lower ports and letting the sea rush in. The ship was one of those old East Indiamen, which in former days carried guns and marines like our men-of-war. The ports were soon knocked out, and the sea burst in, foaming and splashing like a mill-race when the sluice is drawn as it swept towards the hold, carrying boxes, bulk-heads, loose furniture and all before it. When it poured in a mighty cataract into the hold, the terrified multitude that crowded the upper deck entertained the hope for a few minutes that the fire would certainly be put out. Their hope was quickly crushed, for the ship soon gave signs of being waterlogged and threatened to settle down, rendering it necessary to close the ports before the fire was subdued.

A wail of despair rose, from them when this was done, for now they knew that the ship was doomed, and that death in two of its most appalling forms stared them in the face. The scene that followed was heart-rending. The more timid among the passengers lost self-command. Some fell on their knees, and with bitter cries implored God to have mercy on them. Others took passionate farewell of each other, or sat clinging to each other in the silence of despair. Many became frantic, rushed about the decks and tore their hair, and a few of the braver spirits moved calmly and silently about, doing anything that required to be done, or coolly making preparation for the last struggle.

Among these last were several women, who, sustained by the Christian’s hope, went about comforting their companions and calming the poor children. In some cases they became the centres of little groups of men and women, who listened intently while they read the word of God, or joined with them in prayer. Many cursing lips had become silent now, or tremblingly attempted to call on our Saviour, for the first time, in earnest.

Meanwhile the officers and crew were not idle. Preparation was made to lower the boats. The lifebuoys and belts were got ready, and everything was done to facilitate the abandoning of the vessel before she should be utterly consumed.

The ordinary ship’s boats were converted into lifeboats by the simple contrivance of fastening small empty casks all round them under the seats, and a large-sized cask in the stern and bow of each.

As the sea was still running high, the operation of lowering was a matter of difficulty and danger. The women and children were put into the first boat while it hung suspended at the davits. Two men stood by to detach the hooks that held the boat by the bow and stern the instant she should touch the water. This was the moment of danger; for, if one man should succeed in this and the other fail, the inevitable consequence would be that the stern or the bow of the boat would be jerked into the air, and the people in her hurled into the sea.

Four boats were lowered and cast off in safety. The fifth, which contained men chiefly, with only two or three women and no children, was upset. The man in the bow could not detach his hook; it remained fast while the stern hook was cast off; and when the ship rose it hung suspended by the bow. Instantly the people in her were struggling in the waves. The captain, knowing that this might occur, had ordered a dozen of the strongest of his men to put on cork life-belts, and stand in the main chains to be in readiness. These at once leaped into the sea, and supported the people, until another boat was lowered for them. But a misfortune here befell them. While one of the boats was swinging it was dashed against the ship’s side so violently as to be stove in and rendered useless. This accident happened also to another boat, so that, even by overloading those that remained, it would now be impossible to accommodate every one.

In this dilemma, the captain at once gave orders to heave overboard all the spare spars and the hencoops, together with enough of cordage for the construction of a raft. This was promptly done, and the raft was sufficiently far advanced in the course of an hour to admit of the emigrants being placed upon it.

It was during the formation of this raft that the great value of the life-belts became manifest. While the spars were in a loose and half-fastened state, the men were obliged to work in the water. To have done this without the support of the belts would have been very exhausting, almost impossible; but with their floating power the men could work with both hands, and move about almost as freely in the water as on land.

The life-buoys were also of the greatest value at this time; for the burning ship became so hot, before the raft was ready, that the passengers were obliged to jump overboard and get upon it as they best could, or float about until there was room for them all. In these circumstances the buoys were the means of saving the lives of some who could not swim.

It was late in the evening when the raft was commenced, and night was far advanced before it was completed. During all this time the boats remained close to it, after having hauled it a short distance from the burning ship, which latter was now a mass of flame from the deck to the mast-heads, rendering the whole scene as bright as day. After the rigging was consumed, and the masts had fallen over the side, the hull continued to burn, for a considerable time, with less flame but with a dull red glow that afforded sufficient light to the workers. It was fortunate the light lasted so long, for the night was so dark that it would otherwise have been almost impossible to have worked at the raft—tossed and rolled about as it was by the heavy sea.

It was a strange weird sight, that busy glowing scene of disaster out upon the black ocean at midnight; and wonderful—unaccountable—did it appear in the eyes of the night-watch on board the “Trident,” as that ship came over the sea, ploughing up the water before a steady breeze which had sprung up soon after the sun went down.

“What can it be?” said Mr Denham to the captain when they first observed the light on the horizon.

“A steamer, perhaps,” replied the captain.

“No steamer ever spouted fire like that,” said Bax, who was the only other passenger on deck, all the others having gone to rest; “the steamers on the American lakes and rivers do indeed spout sparks and flames of fire like giant squibs, but then they burn wood. Ocean steamers never flare up like that. I fear it is a ship on fire.”

“Think you so? Steer straight for it, captain,” said Mr Denham, whose heart, under the influence of bad health, and, latterly, of considerable experience in the matter of human suffering, had become a little softer than it used to be.

The ship’s course was altered, and long before the wreck was reached her decks swarmed with men and women who had got up in haste at the first mention of the word “fire”—some of them with a confused notion that their own vessel was in danger!

It was indeed a novel and terribly interesting sight to most of those on board the “Trident.” At first they saw the burning vessel like a red meteor rising on the waves and disappearing in the hollows; then the flames grew fierce, and spread a halo round the doomed ship that shone out vividly against the surrounding darkness. This latter was rendered intensely deep by contrast with the light. Then the masts went over the side, and a bright volume of sparks and scattered tongues of flame shot up into, the sky, after which the hull shone like a glow-worm until they drew quite near. The busy workers at the raft were too anxiously intent on their occupation to observe the approach of the “Trident,” whose black hull was nearly invisible, and whose small lanterns might well have been overlooked on such an occasion.

“They don’t see us,” observed Mr Denham.

This was abundantly evident. Within the circle of red light, they could see the raft and the boats floating close to it; the men in cork-jackets toiling in the water and on floating spars, with ropes, handspikes, and axes. It was not until the “Trident” herself came within the circle of light, and hove-to, with flapping sails, that the people in the boats became aware of her presence.

Then, indeed, there arose a shout of joy such as could be uttered only by men and women snatched suddenly and unexpectedly from the very jaws of death. Again and again it burst forth, and was replied to by the people in the “Trident,” many of whom were so excited by the scene, and so overjoyed at the thought of having come up in time to save so many human beings, that they burst into tears; while others went down on their knees and thanked God fervently.

Seeing that the people were getting excited, and knowing that order must be preserved, if the work that lay before them was to be done speedily and without accident, the captain sprang into the rigging, ordered the women and children to go below, and assured the male passengers that if any of them showed a disposition to be obstinate or unruly they also should be ordered below. This had the desired effect. Order was at once restored, and the captain then called for volunteers from among the stoutest of those on board to go into the chains, and lift the women and children out of the boats.

The appeal was responded to by all the strong men in the ship—foremost and, strongest among whom was our friend Bax. From among these the captain selected the men that seemed best able for the work they undertook to do; and this, be it understood, was no child’s play.

The state of the sea rendered it extremely difficult and dangerous to bring the boats alongside, heavily laden as they were with human beings. To get the men on board would be difficult enough, even although they would in most cases be able to spring, and lay hold of ropes, and otherwise help themselves; but to get out the women and children by such means was not to be thought of. The men of the “Trident” who had the strongest arms and chests were therefore sent into the chains, where they leaned forward in slings with outstretched arms, and whenever the boats sheered up close enough they caught the women or children in their vice-like grasp and dragged them on board.

Bax, owing to his unusual strength and breadth of shoulders, was peculiarly fitted for this laborious duty. His long reach of arm enabled him to stretch far beyond the others, and in several instances he caught hold of and rescued women after his companions had failed. Thus a much larger portion of the work fell upon him than on any of the others.

In this sort of work Tommy Bogey was of no use whatever; and severely did his youth and want of physical strength press upon his spirits that night, poor boy! But Tommy’s nature would not allow him to sit down and do nothing. Feeling that he could not do manly work, he set himself with right good-will to womanly employment. He assisted in carrying the children below when they were handed over the side, helped to strip them, and brought dry clothing and blankets, besides doing an immense amount of what may be termed stewardess’ work for the poor ladies. There were others on board who worked willingly and well, but none who were so ubiquitous as he; none who knew so thoroughly what to do and how to do it, and none, certainly, who did everything with such a superabundance of energy.

Once or twice Tommy stopped in the middle of these occupations to see how Bax was getting on; for to his rather partial eyes it seemed that his friend was doing the whole work, and that everybody else was merely looking on!

On one of these occasions he saw Bax sustaining the weight of an old man and a young woman.

The girl was the old man’s daughter; she had clung to him in the boat and refused to let him go, having lost self-command through terror. Ignorant of this, and observing that the old man could not help himself, Bax grasped him under the arms the first time he came within reach. The boat was immediately swept away by the passing wave, leaving the old man and the girl, who still clung with a death-like grasp to him, suspended in the air. Bax’s great strength enabled him to support this double weight, but he could not draw them up. A comrade stooped to assist him, but the strain on the sling was so great that it gave way, and Bax, with his burden, fell into the sea like lead.

Tommy saw this happen. There were plenty of loose ropes about. He seized the end of one and leaped overboard instantly. He sank for a second or two, and on coming to the surface looked hastily round. A hand was raised above the water near him. He knew it to be that of his friend, and struck out for it, but it disappeared. Again it rose, and there was a convulsive grasping of the fingers. Tommy made one stroke and placed the rope in it. The fingers closed like a vice. Next moment the ship rose and lifted Bax completely out of the water, with the old man and the girl still clinging to him. Before the ship sank again the boat sheered up, and they were all pulled into it!

To leap on board the “Trident” again, and resume his position with a new and stronger sling, was comparatively easy work for Bax. Tommy clambered up, too, close behind him. Passing a strong rope round his friend’s waist, he said quietly:

“It won’t do to risk that again.”

“True, Tommy,” said Bax; “run below and fetch me a glass o’ brandy, lad. That last plunge almost floored me.”

The boy leaped over the side and dived below. He reappeared in a few seconds with a tin can, with which he clambered over the side into the chains, and held it to his friend’s lips. Bax drained it at a draught, and Tommy left him without another word.

The whole of this scene was enacted with the utmost speed and energy. The spectators seemed to be paralysed with amazement at the quiet self-possession of the man and the boy, both of whom appeared to divine each other’s thoughts, and to work into each other’s hands with the precision and certainty of a machine; they did it all, too, as if they were entirely alone in the work. Until now they had been watched with breathless anxiety; but when Tommy gave Bax the can of brandy, and then gravely went below with a baby that had just been rescued in his arms, there arose a wild cheer of admiration, not unmingled with laughter, from those who had witnessed his conduct.

But their attention was soon turned again to the boats, two of which still remained with their freight on the heaving water. Many incidents of a thrilling nature were enacted that night. One of the most interesting, perhaps, occurred soon after that which has just been related.

In one of the boats was the young wife of an emigrant, who, having been compelled to separate from his wife and child when they left the burning ship in the first boat, had come alongside of the “Trident” in another boat. Being an active man, he had caught a rope and hauled himself on board some time before his wife was rescued. The poor young mother had tied her infant tightly to her bosom by means of a shawl, in order to make sure that she should share its fate, whatever that might be.

When the boat sheered up alongside, her husband was standing in the chains, anxious to render her assistance. The woman chanced to come near to Bax, but not sufficiently so to grasp him. She had witnessed his great power and success in saving others, and a feeling of strong confidence made her resolve to be caught hold of by him, if possible. She therefore drew back from the grasp of a stout fellow who held out his brawny arms to her.

Bax noticed this occur twice, and understood the poor woman’s motive. Feeling proud of the confidence thus placed in him, he watched his opportunity. The boat surged up, but did not come near enough. It swept away from the ship, and the poor woman’s hands played nervously about the folds of the shawl, as she tried to adjust them more securely round her infant. Again the boat rose on a wave; the woman stood ready, and Bax stooped. It did not come quite near enough, but the disappointed woman, becoming desperate, suddenly put her foot on the gunwale, stood up at full length, and stretched out her arms. Bax just caught her by the hands when the boat was swept from under her.

Similar incidents had occurred so often that little anxiety was felt; but our hero’s strength was now thoroughly exhausted. He could not haul her up, he could only hold on and shout for assistance. It was promptly rendered, but before the poor woman could be rescued the infant slipped from the shawl, which the straightening of the mother’s arms and her suspended position had loosened. A cry burst from the agonised father, who stooped, and stood in the attitude of one ready to plunge into the sea. The mother felt the child slipping, and a piercing shriek escaped from her as she raised her knees and caught it between them. With muscular power, intensified by a mother’s love, she held the infant in this strange position until both were drawn up and placed in safety on the deck!

This was the last of Bax’s achievements on that eventful night. He was so thoroughly worn out by the long-continued and tremendous exertions he had been called on to make, that his strength, great though it was, broke down. He staggered down into the cabin, flung himself, wet as he was, on a couch, and almost instantly fell into a sleep so deep that he could not be roused for more than a moment or two at a time. Seeing this, Tommy bade the bystanders leave him alone for a few minutes until he should come back, when, according to his own expression, “he would screw him up all right and tight!” Every one was by this time so thoroughly convinced that the boy was quite able to manage his friend that they stood still awaiting his return with much curiosity.

Tommy soon returned with a tumbler of hot brandy and water, followed by the steward with a pile of blankets.

“Hold that a minute,” said the boy, handing the tumbler to a little old gentleman who stood swaying to and fro with the motion of the vessel, and staring at Bax as if he had been a half-drowned sea-monster.

“Now, then,” cried Tommy, punching his friend severely in the ribs, seizing the hair of his head with both hands, and shaking him until his neck seemed dislocated,—to the surprise of all and the horror of not a few!

The result was that Bax grumbled angrily, half awoke, and raised himself on one elbow.

“Drink, you tom-tit!” said the boy, catching the tumbler from the old gentleman, and applying it to his friend’s lips.

Bax smiled, drank, and fell back on the pillow with a deep sigh of satisfaction. Then Tommy spread blanket after blanket over him, and “tucked him in” so neatly and with such a business-like air, that two or three mothers then present expressed their admiration and wonder in audible whispers.

While Bax was being thus carefully tended by Tommy and a knot of sympathisers, the passengers and crew vied with each other in making the rescued people as comfortable as circumstances would permit.

Meanwhile the “Trident” was again laid on her course, and, thus crowded with human beings, steered before favouring breezes for the shores of old England.

Chapter Twenty One.

Mysterious Doings.

We return, now, to the coast of Kent, and beg the reader to follow us into the Smuggler’s Cave at Saint Margaret’s Bay.

Here, in a dark corner, sat old Jeph. It was a stormy Sunday afternoon. The old man had gone to the Bay to visit Coleman, and accompany him to his place of worship. Jeph had wandered alone in the direction of the cave after church. He found that some one had recently cleared its mouth of the rubbish that usually filled it, and that, by bending low, he could gain an entrance.

Being of an adventurous disposition, the old man went in, and, seating himself on a projecting rock in a dark corner, fell into a profound reverie. He was startled out of this by the sound of approaching footsteps.

“Come in, come in,” said a deep hoarse voice, which Jeph at once recognised as that of Long Orrick, his old enemy. “Come in, Nick; you seem to have got a’feer’d o’ the dark of late. We’ll be out o’ sight here, and I’ll amuse ye till this squall blows over with an account o’ what I heer’d the old man say.”

“This squall, as ye call it, won’t blow over so soon as ye think,” replied Rodney Nick in a sulky tone. “Hows’ever, we may as well wait here as anywhere else; or die here for all that I care!”

“Hallo! messmate, wot’s ado that ye should go into the blues when we’re on the pint o’ making our fortins?” said Orrick.

“Ado!” cried Rodney angrily, “is it not bad enough to be called messmate by you, and not be able to deny it?”

“You’re civil, anyhow,” said Orrick, with an oath.

“I mean to be,” retorted Nick, fiercely.

“Come, come, it’s no use quarrelling,” said Orrick, with an affectation of good-humour. “Never say die! Nick; them’s the words o’ the immortial Nelson, w’en he gave the signal to blaze away at Trafalgar. But sit ye down here on this rock, and I’ll tell ye all about wot I see’d last night. Ye’d like to know, I dessay.”

“I’d like to have know’d sooner, if you had seen fit to tell me,” said Rodney Nick, in a gruff tone.

“Well, then, keep yer mind easy, and here goes. You know as how I chanced to hear old Jeph make an appointment with that young puppy, Guy Foster, to meet him at the darkest hour o’ night at the tomb o’ Mary Bax. Thinks I, it won’t be for nothin’ you’re goin’ to meet at sich an hour in sich a place, my hearties, so I’ll go an’ keep ye company in a private way!

“You may be sure I was up to time. Two hours did I wait in the ditch behind the tomb, and I can tell ye, Nick, it’s desprit eerie work a-sittin’ there all alone of a dark night, a-countin’ of the beatins of yer ’art, an’ thinkin’ every shadow of the clouds is a ghost. Hows’ever, the old man came at last, and lies down flat on the grave, and begins to groan a bit. Arter that he takes to prayin’, an’, d’ye know, the way that old feller prays is a caution. The parsons couldn’t hold a candle to him. Not that I ever heer’d ony of ’em, but I s’pose they couldn’t!

“Well, he was cut short in the middle by the arrival of the puppy—.”

“Wot puppy?” inquired Rodney.

“Guy, to be sure; ain’t he the biggest puppy in Deal?” said Orrick.

“Mayhap, but he ain’t the longest,” retorted Rodney; “go on.”

“Humph!—well, down sits Guy on the head o’ the tombstone, and pats old Jeph on the shoulder.

“‘Here I am, Jeph; come now, what is it you are so anxious to tell me?’

“The old man sat up: ‘I’m goin’ to die,’ says he.

“‘Nonsense,’ cried the young ’un, in a cheerie tone, by way of “don’t say that.” ‘You’re as tough as an old bo’sn. Come, that wasn’t what you wanted to tell me, I’m sure.’

“‘Ay, but it was,’ says the old man in sich an earnest voice that the young ’un was forced to become serious. ‘Listen, Guy,’ he goes on, ‘I’m goin’ to die, an’ there’s no one in this world as I’ve got to look after me.’

“Guy was goin’ to interrupt him at this point, but he laid his hand on his shoulder and bade him be silent.

“‘I’ve got no relations, Guy, except two,’ says he, ‘an’ I’ve no childer. I never married. The only girl I ever loved lies under the cold, cold sod. You know that I’m a poor man, an’ the two relations I spoke of are rich—rich—ay, and they’re fond o’ money. Mayhap that’s the reason they are rich! Moreover, they know I’ve got the matter o’ forty pounds or thereabouts, and I know that when I die they’ll fight for it—small though it is, and rich though they be—and my poor fortune will either go to them or to the lawyers. Now, Guy, this must not be; so I want you to do me a kindness. I’m too old and frail to go about matters o’ business, an’ I never was good at wot they call business in my best days, so I want you to pay all my debts for me, and bring me the receipts.’

“‘I’ll do it, Jeph,’ said Guy, ‘and much more than that, if you’ll only tell me how I can serve you; but you mustn’t speak in that sorrowful way about dying.’

“‘Sorrowful!’ cries the old man, quite surprised like; ‘bless your heart, I’m not sorrowful. Don’t the Book say, “It’s better to be absent from the body and present with the Lord?”’ (ah, you may grin as you please, Nick, but I give ye the ’xact words o’ the old hypocrite.) ‘No, no, Guy,’ continued Jeph, ‘I’ll be right glad to go; many a sad yet pleasant hour have I spent here, but I’m weary now, and would fain go, if the Lord will. Now, it’s my opinion that I’ve just two weeks to live—’

“‘Jeph!’ exclaimed Guy.

“‘Don’t interrupt me, lad. I’ve got two weeks to live, so I want you to go and arrange about my funeral. Get a coffin made—I used to be six feet when I was young, but I dessay I’m shorter now—and get the undertaker to cast up beforehand wot it’ll all come to, and pay him, and bring me the receipts. Will ye do this, lad?’

“‘I will, if you wish it, but—’

“‘If I didn’t wish it I wouldn’t ask it.’

“‘Well, Jeph,’ said Guy, earnestly, ‘I will do it.’

“‘Thank’ee, lad, thank ’ee. I know’d ye would, so I brought the money with me. Here it is—forty pounds all told; you’ll pay for the things, and bring me the receipts, and keep the rest and use it in the service of God. I know I can trust you, lad, so that’s enough. All I want is to prevent my small savin’s goin’ to the winds, or to those as don’t need ’em; you understand how to give it to those as do.’”

“Is that all?” said Rodney Nick, impatiently.

“No that’s not all,” replied his companion, “though if it was all, it’s a rather coorious fact, for which ye might thank me for takin’ the trouble to tell you. But you’re thankless by nature. It seems to me that nother you nor me’s likely to trouble Guy Foster to look arter our spare cash in that way! But that ain’t the end o’ my story yet.”

“What! you didn’t rob ’em? eh! you didn’t pitch into the ‘Puppy,’ and ease him o’ the shiners?”

Rodney Nick said this with a sneer, for he was well aware that his boastful companion would not have risked a single-handed encounter with Guy on any consideration.

“No, I didn’t; it warn’t worth the trouble,” said Orrick, “but—you shall hear. Arter the old man had said his say, Guy asked him if that was all, for if it was, he didn’t see no occasion to make no secret about it.”

“‘No,’ said the old man, ‘that’s not all. I want you to take charge of a packet, and give it to Bax after I’m gone. No one must break the seal but Bax. Poor Bax, I’d thought to have seen him once again before I went. I’ll leave the old house to him; it ain’t worth much, but you can look arter it for him, or for Tommy Bogey, if Bax don’t want it. Many a happy evening we’ve spent in it together. I wanted to give you the parcel here—here out on the dark Sandhills, where no one but God hears us. It’s wonderful what a place the town is for eavesdroppin’! so I made you come out here. You must promise me never to open the packet unless you find that Bax is dead; then you may open it, and do as you think fit. You promise me this?’

“‘I do,’ said Guy, as the old man pulled a small packet, wrapped in brown paper, from his breast pocket, and put it into his hands. Then, they rose and went away together.”

“Well?” said Rodney Nick.

“Well!” echoed Long Orrick, “wot then?”

“What next? what d’ye want to do?” inquired Rodney.

“Do,” cried Orrick, “I mean to get hold o’ that packet if I can, by fair means or by foul, that’s wot I mean to do, and I mean that you shall help me!”

The reader may imagine what were the feelings of the poor old man as he sat in the dark corner of the cave listening to this circumstantial relation of his most secret affairs. When he heard Long Orrick’s last words, and felt how utterly powerless he was in his weakness to counteract him in his designs, he could not prevent the escape of a deep groan.

The effect on the two men was electrical. They sprang up, filled with superstitious horror, and fled precipitately from the cave.

Old Jeph staggered out after them, and made for the cottage of his friend Coleman. The latter met him near the threshold.

“Why, Jeph, is this you? I’ve bin searchin’ for ye more than an hour, and come to the conclusion ye must ha’ gone home; but why, you’re ill, Jeph!”

“Ay, I’m ill, come, help me home.”

“Nay, not this night, you shall stop with me; the missus’ll give you a cup o’ tea as will do yer old heart good.”

“No, I must go home now,” said Jeph, in a tone so decided that his friend was staggered.

“You can’t walk it, you know, in a stormy night like this.”

“I will walk it,” said Jeph.

“Come, then, if you’re bent on it, you’d better go in your own lugger; it’s here just now, agoin’ to put off in ten minutes or so. Nothin’ ever stops Bluenose, blow high, blow low. W’en he wants to go off to sea, he goes off, right or wrong. But you’ll take a glass o’ grog first.”

Old Jeph would not do this, so he was led down to the beach by Coleman, where they found the boat being launched.

“Good-bye, old man,” said Coleman, helping him over the side.

“Good-bye,—farewell,” said Jeph earnestly. “I came here to-day a-purpose to say farewell; shake hands, God bless you.”

The coast-guard-man was surprised by the warmth of his friend’s manner, as well as by his words; but before he could ask him what he meant, the boat was run down the beach and out to sea. An hour later old Jeph was carefully put to bed in his own cottage, by his friend Captain Bluenose.

Chapter Twenty Two.

The Storm and the Wreck.

Guy Foster, clad in a sou’-wester hat and oilskin coat, stood at the end of the pier of Ramsgate Harbour, with his sweet wife, Lucy, clinging to his arm, and a sturdy boy of about four years old, holding on with one hand to the skirts of his coat, and with the other grasping the sleeve of his silver-haired grandsire, Mr Burton.

It was night, and a bitter gale was blowing from the north-east, accompanied by occasional showers, of sleet. Crowds of seamen and others stood on the pier eagerly watching the lifeboat, which was being got ready to put off to sea.

“It is too cold for you, darling,” said Guy, as he felt Lucy’s arm tremble.

“Oh no! I should like to stay,” said Lucy, anxiously. Just then a tremendous wave burst on the massive stone pier, and a shower of spray fell upon the crowd. Lucy and her companions received a copious share of it.

“You are wet through, dear, and so is Charlie,” said Guy, remonstratively.

“Well, I will go home, but you must come with us, papa. Guy wants to remain, I know.”

The missionary gave his daughter his arm, and led her away, while Guy, pushing through the crowd, soon stood beside the lifeboat, the crew of which, already encased in their cork life-belts, were hastily taking their places.

“There goes another rocket,” cried one of those on the look-out; “it’s from the North-s’n’-Head light.”

“Look alive, lads,” cried the coxswain of the boat, more to relieve his feelings than to hurry the men, who were already doing their best.

The shrill note of a steam-whistle was heard at this moment, its piercing sound rising high above the shriek of the gale and the roaring of the sea. It was a signal from the steam-tug appointed to attend on the lifeboat, and told that steam was up and all ready to put to sea.

Put to sea on such a night! with the waves bursting in thunder on the shore, the foam seething like milk beneath, the wind shrieking like ten thousand fiends above, and the great billows lifting up their heads, as they came rolling in from the darkness of Erebus that lay incumbent on the raging sea beyond.

Ay, a landsman might have said “madness” with reason. Even a seaman might have said that without much apparent impropriety. But the boatmen of Ramsgate held a different opinion! The signal gun had been fired, the rocket had gone up, a wreck was known to be on the fatal Goodwin Sands, and they were as eager to face the storm as if encountering danger and facing death were pleasant pastime.

As the oars were about to be shipped, one of the crew stumbled, and struck his head so violently against the bollard, that he fell stunned into the bottom of the boat. Guy saw the accident as he stood on the edge of the pier. A sudden impulse seized him. At one bound he passed from the pier to the boat, which was already some half-dozen feet away, and took the seat and oar of the injured man. In the confusion and darkness, the others thought he was one of the supernumerary boatmen, and took no further notice of him. The boat was shoved back, the life-jacket was transferred to Guy, and the boatman was put ashore.

A few strokes brought the boat alongside the steam-tug.

“Heave the warp! make fast! all right, steam a-head!”

The whistle shrieked again, the warp tautened, and tug and lifeboat made for the mouth of the harbour. As they passed out an inspiring cheer was given by the crowd, and a rocket streamed up from the pier-head to signal the lightship that assistance was on the way.

The lifeboat which thus gallantly put off to the rescue in a storm so wild that no ordinary boat could have faced it for a moment without being swamped, was a celebrated one which had recently been invented and placed at this station—where it still lies, and may be recognised by its white sides and peculiar build.

Its history is interesting. In the year 1851 the Duke of Northumberland, then president of the Lifeboat Institution, offered a prize of 100 pounds for the best model of a lifeboat. The result was that 280 models and plans were sent to Somerset House for examination. The prize was awarded to Mr James Beeching, boat-builder at Great Yarmouth, who was ordered to construct a boat, after the pattern of his model, 36 feet long, with 12 oars.

The boat was built, and was found to be the most perfect of its kind that had ever been launched. It was the first self-righting boat ever constructed.

The three great points to be attained in the construction of a lifeboat are: buoyancy, the power of righting itself if upset, and the power of emptying itself if filled with water. Up to this date the lifeboats of the kingdom were possessed of only the first quality. They could not be sunk; that was all. Of course that was a great deal, but it was far from sufficient. Mr Beeching’s boat united all three qualities.

Its self-righting principle was effected by means of two raised air-cases, one at the stem, the other at the stern, and a heavy metal keel. When overturned, the boat attempted, as it were, to rest on its two elevated cases, but these, being buoyant, resisted this effort, and turned the boat over on its side; the action being further assisted by the heavy keel, which had a tendency to drag the bottom downwards. Thus the upper part of the boat was raised by one action, and the bottom part depressed by the other, the result being that the boat righted itself immediately. In fact, its remaining in an inverted position was an impossibility.

The self-emptying principle was accomplished by the introduction of six self-acting valves into the bottom of the boat, through which the water, when shipped, ran back into the sea! When we first heard of this we were puzzled, reader, as doubtless you are, for it occurred to us that any hole made in a boat’s bottom would inevitably let water in instead of out! The difficulty was cleared up when we saw the model. Beeching’s boat had a double floor, the upper one raised to a little above the level of the sea. The escapes were short metal pipes, the upper openings of which were fitted into holes in the upper floor. The lower ends passed through the bottom of the boat. The valves of the top opened downward, but could not be opened upwards, so that the rushing of the sea into the pipes from below was checked, but the rushing in of the sea from above pressed the valves open, and allowed the water to run out, in accordance with the well-known law that water must find its level. Thus, the upper floor being above the level of the sea, all the water ran out.

Boats on this principle, modified in some of the details by Mr Peake, of Her Majesty’s dockyard at Woolwich, are now adopted by the Lifeboat Institution. They right themselves in less than a minute, and free themselves of water in about the same time.

Besides the above advantages, Mr Beeching’s boat was fitted with the usual air-cases round the sides, and with a thick stripe of cork outside the gunwale; also with lines hanging over the sides in festoons, so that any one in the water, using them as stirrups, might get into the boat with ease. She was further provided with an anchor and cable; with strong but light lines attached to grappling irons at the bow and stern, which, when thrown into the rigging or upon a wreck, might fasten themselves to the ship and retain the boat without any other aid; also with a life-buoy, and a lantern for night work, besides numerous small articles.

This boat was purchased by the Harbour Commissioners of Ramsgate, and anchored close to the pier, in connexion with a powerful steam-tug (the fires of which were never allowed to die down), ready at any moment to fly to the rescue, on the signal of distress being given. This is the boat whose splendid deeds have so frequently of late drawn the attention and compelled the admiration of the whole country; and it was this boat that issued from Ramsgate harbour on the wild night referred to at the beginning of this chapter.

Both tide and wind were dead against them as they issued from the shelter of the pier and met the storm, but the steamer was very powerful; it buffeted the billows bravely, and gradually gained the neighbourhood of the Sands, where the breakers and cross seas beat so furiously that their noise, mingled with the blast, created a din which can only be described as a prolonged and hideous roar.

The night was extremely dark, and bitterly cold. Heavy seas continually burst over the steamer’s bulwarks, and swept her deck from stem to stern. The little lifeboat, far astern, was dragged by the strong hawser through a wild turmoil of water and spray. The men nestling under the gunwales clung to the thwarts and maintained their position, although sea after sea broke over them and well nigh washed them out.

At length they reached the light-ship; hailed her and were told that the wreck was on a high part of the shingles, bearing north-west from the light. Away they went in that direction, but, being unable to find her, made their way to the Prince’s light-ship, where they were told there was a large ship on the Girdler. Once more they steamed in the direction indicated, and soon discovered the wreck by the tar-barrels which she was burning. Just as they sighted her an enormous sea broke over the steamer with such violence as to stop her way for a moment, and cause her strong frame to quiver.

“Look out, lads!” cried the coxswain of the lifeboat, as the black water loomed up between them and the tug.

The men grasped the thwarts more firmly as a tremendous sea filled the boat to the gunwale. At this moment the checked steamer again leaped on her way; the stout hawser parted like a piece of twine, and the lifeboat was left behind. Hoisting the corner of its small sail they made for the wreck. No time was lost in bailing, as would have been the case with the boats of former years; a few seconds sufficed to empty her.

The wind was now blowing a complete hurricane with a terrific sea on, the horrors of which were increased by the darkness of the night, so that it was with the utmost difficulty they succeeded in getting alongside. The wreck was a coasting vessel with a crew of eighteen men. There were no women or children, so they were got into the boat without much loss of time, and safely conveyed to the tug which lay to for her little consort, about three-quarters of a mile off.

The lifeboat was again taken in tow, and they proceeded together towards Ramsgate, when another gun and signal-rocket recalled them to continue their arduous duties.

The sleet of a winter’s night beat furiously in the faces of these boatmen, as already much exhausted, they once again faced the storm. But the streaming rocket and the signal-gun seemed to infuse new life and vigour into their hardy frames. Out to sea they went again, and, having approached as near as they dared to the breakers, worked their way along the edge of the Sands, keeping a bright look-out for the vessel in distress. Up and down they cruised, but nothing could be seen of her.

At last, on the eastern side of the Sands, they descried a large ship looming against the dark sky.

“There she is!” shouted the coxswain.

The hawser was slipt, and the boat, detached from her bulky companion, pushed into the very vortex of the breakers.

To say that no other boat could have lived in such a sea, would convey but a faint notion of the powers of this boat. Any one of the deluging billows that again and again overwhelmed her would have swamped the best and largest boat that was ever launched, and, although the old lifeboats might have floated, they certainly could not have made much progress in such a sea, owing to the difficulty of getting rid of the water. But the Ramsgate boat was empty a few seconds after being filled. The men had to take no thought as to this, except to see to it that they should not be washed out of her.

On getting alongside, they found the wreck to be a very large ship. Its black hull towered high above them, and the great yards swayed with fearful violence over their heads. A single glance showed that she was crowded with men and women.

The grapnels were thrown, and Guy starting up, seized the immense boat-hook, used by lifeboats, and stood ready to hook on to the rigging. He succeeded in fixing the hook, but a violent lurch of the ship tore the handle out of his grasp and cast him into the bottom of the boat. Just then a man was seen to run out on the main-yard, and slip down by a rope close to the sea. The boat sheered up towards him, and several arms were stretched out to save; but the boat glided away and the succeeding wave engulfed him. Only for a second however. When it passed the man was still seen clinging to the rope; the boat once again sheered up so close that he was induced to let go his hold. He dropped into the sea close alongside, caught one of the life-lines, and next instant was in the boat.

“All right! Give me the boat-hook,” he cried, seizing the handle as he spoke, and affixing it with the strength of a giant to the chains of the ship.

The tone of this man’s voice thrilled to Guy’s heart. He sprang forward and seized him by the arm. One glance was sufficient.

“Bax!”

“Guy!”

There was no time for more. The astonishment of both was extreme, as may well be supposed, and that of Guy was much increased when he heard another familiar voice shout—

“All right, Bax?”

“All right, Tommy; let them look alive with the women and children; get up a light if you can.” There were others in the lifeboat who recognised these voices, but life and death were trembling in the balance at that moment; they dared not unbend their attention from the one main object for an instant.

Some one in the “Trident” (for it was indeed that ill-fated ship) seemed to have anticipated Bax’s wish. Just as he spoke, a torch made of tar and oakum was lighted, and revealed the crowded decks, the raging sea that sought to swallow them up, and the lifeboat surging violently alongside. It was an appalling scene: the shrieks of the women and children, mingled with the howling wind, the rush of the waves on the ship’s side, and the shouting of men, created a din so horrible that many a stout heart quailed. Fortunately the men who were the most active in the work of saving others were so taken up with what they were about, that there was no room for thought of personal danger.

The first human being placed in the boat was a little child. Its mother, despairing of being saved herself, pressed through the crowd, held her little one over the side, and cried out “Save my child!” Bax leaped on the air-chamber at the bow of the boat, and grasping the shoulder of a boatman with one hand, stretched out the other towards the child; but the boat swooped forward and brought him close under the chains, where a sailor held a woman suspended in his arm, ready to drop her into the boat when it should come close alongside. It did not, however, approach sufficiently near. The next wave carried them back, and enabled Bax to seize the child and lay it in a place of safety. The mother was soon beside it, and in a short time the boat was quite filled.

Bax then leaped into the mizzen-chains, the lifeboat pushed off, and conveyed her cargo to the steam-tug. They took off 25 women and children the first trip. The steamer then towed the boat into position, to enable her again to make straight for the wreck. By this means much valuable time was saved, and more trips were made than could have been accomplished in the time by any lifeboat without the aid of a steamer.

All the women and children, and some of the male passengers, had been safely conveyed to the tug, when an accident happened which well-nigh destroyed the boat. This was the sudden falling of the mainmast of the “Trident.” With a rending crash it fell on the boat, overturned it, and held it down, so that its self-righting principle was neutralised. The crew being secured against sinking by their life-jackets, succeeded in clambering into the ship—many of them more or less bruised and cut. The coxswain, however, did not appear; he seemed to have been lost.

“He’s under the boat!” gasped Guy, who having been entangled in the wreck of the mast was the last to get on board.

“Axes, men!” shouted the Captain of the “Trident.”

“A hundred pounds to the man who saves him!” cried a voice from the quarter-deck.

Who is this that is so liberal of his gold at a time when a hundred thousand pounds could not avail to save one hair of his own head? He clings to the mizzen-shrouds with a face so ashy pale that Guy Foster scarce recognises his own uncle! Ah! Denham, you have seen a storm and a wreck at last, in circumstances you little dreamed of when, years ago, Guy predicted that you would “change your mind” in regard to these matters; and it would seem that your experience has done you no little good!

But, although Mr Denham shouted his best, no one heard him. Not the less on that account, however, did the strong men wield their axes and hew asunder the tough ropes and spars. Bax, as usual, was prominent in action. He toiled as if for life; and so it was for life, though not his own. Small was the hope, yet it was enough to justify the toil. The curvature of the lifeboat was so great that it was possible a portion of air sufficient to maintain life might be confined within it. And so it turned out. For twenty minutes they toiled; the boat was finally cleared; Bax struck the blow that set it free, and dragged the coxswain out as it turned over. He was found to be alive though almost exhausted!

Once more they pushed off with a full load of human beings. Among them were Mr Denham, Bax, and Tommy Bogey. The greater part of the crew, and some of the male passengers, still remained in the wreck awaiting their turn.

When the boat had advanced about a hundred yards a cry of distress was heard, but the noise of wind and waves was so great that they thought it might have been mere imagination. Nevertheless, so much were they impressed, that the coxswain put about and returned towards the wreck. Too soon they discovered that it had been the death-cry of those who were left behind, for not a vestige of the “Trident” remained! The ill-fated vessel had been suddenly broken up and utterly swept away!

In their anxiety to save any who might yet survive, and be clinging to portions of the wreck, the boat cruised about for some time, and her captain was tempted to advance too far over the dangerous shoals. She struck suddenly with great violence, and remained fast on the sands. The utmost efforts were made to haul off, but in vain. The boat was hurled again and again on the ridges of sand;—passed over several of them, and became hopelessly entangled.

Those well-known ripples that one sees on the shore, are, on the Goodwin Sands, magnified from an inch to nearly three feet. Over these the boat now began to surge.

“Hoist the sail! up with it!” cried the coxswain as they suddenly passed into deeper water. Some of the men began to hope that they had crossed the shoals, but they were mistaken.

The order was obeyed, and the boat rushed forward wildly, with its lee gunwale buried deep in the sea; another moment and it struck again with tremendous violence. Those on board would have been torn out of her had they not clung to the seats with the energy of despair. It now became clear to all who knew the locality, that there was no alternative for them but to beat right across the Sands. The violence of the gale had increased. The night was pitchy dark, and the fearful shocks with which they struck the gigantic ripples on the banks, sent despair to the hearts of all, except the crew of the boat. These, knowing her capabilities, retained a vestige of hope.

Bax, being ignorant on this point, had given up all hope. He clung to the bollard, close beside the coxswain.

“It’s all over with us at last,” he said, as the boat struck heavily, and was then lifted away on the crest of a roaring breaker.

“It may be so,” replied the coxswain, calmly; “but if we escape being dashed on the wrecks that are scattered over the Sands, we may live it out yet.”

And what of Mr Denham, the head of the wealthy firm, who years ago had expressed the opinion that lifeboats were unnecessary, and that “those who devoted themselves to a sea-faring life ought to make up their minds to the chances and risks attending such a life”? What thought he as he lay there in the bottom of the boat—terrified almost to death; shaken and bruised by the repeated and awful shocks; chilled by the intense cold, and drenched to the skin, with just enough life left to enable him to cling to a thwart;—what thought he on that terrible night?

Perchance he thought of his former life of pride, selfishness, and indifference to the woes of others. Perhaps he reflected that his own neglect in other days had something to do with his being here now. Whatever he thought he spoke not. His face was deadly pale. His lips were blue. He crouched, a hopeless, a helpless, and a pitiful object, in the bottom of the lifeboat.

Presently they struck again. Crash! Every timber groaned as the boat turned broadside to the sea, which made a clear breach over her. The coxswain and Bax alone stood up, both holding on to the mizzen-mast. The rest clung on as they best could to the thwarts, sometimes buried in water, often with only their heads above it. The tide was making, and as the boat passed each shoal the bow lifted first and swung round—then the stern, and it was clear again; but only to be hurled on the next ridge, when the sea once more burst over it, sweeping away everything that was loose.

It became necessary to alter the trim of the boat by moving some of the men from one part to another. The coxswain shouted the order, but only Guy Foster and two others were able to obey. All that the rest could do was to hold on with iron grasp for bare life. With some this had become the involuntary clutch of despair.

Thus on they went crashing and jerking from bank to bank amid the raging wind and surf and bitter cold. None save a lifeboat could have survived. To Bax it seemed miraculous.

“What are you doin’?” said he to one of the men near him.

“I’m takin’ off my life-belt,” he replied; “it’ll be over all the quicker, and I don’t want to be beatin’ about over the sands alive or dead longer than I can help; the sooner I go to the bottom the better.”

Bax tried to cheer this man, but in vain. At first a few of the more sanguine spirits among them had endeavoured to cheer their comrades, but as time wore on their efforts ceased. All gave themselves up for lost, and no word was spoken by any one, save at long intervals, when a brief sharp cry of agonising prayer escaped from those who looked to God for consolation. Thus for two hours they beat over the sands—a distance of nearly two miles—each moment expecting to be overturned or dashed to pieces on some of the old wrecks. All this time the noble-hearted coxswain remained at his post, and Bax stood—hopeless indeed, yet watchful, beside him.

Suddenly the beating from ridge to ridge ceased. The boat swung into deep water, and rushed on her wild career over the foam! Those who were not utterly exhausted noticed the fact, and began to show symptoms of reviving hope and activity. Others, thoroughly worn out, remained utterly indifferent to the change.

Yes, the great danger was past! Sail was quickly made. The storm was still wild as ever, but with sufficient water below her, winds and waves were powerless for evil to the lifeboat. Rushing through the surf, she soon gained the harbour of Ramsgate, and all on board were landed in safety.

Ay, Reader, but the seeds of death had been sown that night. The boatmen returned to their homes, and the saved passengers and crew of the “Trident” were cared for by the authorities of the town, but one sad result was that several of those who had so nobly risked their lives to save others, never recovered from the effects of the sixteen hours of exposure to that pitiless storm.

Another and a glorious result was, that a hundred and twenty souls were snatched from a watery grave.

Chapter Twenty Three.

History of the Lifeboat.

We pause at this point in our story, good reader, to treat you to a little of what mankind is prone to consider “dry,” namely, a chapter of information and statistics. We dislike sailing under false colours, therefore we warn you at the outset of the nature of what is to follow.

And yet our subject ought not to be considered dry, for it is indissolubly connected with salt water, and if human hearts were suitably affected by the simple statement of facts, drops of salt water would frequently moisten these pages!

Please, do not skip. Multum in parvo shall be our motto.

Lionel Lukin, a coach-builder in London, was the inventor of the lifeboat. He took out a patent for it on the 2nd November, 1785, and wrote a pamphlet on lifeboats, entitled “The Invention, Principles, and Construction of Insubmergible Boats.” His boat was rendered buoyant by means of a projecting gunwale of cork, and hollow air-cases within it; one of these being at the head, the other at the stern. It was ballasted by means of a false iron keel. In these respects this boat possessed, in rudimentary form, the essentials of the lifeboat of the present day. A coble was converted into a lifeboat on these principles by Lukin, and launched at Bamborough, where, in the course of the first year, it was the means of saving many lives. This was the first lifeboat ever brought into action.

Lukin, though a man of energy and perseverance, was doomed to disappointment. The Prince of Wales (George the Fourth), to his credit be it said, was his warm and liberal patron, but even the Prince’s influence failed to awaken the sympathy of the public, or of the men in high places who alone could bring this great invention into general use. People in those days appeared to think that the annual drowning of thousands of their countrymen was an unavoidable necessity,—the price we had to pay, as it were, for our maritime prosperity. Lukin appealed in vain to the First Lord of the Admiralty, and to many other influential men, but a deaf ear was invariably turned to him. With the exception of the Bamborough coble, not a single lifeboat was placed at any of the dangerous localities on the east coast of England for several years. Wrecked men and women and children were (as far as the Naval Boards were concerned) graciously permitted to swim ashore if they could, or to go to the bottom if they couldn’t! Ultimately, the inventor of the lifeboat went to his grave unrewarded and unacknowledged—at least by the nation; though the lives saved through his invention were undoubtedly a reward beyond all price. The high honour of having constructed and set in motion a species of boat which has saved hundreds and thousands of human lives, and perchance prevented the breaking of many human hearts, is certainly due to Lionel Lukin.

In 1789, the public were roused from their state of apathy in regard to shipwrecked seamen by the wreck of the “Adventure” of Newcastle, the crew of which perished in the presence of thousands who could do nothing to save them. Under the excitement of this disaster the inhabitants of South Shields met to deplore and to consult. A committee was appointed, and premiums were offered for the best models of lifeboats. Men came forward, and two stood pre-eminent—Mr William Wouldhave, a painter, and Mr Henry Greathead, a boat-builder, of South Shields. The former seems to have been the first who had a glimmering idea of the self-righting principle, but he never brought it to anything. Cork was the buoyant principle in his boat. Greathead suggested a curved keel. The chairman of the committee modelled a boat in clay which combined several of the good qualities of each, and this was given to Greathead as the type of the boat he was to build.

From this time forward lifeboats gradually multiplied. Greathead became a noted improver and builder of them. He was handsomely rewarded for his useful labours by Government and others, and his name became so intimately and deservedly associated with the lifeboat, that people erroneously gave him the credit of being its inventor.

The Duke of Northumberland took a deep interest in the subject of lifeboats, and expended money liberally in constructing and supporting them. Before the close of 1863, Greathead had built 31 boats, 18 for England, 5 for Scotland, and 8 for foreign countries. This was so far well; but it was a wretchedly inadequate provision for the necessities of the case. Interest had indeed been awakened in the public, but the public cannot act as a united body; and the Trinity House seemed to fall back into the sleep from which it had been partially aroused.

It was not till 1822 that the great (because successful) champion of the lifeboat stood forth,—in the person of Sir William Hillary, Baronet.

Sir William, besides being a philanthropist, was a hero! He not only devised liberal things, and carried them into execution, but he personally shared in the danger of rescuing life from the raging sea. Our space forbids a memoir, but this much may be said briefly. He dwelt on the coast of the Isle of Man, and established a Sailors’ Home at Douglas. He constantly witnessed the horrors of shipwreck, and seemed to make it his favourite occupation to act as one of the crew of boats that put off to wrecks. He was of course frequently in imminent danger; once had his ribs broken, and was nearly drowned oftentimes. During his career he personally assisted in saving 305 lives! He was the means of stirring up public men, and the nation generally, to a higher sense of their duty to those who risk their lives upon the sea; and eventually—in conjunction with two members of Parliament, Mr Thomas Wilson and Mr George Hibbert—was the founder of “The Royal National Institution for the Preservation of Life from Shipwreck.”

This noble Institution—now named The Royal National Lifeboat Institution—was founded on the 4th of March, 1824. From that date to the present time it has unremittingly carried out the great ends for which it was instituted.

Let us glance at these in detail, as given in their publication, The Lifeboat Journal.

The objects of the Institution are effected—

“1st, By the stationing of lifeboats, fully equipped, with all necessary gear and means of security to those who man them, and with transporting carriages on which they can be drawn by land to the neighbourhood of distant wrecks, and by the erection of suitable houses in which the same are kept.

“2nd, By the appointment of paid coxswains, who have charge of, and are held responsible for, the good order and efficiency of the boats, and by a quarterly exercise of the crew of each boat.

“3rd, By a liberal remuneration of all those who risk their lives in going to the aid of wrecked persons, whether in lifeboats or otherwise; and by the rewarding with the gold or silver medal of the Institution such persons as encounter great personal risk in the saving of life.

“4th, By the superintendence of an honorary committee of residents in each locality, who, on their part, undertake to collect locally what amount they are able of donations towards the first cost, and of annual contributions towards the permanent expenses of their several establishments.”

In order to see how this work is, and has been, carried out, let us look at the results, as stated in the last annual report, that for 1864.

The lifeboats of the Institution now number 132, and some of them were the means of saving no fewer than 417 lives during the past year; nearly the whole of them in dangerous circumstances, amidst high surfs, when no other description of boats could have been launched with safety. They also took into port, or materially assisted, 17 vessels, which might otherwise have been lost. The number of persons afloat in the boats on occasions of their being launched was 6,000. In other words, our army of coast-heroes amounts, apparently, to that number. But in reality it is much larger, for there are hundreds of willing volunteers all round the coast ready to man lifeboats, if there were lifeboats to man. Although nearly every man of this 6000 risked his life again and again during the year, not a single life was lost.

Nearly all these boats have been supplied with transporting carriages and boat-houses by the Institution. The cost in detail is as follows:—

The sums granted last year for the saving of 714 lives by lifeboats, shore-boats, etcetera, amounted to nearly 1,300 pounds (about 1 pound 16 shillings 6 pence each life!) Fifteen silver medals and twenty-six votes of thanks, inscribed on vellum and parchment, were also awarded for acts of extraordinary gallantry.

The income of the Institution in 1863 amounted to 21,100 pounds. Fifteen new lifeboats were sent to various parts of the coast in that year.

It is interesting to observe in the report the persons by whom donations are sometimes given to the Institution. We read of “100 pounds from a sailor’s daughter”; and “100 pounds as a thank-offering for preservation at sea, during the storm of 31st October last.” Another thank-offering of 20 pounds, “for preservation from imminent danger at sea,” appears in the list. “100 pounds from ‘a friend,’ in gratitude to God for the preservation of his wife for another year”; and “20 pounds from a seaman’s daughter, the produce of her needle-work.” Among smaller sums we find 1 pound, 6 shillings, 9 pence collected in a Sunday school; 3 pounds, 18 shillings, 8 pence collected in a parish church, as a New Year’s offering. Last, and least in one sense, though by no means least in another, 1 shilling, 6 pence in stamps, from a sailor’s orphan child!

The prayer naturally springs to one’s lips, God bless that dear orphan child! but it has been already blessed with two of God’s choicest gifts,—a sympathetic heart and an open hand.

Small sums like this are not in any sense to be despised. If the population of London alone—taking it at two millions—were individually to contribute 1 shilling, 6 pence, the sum would amount to 150,000 pounds! Why, if everyone whose eye falls on this page—to descend to smaller numbers—were to give a shilling, it is not improbable that a sum would be raised sufficient to establish two lifeboats! (See Note 1.)

But there are those who, besides being blessed with generous hearts, are fortunate in possessing heavy purses. We find in the same report donations of from two hundred to two thousand pounds, and legacies ranging from ten to a thousand pounds. The largest legacy that seems ever to have been bequeathed to the Institution was that of 10,000 pounds, left in 1856 by Captain Hamilton Fitzgerald, R.N., one of the vice-presidents of the Society.

The mere mention of such sums may induce some to imagine that the coffers of the Institution are in a very flourishing state. This would indeed be the case if the Society had reached its culminating point—if everything were done that can be done for the preservation of life from shipwreck; but this is by no means the case. It must be borne in mind that the Institution is national. The entire coasts of the United Kingdom are its field of operations, and the drain upon its resources is apparently quite equal to its income. Its chief means of support are voluntary contributions.

Since the Society was instituted, in 1824, to the present time, it has been the means of saving 13,570 lives!—many, if not most, of these being lives of the utmost consequence to the commerce and defence of the country. During the same period, it has granted 82 gold medals, 736 silver medals, and 17,830 pounds in cash; besides expending 82,550 pounds on boats, carriages, and boat-houses.

Considering, then, the magnitude and unavoidable costliness of the operations of this Institution, it is evident that a large annual income is indispensable, if it is to continue its noble career efficiently.

Closely allied to this is another society which merits brief notice here. It is the “Shipwrecked Fishermen’s and Mariners’ Royal Benevolent Society.” Originally this Society, which was instituted in 1839, maintained lifeboats on various parts of the coast. It eventually, however, made these over to the Lifeboat Institution, and confined itself to its own special and truly philanthropic work, which is—

To board, lodge, and convey to their homes, all destitute, shipwrecked persons, to whatever country they may belong, through the instrumentality of its agents. To afford temporary assistance to the widows, parents, and children of all mariners and fishermen who may have been drowned, and who were members of the Society; and to give a gratuity to mariners and fishermen, who are members, for the loss or damage of their clothes or boats. Membership is obtained by an annual subscription of three shillings.

Assuredly every mariner and fisherman in the kingdom ought to be a member of this Society, for it is pre-eminently useful, and no one can tell when he may require its assistance.

The Lifeboat Institution and the Shipwrecked Fishermen’s and Mariners’ Society are distinct bodies, but they do their benevolent work in harmonious concert. The one saves life, or tries to save it; the other cherishes the life so saved, or comforts and affords timely aid to broken-hearted mourners for the dead.

Both Institutions are national blessings, and as such have the strongest possible claim on the sympathies of the nation.

Note 1. In case any reader should sympathise with us, and desire to act on the above hint, we subjoin the following address, to which money may be sent: The Secretary of the Royal National Lifeboat Institution, 22 Charing Cross Road, London, W.

Chapter Twenty Four.

A Meeting—A Death, and a Discovery.

Resuming our story, we remind the reader that we left off just as the Ramsgate lifeboat had gained a glorious victory over a great storm.

Availing ourselves of an author’s privilege, we now change the scene to the parlour of Mrs Foster’s temporary lodgings at Ramsgate, whither the worthy lady had gone for change of air, in company with her son Guy, her daughter-in-law Lucy, her little grandson Charlie, and her adopted daughter Amy Russell.

Bax is standing there alone. He looks like his former self in regard to costume, for the only man approaching his own size, who could lend him a suit of dry clothing, happened to be a boatman, so he is clad in the familiar rough coat with huge buttons, the wide pantaloons, and the sou’-wester of former days. His countenance is changed, however; it is pale and troubled.

On the way up from the harbour Guy had told him that he was married, and was surprised when Bax, instead of expressing a desire to be introduced to his wife, made some wild proposal about going and looking after the people who had been saved! He was pleased, however, when Bax suddenly congratulated him with great warmth, and thereafter said, with much firmness, that he would go up to the house and see her. On this occasion, also, Bax had told his friend that all the produce of his labour since he went away now lay buried in the Goodwin Sands.

Bax was ruminating on these things when the door opened, and Guy entered, leading Lucy by the hand.

“Miss Burton!” exclaimed Bax, springing forward.

“My wife,” said Guy, with a puzzled look.

“Bax!” exclaimed Lucy, grasping his hand warmly and kissing it; “surely you knew that I was married to Guy?”

Bax did not reply. His chest heaved, his lips were tightly compressed, and his nostrils dilated, as he gazed alternately at Guy and Lucy. At last he spoke in deep, almost inaudible tones:

“Miss Russell—is she still—”

“My sister is still with us. I have told her you are come. She will be here directly,” said Guy.

As he spoke the door opened, and Mrs Foster entered, with Amy leaning on her arm. The latter was very pale, and trembled slightly. On seeing Bax the blood rushed to her temples, and then fled back to her heart. She sank on a chair. The sailor was at her side in a moment; he caught her as she was in the act of falling, and going down on one knee, supported her head on his shoulder.

“Bring water, she has fainted,” he cried. “Dear Miss Russell!—dearest Amy!—oh my beloved girl, look up.”

Stunned and terrified though poor Mrs Foster was, as she rushed about the room in search of water and scent-bottles, she was taken aback somewhat by the warmth of these expressions, which Bax, in the strength of his feelings, and the excitement of the moment, uttered quite unconsciously. Guy was utterly confounded, for the truth now for the first time flashed upon him, and when he beheld his friend tenderly press his lips on the fair forehead of the still insensible Amy, it became clear beyond a doubt. Lucy was also amazed, for although she was aware of Amy’s love for Bax, she had never dreamed that it was returned.

Suddenly Guy’s pent-up surprise and excitement broke forth. Seizing Mrs Foster by the shoulders, he stared into her face, and said, “Mother, I have been an ass! an absolute donkey!—and a blind one, too. Oh!—ha! come along, I’ll explain myself. Lucy, I shall require your assistance.”

Without more ado Guy led his mother and Lucy forcibly out of the room, and Bax and Amy were left alone.

Again we change the scene. The Sandhills lying to the north of Deal are before us, and the shadows of night are beginning to deepen over the bleak expanse of downs. A fortnight has passed away.

During that period Bax experienced the great delight of feeling assured that Amy loved him, and the great misery of knowing that he had not a sixpence in the world. Of course, Guy sought to cheer him by saying that there would be no difficulty in getting him the command of a ship; but Bax was not cheered by the suggestion; he felt depressed, and proposed to Guy that they should take a ramble together over the Sandhills.

Leaving the cottage, to which the family had returned the day before, the two friends walked in the direction of Sandown Castle.

“What say you to visit old Jeph?” said Guy; “I have never felt easy about him since he made me order his coffin and pay his debts.”

“With all my heart,” said Bax. “I spent a couple of hours with him this forenoon, and he appeared to me better than usual. Seeing Tommy and me again has cheered him greatly, poor old man.”

“Stay, I will run back for the packet he left with me to give to you. He may perhaps wish to give it you with his own hand.”

Guy ran back to the cottage, and quickly returned with the packet.

Old Jeph’s door was open when they approached his humble abode. Guy knocked gently, but, receiving no answer, entered the house. To their surprise and alarm they found the old man’s bed empty. Everything else in the room was in its usual place. The little table stood at the bedside, with the large old Bible on it and the bundle of receipts that Guy had placed there on the day he paid the old man’s debts. In a corner lay the black coffin, with the winding-sheet carefully folded on the lid. There was no sign of violence having been done, and the friends were forced to the conclusion that Jeph had quitted the place of his own accord. As he had been confined to bed ever since his illness—about two weeks—this sudden disappearance was naturally alarming.

“There seems to have been no foul play,” said Bax, examining hastily the several closets in the room. “Where can he have gone?”

“The tomb!” said Guy, as Jeph’s old habit recurred to his memory.

“Right,” exclaimed Bax, eagerly. “Come, let’s go quickly.”

They hastened out, and, breaking into a smart run, soon reached the Sandhills. Neither of them spoke, for each felt deep anxiety about the old man, whose weak condition rendered it extremely improbable that he could long survive the shock that his system must have sustained by such a walk at such an hour.

Passing the Checkers of the Hope, they soon reached Mary Bax’s tomb. The solitary stone threw a long dark shadow over the waste as the moon rose slowly behind it. This shadow concealed the grave until they were close beside it.

“Ah! he is here,” said Bax, kneeling down.

Guy knelt beside him, and assisted to raise their old friend, who lay extended on the grave. Bax moved him so as to get from beneath the shadow of the stone, and called him gently by name, but he did not answer. When the moonlight next moment fell on his countenance, the reason of his silence was sufficiently obvious.

Old Jeph was dead!

With tender care they lifted the body in their arms and bore it to the cottage, where they laid it on the bed, and, sitting down beside it, conversed for some time in low sad tones.

“Bax,” said Guy, pulling the sealed packet from his breast-pocket, “had you not better open this? It may perhaps contain some instructions having reference to his last resting-place.”

“True,” replied Bax, breaking the seals. “Dear old Jeph, it is sad to lose you in this sudden way, without a parting word or blessing. What have we here?” he continued, unrolling several pieces of brown paper. “It feels like a key.”

As he spoke a small letter dropt from the folds of the brown paper, with an old-fashioned key tied to it by a piece of twine. Opening the letter he read as follows:—

“DEAR BAX,—When you get this I shall be where the wicked cease from troubling, and the weary are at rest. There is a hide in the north-west corner of my room in the old house, between the beam and the wall. The key that is enclosed herewith will open it. I used to hide baccy there in my smugglin’ days, but since I left off that I’ve never used it. There you will find a bag of gold. How much is in it I know not. It was placed there by an old mate of mine more than forty years ago. He was a great man for the guinea trade that was carried on with France in the time of Boney’s wars. I never rightly myself understood that business. I’m told that Boney tried to get all the gold out o’ this country, by payin’ three shillings more than each guinea was worth for it, but that seems unreasonable to me. Hows’ever, although I never could rightly understand it, there is no doubt that some of our lads were consarned in smugglin’ guineas across the channel, and two or three of ’em made a good thing of it. My mate was one o’ the lucky ones. One night he came home with a bag o’ gold and tumbled it out on the table before me. I had my suspicions that he had not come honestly by it, so would have nothin’ to do with it. When I told him so, he put it back into the bag, tied it up, and replaced it in the hide, and went away in a rage. He never came back. There was a storm from the east’ard that night. Two or three boats were capsized, and my mate and one or two more lads were drowned. The guineas have lain in the hide ever since. I’ve often thought o’ usin’ them; but somehow or other never could make up my mind. You may call this foolish, mayhap it was; anyhow I now leave the gold to you;—to Tommy, if you never come back, or to Guy if he don’t turn up. Bluenose don’t want it: it would only bother him if I put it in his way.

“This is all I’ve got to say: The old house ain’t worth much, but such as it is, it’s yours, or it may go the same way as the guineas.

“Now, Bax, may God bless you, and make you one of His own children, through Jesus Christ. My heart warms to you for your own sake, and for the sake of her whose name you bear. Farewell.—Your old friend and mate, JEPH.”

Bax stooped over the bed, and pressed his lips to the dead man’s forehead, when he had finished reading this letter. For some time the two friends sat talking of old Jeph’s sayings and doings in former days, forgetful of the treasure of which the epistle spoke. At last Bax rose and drew a table to the corner mentioned in the letter. Getting upon this, he found an old board nailed against the wall.

“Hand me that axe, Guy; it must be behind this.”

The board was soon wrenched off, and a small door revealed in the wall. The key opened it at once, and inside a bag was found. Untying this, Bax emptied the glittering contents on the table. It was a large heap, amounting to five hundred guineas!

“I congratulate you, Bax,” said Guy; “this removes a great difficulty out of your way. Five hundred guineas will give you a fair start.”

“Do you suppose that I will appropriate this to myself?” said Bax. “You and Tommy are mentioned in the letter as well as me.”

“You may do as you please in regard to Tommy,” said Guy, “but as for me, I have a good salary, and won’t touch a guinea of it.”

“Well, well,” said Bax, with a sad smile, “this is neither the time nor place to talk of such matters. It is time to give notice of the old man’s death.”

Saying this, he returned the gold to its former place, locked the hide, and replaced the board. As he was doing this, a peculiar cut in the beam over his head caught his eye.

“I do believe here is another hide,” said he. “Hand the axe again.”

A piece of wood was soon forced out of the side of the beam next the wall, and it was discovered that the beam itself was hollow. Nothing was found in it, however, except a crumpled piece of paper.

“See here, there is writing on this,” said Guy, picking up the paper which Bax flung down. “It is a crabbed hand, but I think I can make it out:— ‘Dear Bogue, you will find the tubs down Pegwell Bay, with the sinkers on ’em; the rest of the swag in Fiddler’s Cave.’”

“Humph! an old smuggler’s letter,” said Bax. “Mayhap the tubs and swag are there yet!”

We may remark here, that, long after the events now related, Bax and Guy remembered this note and visited the spots mentioned out of curiosity, but neither “tubs” nor “swag” were found!

Quitting the room with heavy hearts, the two friends locked the door, and went in search of those who are wont to perform the last offices to the dead.

Chapter Twenty Five.

The Conclusion.

There came a day at last when the rats in Redwharf Lane obtained an entire holiday, doubtless to their own amazement, and revelled in almost unmolested felicity from morning till night. The office of Denham, Crumps, and Company was shut; the reason being that the head of the firm was dead.

Mr Denham had died without a will.

At the time when Guy offended his uncle by expressing his opinion too freely, Denham vowed in his heart that his nephew should not inherit his business or fortune. He resolved to leave both to another nephew, the son of a younger brother, at that time in the East India Company’s service. But as death was a contingency inconceivably remote from himself, at least in his own opinion, he did not think it necessary to make his will at that time. He died, therefore, as we have said, without making it.

He died, also, without carrying out any of his good intentions!

It is a common mistake to suppose that a man has only to repent of his evil deeds, and that thenceforth all will be plain sailing. The habits of a lifetime are not to be overcome without a hard struggle, even in the most sincere of Christians.

Denham, after being saved by the Ramsgate lifeboat, had made up his mind to turn his wealth to good account, and, in his philanthropic plans, had resolved to look with special favour on the Lifeboat Institution. But he delayed to carry out these plans. He did not strike when the iron was hot, and so the iron began slowly to cool. He had also determined to reinstate Bax in his employment, and to take Guy into partnership, but he delayed in these matters also. The love of gold and the memory of fancied insults began to tell on him, as of old. He even went so far as to meditate carrying out his former intention of making his will in favour of the nephew in India!

Still Denham did not fall back to his old position. A struggle which began when he resided with his sister at Deal, went on in his breast continually. While this struggle was yet undecided, a fever seized him. His constitution, weakened by the hardships which he had so recently undergone, gave way, and he died.

The result was that the business fell to the next-of-kin,—Mrs Foster, whose son, in the natural course of things, stepped into his uncle’s shoes. The result of this was that poor Denham’s good resolves, and a great many more good resolves than Denham could ever have conceived of, were carried out in a way that would have amazed him had he been there to see it, and that almost took the breath away from old Mr Crumps.

A glance at Guy in his office, not long after his uncle’s death, will show the reader how things were managed by the new head of the firm.

Guy was seated in Denham’s chair, at Denham’s desk, reading and writing what, in former days, would have been Denham’s letters. Presently Mr Crumps entered.

“I was just going to ask you to consult with me,” said Guy; “pray sit down, sit down, Mr Crumps.”

The old man in his modesty meant to stand, as, in former days, he would have stood before Denham.

“Here is a letter from a friend,” continued Guy, “asking for a contribution towards the establishment of a lifeboat on the coast of Wales. He reminds me that I myself was once indebted to the services of a lifeboat when my life was in great danger, and hopes that I will respond liberally to his appeal. His name is Clelland. He was on board the old ‘Trident,’ when she was wrecked in Saint Margaret’s Bay. I made his acquaintance then. Now, what do you think we ought to give? I should like to have your advice on this point, and on several other matters of a similar nature, Mr Crumps, because there has been no regular ‘Charity’ account in our ledger, I find, and I would like to open one. Don’t you think it would be as well to open one?”

Mr Crumps thought it would, and—being a man of naturally charitable and liberal impulses, who had been constantly snubbed by Mr Denham for many years past—he felt overjoyed at the prospect of a new era opening up before him.

“Well, what shall we send to Mr Clelland?” pursued Guy. Mr Crumps, unable all at once to get over old habits and associations, suggested fifty pounds, timidly.

“The district is a poor one,” said Guy; “perhaps, that being the case—”

“Say a hundred,” put in Crumps eagerly (and then, in a partially apologetic tone), “the business can afford it, my dear sir. Heaven knows it is but little that—”

The old man’s voice faltered and stopped. He was going to have made a remark that would have cast a slur on the character of his late partner, so he checked himself and sighed.

“Well, then, it shall be a hundred,” said Guy, jotting down the sum on a slip of paper. “I would not advise more to be given to that particular district just now, because it might tend to check the efforts of the people on the spot. If they fail to raise the requisite sum, we can then give what is necessary. Now, there is an urgent appeal for funds being made just now to the public by the Lifeboat Institution. I think this a good opportunity to give away some of the cash which ought to have been—”

Guy hesitated. He too was about to make a remark that would have been unfavourable to the character of his late uncle, so he checked himself.

“What do you say to giving them a thousand pounds?”

Mr Crumps said nothing to it. He was too much taken aback to say anything; but when he saw that Guy had jotted the sum down, and was apparently in earnest, he nodded his head, blew his nose violently, for a man of his years and character, and chuckled.

“Well, then,” continued Guy, “there is another subject which occurs to me just now, although it does not come under the head of charities. I wish to supply a ship’s lifeboat to every vessel that belongs to us, and a set of life-belts, besides other things. I estimate that this will require a sum of nearly two thousand pounds. Let me see—”

Here Guy began to jot and calculate, and to talk to himself in an undertone, while Mr Crumps, utterly bereft of speech, sat staring in amazement and delight at his young partner.

While they were thus engaged, the tiger in blue who had supplanted Peekins entered, and said that three gentlemen wished to see Mr Foster.

“Show them in,” said Guy. “Sit still, Mr Crumps, I have not yet done with my calculations.”

In a few seconds Bax, Bluenose, and Tommy Bogey were ushered into the office. The latter had become a tall, handsome stripling during his residence abroad, and bid fair to rival Bax himself in stature. They shook hands cordially with Guy and Mr Crumps.

“Well, Bax, is the new ship a good one?” said Guy; “d’you think she will suit you?”

“That will she,” said Bax, with a gratified look. “As the old song says—

“‘She’s a ship that’s as tight to my fancy

As ever sailed o’er the salt seas.’

“I think she will be ready for sea in a couple of months. By that time I will be ready to take command, if you choose to trust her to me.”

“Trust her to you, Bax! Do you think we may trust our new vessel to him, Mr Crumps?” inquired Guy, with a smile.

Mr Crumps, not having recovered the power of speech, nodded his head, and rubbed his hands slowly, a benignant smile playing on his old face the while.

“Well, then,” continued Bax, “Amy, so far from making any objection to going to sea with me, says that she won’t let me go away without her, so that’s settled, and the wedding day is fixed for Monday next week. But I’m not satisfied yet. I want you to do me still another favour, Guy.”

“What is that?”

“To let Tommy Bogey go as supercargo. He’s seaman enough to go as first mate, but he’s too young for that yet. Also, I want to take Bluenose as a free passenger.”

“A free passenger!” said Guy, looking at the Captain with surprise.

“Yes, you see,” said Bluenose, modestly, “I’m raither moloncholy about old Jeph, an’ if Bax and Tommy leave me, I’ll feel quite desarted like. Moreover, I wants to see furrin’ parts—specially the antypodes. But I hain’t blunt enough to pay my passage, d’ye see, and so—and so—”

“In short,” interpolated Tommy, “he’s blunt enough to ask a free one!”

“A1 on Lloyds’!” said Bluenose, looking at Tommy with a broad grin; for the Captain regarded all his nephew’s jokes—good, bad, and indifferent—as being perfect!

It need scarcely be said that Guy readily agreed to their request, and that Mr Crumps was ready to agree to whatsoever Guy proposed.

These matters being happily settled, the trio, having been invited to dine with Guy at a neighbouring chop-house at five o’clock, rose and left the partners to continue their consultation.

From that time forward Bax and Tommy Bogey remained in the service of Denham, Crumps, and Company, and Amy Russell went regularly to sea with her husband. Bluenose was afterwards appointed coxswain to a lifeboat on the coast of Kent where he rendered good service in many a wild storm, and was the means of snatching many a fellow-creature from the devouring sea. His friend Coleman happened to be on the coast-guard station near him; and many a pipe did these two smoke together, under the lee of the boat-house—spinning yarns of other days, chiefly connected with the sea and shipwrecks. Old Coleman had had considerable experience in rough, coast life, and was well able to speak on such subjects. The records of the Lifeboat Institution show that about one-third of the medals and rewards granted for meritorious services are awarded to men of the coastguard. Old Coleman was one of those who had taken his full share of the dangerous work of saving life. He was also gifted with that rare quality—the power of telling a story well, so that he and Bluenose became fast friends and constant companions during their residence on the Kentish coast.

Similarity of tastes and desires drew other members of our tale together, besides Coleman and Bluenose. Old Mr Summers and Mr Clelland, the dark passenger in the “Trident,” found such a strong bond of sympathy existing between them, that they took cottages in juxtaposition in the town of Deal, and went about continually “doing good.” Mrs Foster, Lucy, and Guy were allies, as a matter of course. Rodney Nick improved somewhat in his character, and became a respectable boatman. People said that Mr Burton, the missionary to seamen, had something to do with this improvement. It is not improbable that he had. But Long Orrick died as he had lived,—a notorious and incorrigible smuggler.

Peekins was changed from a tiger into a clerk; and, in process of time, came to keep the books of that celebrated firm in which he had originally figured as a spider in blue tights and buttons.

Bax and Tommy sailed together for several years. They also engaged in mercantile ventures to China on their own account, and were so prosperous in their career that they realised ample fortunes, and finally settled near each other on the coast of Kent.

Here they resumed their old career of saving human life. They became noted as men who were ready to devise and prompt to act in cases of emergency. They helped to man the lifeboat in their neighbourhood when occasion required. They were the means of establishing a library and a mission to seamen, and were regarded as a blessing to the district in which they dwelt.

They were literally heroes of the coast, for they spent their time in doing good to those whose lot it is to brave the dangers of the deep and sweep the stormy sea.

The End.

Chapter One.

Treats of Our Hero’s Early Life, and Touches on Domestic Matters.

William Osten was a wanderer by nature. He was born with a thirst for adventure that nothing could quench, and with a desire to rove that nothing could subdue.

Even in babyhood, when his limbs were fat and feeble, and his visage was round and red, he displayed his tendency to wander in ways and under circumstances that other babies never dreamt of. He kept his poor mother in a chronic fever of alarm, and all but broke the heart of his nurse, long before he could walk, by making his escape from the nursery over and over again, on his hands and knees; which latter bore constant marks of being compelled to do the duty of feet in dirty places.

Baby Will never cried. To have heard him yell would have rejoiced the hearts of mother and nurse, for that would have assured them of his being near at hand and out of mischief—at least not engaged in more than ordinary mischief. But Baby Will was a natural philosopher from his birth. He displayed his wisdom by holding his peace at all times, except when very hard pressed by hunger or pain, and appeared to regard life in general in a grave, earnest, inquiring spirit. Nevertheless, we would not have it understood that Will was a slow, phlegmatic baby. By no means. His silence was deep, his gravity profound, and his earnestness intense, so that, as a rule, his existence was unobtrusive. But his energy was tremendous. What he undertook to do he usually did with all his might and main—whether it was the rending of his pinafore or the smashing of his drum!

We have said that he seldom or never cried, but he sometimes laughed, and that not unfrequently; and when he did so you could not choose but hear, for his whole soul gushed out in his laugh, which was rich, racy, and riotous. He usually lay down and rolled when he laughed, being quite incapable of standing to do it—at least during the early period of babyhood. But Will would not laugh at everything. You could not make him laugh by cooing and smirking and talking nonsense, and otherwise making an ass of yourself before him.

Maryann, the nurse, had long tried that in vain, and had almost broken her heart about it. She was always breaking her heart, more or less, about her charge, yet, strange to say, she survived that dreadful operation, and ultimately lived to an extreme old age!

“Only think,” she was wont to say to Jemima Scrubbins, her bosom friend, the monthly nurse who had attended Will’s mother, and whose body was so stiff, thin, and angular, that some of her most intimate friends thought and said she must have been born in her skeleton alone— “Only think, Jemimar, I give it as my morial opinion that that hinfant ’asn’t larfed once—no, not once—durin’ the last three days, although I’ve chirruped an’ smiled an’ made the most smudgin’ faces to it, an’ heaped all sorts o’ blandishments upon it till—. Oh! you can’t imagine; but nothink’s of any use trying of w’en you can’t do it; as my ’usband, as was in the mutton-pie line, said to the doctor the night afore he died—my ’art is quite broken about it, so it is.”

To which Jemima was wont to reply, with much earnestness—for she was a sympathetic soul, though stiff, thin, and angular— “You don’t say so, Maryhann! P’raps it’s pains.”

Whereupon Maryann would deny that pains had anything to do with it, and Jemima would opine that it was, “koorious, to say the least of it.”

No, as we have said, Baby Will would not laugh at everything. He required to see something really worth laughing at before he would give way, and when he did give way, his eyes invariably disappeared, for his face was too fat to admit of eyes and mouth being open at the same time. This was fortunate, for it prevented him for a little from seeing the object that tickled his fancy, and so gave him time to breathe and recruit for another burst. Had it been otherwise, he would certainly have suffocated himself in infancy, and this, his veracious biography, would have remained unwritten!

To creep about the house into dangerous and forbidden places, at the risk of life and limb, was our hero’s chief delight in early childhood. To fall out of his cradle and crib, to tumble down stairs, and to bruise his little body until it was black and blue, were among his most ordinary experiences. Such mishaps never drew tears, however, from his large blue eyes. After struggling violently to get over the rail of his crib, and falling heavily on the floor, he was wont to rise with a gasp, and gaze in bewilderment straight before him, as if he were rediscovering the law of gravitation. No phrenologist ever conceived half the number of bumps that were developed on his luckless cranium.

We make no apology to the reader for entering thus minutely into the character and experiences of a baby. That baby is the hero of our tale. True, it is as a young man that he is to play his part; but a great philosopher has told us that he always felt constrained to look upon children with respect; and a proverb states that, “the child is the father of the man.”

Without either pinning our faith to the philosopher or the proverb, we think it both appropriate and interesting to note the budding genius of the wanderer whose footsteps we are about to follow.

Baby Will’s mother was a gentle and loving, but weak woman. His father, William Horace Osten by name, was a large, hearty, affectionate, but coarse man. He appreciated his wife’s gentle, loving nature, but could not understand her weakness. She admired her husband’s manly, energetic spirit, but could not understand his roughness. He loved the baby, and resolved to “make a man of him.” She loved the baby, and wished to make him a “good boy.” In the furtherance of their designs the one tried to make him a lion, the other sought to convert him into a lamb. Which of the two would have succeeded can never be known. It is probable that both would have failed by counteracting each other, as is no uncommon experience when fathers and mothers act separately in such a matter. If the one had succeeded, he would have made him a bear. The other, if successful, would have made him a nincompoop. Fortunately for our hero, a higher power saved him, and, by training him in the school of adversity, made him both a lion and a lamb. The training was very severe and prolonged, however.

It was long before the lion would consent to lie down in the same breast with the lamb. Certainly it was not during the season of childhood. The lion appeared to have it all his own way during that interesting epoch, and the father was proportionately gratified, while the mother was dismayed.

Boyhood came, and with it an increased desire to rove, and a more fervent thirst for adventure. At school our hero obtained the name that stuck to him through life—“Wandering Will.” The seaport town in the west of England in which he dwelt had been explored by him in all its ramifications. There was not a retired court, a dark lane, or a blind alley, with which he was unfamiliar. Every height, crag, cliff, plantation, and moor within ten miles of his father’s mansion had been thoroughly explored by Will before he was eight years of age, and his aspiring spirit longed to take a wider flight.

“I want to go to sea, father,” said he one evening after tea, looking in his father’s face with much more of the leonine gaze than the father had bargained for. His training up to that point had been almost too successful!

This was not the first time that the boy had stated the same wish; his gaze, therefore, did not quail when his father looked up from his newspaper and said sternly— “Fiddlesticks, boy! hold your tongue.”

“Father,” repeated Will, in a tone that caused Mr Osten to lay down his paper, “I want to go to sea.”

“Then the sooner you give up the idea the better, for I won’t let you.”

“Father,” continued Will, “you remember the proverb that you’ve often told me has been your motto through life, ‘Never venture never win?’”

“Certainly; you know that I have often urged you to act on that principle at school. Why do you ask the question?”

“Because I mean to act on it now, and go to sea,” replied Will firmly.

“What? without permission, without clothes, and without money; for you shan’t have a six-pence from me?”

“Yes,” replied Will.

Mr Osten was one of those stern, despotic men who cannot bear to be thwarted. He was a rich merchant, and almost the king of the little town in which he dwelt. His greatest ambition was to make his only son a thorough man of business. To be spoken to in such a tone by that rebellious son was too much for him. He lost his temper, leaped up, and, seizing Will by the collar, thrust him out of the room.

The boy ran to his own bedroom, and, seating himself in front of the dressing-table, hit that piece of furniture with his clenched fist so violently that all its contents leaped up and rattled.

“Dear, dear Will,” said a gentle voice at his side, while a loving hand fell on his shoulder, “why do you frown so fiercely?”

“How can I help it, mother, when he treats me like that? He is harsh and unfair to me.”

“Not so unfair as you think, dear Will,” said his mother.

We will not detail the arguments by which the good lady sought to combat her son’s desires. Suffice it to say that she succeeded—as only mothers know how—in lulling the lion to sleep at that time, and in awakening the lamb. Wandering Will went back to school with a good grace, and gave up all idea of going to sea.

Chapter Two.

Records a Sudden Departure, and Maryann’s Opinion Thereon.

There is a fallacy into which men and women of mature years are apt to fall—namely, that the cares and sorrows of the young are light.

How many fathers and mothers there are who reason thus— “Oh, the child will grow out of this folly. ’Tis a mere whim—a youthful fancy, not worthy of respect,”—forgetting or shutting their eyes to the fact, that, light though the whim or fancy may be in their eyes, it has positive weight to those who cherish it, and the thwarting of it is as destructive of peace and joy to the young as the heavier disappointments of life are to themselves.

True, the cares and sorrows of the young are light in the sense that they are not usually permanent. Time generally blows them away, while the cares of later years often remain with us to the end. But they are not the less real, heavy, and momentous at the time on that account.

Those troubles cannot with propriety be called light which drive so many young men and women to rebellion and to destruction. Well would it have been for Mr Osten if he had treated his son like a rational being, instead of calling him a “young fool,” and commanding him to “obey.”

Will, however, was not an untractable young lion. He went through school and entered college, despite his unconquerable desire to go to sea, in obedience to his father’s wishes. Then he resolved to study medicine. Mr Osten regarded the time thus spent as lost, inasmuch as his son might have been better employed in learning “the business” to which he was destined; still he had no great objection to his son taking the degree of MD, so he offered no opposition; but when Will, at the age of eighteen, spoke to him of his intention to take a run to the north or south seas, as surgeon in a whaler, he broke out on him.

“So, it seems that your ridiculous old fancy still sticks to you,” said Mr Osten, in great wrath, for the recurrence of the subject was like the lacerating of an old sore.

“Yes, father; it has never left me. If you will listen for a few moments to my reasons—”

“No, boy,” interrupted his father, “I will not listen to your reasons. I have heard them often enough—too often—and they are foolish, false, utterly inconclusive. You may go to Jericho as far as I am concerned; but if you do go, you shall never darken my doors again.”

“When I was a boy, father,” said Will earnestly, “your speaking sharply to me was natural, for I was foolish, and acted on impulse. I am thankful now that I did not give way to rebellion, as I was tempted to do; but I am not now a boy, father. If you will talk calmly with me—”

“Calmly!” interrupted Mr Osten, growing still more angry at the quiet demeanour of his son; “do you mean to insinuate that—that—. What do you mean, sir?”

“I insinuate nothing, father; I mean that I wish you to hear me patiently.”

“I won’t hear you,” cried Mr Osten, rising from his chair, “I’ve heard you till I’m tired of it. Go if you choose, if you dare. You know the result.”

Saying this he left the room hastily, shutting the door behind him with a bang.

A grave, stern expression settled on the youth’s countenance as he arose and followed him into the passage. Meeting his mother there, he seized her suddenly in his arms and held her in a long embrace; then, without explaining the cause of his strong emotion, he ran down stairs and left his father’s house.

In a dirty narrow street, near the harbour of the town, there stood a small public-house which was frequented chiefly by the sailors who chanced to be in the port, and by the squalid population in its immediate neighbourhood. Although small, the Red Lion Inn was superior in many respects to its surroundings. It was larger than the decayed buildings that propped it; cleaner than the locality that owned it; brighter and warmer than the homes of the lean crew on whom it fattened. It was a pretty, light, cheery, snug place of temptation, where men and women, and even children assembled at nights to waste their hard-earned cash and ruin their health. It was a place where the devil reigned, and where the work of murdering souls was carried on continually,—nevertheless it was a “jolly” place. Many good songs were sung there, as well as bad ones; and many a rough grasp of hearty friendship was exchanged. Few people, going into the house for a few minutes, could have brought themselves to believe that it was such a very broad part of the road leading to destruction: but the landlord had some hazy notion on that point. He sat there day and night, and saw the destruction going on. He saw the blear-eyed, fuddled men that came to drown conscience in his stalls, and the slatternly women who came and went. Nevertheless he was a rosy, jocund fellow who appeared to have a good deal of the milk of human kindness about him, and would have looked on you with great surprise, if not scorn, had you told him that he had a hand in murdering souls. Yes! the Red Lion might have been appropriately styled the Roaring Lion, for it drove a roaring trade among the poor in that dirty little street near the harbour.

The gas was flaring with attractive brilliancy in the Red Lion when Will Osten entered it, and asked if Captain Dall was within.

“No, sir,” answered the landlord; “he won’t be here for half-an-hour yet.”

“A pot of beer,” said Will, entering one of the stalls, and sitting down opposite a tall, dark-countenanced man, who sat smoking moodily in a corner.

It was evident that our hero had not gone there to drink, for the beer remained untouched at his elbow, as he sat with his face buried in his hands.

The dark man in the corner eyed him steadily through the smoke which issued from his lips, but Will paid no attention to him. He was too deeply absorbed in his own reflections.

“A fine night, stranger,” he said at length, in a slightly nasal tone.

Still Will remained absorbed, and it was not until the remark had been twice repeated that he looked up with a start.

“I beg pardon; did you speak?” he said. “Well, yes,” drawled the dark man, puffing a long white cloud from his lips, “I did make an observation regardin’ the weather. It looks fine, don’t it?”

“It does,” said Will.

“You’re waitin’ for Captain Dall, ain’t you?”

“Why, how did you come to know that?” said Will.

“I didn’t come to know it, I guessed it,” said the dark man.

At that moment the door opened, and a short thick-set man, in a glazed hat and pea-jacket, with huge whiskers meeting under his chin, entered.

His eye at once fell upon the dark man, whom he saluted familiarly— “All ready, Mr Cupples?”

“All ready, sir,” replied the other; “it’s now more than half-flood; in three hours we can drop down the river with the first of the ebb, and if this breeze holds we’ll be in blue water before noon to-morrow.”

“Hallo, doctor, is that yourself?” said the captain, whose eye had for some moments rested on Will.

“It is,” said the youth, extending his hand, which the other grasped and shook warmly.

“What! changed your mind—eh?”

“Yes, I’m going with you.”

“The governor bein’ agreeable?” inquired the captain.

Will shook his head.

“Hope there ain’t bin a flare-up?” said the captain earnestly.

“Not exactly,” said Will; “but he is displeased, and will not give his consent, so I have come away without it.”

At this the jovial skipper, who was styled captain by courtesy, sat down and shook his head gravely, while he removed his hat and wiped the perspiration from his bald forehead.

“It’s a bad business to run agin the wishes of one’s parents,” he said; “it seldom turns out well; couldn’t you come round him nohow?”

“Impossible. He won’t listen to reason.”

“Ah, then, it’s of no manner of use,” said the captain, with a pitying sigh, “when a man won’t listen to reason, what’s the consequence? why he’s unreasonable, which means bein’ destitoot of that which raises him above the brutes that perish. Such bein’ the case, give it up for a bad job, that’s my advice. Come, I’ll have a bottle o’ ginger-beer, not bein’ given to strong drink, an’ we’ll talk over this matter.”

Accordingly the beer was ordered, and the three sat there talking for a couple of hours in reference to a long, long voyage to the southern seas.

After that they rose, and, leaving the Red Lion, went down to the pier, where a boat was in waiting. It conveyed them to a large ship, whose sails were hanging in the loose condition peculiar to a vessel ready to set sail. An hour after that the anchor was raised, and wind and tide carried the ship gently down to the sea. There seemed to Will something very solemn and mysterious in the quiet way in which, during these still and dark hours of the night, the great ship was slowly moved towards her ocean cradle. At length she floated on the sea, and, soon after, the moon arose on the distant horizon, streaming across the rippling surface as if to kiss and welcome an old friend. The wind increased; the ship became submissive to the breeze, obedient to the helm, and ere long moved on the waters like “a thing of life,” leaving Old England far behind her.

It was then that young Osten, leaning over the taffrail and looking wistfully back at the point where he had seen the last glimpse of the chalk cliffs, began to experience the first feelings of regret. He tried to quiet his conscience by recalling the harsh and unjustifiable conduct of his father, but conscience would not be quieted thus, and faithful memory reminded him of the many acts of kindness he had experienced at his father’s hands, while she pointed to his gentle mother, and bade him reflect what a tremendous blow this sudden departure would be to her.

Starting up and shaking off such thoughts, sternly he went below and threw himself into his narrow cot, where conscience assailed him still more powerfully and vividly in dreams. Thus did Wandering Will leave his native land.

Commenting on his sudden departure, two days afterwards, Maryann said, in strict confidence, to her bosom friend “Jemimar,” that she “know’d it would ’appen—or somethink simular, for, even w’en a hinfant, he had refused to larf at her most smudgin’ blandishments; and that she knew somethink strange would come of it, though she would willingly have given her last shilling to have prevented it, but nothink was of any use tryin’ of w’en one couldn’t do it, as her ’usband, as was in the mutton-pie line, said to the doctor the night afore he died,—and that her ’art was quite broken about it, so it was.”

Whereupon Jemima finished to the dregs her last cup of tea, and burst into a flood of tears.

Chapter Three.

Tells of the Sea, and some of the Mysteries Connected Therewith.

For many days and nights the good ship Foam sailed the wide ocean without encountering anything more than the ordinary vicissitudes and experiences of sea-life. Dolphins were seen and captured, sharks were fished for and caught, stiff breezes and calms succeeded each other, constellations in the far north began to disappear and new constellations arose in the southern skies. In fact, during many weeks the voyage was prosperous, and young Will Osten began to experience those peculiar feelings with which all travellers are more or less acquainted—he felt that the ship was “home”; that his cabin with its furniture, which had appeared so small and confined at first, was quite a large and roomy place; that all the things about him were positive realities, and that the home of his childhood was a shadow of the past—a sort of dream.

During all this time the young doctor led a busy life. He was one of those active, intelligent, inquiring spirits which cannot rest. To acquire information was with him not a duty, but a pleasure. Before he had been many days at sea he knew the name and use of every rope, sail, block, tackle, and spar in the ship, and made himself quite a favourite with the men by the earnestness with which he questioned them in regard to nautical matters and their own personal experiences. George Goff, the sail-maker, said he “was a fust-rate feller;” and Larry O’Hale, the cook, declared, “he was a trump intirely, an’ ought to have been born an Irishman.” Moreover, the affections of long Mr Cupples (as the first mate was styled by the men) were quite won by the way in which he laboured to understand the use of the sextant, and other matters connected with the mysteries of navigation; and stout Jonathan Dall, the captain, was overjoyed when he discovered that he was a good player on the violin, of which instrument he was passionately fond. In short, Will Osten became a general favourite on board the Foam, and the regard of all, from the cabin-boy to the captain, deepened into respect when they found that, although only an advanced student and, “not quite a doctor,” he treated their few ailments with success, and acted his part with much self-possession, gentleness, and precision.

Larry O’Hale was particularly eloquent in his praises of him ever after the drawing of a tooth which had been the source of much annoyance to the worthy cook. “Why, messmates,” he was wont to say, “it bait everything the way he tuk it out. ‘Open yer mouth,’ says he, an’ sure I opened it, an’ before I cud wink, off wint my head—so I thought—but faix it wor only my tuth—a real grinder wi’ three fangs no less—och! he’s a cliver lad intirely.”

But Will did not confine his inquiries to the objects contained within his wooden home. The various phases and phenomena of the weather, the aspects of the sky, and the wonders of the deep, claimed his earnest attention. To know the reason of everything was with him a species of mania, and in pursuit of this knowledge he stuck at nothing. “Never venture never win,” became with him as favourite a motto as it had been with his father, and he acted on it more vigorously than his father had ever done.

One calm evening, as he was leaning over the side of the ship near the bow, gazing contemplatively down into the unfathomable sea, he overheard a conversation between the cook and one of the sailors named Muggins. They were smoking their pipes seated on the heel of the bowsprit.

“Larry,” said Muggins, “I think we have got into the doldrums.”

“Ye’re out there, boy,” said Larry, “for I heerd the capting say we wos past ’em a long way.”

The men relapsed into silence for a time.

Then Muggins removed his pipe and said—

“Wot ever caused the doldrums?”

“That’s more nor I can tell,” said Larry; “all I know about them is, that it’s aisy to git into them, but uncommon hard to git out again. If my ould grandmother was here, she’d be able to tell us, I make no doubt, but she’s in Erin, poor thing, ’mong the pigs and the taties.”

“Wot could she tell about the doldrums?” said Muggins, with a look of contempt.

“More nor ye think, boy; sure there isn’t nothin’ in the univarse but she can spaik about, just like a book, an’ though she niver was in the doldrums as far as I knows, she’s been in the dumps often enough; maybe it’s cousins they are. Anyhow she’s not here, an’ so we must be contint with spekilation.”

“What’s that you say, Larry?” inquired the captain, who walked towards the bow at the moment.

The cook explained his difficulty.

“Why, there’s no mystery about the doldrums,” said Captain Dall. “I’ve read a book by an officer in the United States navy which explains it all, and the Gulf Stream, and the currents, an’ everything. Come, I’ll spin you a yarn about it.”

Saying this, the captain filled and lighted his pipe, and seating himself on the shank of the anchor, said—

“You know the cause of ocean currents, I dare say?”

“Niver a taste,” said Larry. “It’s meself is as innocent about ’em as the babe unborn; an’ as for Muggins there, he don’t know more about ’em than my ould shoes—”

“Or your old grandmother,” growled Muggins.

“Don’t be irriverent, ye spalpeen,” said Larry.

“I ax her reverence’s pardon, but I didn’t know she wos a priest,” said Muggins.—“Go on, Cap’n Dall.”

“Well,” continued the captain, “you know, at all events, that there’s salt in the sea, and I may tell you that there is lime also, besides other things. At the equator, the heat bein’ great, water is evaporated faster than anywhere else, so that there the sea is salter and has more lime in it than elsewhere. Besides that it is hotter. Of course, that being the case, its weight is different from the waters of the cold polar seas, so it is bound to move away an’ get itself freshened and cooled. In like manner, the cold water round the poles feels obliged to flow to the equator to get itself salted and warmed. This state of things, as a natural consequence, causes commotion in the sea. The commotion is moreover increased by the millions of shell-fish that dwell there. These creatures, not satisfied with their natural skins, must needs have shells on their backs, and they extract lime from the sea-water for the purpose of makin’ these shells. This process is called secretin’ the lime; coral insects do the same, and, as many of the islands of the south seas are made by coral insects, you may guess that a considerable lot of lime is made away with. The commotion or disturbance thus created produces two great currents—from the equator to the poles and from the poles to the equator. But there are many little odds and ends about the world that affect and modify these currents, such as depth, and local heat and cold, and rivers and icebergs, but the chief modifiers are continents. The currents flowin’ north from the Indian Ocean and southern seas rush up between Africa and America. The space bein’ narrow—comparatively—they form one strong current, on doublin’ the Cape of Good Hope, which flies right across to the Gulf of Mexico. Here it is turned aside and flows in a nor’-easterly direction, across the Atlantic towards England and Norway, under the name of the Gulf Stream, but the Gulf of Mexico has no more to do with it than the man in the moon, ’xcept in the way of turnin’ it out of its nat’ral course. This Gulf Stream is a river of warm water flowing through the cold waters of the Atlantic; it keeps separate, and wherever it flows the climate is softened. It embraces Ireland, and makes the climate there so mild that there is, as you know, scarcely any frost all the year round—”

“Blissin’s on it,” broke in Larry, “sure that accounts for the purty green face of Erin, which bates all other lands in the world. Good luck to the Gulf Stream, say I!”

“You’re right, Larry, and England, Scotland, and Norway have reason to bless it too, for the same latitudes with these places in America have a rigorous winter extendin’ over more than half the year. But what I was comin’ to was this—there are, as you know, eddies and stagnant places in ornary rivers, where sticks, leaves, and other odds and ends collect and remain fixed. So, in this great ocean river, there are eddies where seaweed collects and stagnates, and where the air above also stagnates (for the air currents are very much like those of the sea). These eddies or stagnant parts are called sargasso seas. There are several of them, of various sizes, all over the ocean, but there is one big one in the Atlantic, which is known by the name of the ‘Doldrums.’ It has bothered navigators in all ages. Columbus got into it on his way to America, and hundreds of ships have been becalmed for weeks in it since the days of that great discoverer. It is not very long since it was found out that, by keeping well out of their way, and sailing round ’em, navigators could escape the Doldrums altogether.”

The captain paused at this point, and Larry O’Hale took the opportunity to break in.

“D’ye know, sir,” said he, “that same Gulf Strame has rose a lot o’ pecooliar spekilations in my mind, which, if I may make so bowld, I’ll—”

Here the mate’s voice interrupted him gruffly with—

“Shake out a reef in that top-gall’n s’l; look alive, lads!”

Larry and his comrades sprang to obey. When they returned to their former place in the bow, the captain had left it, so that the cook’s “pecooliar spekilations” were not at that time made known.

Chapter Four.

A Storm and its Consequences.

In course of time the Foam, proceeding prosperously on her voyage, reached the region of Cape Horn—the cape of storms. Here, in days of old, Magellan and the early voyagers were fiercely buffeted by winds and waves. In later days Cook and others met with the same reception. In fact, the Cape is infamous for its inhospitality, nevertheless it shone with bright smiles when the Foam passed by, and a gentle fair-wind wafted her into the great Pacific Ocean. Never, since that eventful day when the adventurous Castilian, Vasco Nunez de Balboa, discovered this mighty sea, did the Pacific look more peaceful than it did during the first week in which the Foam floated on its calm breast. But the calm was deceitful. It resembled the quiet of the tiger while crouching to make a fatal spring.

Will Osten reclined against the top of the mainmast, to which he had ascended in order to enjoy, undisturbed, the quiet of a magnificent evening.

The sun was setting in a world of clouds, which took the form of mountains fringed with glittering gold and with shadows of pearly grey.

Oh what castles young Osten did build on these mountains, to be sure! Structures so magnificent that Eastern architects, had they seen them, would have hung their heads and confessed themselves outdone. But you must not imagine, reader, that the magnificence of all of these depended on their magnitude or richness. On the contrary, one of them was a mere cottage—but then, it was a pattern cottage. It stood in a palm-wood, on a coral island near the sea-shore, with a stream trickling at its side, and a lake full of wild fowl behind, and the most gorgeous tropical plants clustering round its open windows and door, while inside, seated on a couch, was a beautiful girl of fifteen (whom Will had often imagined, but had not yet seen), whose auburn hair shone like gold in the sun, contrasting well with her lovely complexion, and enhancing the sweetness of a smile which conveyed to the beholder only one idea—love. Many other castles were built in the clouds at that time by Will, but the cottage made the most lasting impression on his mind.

“Sleepin’?” inquired Cupples, the mate, thrusting his head through that orifice in the main-top which is technically called the “lubber’s hole.”

“No, meditating,” answered Will; “I’ve been thinking of the coral islands.”

“Humph,” ejaculated the mate contemptuously, for Cupples, although a kind-hearted man, was somewhat cynical and had not a particle of sentiment in his soul. Indeed he showed so little of this that Larry was wont to say he “didn’t belave he had a sowl at all, but was only a koorious specimen of an animated body.”

“It’s my opinion, doctor, that you’d as well come down, for it’s goin’ to blow hard.”

Will looked in the direction in which the mate pointed, and saw a bank of black clouds rising on the horizon. At the same moment the captain’s voice was heard below shouting— “Stand by there to reef topsails!” This was followed by the command to close-reef. Then, as the squall drew rapidly nearer, a hurried order was giving to take in all sail. The squall was evidently a worse one than had at first been expected.

On it came, hissing and curling up the sea before it.

“Mind your helm!—port a little, port!”

“Port it is, sir,” answered the man at the wheel, in the deep quiet voice of a well-disciplined sailor, whose only concern is to do his duty.

“Steady!” cried the captain.

The words had barely left his lips, and the men who had been furling the sails had just gained the deck, when the squall struck them, and the Foam was laid on her beam-ends, hurling all her crew into the scuppers. At the same time terrible darkness overspread the sky like a pall. When the men regained their footing, some of them stood bewildered, not knowing what to do; others, whose presence of mind never deserted them, sprang to where the axes were kept, in order to be ready to cut away the masts if necessary. But the order was not given.

Captain Dall and Will, who had been standing near the binnacle, seized and clung to the wheel.

“She will right herself,” said the former, as he observed that the masts rose a little out of the sea.

Fortunately the good ship did so, and then, although there was scarcely a rag of canvas upon her, she sprang away before the hurricane like a sea-gull.

Terrible indeed is the situation of those who are compelled to “scud under bare poles,” when He who formed the great deep, puts forth His mighty power, causing them to “stagger and be at their wits’ end.” For hours the Foam rushed wildly over the sea, now rising like a cork on the crest of the billows, anon sinking like lead into the valleys between. She was exposed to double danger; that of being cast upon one of the numerous coral reefs with which the Pacific in some parts abounds, or being “pooped” and overwhelmed by the seas which followed her.

During this anxious period little was said or done except in reference to the working of the ship. Men snatched sleep and food at intervals as they best might. At length, after two days, the gale began to abate, and the sea to go down.

“It was sharp while it lasted, captain, but it seems to have done us little harm,” said Will Osten, on the evening of the second day.

“True,” said the captain heartily; “we’ll soon repair damages and make all snug.—Is there much water in the hold, Mr Cupples?”

The mate answered gloomily that there was a good deal.

It must not be supposed that Mr Cupples’ gloominess arose from anxiety. Not at all. It was simply his nature to be gloomy. If it had been his duty to have proclaimed the approach of his own marriage, he would have done it as sadly as if it had been the announcement of his death. His thoughts were gloomy, and his tones were appropriate thereto. Even his jokes were grave, and his countenance was lugubrious.

“It is gaining on us, sir,” added Mr Cupples.

“Then get all the spare hands to work with buckets immediately,” said the captain, “and send the carpenter here; we must have the leak discovered.”

“Yes, sir,” sighed Mr Cupples, as if he had given way to despair; nevertheless, he went off actively to obey the order.

“A strange man that,” said the captain, turning to Will; “he is a capital seaman, and a kind-hearted, honest fellow, yet he is melancholy enough to throw a man into the blues.”

“He and I get on famously notwithstanding,” said Will, with a laugh. “See, he is running aft—with bad news I fear, for his face is longer if possible than—”

“Leak’s increasing, sir,” said the mate hurriedly; “we must have started a plank.”

This seemed to be too true. All hands were now plying pumps and buckets vigorously, and every effort was being made to discover the leak, but in vain. Hour by hour, inch by inch, the water gained on them, and it soon became apparent that the ship must sink.

It is difficult for those who have never been at sea to realise the feelings of men who are thus suddenly awakened to the awful fact that the vessel which has been their home for many weeks or months can no longer be counted on, and that, in a few hours, they shall be left in open boats, far from land, at the mercy of the wide and stormy sea. So terrible was the thought to those on board the Foam, that every man, from the captain to the cabin-boy, toiled for hours at the pumps in silent desperation. At last, when it was found that the water gained on them rapidly, and that there was no hope of saving the ship, the captain quietly left off working and put on his coat.

“Avast pumping, my lads,” said he, in a grave, earnest tone; the good ship is doomed, and now it behoves us to bow to the will of the Lord, and do the best we can to save our lives. Stand by to hoist out the boats. Get up bread and water, steward, and stow in them as much as you can with safety. Mr Cupples, see my orders carried out, and have the provisions properly divided among the boats. I want you, doctor, to come below, and help me to get up a few things that will be of use to us.

The prompt energy of the captain infused confidence into the men, who soon executed the orders given them. Ere long the boats were ready to be launched over the side, but this was a matter of the greatest difficulty and danger, for the sea was still running high, and the ship rolled heavily.

And now the great evil of not being provided with proper tackling to launch the boats became apparent. One of the quarter-boats was the first to be lowered; it was full of men. The order was given to lower, and it dropped on the water all right. Then the order to unhook the tackle was given. The man at the stern tackle succeeded in unhooking, but the man at the bow failed. The result was fatal and instantaneous. When the ship rose on the next wave, the boat was lifted by the bow out of the water until she hung from the davits, and a terrible cry was uttered as all the men were thrown out of her into the sea. Next moment the boat was plunged into the waves, the tackle snapt, and she was swept away.

“Lower away the long-boat!” shouted the captain.

This was eagerly and quickly done, and the mate with a number of men leaped into it. The lowering was successfully accomplished, but when they pulled to the spot where the quarter-boat had gone down, not one of those who had manned her could be found. All had perished.

The remaining four boats were lowered in safety, and all of them pulled away from the sinking ship, for latterly she had been settling down so deep that it was feared every pitch would be her last, and had she sunk while the boats were alongside, their destruction would have been inevitable. They were rowed, therefore, to a safe distance, and there awaited the end.

There was something inexpressibly sad in this. It seemed like standing at the death-bed of an old friend. The sea was still heaving violently; the gale, although moderated, was still pretty stiff, and the sun was setting in wild lurid clouds when the Foam rose for the last time—every spar and rope standing out sharply against the sky. Then she bent forward slowly, as she overtopped a huge billow. Into the hollow she rushed. Like an expert diver she went down head foremost into the deep, and, next moment, those who had so lately trod her deck saw nothing around them save the lowering sky and the angry waters of the Pacific Ocean.

Chapter Five.

Adrift on the Wide Ocean.

For some time after the disappearance of the ship, the men in the boats continued to gaze, in a species of unbelief, at the place where she had gone down. They evidently felt it difficult to realise the truth of what they had seen. The suddenness of the change and the extreme danger of their position might have shaken the stoutest hearts, for the sea still ran high and none of the boats were fitted to live in rough weather. They were, as far as could be judged, many hundreds of miles from land, and, to add to the horror of their circumstances, night was coming on.

“My lads,” said Captain Dall, sitting down in the stern of his boat, and grasping the tiller, “it has pleased the Almighty to sink our ship and to spare our lives. Let us be thankful that we didn’t go to the bottom along with her. To the best of my knowledge we’re a long way from land, and all of us will have to take in a reef in our appetites for some time to come. I have taken care to have a good supply of salt junk, biscuit, water, and lime-juice put aboard, so that if the weather don’t turn out uncommon bad, we may manage, with God’s blessing, to make the land. In circumstances of this kind, men’s endurance is sometimes tried pretty sharply, and men in distress are occasionally driven to forgetting their duty to their comrades. I tell you beforehand, lads, that I will do all that in me lies to steer you to the nearest port, and to make your lot as comfortable as may be in an open boat; but if any of you should take a fancy to having his own way, I’ve brought with me a little leaden pill-box (here the captain drew aside the breast of his coat and exposed the handle of a revolver) which will tend to keep up discipline and prevent discord. Now, lads, ship your oars and hoist the foresail close-reefed, and look alive, for it seems to me that we’ll have a squally night.”

The effect of this speech was very striking. There is nothing that men dislike so much, in critical circumstances, where action is necessary, as uncertainty or want of decision on the part of their leader. The loss of their ship, and their forlorn, almost desperate condition, had sunk their spirits so much that an air of apathetic recklessness had, for a few minutes, crossed the countenances of some of the boldest among the sailors; but while the captain was speaking this expression passed away, and when he had finished they all gave one hearty cheer, and obeyed his orders with alacrity.

In a few minutes the sails, closely reefed, were hoisted, and the long-boat rushed swiftly over the waves. At first the four boats kept company—the other three having also made sail—but as darkness set in they lost sight of each other. The first mate had charge of the jolly-boat, and the second mate and carpenter had the two others. In the captain’s boat were Will Osten, Larry O’Hale, Goff, Muggins, and several of the best seamen.

Soon after the sails were set, a heavy sea broke inboard and nearly filled the boat.

“Bail her out, lads,” shouted the captain.

There was no occasion for the order, the men knew their danger well enough, and every one seized anything that came to hand and began to bail for life. There was only one bucket on board, and this was appropriated by the cook, who, being one of the strongest men in the boat, thought himself entitled to the post of honour, and, truly, the way in which Larry handled that bucket and showered the water over the side justified his opinion of himself.

“We must rig up something to prevent that happening again,” said Captain Dall; “set to work, Goff, and cut a slice out of the tarpaulin, and nail it over the bows.”

This was done without delay, and in less than an hour a sort of half-deck was made, which turned off the spray and rendered the task of bailing much lighter—a matter of considerable importance, for, in such a sea, there was no possibility of an open boat remaining afloat without constant bailing.

At first the men talked a good deal in comparatively cheerful tones while they worked, and the irrepressible Larry O’Hale even ventured to cut one or two jokes; but when night began to cover the deep with thick darkness, one after another dropped out of the conversation, and at last all were perfectly silent, except when it became necessary to give an order or answer a question, and nothing was heard save the whistling of the wind and the gurgling of the waves as they rushed past, their white crests curling over the edge of the boat as if greedy to swallow her, and gleaming like lambent fire all around.

“This is a terrible situation,” said Will Osten, in a low tone, with an involuntary shudder. “Do you think there is much chance of our surviving, captain?”

“That’s not an easy question to answer, doctor,” replied Captain Dall, in a tone so hearty that our hero was much cheered by it. “You see, there is much in our favour as well as much against us. In the first place, this is the Pacific, and according to its name we have a right to expect more fine weather than bad, especially at this time of the year. Then we have the trade winds to help us, and our boat is a good one, with at least two weeks’ provisions aboard. But then, on the other hand, we’re a terrible long way off land, and we must count upon a gale now and then, which an open boat, however good, is not calc’lated to weather easily. See that now,” added the captain, looking back over the stern, where, from out of the darkness, Osten could just see a huge wave, like a black mountain with a snowy top, rolling towards them. “If we were only a little more down in the stern, that fellow would drop on board of us and send us to the bottom in half a minute.”

Will felt that, although the captain’s tones were reassuring, his words were startling. He was ill at ease, and clutched the seat when the billow rolled under them, raising the stern of the boat so high that it seemed as if about to be thrown completely over, but the wave passed on, and they fell back into the trough of the sea.

“Musha! but that was a wathery mountain no less,” exclaimed Larry.

“You’ve heard of Captain Bligh, Larry, I suppose?” said the captain, in a loud voice, with the intention of letting the men hear his remarks.

“May be I have,” replied Larry with caution, “but if so I misremimber.”

“He was the captain of the Bounty, whose crew mutinied and turned him adrift in an open boat in the middle of the Pacific. What I was goin’ to tell ye was, that his circumstances were a trifle worse than ours, for he was full four thousand miles from the nearest land, and with short allowance of provisions on board.”

“An’ did he make out the voyage, sur?” asked Larry.

“He did, and did it nobly too, in the face of great trouble and danger, but it’s too long a yarn to spin just now; some day when the weather’s fine I’ll spin it to ’ee. He weathered some heavy gales, too, and what one man has done another man may do; so we’ve no reason to get down-hearted, for we’re nearer land than he was, and better off in every way. I wish I could say as much for the other boats.”

The captain’s voice dropped a little in spite of himself as he concluded, for, despite the strength and buoyancy of his spirit, he could not help feeling deep anxiety as to the fate of his companions in misfortune.

Thus, talking at intervals in hopeful tones, and relapsing into long periods of silence, they spent that stormy night without refreshment and without rest. The minutes seemed to float on leaden wings, and the weary watchers experienced in its highest degree that dreary feeling—so common in the sick room—that “morning would never come.”

But morning came at length—a faint glimmer on the eastern horizon. It was hailed by Larry with a deep sigh, and the earnest exclamation—

“Ah, then, there’s the blessed sun at last, good luck to it!”

Gradually the glimmer increased into grey dawn, then a warm tint brightened up the sky, and golden clouds appeared. At last the glorious sun arose in all its splendour, sending rays of warmth to the exhausted frames of the seamen and hope to their hearts. They much needed both, for want of sleep, anxiety, and cold, had already stamped a haggard look of suffering on their faces. As the morning advanced, however, this passed away, and by degrees they began to cheer up and bestir themselves,—spreading out their clothes to dry, and scanning the horizon at intervals in search of the other boats.

About eight o’clock, as nearly as he could guess, the captain said—

“Now, lads, let’s have breakfast; get out the bread-can. Come, Larry, look alive! You’ve no cooking to do this morning, but I doubt not that your teeth are as sharp and your twist as strong as ever.”

“Stronger than iver, sur, av ye plaze.”

“I’m sorry to hear it, for you’ll have to go on short allowance, I fear.”

“Ochone!” groaned the cook.

“Never mind, Larry,” said Will Osten, assisting to spread the sea-biscuit and salt junk on one of the thwarts; “there’s a good time coming.”

“Sure, so’s Christmas, doctor, but it’s a long way off,” said Larry.

“Fetch me the scales; now then, doctor, hold ’em,” said the captain, carefully weighing out a portion of biscuit and meat which he handed to one of the men. This process was continued until all had been supplied, after which a small quantity of water and lime-juice was also measured out to each.

The breakfast was meagre, but it was much needed, and as the sea had gone down during the night and the morning was beautiful, it was eaten not only in comfort, but with some degree of cheerfulness. While they were thus engaged, Goff looked up and exclaimed suddenly, “Hallo! look here, boys!”

Every one started up and gazed in the direction indicated, where they saw something black floating on the water. The captain, who had taken the precaution before leaving the ship to sling his telescope over his shoulder, applied it to his eye, and in a few seconds exclaimed, “It’s the jolly-boat capsized! Out with the oars, boys—be smart! There’s some of ’em clinging to the keel.”

It need scarcely be said that the men seized the oars and plied them with all their might. Under the influence of these and the sail together they soon drew near, and then it was distinctly seen that three men were clinging to the boat—it followed, of course, that all the rest must have been drowned. Silently and swiftly they pulled alongside, and in a few minutes had rescued Mr Cupples and the steward and one of the sailors, all of whom were so much exhausted that they could not speak for some time after being taken on board. When they could tell what had happened, their tale was brief and sad. They had kept in sight of the long-boat while light enabled them to do so. After that they had run before the gale, until a heavy sea capsized them, from which time they could remember nothing, except that they had managed to get on the bottom of the upturned boat, to which they had clung for many hours in a state of partial insensibility.

Chapter Six.

Describes a Boat Voyage, and Touches on Coral Islands.

The gale moderated to a fresh breeze, and all that day the long-boat of the ill-fated Foam flew over the sea towards the west.

“You see,” said Captain Dall, in answer to a question put to him by Will Osten, “I don’t know exactly whereabouts we are, because there was a longish spell of dirty weather afore the Foam went down, and I hadn’t got a sight o’ the sun for more than a week; but it’s my belief that we are nearer to some of the coral islands than to the coast of South America, though how near I cannot tell. Five hundred miles, more or less, perhaps.”

“A mere trifle, sure!” said Larry, filling his pipe carefully—for his was the only pipe that had been rescued from the sinking ship, and the supply of tobacco was very small. Small as it was, however, the captain had taken the precaution to collect it all together, causing every man to empty his pockets of every inch that he possessed, and doled it out in small equal quantities. The pipe, however, could not be treated thus, so it had to be passed round—each man possessing it in turn for a stated number of minutes, when, if he had not consumed his portion, he was obliged to empty the pipe and give it up.

“It’s my turn, Larry,” cried Muggins, holding out his hand for the coveted implement of fumigation.

“No, ye spalpeen, it’s not,” said Larry, continuing to press down the precious weed, “owld Bob had it last, an’ ivery wan knows that I come after him.”

“It’s the first time I ever heard ye admit that you comed after anybody,” answered Muggins with a grin; “ye ginerally go before us all—at least ye want to.”

“Not at all,” retorted the cook; “whin there’s dirty work to be done, I most usually kape modestly in the background, an’ lets you go first, bekase it’s your nat’ral callin’. Arrah! the sun’s goin’ to set, boys,” he added with a sigh, as he commenced to smoke.

This was true, and the knowledge that another long night of darkness was about to set in depressed the spirits which had begun to revive a little. Silence gradually ensued as they sat watching the waves or gazing wistfully towards the gorgeous mass of clouds in which the sun was setting. For a considerable time they sat thus, when suddenly Will Osten started up, and, pointing towards the horizon a little to the left of the sun, exclaimed—

“Look there, captain; what’s that?”

“Land ho!” shouted Larry O’Hale at that moment, springing up on the thwart and holding on to the foremast.

All the rest leaped up in great excitement.

“It’s only a cloud,” said one.

“It’s a fog-bank,” cried another.

“I never seed a fog-bank with an edge like that,” observed old Bob, “an’ I’ve sailed the salt sea long enough to know.”

“Land it is, thank God,” said the captain earnestly, shutting up his telescope. “Get out the oars again, lads! We can’t make it before dark, but the sooner we get there the better, for landing on these coral islands isn’t always an easy job.”

The oars were got out at once, and the men pulled with a will, but it was late at night before they drew near to the land and heard the roar of the surf on the coral reef that stood as a sentinel to guard the island.

“Captain,” said Will Osten, “the wind has almost died away, yet it seems to me that the surf roars as violently as if a storm were raging.”

“That surf never goes down in those seas, doctor. Even in calm weather the swell of the big ocean gathers into a huge billow and bursts in foam upon the coral islands.”

“Surely, then,” said Will, “it must make landing both difficult and dangerous.”

“It is, sometimes, but not always,” replied the captain; “for a channel of safety has been provided, as you shall see, before long. Take the boat-hook, Goff, and look out in the bows.”

The man rose and stood up with the boat-hook ready to “fend off” if necessary.

A word or two here about the coral islands—those wonderful productions of the coral insect—may perhaps render the position of the boat and her subsequent proceedings more intelligible.

They are of all sizes and shapes. Some are small and low, like emeralds just rising out of the ocean, with a few cocoa-nut palms waving their tufted heads above the sandy soil. Others are many miles in extent, covered with large forest trees and rich vegetation. Some are inhabited, others are the abode only of sea-fowl. In many of them the natives are naked savages of the most depraved character. In a few, where the blessed gospel of Jesus Christ has been planted, the natives are to be seen, “clothed and in their right minds.” Wherever the gospel has taken root, commerce has naturally sprung up, and the evils that invariably follow in her train have in too many cases been attributed to Christianity. Poor indeed must be that man’s knowledge of the influence of Christianity, who would judge of its quality or value by the fruit of its professors. “By their fruits ye shall know them,” truly—them, but not Christianity. The world is an hospital, and life the period of convalescence. Christianity is the one grand and all-sufficient medicine. Shall we, the afflicted and jaundiced patients, still suffering from the virulence and effect of sin, condemn the medicine because it does not turn us out cured in a single day? Still, even to fruits we can appeal, mingled and confounded with crab-apples though they be.

Come, sceptic, make a trial of it. Go to the Fiji Islands; get yourself wrecked among them. Be cast into the stormy deep; buffet the waves manfully, and succeed in struggling exhausted to the shore. The savages there, if not Christianised, will haul you out of the sea, roast you, and eat you! They do this in compliance with a humane little law which maintains that all who are shipwrecked, and cast on shore, are thus to be disposed of. Ha! you need not smile. The record of this fact may be read, in unquestionable authorities, in every public library in the kingdom. Search and see.

On the other hand, go and get cast on one of the Fiji group where Christianity holds sway, and there, despite the errors, inconsistencies, and sins of its professors and enemies, the same natives will haul you out of the sea, receive you into their houses, feed and clothe you, and send you on your way rejoicing.

There is one peculiarity which applies to most of the coral islands—each is partially surrounded by a coral reef which lies at a distance from the shore varying from less than one to two miles. Outside of this reef the sea may heave tumultuously, but the lagoon within remains calm. The great breakers may thunder on the reef, and even send their spray over, for it is little above the level of the sea, and nowhere much more than a few yards in breadth, but inside all is peaceful and motionless. In this reef there are several openings, by which a ship of the largest size may enter and find a safe, commodious harbour. It is found that these openings occur usually opposite to any part of the islands where a stream flows into the sea; and the openings have frequently a little herbage, sometimes a few cocoa-nut palms growing on either side, which form a good natural land-mark to the navigator.

Towards one of these openings the long-boat of the Foam was rowed with all speed. The night was dark, but there was light sufficient to enable them to see their way. As they drew near they came within the influence of the enormous breakers, which rose like long gigantic snakes and rolled in the form of perpendicular walls to the reef, where they fell with a thunderous roar in a flood of milky foam.

Here it was necessary to exercise the utmost caution in steering, for if the boat had turned broadside on to one of these monstrous waves, it would have been rolled over and over like a cask.

“Pull gently, lads,” said the captain, as they began to get within the influence of the breakers. “I don’t quite see my way yet. When I give the word, pull with a will till I tell ye to hold on. Your lives depend on it.”

This caution was necessary, for when a boat is fairly within the grasp of what we may term a shore-going wave, the only chance of safety lies in going quite as fast as it, if not faster. Presently the captain gave the word; the men bent to their oars and away they rushed on the crest of a billow, which launched them through the opening in the reef in the midst of a turmoil of seething foam. Next moment they were rowing quietly over the calm lagoon, and approaching what appeared to be a low-lying island covered with cocoa-nut trees; but the light rendered it difficult to distinguish objects clearly. A few minutes later the boat’s keel grated on the sand, and the whole party leaped on shore.

The first impulse of some of the men was to cheer, but the feelings of others were too deep for expression in this way.

“Thanks be to God!” murmured Captain Dall as he landed.

“Amen!” said Will Osten earnestly.

Some of the men shook hands, and congratulated each other on their escape from what all had expected would prove to be a terrible death.

As for Larry O’Hale, he fell on his knees, and, with characteristic enthusiasm, kissed the ground.

“My best blissin’s on ye,” said he with emotion. “Och, whither ye be a coral island or a granite wan no matter; good luck to the insict that made ye, is the prayer of Larry O’Hale!”

Chapter Seven.

Hopes, Fears, and Prospects on the Coral Island.

Few conditions of life are more difficult to bear than that which is described in the proverb, “Hope deferred maketh the heart sick.” Day after day, week after week passed by, and every morning the unfortunate men who had been cast on the coral island rose with revived hope to spend the day in anxiety, and to lie down in disappointment.

The island proved to be a low one, not more than four miles in length by about half a mile in breadth, on which nothing grew except a few cocoa-nut palms. These afforded the wrecked crew a scanty supply of food, which, with the provisions they had brought, enabled them to live, but the prospect of a residence on such a spot was so hopeless, that they would have left it immediately had not an accident happened which deprived them of their boat.

A few mornings after landing, several of the men rose early, and, without obtaining the captain’s permission, went to fish in the lagoon, intending to surprise their comrades by bringing a supply of fresh fish. They were unsuccessful, but, supposing that their chance would be better in the open sea, they rowed through the opening in the reef. They had, however, miscalculated the size and power of the breakers that continually thundered there. The boat was heavy and unmanageable except by a strong crew. She turned broadside to the breakers, and, in a few seconds, was hurled upon the reef and dashed to pieces. The men were saved almost by a miracle. They succeeded in landing on the reef, and afterwards, with the aid of broken pieces of the wreck, swam across the lagoon to the island.

The loss was irreparable, so that they had now no hope left except in the passing of a ship or a native canoe. This latter contingency they were led to hope for by the discovery, one very clear morning, of what appeared to be the mountain tops of a cluster of islands, barely visible on the horizon. But as day after day passed without the appearance of a canoe, they came to the conclusion that these islands were not inhabited. As weeks passed by and no sail appeared, their hearts began to fail them, for the small stock of provisions was rapidly diminishing.

One morning Captain Dall ascended to the highest point on the island, where he was wont to spend the greater part of each day on the lookout. He found Will Osten there before him.

“Good-morning doctor,” said the captain, with a dash of the old hearty spirit in his voice, for he was not easily depressed; “anything in sight?”

“Nothing,” replied Will, with a degree of energy in his tone that caused the captain to look at him in surprise.

“Hallo, doctor, have you made a discovery, or have you made up your mind to swim off the island, that you speak and look so resolute this morning?”

“Yes, I have made a discovery. I have discovered that the provisions will not last us another week; that our vigour is not what it used to be; that a sort of apathy is stealing over us all; that the sands of life, in short, are running out while we are sitting idle here making no effort to help ourselves.”

“What can we do, lad?” said the captain sadly, supposing that the youth was merely giving vent to a spirit of desperation.

“I’ll tell you what we can do,” said Will, rising; “we can cut down most of the trees and make a huge pile of them, which, with the broken pieces of the long-boat to kindle them, will create a blaze that will attract the attention of the people who live on yonder island—if there be any. I know the character of South Sea islanders, but it is better to live in captivity or die by the hand of savages than to perish of hunger and thirst. Come, Captain Dall, we must stir the men up to make a last effort. Rather than die here, I will make a raft and hoist a sail on it, and commit myself to the winds and waves. What say you? Shall we try?”

“There is something in what you say, doctor,” replied the captain, pondering the subject; “at all events, no harm can come of making the attempt. I’ll go speak to the men.”

In pursuance of this intention he left the place of outlook accompanied by Will, and the result of their consultation with the men was, that in a few minutes Larry O’Hale and Mr Cupples set to work with all the energy in their natures to fell trees with the two axes they possessed. When they were exhausted, Will Osten and Goff relieved them, and then the captain and old Bob took the axes. Thus the work went on all day, and in the evening a pile of logs was raised almost as large as a medium-sized cottage.

There was something hopeful in the mere act of working with a view to deliverance that raised the spirits of the men, and when the sun began to sink towards the western horizon, they sat down to their slight meal of biscuit and cocoa-nut milk with more appetite and relish than they had experienced for many days.

“I’ve bin thinkin’,” said Larry, pausing in the midst of his supper.

“Well, wot have ’ee bin thinkin’, lad?” said Muggins, wiping his mouth with the sleeve of his coat and wishing for more food—but wishing in vain, for he had finished his allowance—“you’re a good deal given to thinkin’, but there’s not much ever comes on it, ’xcept wind in the shape o’ words.”

“And what’s words,” retorted the cook, in supreme contempt, “but the expression o’ sintiment, widout which there wouldn’t have bin nuthin’ wotsomediver in the univarse? Sintiment is the mother of all things, as owld Father O’Dowd used to say to my grandmother whin he wanted to come the blarney over her. It was a philosopher sintimentilisin’ over a tay-kittle, I’m towld, as caused the diskivery o’ the steam-ingine; it was a sintimintal love o’ country as indooced Saint Patrick to banish the varmin from Ireland, an’ it was religious sintiment as made Noah for to build the Ark, but for which nother you nor me would have bin born to git cast upon a coral island. Sintiment is iverything, Muggins, and of that same there isn’t more in your whole body than I cud shove into the small end of a baccy-pipe. But to return to the pint: I’ve bin thinkin’ as to whether it would be best to set a light to this here little pile in the daylight or in the dark, bekase, in the wan case it’s the smoke that would call attintion, an’ in the other case it’s the flame.”

“That is true, Larry,” said the captain; “I’m inclined to think it would be better seen at night, fire being more powerful than smoke.”

“But they’re more likely to be asleep at night, and to miss seein’ it,” observed Cupples, in a hollow tone.

It may be remarked in passing, that the mate’s voice had become much more sepulchral and his aspect more cadaverous since his arrival on the island.

“True for ye,” chimed in Larry; “an’ who knows, if they did see it, but they might take it for the moon in a fog—or for a volkainy?”

“Wouldn’t the best way to settle the matter be to kindle the fire just now, before it grows dark,” suggested Will Osten, “so that they will have a chance of seeing the smoke, and then, when it grows dark, the fire will be getting brighter?”

“Right, doctor, you’re right. Come, we’ll put the light to it at once,” cried the captain, rising. “Hand me the match-box, Mr Cupples; it’s in the head o’ the bread cask.”

The whole party rose and went to the pile of timber, which was on the highest part of the islet and towered to a height of nearly twelve feet. Captain Dall applied a match to the tarry pieces of the long-boat, which had been placed at the foundation, and the flames at once leaped up and began to lick greedily round the timber, winding through the interstices and withering up the leaves. Soon a thick smoke began to ascend, for much of the timber in the pile was green, and before the sun had set a dense black cloud was rising straight up like a pillar and spreading out into the sky. As the fire gathered strength, a great tongue of flame flashed up ever and anon into the midst of the rolling cloud and rent it for a single instant; by degrees those tongues waged fierce war with the smoke. They shot through it more and more frequently, licked and twined round it—in and out—until they gained the mastery at last, and rose with a magnificent roar into the heavens. Then it was that Larry O’Hale gave vent to his excitement and admiration in an irrepressible shout, and his comrades burst into a mingled cheer and fit of laughter, as they moved actively round the blazing mass and stirred it into fiercer heat with boat-hooks and oars.

When night had closed in, the brilliancy of the bonfire was intense, and the hopes of the party rose with the flames, for they felt certain that any human beings who chanced to be within fifty miles of them could not fail to see the signal of distress.

So the greater part of the night was passed in wild excitement and energetic action. At last, exhausted yet hopeful, they left the bonfire to burn itself out and sat down to watch. During the first half-hour they gazed earnestly over the sea, and so powerfully had their hopes been raised, that they expected to see a ship or a boat approaching every minute. But ere long their hopes sank as quickly as they had been raised. They ceased to move about and talk of the prospect of speedy deliverance. The hearts of men who have been long exposed to the depressing influence of “hope deferred,” and whose frames are somewhat weakened by suffering and insufficient food, are easily chilled. One after another they silently crept under the sail, which had been spread out in the form of a tent to shelter them, and with a sigh lay down to rest. Weariness and exposure soon closed their eyes in “kind Nature’s sweet restorer—balmy sleep,” and the coral island vanished utterly from their minds as they dreamed of home, and friends, and other days. So, starving men dream of sumptuous fare, and captives dream of freedom.

Will Osten was last to give way to the feeling of disappointment, and last to lie down under the folds of the rude tent. He was young, and strong, and sanguine. It was hard for one in whose veins the hot blood careered so vigorously to believe in the possibility of a few days reducing him to the weakness of infancy—harder still for him to realise the approach of death; yet, when he lay meditating there in the silence of the calm night, a chill crept over his frame, for his judgment told him that if a merciful God did not send deliverance, “the end” was assuredly drawing very nigh.

Chapter Eight.

In which our Hero Suggests a Plan which gets the Party out of one Difficulty but Plunges them into Another.

How long Wandering Will would have lain in the midst of his slumbering comrades, indulging in gloomy reveries, it is impossible to say, for he was suddenly startled out of them by the appearance of a black object on the sea, at a considerable distance from the shore. Will’s couch was near the open entrance to the tent, and from the spot where his head lay pillowed on his coat, he could see the lagoon, the opening in the reef, and the ocean beyond. He rose softly, but quickly, and went out to assure himself that his disturbed fancy had not misled him. No—there could be no doubt about it. Grey dawn was already breaking, and enabled him to see it distinctly—a dark moving speck on the sea far outside the reef. It could not be a gull or sea-bird, he felt persuaded; neither was it a ship, for his eye during the voyage had become a practised one in observing distant vessels. It might be a boat!

Full of this idea, and trembling with hope and anxiety, he returned to the tent, and gently awoke the captain.

“Sh! don’t speak,” he whispered, laying his hand on the captain’s mouth.

“I’m convinced it is a boat,” continued Will, as he stood beside the now smouldering fire, while the captain gazed long and earnestly through his telescope at the object on the sea.

“You’re only half-right,” said the other, with unusual seriousness, as he handed the glass to his companion; “it’s a canoe—a large one, I think, and apparently full of men; but we shan’t be left long in doubt as to that; our fire has evidently attracted them, and now we must prepare for their reception.”

“Do you then doubt their friendliness?” asked Will, returning the glass to the captain, who again examined the approaching canoe carefully.

“Whether they shall turn out to be friends or foes, doctor, depends entirely on whether they are Christians or heathens. If the missionaries have got a footing amongst ’em, we are saved; if not—I wouldn’t give much for our chance of seeing Old England again.”

The captain’s voice dropped as he said this, and his face was overspread with an expression of profound gravity.

“Do you really believe in all the stories we have heard of the blood-thirstiness of these savages, and their taste for human flesh?” asked Will, with some anxiety.

“Believe them!” exclaimed the captain, with a bitter, almost ferocious laugh; “of course I do. I have seen them at their bloody work, lad. It’s all very well for shore-goin’ folk in the old country to make their jokes about ‘Cold missionary on the sideboard,’ and to sing of the ‘King of the Cannibal Islands;’ but, as sure as there is a sky over your head, and a coral island under your feet, so certainly do the South Sea savages kill, roast, and eat their enemies, and so fond are they of human flesh that, when they can’t get hold of enemies, they kill and eat their slaves. Look, you can make out the canoe well enough now without the glass; she’s makin’ straight for the opening in the reef. The sun will be up in half an hour, and they’ll arrive about the same time. Come, let us rouse the men.”

Hastening down to the tent, the captain raised the curtain, and shouted hoarsely—

“Hallo, lads, turn out there—turn out. Here’s a canoe in sight—look alive!”

Had a bomb-shell fallen into the midst of the sleepers, it could scarcely have produced more commotion among them. Every one sprang up violently.

“Hooroo!” shouted Larry O’Hale, “didn’t I say so? Sure it’s mysilf was draimin’ of ould Ireland, an’ the cabin in the bog wi’ that purty little crature—” He stopped abruptly, and added, “Och! captain dear, what’s wrong?”

“Hold you tongue, Larry, for a little, and keep your cheerin’ till you have done fightin’, for it’s my opinion we may have something to do in that way ere long.”

“Faix, it’s mysilf as can enjoy a taste o’ that too,” said Larry, buttoning his jacket and turning up his cuffs.

By this time the canoe was approaching the passage in the reef, and the whole party hastened to the beach, where they held a hasty council of war, for it was now clear that the canoe was one of the largest size—capable of holding nearly a hundred men—and that it was quite full of naked savages. In a few words the captain explained to the men the character of the islanders, as ascertained by himself on previous voyages, and showed how hopeless would be their case if they turned out to be heathens.

“Now,” said he, “we are fifteen in number, all told, with two muskets, one pistol, three or four cutlasses, and a small supply of ammunition. If these men prove to be enemies, shall we attack them, and try to take their canoe, or shall we at once lay down our arms and trust to their generosity? Peace or war, that’s the question?”

Larry at once declared for war, and several of the more fiery spirits joined him, among whom was Will Osten; for the young doctor shrank with horror from the idea of being roasted and eaten!

“I vote for peace,” said the mate gloomily.

“Sure, Mr Cupples,” exclaimed Larry, “I wonder at that, for it’s little pace ye gave us aboord the Foam.”

“It’s not possible,” continued the mate—taking no notice of the cook’s remark, nor of the short laugh which followed it—“it’s not possible for fifteen men, armed as we are, to beat a hundred savages, well supplied with clubs and spears—as I make no doubt they are—so I think we should trust to their friendliness.”

“Bah!” whispered Larry to the man next him; “he knows that he’s too tough and dry for any savage in his siven sinses to ait him, cooked or raw, and so he hopes to escape.”

“Mr Cupples is right, lads,” said the captain; “we’d have no chance in a fair fight, an’ though I make no doubt we should kill double our number in the scrimmage, what good would that do?”

Some of the men here seconded the captain; the others began to waver, and it was finally decided that they should at least begin with pacific advances.

When the council broke up, the sailors went down to the water’s edge and awaited her arrival. As she came nearer, it became apparent that she was a war-canoe fill with warriors. Steadily and swiftly she advanced to within a short distance of the shore. Then the paddlers suddenly ceased, and she was allowed to drift slowly in, while a splendid looking savage stood up in the bow with a shield on his left arm and a javelin in his right hand.

The chief, for such he evidently was, wore no clothing, except a piece of native cloth round his loins; but his whole body was elaborately tatooed with various devices; and this species of decoration, coupled with the darkness of his skin, did away very much with the appearance of nakedness. He seemed as if he had been clothed in a dark skin-tight dress. But the most conspicuous part about him was the top of his head, on which there seemed to be a large turban, which, on closer inspection, turned out to be his own hair curled and fizzed out artificially. Altogether he was an imposing and gigantic fellow.

When about fifty yards from the shore, the savages checked the canoe’s progress and stood up. Now was the time for action, so, according to previous arrangement, the sailors laid their weapons down on the beach, and held up their hands, at the same time making such signs of friendship as they thought would be understood. The savages, who were quick-witted fellows, at once ran the canoe ashore, leaped out, and hastened towards the white men.

As they did so, Captain Dall put his telescope to his eye for a moment, wishing to scan closely the features of the chief. Instantly the whole band turned with a howl, and, making towards the canoe, jumped in and pushed off.

“Ha!” exclaimed the captain, with a smile, “these fellows have been fired at by Europeans before now. They evidently mistook my telescope for a musket.”

The savages paused, and again faced about at a short distance from the beach, and the captain sought by every imaginable sign and gesticulation to remove the bad impression he had so innocently created. He succeeded. In a short time the natives again landed and advanced towards them. On drawing near, the chief stopped and made a short speech—which, of course, none of the white men understood. To this Captain Dall replied in a short speech—which, of course, none of the natives understood. Both parties looked very amiably, however, at each other, and by degrees drew closer together, when the natives began to manifest much curiosity in reference to the costume of the sailors. Soon they became more familiar, and the truth of the proverb, that, “familiarity breeds contempt,” was quickly illustrated by one of the savages seizing hold of the musket which Larry O’Hale carried. The hot blood of the Irishman instantly fired.

“Let go, ye dirty bit o’ mahogany,” he cried, holding the musket tight with his left hand, and clenching his right in a threatening manner.

Captain Dall, foreseeing what would be the result of a blow, sought to create a diversion by raising his telescope to his eye. The quick-sighted savage observed the motion, let go his hold of the musket and shrank behind his comrades, who, however, did not appear disposed to screen him, for they all began to dodge behind each other until the telescope was lowered.

The temporary distraction of attention which this incident caused emboldened another savage to pounce upon the other musket, which was carried by old Bob. He wrenched it out of the sailor’s hand and bounded away with a shout, swinging it over his head. Unfortunately his fingers touched the trigger and the piece exploded, knocking down the man who held it, and sending the ball close past the chief’s ear.

Instantly there followed a loud yell, clubs were brandished, cutlasses gleamed, and blood would certainly have been spilt had not Captain Dall suddenly seized the chief by the shoulders and rubbed noses with him. He knew this to be the mode of salutation among some of the South Sea tribes, and sought to make a last effort at conciliation. The act was reciprocated by the chief, who signed to his men to forbear.

Captain Dall now felt convinced that any undecided course of action would only render their case more desperate, so he turned to his men with a look of authority and said sternly—

“My lads, we have only one hope left to us, and that is, submission. Throw down your weapons, and put your trust in the Almighty.”

The men obeyed—some with hesitation and others sullenly; they flung their cutlasses on the sand and crossed their arms on their breasts. No sooner was this done than the savages rushed upon them in overwhelming numbers, and they were instantly overpowered. Larry O’Hale and Will Osten, with some of the younger men, struggled fiercely, and knocked down several of their opponents before they were subdued, but against such overwhelming odds they had no chance. It would have been better for them had they acted on the captain’s advice. Whatever is worth doing is worth doing well, and this truth is not less applicable to the act of submission than to that of resistance. The only result of their ill-timed display of valour was the tighter fastening of the cords with which the savages bound them hand and foot, and somewhat rough handling when they, with their comrades, were tossed into the bottom of the canoe.

After the sailors were secured, the natives collected the provisions that had been brought by them to the island, and stowed these also in the canoe. This occupied a considerable time, for they were so careful to avoid missing anything, that they ranged over the whole island, examining every part minutely, and leaving nothing behind that had the slightest appearance of value in their eyes. During all this time the white men were left lying in the water which had leaked into the canoe. Indeed, the valiant Larry would certainly have been drowned, but for the aid extended to him by our hero, for he chanced to have been thrown into the canoe with his face downwards near the stern, and as the water gradually settled down there from the prow, which was raised on the sand, it covered his mouth. Fortunately Will, who was near him, managed to assist the unfortunate man in his struggles so as to enable him to rest his head on the blade of a paddle!

When everything belonging to the crew of the Foam had been collected, the savages returned to their canoe, re-launched her, paddled out to sea, and ere long left the little coral island out of sight behind them.

Chapter Nine.

Contains an Account of the Desperate Circumstances of the Prisoners.

Five hours passed away, during which the savages continued to paddle almost without intermission, and our hero with his friends lay fast bound in the bottom of the canoe. They suffered great pain from the swelling of their limbs and the tightening of the cords that bound them; but although Larry O’Hale, in the exasperation of his spirit, gave vent to one or two howls, accompanied by expressions that were the reverse of complimentary, no attention was paid to them until the island towards which they steered was reached.

The instant the canoe touched the sand the captives were lifted out—their hands and feet were tied together in a bunch, and, each being slung on a stout pole as one might sling a bundle, they were carried up to a native village on the margin of a wood. On the way, Wandering Will could see that the beach swarmed with natives—a fact, however, of which his ears had already assured him, for the air was filled with yells of delight as the captives were successively lifted out of the canoe. He also observed that the island appeared to be a large one, for he got a glimpse of a huge mountain rising over the tree tops. Neither he nor any of his comrades, however, had time to make many observations, for they were hurried up the beach and into the village, where they were thrown down under a rudely built hut which was covered with broad leaves.

Here the cords that fastened them were unloosed; but if this for a moment raised the hope that they were about to be set free, they were quickly undeceived by the savages, who rebound their hands behind them. Our hero, Captain Dall, Mr Cupples, Larry O’Hale, and Muggins, were then fastened with cords of cocoa-nut fibre to the several posts of the hut in such a manner that they could stand up or lie down at pleasure. George Goff, old Bob, and the others were led away. Seeing that they were about to be separated, Captain Dall suddenly called out, “Farewell, lads,” in a tone so sad, that Goff looked back at him in surprise, but his captors forced him away before he could reply.

“You think we won’t see them again?” said Osten, when they were left alone.

“I think not. From what I know of those savages, I fear they have taken our comrades away to be sacrificed, and that our own time will soon come.”

Something between a groan and a growl escaped from O’Hale when this was said.

“Cudn’t we break thim ropes, and run amuck amongst the murtherin’ blackguards,” he exclaimed, seizing the rope that bound him with his teeth and endeavouring to tear it—an effort which it is needless to say was futile, and nearly cost him a tooth.

“It’s of no use, Larry,” said the captain; “we can’t help ourselves. If the Lord don’t help us, we’re dead men.”

Although Will Osten was much depressed, not to say alarmed, by what he heard, he could not help wondering why the captain had so suddenly lost his buoyant spirit. At the time when a slow death by starvation had stared him in the face, he had not only retained his own heartiness of spirit, but had kept up wonderfully the spirits of his companions. Now, however—when, as Will thought, they had the chance of escaping by stratagem or by force from their captors, or, at the worst, of selling their lives dearly—his spirit seemed to have utterly forsaken him. Yet the captain was only despondent—not despairing. He had seen the deeds of savages in former years, and knew that with them there was seldom a long period between the resolve to kill and the accomplishment of the crime. He feared for the lives of his shipmates, and would have given his right hand at that moment to have been free to aid them, but the attempts of himself and his comrades to break their bonds were fruitless, so, after making one or two desperate efforts, they sat down doggedly to await their fate.

It might have been a curious study to have noted the different spirit in which these unfortunate men submitted to their unavoidable doom on that occasion. The captain sat down on a log of wood that chanced to be near him, folded his hands quietly on his knees, allowed his head to sink forward on his chest, and remained for a long time quite motionless. Will Osten, on the other hand, stood up at first, and, leaning his head on his arm against the wall of the hut, appeared to be lost in reverie. Doubtless he was thinking of home; perhaps reproaching himself for the manner and spirit in which he had quitted it—as many a poor wanderer has done before when too late! He quickly changed his thoughts, however, and, with them, his position: sat down and got up frequently, frowned, clenched his hands, shook his head, stamped his foot, bit his lips, and altogether betrayed a spirit ill at ease. Mr Cupples, whose soul had from the moment of their capture given way to the deepest possible dejection, lay down, and, resting his elbow on the floor and his head on his hand, gazed at his comrades with a look so dreadfully dolorous that, despite their anxiety, they could hardly suppress a smile. As for Muggins and O’Hale, the former, being a phlegmatic man and a courageous, sat down with his back against the wall, his hands thrust into his pockets, and a quid in his cheek, and shook his head slowly from side to side, while he remarked that every one had to die once, an’ when the time came no one couldn’t escape and that was all about it! Poor Larry O’Hale could not thus calm his mercurial spirit. He twisted his hard features into every possible contortion, apostrophised his luck, and his grandmother, and ould Ireland in the most pathetic manner, bewailed his fate, and used improper language in reference to savages in general, and those of the South Seas in particular, while, at intervals, he leaped up and tried to tear his bonds asunder.

Thus several hours were spent. Evening approached, and darkness set in; still no one came near the prisoners. During this period, however, they heard the continual shouting and singing of the savages, and sometimes caught a glimpse of them through crevices between the logs of which the hut was built. It was not possible for them to ascertain what they were about, however, until night set in, when several large fires were lighted, and then it could be seen that they were feasting and dancing. Suddenly, in the midst of the din, an appalling shriek was heard. It was quickly succeeded by another and another. Then the yells of the revellers increased in fury, and presently a procession of them was observed approaching the hut, headed by four men bearing a sort of stage on their shoulders.

The shrieks had struck like a death-chill to the hearts of the prisoners. No one spoke, but each had recognised familiar tones in the terrible cries. For the first time some of them began to realise the fact that they were really in the hands of murderers, and that the bloody work had actually begun. Great drops of sweat rolled down the face of Muggins as he gazed in horror through one of the crevices, and his broad chest heaved convulsively as he exclaimed, “God be merciful to us, it’s George Goff!” This was too true. On the stage, carried by four natives, sat the unfortunate seaman. It required no second glance to tell that his spirit had fled, and that nothing but a corpse sat swaying there, supported by means of a pole, in a sitting posture. The cannibals were conveying it to their temple, there to cut it up and prepare it for that dreadful feast which is regarded as inexpressibly repulsive by all the human race except these islanders of the South Seas, who, incredible though it may appear, absolutely relish human flesh as a dainty morsel.

At sight of this, poor Will Osten, who had never quite believed in such terrible things, sank down on his knees with a deep groan, and, for the first time in his life, perhaps, prayed earnestly.

O’Hale’s spirit blazed up in ungovernable fury. Like a wild beast, he tore and wrenched at the rope which bound him, and then, finding his efforts unavailing, he flung himself on the ground, while deep sobs burst at intervals from his oppressed heart.

A few minutes elapsed; then there was a rush of footsteps without, accompanied by fierce yells and the waving of torches. The prisoners leaped up, feeling almost instinctively that there hour had come. A moment later and the hut was filled with natives. All were naked, with the exception of a small piece of cloth round their loins. They were tatooed, however, and painted nearly from head to foot.

The prisoners were instantly seized and overpowered, and preparations were being rapidly made to carry them away, when a shout was heard outside, and a remarkably tall, powerful, and thickly painted savage sprang in. He pushed the natives violently aside, and gave some stern orders to those who held the prisoners. The immediate result was, that the latter were released and allowed to rise, although their hands were still bound behind them. Meanwhile the tall savage, standing beside them, harangued his comrades with great energy of tone and action.

While this was going on, Larry O’Hale whispered excitedly to his companions—

“Howld on, lads, a bit. Sure I’ve burst the ropes at last. The moment I git howld o’ that blackguard’s knife I’ll cut yer lashin’s. Stand by for a rush.”

As Larry spoke, the tall savage drew the knife referred to from his girdle, and, glancing over his shoulder, said in English—

“Keep quiet, lads. I’ll do my best to save ’ee; but if you offer to fight, you’re dead men all in five minutes.”

Amazement, if no other feeling had operated, would have rendered the prisoners perfectly quiet after that. They waited in deep anxiety and wonder, while the tall savage continued his harangue, at the conclusion of which his hearers uttered an expressive grunt or growl, as if of assent, and then they all filed out of the hut, leaving the prisoners alone with their deliverer.

Chapter Ten.

Our Hero and his Comrades in Distress Become Savage Warriors for the Nonce.

“Friend,” said Captain Dall, taking the hand of the tall savage in his and speaking with some emotion, “you have been sent as our deliverer, I know, but how a South Sea islander should happen to befriend us, and how you should come to speak English as well as ye do, is more than I can understand.”

“Onderstand!” exclaimed Larry; “it’s past belaif. It baits cock-fightin’ intirely.”

A grim smile crossed the painted face of the savage, as he said somewhat hurriedly:—

“I’m no more a South Sea islander than you are, lads, but this is not the time for explanations. It’s enough for you to know, in the meantime, that I’m an Englishman, and will befriend you if you agree to obey me.”

“Obey ye!” cried Larry with enthusiasm, “blissin’s on yer painted mug, it’s warship ye we will, av ye only git us out o’ this scrape.”

“That’s so,” said Muggins, nodding his head emphatically, while Mr Cupples, in tones of the most awful solemnity, and with a look that cannot be described, vowed eternal friendship.

“Well, then,” said the tall man, “we have no time to waste, for you are in a greater fix just now than ye think for. About myself it’s enough to know that I’m a runaway sailor; that I made my way among these fellers here by offering to join ’em and fight for ’em, and that I won their respect at first by knocking down, in fair stand-up fight, all the biggest men o’ the tribe. I don’t think they would have spared me even after that, but I curried favour with the chief and married one of his daughters. Now I’m a great man among them. I didn’t hear of your having been brought here till half an hour ago, havin’ bin away with a war party in canoes. I returned just too late to save your comrades.”

“What! are they all dead?” asked Will Osten.

“Ay, all, and if you don’t follow them it will only be by attending to what I tell you. My name is Buchanan, but the savages can only manage to make Bukawanga out o’ that. The word means fire, and ain’t a bad one after all!”

The man smiled grimly as he said this, and then resumed, more rapidly and sternly than before:—

“You have but one chance, and that is to join us. I have come to the village with the news that a neighbouring tribe is about to attack us. If you agree to help us to fight, I may manage to save you; if not your case is hopeless. There is no time for consideration. Ay or no, that’s the word.”

“Sure I’ll jine ye, Mr Bukkie Whangy,” said Larry O’Hale, “wid all the pleasure in life. It’s always for fightin’ I am, at laist whin—”

“I don’t like to shed human blood,” said Captain Dall, interrupting, “where I’ve no quarrel.”

“Then your own must be shed,” said Bukawanga firmly.

“There’s no help for it, captain,” said Will Osten. “’Tis better to fight for these men than to be murdered by them. What say you, Mr Cupples?”

“War,” replied the mate emphatically.

“Ditto,” said Muggins, nodding his head and buttoning his jacket.

“Then strip, and we’ll paint you right off,” said Bukawanga; “look alive, now!”

He fastened the torch which he held in his hand to a beam of the hut, and cut the bonds of the prisoners; then, going to the door, he summoned two men, who came in with a basket made of leaves, in which were several cocoa-nut shells filled with red, white, and black earth, or paint.

“What!” exclaimed Will Osten, “must we fight without clothing?”

“An’ wid painted skins?” said Larry.

“Yes, unless you would be a special mark for the enemy,” replied Bukawanga; “but you have no chance if you don’t become in every way like one of us.”

Seeing that the man was in earnest, they were fain to submit. After removing their clothes, the natives began diligently to paint them from head to foot, laying on the colours so thickly, and in such bold effective strokes, that ere long all appearance of nudity was removed. Man is a strange being. Even in the midst of the most solemn scenes he cannot resist giving way at times to bursts of mirth. Philosophy may fail to account for it, and propriety may shudder at it, but the fact is undeniable. With death hovering, they knew not how near, over them, and the memory of the fearful things they had just witnessed strong upon them, they were compelled, now and then, to smile and even to laugh aloud, as the process of painting went on. There was some variety in the adornment of each, but let that of Larry O’Hale serve as an example. First of all his legs were rubbed all over with white earth, and his body with yellow. Then, down each lower limb, behind, a palm-tree was drawn in red—the roots beginning at his heels, and the branches above spreading out on his calves. Various fanciful devices were drawn on his breast and arms, and some striking circles on his back. Last of all, one-half of his face was painted red, and the other half black, with a stripe of white extending from the root of his hair down to the point of his nose. It is needless to say that during the process the enthusiastic Irishman commented freely on the work, and offered many pieces of advice to the operator. Indeed, his tendency to improve upon existing customs had well-nigh put an end to the friendly relations which now subsisted between the white men and the natives, for he took a fancy to have a red stripe down each of his legs. Either the native did not understand him, or would not agree to the proposal, whereupon Larry took the brush and continued the work himself. At this the savage indignantly seized him by the arm and pinched him so violently that he lost temper, and, thrusting the red brush into the native’s face, hurled him to the ground. There was a yell and a rush at once, and it is probable that blood would have been shed had not Bukawanga interposed.

When the painting was completed, their protector led the white men (now no longer white!) to the hut of the chief. Bukawanga was received somewhat coldly at first. The chief, a large, fine-looking old man, named Thackombau, with an enormous head of frizzled hair, looked askance at the newcomers, and was evidently disposed to be unfriendly. Observing this, and that the warriors around him scowled on them in a peculiarly savage manner, most of the prisoners felt that their lives hung, as it were, upon a thread. The aspect of things changed, however, when their friend stood up and addressed the assembly.

Bukawanga had not yet said a word about the cause of his sudden return from the war expedition. It was, therefore, with much concern that the chief and his men learned that a neighbouring and powerful tribe, with which they had always been at enmity, were actually on the way to attack them; and when Bukawanga talked of the needful preparations for defence, and, pointing to the prisoners, said that they were his countrymen, able to fight well, and willing to help them, there was a perceptible improvement in the looks of the party. Finally, Thackombau condescended to rub noses with them all, and they were ordered off to another hut to have supper. This latter arrangement was brought about by their deliverer, who knew that if they remained to sup with the natives they would be shocked, and, perhaps, roused to some act of desperate violence, by the horrible sight of portions of the bodies of their poor comrades, which, he knew, were to be eaten that night. He therefore sought to divert their thoughts from the subject by sitting down and relating many anecdotes connected with his own adventurous history, while they partook of a meal of which they stood much in need.

The dishes, although new to them, were by no means unpalatable. They consisted of baked pig and yams served on banana leaves, and soup in cocoa-nut shells. Also a dish made of taro-tops, and filled with a creamy preparation of cocoa-nut done in an oven. Bread-fruits were also served, and these tasted so like the crumb of wheaten loaf, that it was difficult to believe them to be the fruit of a tree. For drink they had the juice of the young cocoa—a liquid which resembles lemonade, and of which each nut contains about a tumblerful. There was also offered to them a beverage named ava, which is intoxicating in its nature, and very disgusting in its preparation. This, however, Bukawanga advised them not to touch.

“Now, Mr Bukkie Whangy,” said Larry, after having appeased his appetite, “if I may make so bowld as to ax—how came ye here?”

“The story is short enough and sad enough,” replied his new friend. “The fact is, I came here in a sandal-wood trader’s ship; I was so disgusted with the captain and crew that I ran away from them when they touched at this island for water. ’Tis eight years ago now, and I have bin here ever since. I have regretted the step that I took, for the devilry that goes on here is ten times worse than I ever saw aboard ship. However, it’s too late for regret now.”

“Ah! too late,” murmured Will Osten, and his thoughts leaped back to England.

“The worst of it is,” continued the runaway sailor, “that I have no chance of gettin’ away, for the cruelty of sailors to the natives of this island has rendered them desperate, and they murder every white man they can get hold of. Indeed there would have been no chance for you but for the breaking out of war, and the fact that they are somewhat short of fightin’ men just now. Not long after I landed on the island, an American whaler sent her boats ashore for water. They quarrelled, somehow, with the natives, who drove them into their boats with tremendous hooting and yells and some hard blows, although no blood was spilt. Well, what did the scoundrels do but pulled aboard their ship, brought their big guns to bear on the people, and fired on several villages—killing and wounding a good many of ’em, women and children among the rest. That’s the way these fellows set the natives against white men. It was all I could do to prevent them from knocking out my brains after the thing happened.”

While Bukawanga was speaking, a great commotion was heard outside.

“They’re gettin’ ready for action,” he said, springing up. “Now, lads, follow me. I’ll get you weapons, and, hark-’ee,” he added, with a somewhat peculiar smile, “I heerd some of ’ee say ye don’t want to spill blood where ye have no quarrel. Well, there’s no occasion to do so. Only act in self-defence, and that’ll do well enough; d’ye understand?”

The man gave vent to a short chuckle as he said this, and then, leading his countrymen from the hut, conducted them towards a temple, near to which a large band of warriors was busily engaged in making preparations for the approaching fight.

Chapter Eleven.

A Fight, which Results in a Mistake and a Hasty Flight.

The horrors of war are neither agreeable to write about nor to reflect upon. However much, therefore, it may disappoint those readers whose minds delight to wallow in the abominations of human cruelty, we will refrain from entering into the full particulars of the sanguinary fight that ensued just after the arrival of Wandering Will and his friends in the island. It is sufficient to say that many lives were lost. Of course the loss of life bore no proportion to that which occurs in civilised warfare. One roar from the throats of our terrific engines of destruction will sometimes send more souls into eternity in one moment than all the fierce fury of a hundred savages can accomplish in an hour. But what the savage lacks in power he more than makes up for in cruelty and brutality. During the few days in which the fight raged, the sights that met the eyes of the white men, and the appalling sounds that filled their ears, turned their hearts sick, and induced a longing desire to escape.

The war was carried on chiefly in the way of bush fighting. Our sailors found this mode of warfare convenient, for it enabled them to act very much as spectators. Passing over the details of the brief campaign, we touch only on those points which affected the subsequent movements of the whites.

Bukawanga, who virtually acted the part of commander-in-chief, although all the chiefs considered themselves above him, moved about actively at all times to make sure that the village was properly guarded at every point. While thus employed he had, on one occasion, to pass through a piece of scrub, or thick bush, in which he heard the shriek of a woman. Turning aside he came to an opening where a man was endeavouring to kill a little boy, whose mother was doing her best to defend him. He evidently wished to kill the child and to spare the woman, but she stooped over the child and warded off the blows with her arms so cleverly, that it was still uninjured, although the poor mother was bleeding profusely from many wounds. Bukawanga instantly rushed to the rescue, and raised his club to deal the savage a deadly blow. Unobserved by him, however, another savage had been attracted to the spot, and, seeing what was about to happen, he ran up behind Bukawanga and felled him with a blow of his club. During the scuffle the woman snatched up her boy and escaped. The two savages then began to dispute as to which had the best right to cut off the head of their fallen foe and carry it away in triumph. Both of them were much fatigued with fighting, so they sat down on the back of the prostrate seaman to conduct the discussion more comfortably. The point was still undecided when Bukawanga recovered consciousness, felt the heavy pressure on his back and loins, and heard part of the interesting dialogue!

It chanced, at this point, that Will Osten and Larry O’Hale, who, from natural affinity or some other cause, always kept together, came to the spot and peeped through the bushes. Seeing two men sitting on the body of a third and engaged in an animated dispute, they did not see cause to interfere, but remained for a few minutes almost amused spectators of the scene, being utterly ignorant, of course, as to the purport of their dispute. Suddenly, to their great surprise, they beheld the two men leap into the air; the supposed dead body sprang up, and, before either savage could use his weapons, each received a strong British fist between his eyes and measured his length on the sward, while the conqueror sprang over them into the bush and disappeared.

“Man alive!” exclaimed Larry, “if it isn’t Bukkie Whangy himself! Och, the murtherin’ daimons!”

With that Larry leaped over the bushes flourishing his club and yelling like a very savage. But Will Osten was before him. Both savages had risen immediately after being knocked down, and now faced their new enemies. They were no match for them. Being expert in all athletic exercises, young Osten found no difficulty in felling the first of the men, while Larry disposed of the other with equal celerity. The Irishman’s blood had fired at the thought of the narrow escape of his deliverer, and, still whirling his club round his head, he looked about eagerly as if desirous of finding another foe on whom to expend his fury. At that moment he caught sight of a pair of savage eyes gleaming at him from the bushes.

“Hah! ye dirty polecat,” he cried, throwing his club at the eyes with all his force.

Never was there a worse aim or a better shot! The club flew high into the air and would have fallen some fifty yards or more wide of the mark, had it not touched the limb of a tree in passing. It glanced obliquely down, and, striking the owner of the eyes between the shoulders felled him to the earth.

Larry sprang upon him with a yell of triumph, but the yell was changed into a howl of consternation when he made the discovery that he had knocked down, if not killed, one of the principal chiefs of the village! To say that poor O’Hale wrung his hands, and wished bad luck to fightin’ in general, and to himself in particular, gives but a feeble idea of the distress of his mind at this untoward event.

“D’ye think I’ve kilt him intirely, doctor dear?” he asked of Will Osten, who was on his knees beside the fallen chief examining his hurt.

“No, not quite. See, he breathes a little. Come, Larry, the moment he shows symptoms of reviving we must bolt. Of course he knows who knocked him down, and will never forgive us.”

“That’s true, O murther!” exclaimed Larry, with a mingled look of contrition and anxiety.

“Depend upon it they’ll kill us all,” continued Osten.

“And bake an’ ait us,” groaned Larry.

“Come,” said Will, rising hastily as the stunned chief began to move, “we’ll go search for our comrades.”

They hurried away, but not before the chief had risen on one elbow and shaken his clenched fist at them, besides displaying a terrible double row of teeth, through which he hissed an unintelligible malediction.

They soon found their comrades, and related what had occurred. A hurried council of war was held on the spot, and it was resolved that, as a return to the village would ensure their destruction, the only chance of life which remained to them was to take to the mountains. Indeed, so urgent was the necessity for flight, that they started off at once, naked though they were, and covered with blood, paint, and dust, as well as being destitute of provisions.

All that night they travelled without halt, and penetrated into the wildest fastnesses of the mountains of the interior. Bukawanga had already told them, during intervals in the fight when they had met and eaten their hasty meals together, that the island was a large, well wooded, and fruitful one—nearly thirty miles in diameter; and that the highest mountain in the centre was an active volcano. There were several tribes of natives on it, all of whom were usually at war with each other, but these tribes dwelt chiefly on the coast, leaving the interior uninhabited. The fugitives, therefore, agreed that they should endeavour to find a retreat amongst some of the most secluded and inaccessible heights, and there hide themselves until a ship should chance to anchor off the coast, or some other mode of escape present itself.

The difficulties of the way were greater than had been anticipated. There was no path; the rocks, cliffs, and gullies were precipitous; and the underwood was thick and tangled, insomuch that Mr Cupples sat down once or twice and begged to be left where he was, saying that he would take his chance of being caught, and could feed quite well on cocoa-nuts! This, however, was not listened to. Poor Cupples was dragged along, half by persuasion and half by force. Sailors, as a class, are not celebrated for pedestrian powers, and Cupples was a singularly bad specimen of his class. Muggins, although pretty well knocked up before morning, held on manfully without a murmur. The captain, too, albeit a heavy man, and fat, and addicted to panting and profuse perspiration, declared that he was game for anything, and would never be guilty of saying “die” as long as there was “a shot in the locker.” As for Larry O’Hale, he was a man of iron mould, one of those giants who seem to be incapable of being worn out or crushed by any amount of physical exertion. So far was he from being exhausted, that he threatened to carry Mr Cupples if he should again talk of falling behind. We need scarcely say that Wandering Will was quite equal to the occasion. Besides being a powerful fellow for his age, he was lithe, active, and hopeful, and, having been accustomed to hill-climbing from boyhood, could have left the whole party behind with ease.

Grey dawn found the fugitives far up the sides of the mountains—fairly lost, as Muggins said, in a waste howlin’ wilderness. It was sunrise when they reached the top of a high cliff that commanded a magnificent view of land and sea.

“A good place this for us,” said the captain, wiping his forehead as he sat down on a piece of rock. “The pass up to it is narrow; two or three stout fellows could hold it against an army of savages.”

“Av there was only a cave now for to live in,” said Larry, looking round him.

“Wot’s that?” exclaimed Muggins, pointing to a hole in the perpendicular cliff a short distance above the spot where they stood.—“Ain’t that a cave?”

Will Osten clambered up and disappeared in the hole. Soon after he re-appeared with the gratifying intelligence that it was a cave, and a capital dry one; whereupon they all ascended, with some difficulty, and took possession of their new home.

Chapter Twelve.

Shows how South Sea Missionaries do their Work, and that if the Whites can Surprise the Natives the Latter can Sometimes Astonish the Whites!

For three months did Wandering Will and his friends remain concealed in the mountains. Of course they were pursued and diligently sought for by the natives, and undoubtedly they would have been discovered had the search been continued for any length of time, but to their great surprise, after the first week of their flight, the search was apparently given up. At all events, from that period they saw nothing more of the natives, and gradually became more fearless in venturing to ramble from the cave in search of food. They puzzled over the matter greatly, for, to say the least of it, there appeared to be something mysterious in the total indifference so suddenly manifested towards them by the savages; but although many were the guesses made, they were very far from hitting on the real cause.

During this period they subsisted on the numerous fruits and vegetables which grew wild in great abundance on the island, and spent their days in gathering them and hunting wild pigs and snaring birds. As Larry was wont to observe with great satisfaction, and, usually, with his mouth full of victuals—

“Sure it’s the hoith o’ livin’ we have—what with cocky-nuts, an’ taros an’ bananas, an’ young pigs for the killin’, an’ ginger-beer for the drinkin’, an’ penny loaves growin’ on the trees for nothin’, wid no end o’ birds, an’ pots ready bilin’, night an’ day, to cook ’em in—och! it would be hiven intirely but for the dirty savages, bad luck to ’em!”

There was more truth in Larry’s remark than may be apparent at first sight. Vegetation was not only prolific and beautiful everywhere, but exceedingly fruitful. The bread-fruit tree in particular supplied them with more than they required of a substance that was nearly as palatable and nutritious as bread. Captain Dall fortunately knew the method of cooking it in an oven, for the uncooked fruit is not eatable. The milk of the young cocoa-nuts was what the facetious Irishman referred to under the name of ginger-beer; but his remark about boiling pots was literally correct. The summit of that mountainous island was, as we have already said, an active volcano, from which sulphurous fumes were constantly issuing—sometimes gently, and occasionally with violence.

Several of the springs in the neighbourhood were hot—a few being almost at the boiling point, so that it was absolutely possible to boil the wild pigs and birds which they succeeded in capturing, without the use of a fire! Strange to say, they also found springs of clear cold water not far from the hot springs.

There is a species of thin tough bark round the upper part of the stem of the cocoa-nut palm—a sort of natural cloth—which is much used by the South Sea islanders. Of this they fashioned some rude but useful garments.

“It seems curious, doesn’t it,” said Will Osten to Captain Dall, one day, referring to these things and the beauty of the island, “that the Almighty should make such a terrestrial paradise as this, and leave it to be used, or rather abused, by such devils in human shape?”

“I’m not sure,” answered the captain slowly, “that we are right in saying that He has left it to be so abused. I’m afraid that it is we who are to blame in the matter.”

“How so?” exclaimed Will, in surprise.

“You believe the Bible to be the Word of God, don’t you?” said Captain Dall somewhat abruptly, “and that its tendency is to improve men?”

“Of course I do; how can you ask such a question?”

“Did you ever,” continued the captain pointedly, “hear of a text that says something about going and teaching all nations, and have, you ever given anything to send missionaries with the Bible to these islands?”

“I—I can’t say I ever have,” replied Will, with a smile and a slight blush.

“No more have I, lad,” said the captain, smiting his knee emphatically; “the thought has only entered my head for the first time, but I do think that it is we who leave islands such as this to be abused by the human devils you speak of, and who, moreover, are not a whit worse—nay, not so bad—as many civilised human devils, who, in times not long past, and under the cloak of religion, have torn men and tender women limb from limb, and bound them at the stake, and tortured them on the rack, in order to make them swallow a false creed.”

This was the commencement of one of the numerous discussions on religion, philosophy, and politics, with which the echoes of that cavern were frequently awakened after the somewhat fatiguing labours of each day’s chase were over, for a true Briton is the same everywhere. He is a reasoning (if you will, an argumentative) animal, and our little band of fugitives in those mountain fastnesses was no exception to the rule.

Meanwhile, two events occurred at the native village which require notice. Their occurrence was not observed by our friends in hiding, because the summit of the mountain completely shut out their view in that direction, and they never wandered far from their place of retreat.

The first event was very sad, and is soon told. One morning a schooner anchored off the village, and a party of armed seamen landed, the leader of whom, through the medium of an interpreter, had an interview with the chief. He wished to be permitted to cut sandal-wood, and an agreement was entered into. After a considerable quantity had been cut and sent on board, the chief wanted payment. This was refused on some trivial ground. The savages remonstrated. The white men threatened, and the result was that the latter were driven into their boats. They pulled off to their vessel, loaded a large brass gun that occupied the centre of the schooner’s deck, and sent a shower of cannister shot among the savages, killing and wounding not only many of the men, but some of the women and children who chanced to be on the skirt of the wood. They then set sail, and, as they coasted along, fired into several villages, the people of which had nothing to do with their quarrel.

Only a week after this event another little schooner anchored off the village. It was a missionary ship, sent by the London Missionary Society to spread the good news of salvation through Christ among the people. Some time before, a native teacher—one who, on another island, had embraced Christianity, and been carefully instructed in its leading truths—had been sent to this island, and was well received; but, war having broken out, the chief had compelled him to leave. A second attempt was now being made, and this time an English missionary with his wife and daughter were about to trust themselves in the hands of the savages.

They could not have arrived at a worse time. The islanders, still smarting under a sense of the wrong and cruelty so recently done them, rushed upon the little boat of the schooner, brandishing clubs and spears, the instant it touched the land, and it was with the utmost difficulty that the missionary prevailed on them to stay their hands and give him a hearing. He soon explained the object of his visit, and, by distributing a few presents, so far mollified the people that he was allowed to land, but it was plain that they regarded him with distrust. The tide was turned in the missionary’s favour, however, by the runaway sailor, Buchanan, or Bukawanga. That worthy happened at the time to be recovering slowly from the effects of the wound he had received in the fight, which had so nearly proved to be his last. On hearing of the arrival of strangers he feared that the savages would kill them out of revenge, and hastened, weak and ill though he was, to meet, and, if possible, protect them. His efforts were successful. He managed to convince the natives that among Christians there were two classes—those who merely called themselves by the name, and those who really did their best to practise Christianity; that the sandal-wood traders probably did not even pretend to the name, but that those who had just arrived would soon give proof that they were of a very different spirit. The result of this explanation was, that the chiefs agreed to receive the missionary, who accordingly landed with his family, and with all that was necessary for the establishment of a mission.

Those who have not read of missionary enterprise in the South Seas can form no conception of the difficulties that missionaries have to contend with, and the dangers to which they are exposed on the one hand, and, on the other, the rapidity with which success is sometimes vouchsafed to them. In some instances, they have passed years in the midst of idolatry and bloody rites, the mere recital of which causes one to shudder, while their lives have hung on the caprice of a volatile chief; at other times God has so signally blessed their efforts that a whole tribe has adopted Christianity in the course of a few weeks. Misunderstand us not, reader. We do not say that they all became true Christians; nevertheless it is a glorious fact that such changes have occurred; that idolatry has been given up and Christianity embraced within that short period, and that the end has been the civilisation of the people; doubtless, also, the salvation of some immortal souls.

In about two months after their arrival a marvellous change had taken place in the village.

The natives, like very children, came with delight to be taught the use of the white man’s tools, and to assist in clearing land and building a cottage. When this was finished, a small church was begun. It was this busy occupation that caused the savages to forget, for a time, the very existence of Wandering Will and his friends; and if Bukawanga thought of them, it was to conclude that they had taken refuge with one of the tribes on the other side of the island.

That which seemed to amuse and delight the natives most in the new arrivals was the clothing which was distributed among them. They proved very untractable, however, in the matter of putting it on. One man insisted on putting the body of a dress which had been meant for his wife on his own nether limbs—thrusting his great feet through the sleeves, and thereby splitting them to the shoulder. Another tied a tippet round his waist, and a woman was found strutting about in a pair of fisherman’s boots, and a straw bonnet with the back to the front!

One of the chiefs thus absurdly arrayed was the means of letting the fugitive white men have an idea that something strange had occurred at the village. This man had appropriated a scarlet flannel petticoat which had been presented to his mother, and, putting it on with the waist-band tied round his neck, sallied forth to hunt in the mountains. He was suddenly met by Larry O’Hale and Will Osten.

“Musha! ’tis a ow-rangy-tang!” cried the Irishman.

His companion burst into a fit of loud laughter. The terrified native turned to flee, but Larry darted after him, tripped up his heels, and held him down.

“Kape quiet, won’t ye?” he said, giving the struggling man a severe punch on the chest.

The savage thought it best to obey. Being allowed to get on his legs he was blindfolded, and then, with Will grasping him on one side, and the Irishman on the other, he was led up to the mountain-cave, and introduced to the family circle there, just as they were about to sit down to their mid-day meal.

Chapter Thirteen.

Remarkable Changes For The Better.

It will not surprise the reader to be told that the savage with the red flannel petticoat tied round his neck was received with shouts of laughter by the inmates of the cave, and that his costume filled them with mingled feelings of astonishment and curiosity. The information obtained from him by signs did not enlighten them much, but it was sufficient to convince them that something unusual had occurred at the native village, and to induce Will Osten to act in accordance with his favourite motto.

“I tell you what, comrades,” said he, after a few minutes’ deliberation, “I have made up my mind to go back to the village with this red-coated gentleman, and see whether they are all decked out in the same fashion. To tell the truth, I have been thinking for some time back that we have been living here to no purpose—”

“Only hear that, now,” said Larry O’Hale, interrupting; “haven’t we bin livin’ like fightin’ cocks, an’ gettin’ as fat as pigs? Why, Mr Cupples hisself begins to throw a shadow on the ground whin the sun’s pretty strong; an’ as for Muggins there—”

“You let Muggins alone,” growled the seaman; “if we are fatterer, p’raps it’ll only be for the good o’ the niggers when they come to eat us.”

“Well, well,” said Will; “at all events we shall never escape from this place by remaining here—(‘True for ye,’ said Larry)—therefore I shall go to the village, as I have said. If they receive me, well and good; I will return to you. If not—why, that’s the end of me, and you’ll have to look out for yourselves.”

As usual an energetic discussion followed this announcement. The captain said it was madness, Mr Cupples shook his head and groaned, Muggins thought that they should all go together and take their chance, and Larry protested that he would sooner be eaten alive than allow his comrade to go without him; but in time Will Osten convinced them all that his plan was best.

What would be the good of the whole of them being killed together, he said—better that the risk should fall on one, and that the rest should have a chance of escape. Besides, he was the best runner of the party, and, if he should manage to wriggle out of the clutches of the savages, would be quite able to outrun them and regain the cave. At length the youth’s arguments and determination prevailed, and in the afternoon he set off accompanied by his sable friend in female attire.

On nearing the village, the first thing that greeted the eyes of our hero was a savage clothed in a yellow cotton vest and a blue jacket, both of which were much too small for him; he also had the leg of a chair hung round his neck by way of ornament.

This turned out to be the principal chief of the village, Thackombau, and a very proud man he obviously was on that occasion. To refrain from smiling, and embrace this fellow by rubbing noses with him, was no easy matter, but Will Osten did it nevertheless. While they were endeavouring to converse by signs, Will was suddenly bereft of speech and motion by the unexpected appearance of a white man—a gentleman clothed in sombre costume—on whose arm leaned a pleasant-faced lady! The gentleman smiled on observing the young man’s gaze of astonishment, and advancing, held out his hand.

Will Osten grasped and shook it, but still remained speechless.

“Doubtless you are one of the party who escaped into the hills lately?” said the gentleman.

“Indeed I am, sir,” replied Will, finding words at last, and bowing to the lady; “but from what star have you dropt? for, when I left the village, there were none but savages in it!”

“I dropt from the Star of Hope,” answered the gentleman, laughing. “You have hit the mark, young sir, nearer than you think, for that is the name of the vessel that brought me here. I am a missionary; my name is Westwood; and I am thankful to say I have been successful in making a good commencement on this island. This is my wife—allow me to introduce you—and if you will come with me to my cottage—”

“Cottage!” exclaimed Will.

“Ay, ’tis a good and pretty one, too, notwithstanding the short time we took to build it. The islanders are smart fellows when they have a mind to labour, and it is wonderful what an amount can be done when the Lord prospers the work. These good fellows,” added the missionary, casting a glance at the two natives, “who, as you see, are somewhat confused in their ideas about dress, have already done me much service in the building of the church—”

“Church!” echoed Will.

Again the missionary laughed, and, offering his arm to his wife, turned towards the village, saying—

“Come, Mr Osten—you see I know your name, having heard of you from your friend Buchanan—come, I will show you what we have been about while you were absent; but first—tell me—how fares it with your comrades?”

Will Osten at once entered into a full account of the doings of himself and his friends, and had just concluded, when he was once more rendered speechless by the sight of the missionary’s cottage. It was almost the realisation of the waking dream which had captivated him so much on the evening when the storm arose that proved fatal to the Foam. He was still gazing at it in silent admiration, listening to an enthusiastic account of the zeal and kindness of the natives who helped to build it, when a young girl, apparently bordering on seventeen or eighteen years of age, with nut-brown curls, rosy cheeks, and hazel eyes, sprang out and hastened to meet them.

“Oh, father,” she exclaimed, while the colour of her face came and went fitfully, “I’m so glad you have come! The natives have been so—so—”

“Not rude to you, Flora, surely?” interrupted the missionary.

“No, not exactly rude, but, but—”

Flora could not explain! The fact turned out to be that, never having seen any woman so wonderfully and bewitchingly beautiful before, the natives had crowded uninvited into the cottage, and there, seated on their hams round the walls, quietly gazed at her to their hearts’ content—utterly ignorant of the fact that they were violating the rules of polite society!

Will Osten, to his disgrace be it said, violated the same rules in much the same way, for he continued to gaze at Flora in rapt admiration until Mr Westwood turned to introduce her to him.

That same evening Bukawanga, accompanied by Thackombau, went to the mountain-cave, and, having explained to its occupants the altered state of things at the village, brought them down to the mission-house where they took up their abode.

It need scarcely be said that they were hospitably received. Mr Westwood had not met with countrymen for many months, and the mere sight of white faces and the sound of English voices were pleasant to him. He entertained them with innumerable anecdotes of his experiences and adventures as a missionary, and on the following morning took them out to see the church, which had just been begun.

“Already,” said Mr Westwood, as they were about to set forth after breakfast, “my wife and Flora have got up a class of women and girls, to whom they teach needle-work, and we have a large attendance of natives at our meetings on the Sabbath. A school also has been started, which is managed by a native teacher who came with me from the island of Raratonga, and most of the boys in the village attend it.”

“But it does seem to me, sir,” said Captain Dall, as they sauntered along, “that needle-work and book-learning can be of no use to such people.”

“Not of much just now, captain, but these are only means to a great end. Already, you see, they are beginning to be clothed—fantastically enough at present, no doubt—and I hope ere long to see them in their right mind, through the blessed influence of the Bible. Look there,” he added, pointing to an open space in the forest, where the four walls of a large wooden building were beginning to rise; “there is evidence of what the gospel of Jesus Christ can do. The labourers at that building are, many of them, bitter enemies to each other. Only yesterday we succeeded in getting some of the men of the neighbouring village to come and help us. After much persuasion they agreed, but they work with their weapons in their hands, as you see.”

This was indeed the case. The men who had formerly been enemies were seen assisting to build the same church. They took care, however, to work as far from each other as possible, and were evidently distrustful, for clubs and spears were either carried in their hands, or placed within reach, while they laboured.

Fortunately, however, they restrained their passions at that time, and it is due to them to add that before that church was finished their differences were made up, and they, with all the others, ultimately completed the work in perfect harmony, without thinking it necessary to bring their clubs or spears with them.

The reader must not suppose that all missionary efforts in the South Seas have been as quickly successful as this one. The records of that interesting region tell a very different tale; nevertheless there are many islands in which the prejudices of the natives were overcome almost at the commencement, and where heathen practices seemed to melt away at once before the light of the glorious gospel.

During two months, Wandering Will and the wrecked seamen remained here assisting the missionary in his building and other operations. Then an event occurred which sent them once more afloat, and broke the spell of their happy and busy life among the islanders.

Chapter Fourteen.

Contains more than one Surprise, and Touches on “Love’s Young Dream.”

One quiet and beautiful Sabbath morning, the inhabitants of the South Sea Island village wended their way to the House of God which they had so recently erected. Among them were Will Osten and his friends, with the clergyman’s wife and daughter.

Poor Wandering Will was very unhappy. The sunshine was bright, the natives were blithe, and the birds were joyous, but our hero was despondent! The fact was that he had fallen head and ears in love with Flora Westwood, and he felt that he might as well have fallen in love with the moon—as far as any chance of getting married to her was concerned. Will was therefore very miserable, and, like all ardent and very youthful lovers, he hugged his misery to his bosom—rather enjoyed it, in fact, than otherwise. In short, if truth must be told, he took pleasure in being miserable for her sake! When he allowed himself to take romantic views of the subject, and thought of the heights of bliss that might be attained, he was, so to speak, miserably happy. When he looked the stern realities in the face, he was miserably sad.

That Sabbath morning poor Will felt more impressed than ever with the hopelessness of his case, as he walked slowly and silently to church beside the modest Flora and her mother. He also became impressed with the ridiculousness of his position, and determined to “overcome his weakness.” He therefore looked at Flora with the intention of cutting a joke of some sort, but, suddenly recollecting that it was Sunday, he checked himself. Then he thought of getting into a serious talk, and was about to begin, when his eye happened to fall on Thackombau, who, in honour of the day, had got himself up with unusual care, having covered his shoulders with a cotton jacket, his loins with a lady’s shawl, and his head with a white night-cap—his dark tatooed legs forming a curious and striking contrast to the whole.

Before Will could think of another mode of opening the conversation, they had arrived at the church, and here, in front of the open door, there lay the most singular contribution that ever was offered to the cause of Christianity. Many dozens of church-door plates rolled into one enormous trencher would have been insufficient to contain it, for it was given not in money (of course) but in kind. There were a number of lengths of hollow bamboo containing cocoa-nut oil, various fine mats and pieces of native cloth, and sundry articles of an ornamental character, besides a large supply of fruits and vegetables, with four or five baked pigs, cold and ready for table! The entire pile was several feet in diameter and height, and was a freewill offering of the natives to the church—the beginning of a liberality which was destined in future years to continue and extend—a species of liberality which is by no means uncommon among the South Sea Islanders, for there are some of those who were savage idolators not many years ago who now give annually and largely to the support of the missions with which their churches are connected.

Larry O’Hale had just made a remark in reference to “the plate” which was not conducive to the gravity of his companions, when the echoes of the mountains were awakened by a cannon-shot, and a large ship was seen to round the point of land that stretched out to the westward of the island. Instantly the natives poured out of the church, rushed down to the shore, launched their canoes and paddled over the lagoon to meet the vessel, which, running before a stiff breeze, soon entered the natural gateway in the reef. The congregation having dispersed thus unceremoniously, the clergyman and his friends were compelled to postpone service for a time.

The ship which had created such a sensation in the village, was also the means of causing great disturbance in sundry breasts, as shall be seen. She had called for water. Being in a hurry, her captain had resolved not to waste time by conciliating the natives, but, rather, to frighten them away by a cannonade of blank cartridge, land a strong party to procure water while they were panic-stricken, and then up anchor and away. His surprise was great, therefore, when the natives came fearlessly off to him (for he had been warned to beware of them), and he was about to give them a warm reception, when he caught a glimpse of the small spire of the new church, which at once explained the cause of the change.

With rollicking good humour—for he was a strong healthy man with a sleeping conscience—Captain Blathers, on landing, swaggered up to the clergyman and shook him heartily and gratefully by the hand, exclaiming, with a characteristic oath, that he had not much opinion of religion in his own country, but he was bound to say it was “a first-rate institootion in the South Seas.”

Mr Westwood rebuked the oath and attempted to correct the erroneous opinion, but Captain Blathers laughed, and said he knew nothing about these matters, and had no time for anything but getting fresh water just then. He added that he had “a batch of noosepapers, which he’d send ashore for the use of all and sundry.”

Accordingly, off he went about his business, and left the clergyman and natives to return to church, which they all did without delay.

That night the missionary went on board the ship to see the captain and preach to the crew. While he was thus engaged, our friends, Captain Dall, Mr Cupples, O’Hale, Muggins, and Wandering Will, in a retired part of the forest, held an earnest conversation as to whether they should avail themselves of the arrival of the ship to quit the island. Captain Dall had already spoken with Captain Blathers, who said he was quite willing to let them work their passage to England.

“Now, you see, comrades,” said Captain Dall, thrusting his right fist into his left palm, “the only trouble is, that he’s not goin’ direct home—got to visit the coast of South America and San Francisco first, an’ that will make it a long voyage.”

“But, sure,” said Larry, “it won’t be so long as waitin’ here till next year for the missionary schooner, and then goin’ a viage among the islands before gettin’ a chance of boording a homeward-bound ship?”

“That’s so,” said Muggins, with a nod of approval. “I says go, ov coorse.”

Mr Cupples also signified that this was his opinion.

“And what says the doctor?” asked Captain Dall, turning to Will Osten with an inquiring look.

“Eh? well, ah!” exclaimed Will, who had been in a reverie, “I—I don’t exactly see my way to—that is—if we only could find out if she is—is to remain here always, or hopes some day to return to England—”

Poor Will stopped in sudden confusion and blushed, but as it was very dark that did not matter much.

“What does the man mean?” exclaimed Captain Dall. “How can she remain here always when she’s to be off at daybreak—?”

“True, true,” interrupted Will hurriedly, not sorry to find that his reference to Flora was supposed to be to the ship. “The fact is, I was thinking of other matters—of course I agree with you. It’s too good an opportunity to be missed, so, good-night, for I’ve enough to do to get ready for such an abrupt departure.”

Saying this, he started up and strode rapidly away.

“Halloo!” shouted Larry after him; “don’t be late—be on the baich at daybreak. Arrah he’s gone mad intirely.”

“Ravin’,” said Muggins, with a shake of his head as he turned the quid in his cheek.

Meanwhile Wandering Will rushed he knew not whither, but a natural impulse led him, in the most natural way, to the quiet bay, which he knew to be Flora’s favourite walk on moonlight nights! The poor youth’s brain was whirling with conflicting emotions. As he reached the bay, the moon, strange to say, broke forth in great splendour, and revealed—what!—could it be?—yes, the graceful figure of Flora! “Never venture,” thought Will, “never—”

In another moment he was by her side; he seized her hand; she started, suppressed a scream, and tried to free her hand, but Will held it fast. “Forgive me, Flora, dearest girl,” he said in impassioned tones, “I would not dare to act thus, but at daybreak I leave this island, perhaps for ever! yet I cannot go without telling you that I love you to distraction, that—that—oh! say tell me—”

At that moment he observed that Flora blushed, smiled in a peculiar manner, and, instead of looking in his face, glanced over his shoulder, as if at some object behind him. Turning quickly round, he beheld Thackombau, still decked out in his Sunday clothes, gazing at them in open-mouthed amazement.

Almost mad with rage, Will Osten rushed at him. The astonished savage fled to the woods, Will followed, and in a few minutes lost himself! How he passed that night he never could tell; all that he could be sure of was that he had wandered about in distraction, and emerged upon the shore about daybreak. His appointment suddenly recurring to him, he ran swiftly in the direction of the village. As he drew near he observed a boat pushing off from the shore.

“Howld on!” shouted a well-known voice; “sure it’s himself after all.”

“Come along, young sir, you’re late, and had well-nigh lost your passage,” growled Captain Blathers.

Will jumped into the boat and in a few minutes found himself on board the Rover, which, by the time he reached it, was under weigh and making for the opening in the reef.

Another hour, and the island was a mere speck on the horizon. Gradually it faded from view; and the good ship, bending over to the freshening breeze, bounded lightly away over the billows of the mighty sea.

The End.

Table of Contents

The Battle and the Breeze by R. M. Ballantyne

R.M. Ballantyne

"The Battle and the Breeze"

Chapter One.

Touches on our Hero’s Early Life, Experiences, and Adventures.

Chapter Two.

Commences the Story.

Chapter Three.

Bill is Initiated into the Duties of his new Station.

Chapter Four.

Our Hero and his Friends see Service.

Chapter Five.

Nelson Hunts the French.

Chapter Six.

The Battle of the Nile.

English Ships.

French Ships.

Chapter Seven.

Battle of the Nile—continued.

Chapter Eight.

Our Hero and his Messmate get into Trouble.

Chapter Nine.

Bill and Ben set their Brains to Steep with Unconquerable Perseverance.

Black Ivory by Ballantyne

Preface.

Chapter One.

Chapter Two.

Chapter Three.

Chapter Four.

Chapter Five.

Chapter Six.

Chapter Seven.

Chapter Eight.

Chapter Nine.

Chapter Ten.

Chapter Eleven.

Chapter Twelve.

Chapter Thirteen.

Chapter Fourteen.

Chapter Fifteen.

Chapter Sixteen.

Chapter Seventeen.

Chapter Eighteen.

Chapter Nineteen.

Chapter Twenty.

Chapter Twenty One.

Chapter Twenty Two.

Chapter Twenty Three.

Chapter Twenty Four.

Chapter Twenty Five.

The Crew of the Water Wagtail by R. M Ballantyne

COVER

TITLE PAGE

Chapter One. A Rough Beginning.

Chapter Two. The Adventurers Land on the Island.

Chapter Three. First Experiences on the Island.

Chapter Four. Strange VisitorsDark PlotsAnd Evil Purposes.

Chapter Five. Turned Adrift in a Foreign Land.

Chapter Six. Difficulties met and Overcome.

Chapter Seven. They Begin their Travels in Earnest.

Chapter Eight. Beautiful Scenes and Strange Experiences.

Chapter Nine. Their New Acquaintance Becomes Interested and Practical.

Chapter Ten. Ollys First Salmon and Hendricks Home.

Chapter Eleven. The Hunters Home.

Chapter Twelve. A Surprise, a Fight, and a War Party.

Chapter Thirteen. Unlooked-for Interruptions and Difficulties.

Chapter Fourteen. Tells of a Tremendous Storm and a Strange Shelter, etcetera.

Chapter Fifteen. Grummidge asserts himselfGreat Discoveries are made and the Crew flits.

Chapter Sixteen. A Giant DiscoveredNew Home At Wagtail BayA Strange Addition to the Settlement.

Chapter Seventeen. Has Reference to Food and a Great Fight.

Chapter Eighteen. Tells of Death and Disaster.

Chapter Nineteen. A New Friend with Startling News.

Chapter Twenty. The Rescue Party—A Rencontre and Bad News.

Chapter Twenty One. Old Friends in a Sad Plight.

Chapter Twenty Two. Tells of Terrible SuspenseViolent Intentions and Religious Discussion.

Chapter Twenty Three. Deliverance.

Chapter Twenty Four. The Last.

Fighting the Whales by R. M Ballantyne

COVER

TITLE PAGE

FRONTPIECE

List of Illustrations

CHAPTER I

CHAPTER II

CHAPTER III

Illus: TOM LOKINS RAISED THE HARPOON

CHAPTER IV

CHAPTER V

Illus: HURLED IT BLAZING INTO THE SEA

CHAPTER VI

CHAPTER VII

Illus: IN A MOMENT I WAS OVERBOARD

CHAPTER VIII

CHAPTER IX

CHAPTER X

The Lifeboat by R.M. Ballantyne

COVER

TITLE PAGE

Chapter One.

Chapter Two.

Chapter Three.

Chapter Four.

Chapter Five.

Chapter Six.

Chapter Seven.

Chapter Eight.

Chapter Nine.

Chapter Ten.

Chapter Eleven.

Chapter Twelve.

Chapter Thirteen.

Chapter Fourteen.

Chapter Fifteen.

Chapter Sixteen.

Chapter Seventeen.

Chapter Eighteen.

Chapter Nineteen.

Chapter Twenty.

Chapter Twenty One.

Chapter Twenty Two.

Chapter Twenty Three.

Chapter Twenty Four.

Chapter Twenty Five.

Sunk at Sea by R. M Ballantyne

COVER

TITLE PAGE

Chapter One.

Chapter Two.

Chapter Three.

Chapter Four.

Chapter Five.

Chapter Six.

Chapter Seven.

Chapter Eight.

Chapter Nine.

Chapter Ten.

Chapter Eleven.

Chapter Twelve.

Chapter Thirteen.

Chapter Fourteen.