Overdue

THE LIBRARY

OF

THE UNIVERSITY

OF CALIFORNIA

LOS ANGELES

GIFT OF

Professor
Frank W. Wadsworth

J \f iv\M\ \

i^tf

OPINIONS OF THE PRESS

ON

OVERDUE

"The customary epithets applied to nautical fiction are quite incommensurate with the
excellence of Mr. Clark Russell's narrative powers, and these are thoroughly at their best
in ' Overdue.' . . . 'Overdue' is the story of a voyage, and its romantic interest hinges on
the stratagem of the captain's newly-wedded wife in order to accompany him on his expedi-
tion for the salvage of a valuable wreck. The reader gets a vivid share of the animation of
such a journey and all the varied pleasures of a first long sea-trip. The climax of Benson's
conspiracy to remove the captain and carry off the wife, to whom his lawless passion aspires,
is invested with the keenest excitement." — Pall Mall Gazette.

"In ' Overdue,' Clark Russell gives us another of those fascinating stories of the sea, of
which in these days he is the 'onlie begettor.' ... As you read you smell the brine, see the
great green waves leaping round the ship, or watch the moon illuminating illimitable levels
of glistening water. Mr. Russell's word-pictures of the sea convey something of the touch
of Turner's brush, with the advantage, that whilst the paint dealt with river and lagoon,
the writer deals with the mightier ocean." — Pwich.

"A mystery of hidden treasure adds interest to the tale, which is written with all the
knowledge of sea and seamen possessed by Mr. Clark Russell." — Bookseller.

"The skipper Mostyn and his young wife Phyllis are detailed for us with so much
minuteness that we follow their adventures with the closest interest. ' Overdue ' is a typical
Clark Russell book, breezy and brisk, and full of good passages." — Morning Leader.

" Those who are well acquainted with Mr. Clark Russell's methods need fear no dis-
appointment from his latest novel. His inspiration never flags, and he strings his nautical
knowledge and experiences on a substantial thread of melodramatic plot. ... It goes
without saying that there is no lack of sensation during the Dealman's voyage, and, as of
old, Mr. Clark Russell manages to bring the salt smell into his pages. He loves the sea in
all her moods." — Daily Telegraph.

"The appearance of a new novel from the hand of Mr. Clark Russell means almost
as much to reviewers as the first glimpse of English cliffs must mean to sailors returning
home after a long voyage, for they know that in his chapters they will find plenty
to reward their searching, numerous signs of devotion to the literary art, and the sense of
expansiveness that always accompanies this writer's tales of the sea." — Literary World.

" Mr. Clark Russell will once more please the host that revel in the sea and in himself
with ' Overdue.' ... An entertaining plot. . . . The diver is a rough diamond whom readers
will love." — Daily Express.

" Humorous as well as vigorous picturing of several sea-water types." — Outlook.

" Quite the next best thing for the jaded Londoner to do who, longing for the sea, cannot
get to its salt breezes, is to read Clark Russell, for it has been granted to this gifted writer to
bring the smell and the swish of the waves to his readers in a way which is at once real and
grand. In 'Overdue' you have Mr. Clark Russell at just about his best, and that is very
good indeed. . . . If you are not already familiar with the volume, let me recommend you
to become so at once." — Pelican.

" Once more Mr. Clark Russell contrives to mingle successfully the romantic with the
stirring, keeping throughout well within the limits of the natural and probable. . . . Here,
in fact, is a sea yarn which does not insult the intelligence, and holds the attention from first
to last." — Globe.

" ' Breezy ' is the word for Mr. Clark Russell always. In this story of the sea we have
an excellent specimen of that picturesque story-telling which has made him famous. . . . There

OPINIONS OF THE PRESS

is always a gusto, a simplicity, and, above all, a wide knowledge about this author which
mark him off from a newer school." — Vanity Fair.

" The book is one which gives you the impression that the author enjoyed writing it, and
it will therefore be read with enjoyment. There are some passages which exhibit as great
a skill and as full a sense of the humorous character as Mr. Clark Russell has ever displayed
before." — Morning Post.

^ " A stirring sea story, which brings home to the reader the realities of life on a sailing
ship." — Daily News.

"As a writer of exciting sea stories Mr. Clark Russell has few equals, and his latest
romance is as good as anything that has come from his pen for a long time past. . . .
Excellent reading. . . . Mr. Russell is always clever in the way he unravels a plot, and in
the present case he thoroughly arouses and sustains the interest of his reader. The characters
are excellently drawn ; notably Dipp, the diver, who furnishes much of the humour which
permeates the narrative, and without whom the story would be distinctly the poorer.
' Overdue' is full of good writing, and will well repay reading."— Birmingham Post.

" ' Overdue,' like all Mr. Clark Russell's books, takes possession of the reader from the
outset. For the time of reading, the sea-going life seems the only life worth living, and
landsmen's experiences are flat, stale, and unprofitable while the blue water forms an horizon
to all one's thoughts. Mr. Clark Russell's descriptions are so vivid that the reader seems to
live the daily life on board the Dealman as she makes her way to the submerged treasure
she is to recover, and he gives an account of a waterspout, in particular, which is singularly
picturesque and haunting. Phyllis Mostyn, the heroine, is a delightful creation. ... A
book which is fresh and delightful reading throughout." — World.

" Mr. Clark Russell— always as fresh and invigorating as his favourite subject, the sea
. . . gives a vigorous picture of life in our mercantile marine, lightened with many deft
touches of humour, and coloured with all the excitement attendant on a quest for sunken
treasure in the South Pacific. Well 'rigged' with incident and adventure, manned by
a charming heroine and a dashing hero, the good ship ' Overdue ' is safely bound for the
harbour of popularity." — To-Day.

"There are many vivid pictures of ocean wonders and of life on shipboard. ... It is
well-seasoned with ocean brine, and is filled with love of the sea and knowledge of sailor-
men." — Scotsman.

" Mr. Clark Russell has not yet exhausted the fertility of nautical romance ; this story is
as exciting as even he can make it — and that is saying a good deal. . . . The story ... is
delightful reading, . . . and introduces us to delightful people. The plot is exceptionally
well-constructed, the action is lively, and the charm of the sea is over every page." —
Glasgow Herald.

" There is a fine breezy, open-air manner about Mr. Clark Russell's latest book. It
smacks of the sea, and shows all the freshness and vigour of his former work. ... A pro-
mising beginning is followed by plenty of incident. Mr. Russell is never dull, and his skill
shows no signs of diminishing. Those who love to read of life at sea should not miss
• Overdue.' " — Bookman.

"A sea-story in this charming and effective story-teller's brilliant style. . . . The descrip-
tions, both of situation and of character, are admirable." — Great Thoughts.

" A typical Clark Russell. . . . There is plenty of sensation in ' Overdue,' and the sea
breeze blows briskly throughout the course of the story."— Westminster Gazette.

OVERDUE

NOVELS BY W. CLARK RUSSELL.

Crown 8vo, cloth, y. 6d. each ; post 8vo, illustrated boards, 2s. each ;
cloth limp, 2s. 6<7. each.

ROUND THE GALLEY-FIRE.

IN THE MIDDLE WATCH.

ON THE FO'K'SLE HEAD.

A VOYAGE TO THE CAPE.

A BOOK FOR THE HAMMOCK.

THE MYSTERY OF THE "OCEAN STAR."

THE ROMANCE OF JENNY HARLOWE.

AN OCEAN TRAGEDY.

MY SHIPMATE LOUISE.

ALONE ON A WIDE WIDE SEA.

THE GOOD SHIP "MOHOCK."

THE PHANTOM DEATH.

IS HE THE MAN?

THE CONVICT SHIP.

HEART OF OAK.

THE LAST ENTRY.

THE TALE OF THE TEN. With 12 Illustrations

OVERDUE.

WRONG SIDE OUT.

Crown Svo, cloth, 3^. 6d. each.

A TALE OF TWO TUNNELS.

THE DEATH SHIP.

THE " PRETTY POLLY." With 12 Illustrations.

THE CONVICT SHIP. Popular Edition, medium Svo, 6J.
London : CHATTO & WINDUS, hi St. Martin's Lane, W.C.

OVERDUE

BY

W. CLARK RUSSELL

A NEW EDITION

LONDON

CHATTO & WINDUS

1908

Viens sur la mer, jeune fiJle,

Sois sans effroi ;

Viens sans tresor, sans famiHe,

Seule avec nioi.

Mon bateau sur les eaux brille.

Vois ses mats, vois

Ses pavilions et sa quille.

Ce n'est rien qu'une coquille,

Mais— j'y suis roi ! "

Alfked de Vigny.

I

CONTENTS

CHAPTEB pAGB

I. Phyllis ..... 1

II. Phyllis goes to London ... ... ... 18

III. Peckham, S.E 37

IV. The Dealman salls ... ... ... 57

V. Phyllis at Sea ... ... ... ... 75

VI. Phyllis stays ... ... ... ... 93

VII. Benson and the Breeze ... ... ... Ill

VIII. The Balloon 130

IX. Benson's Champagne ... ... ... ... 151

X. Moonshine ... ... ... ... ... 169

XL Goetz's Safe ... ... ... ... ... 189

XII. The Waterspout ... ... ... ... 208

XIII. A Night-scene ... ... ... ... ... 231

XIV. The Convict Ship ... ... ... ... 254

XV. In his Watch on Deck ... ... ... ... 282

XVI. Staten Island ... ... ... ... 30G

8c;poc

viii CONTENTS

CHAPTER

XVII. Dipp Sounds ...

XVIII. The Penguin

XIX. Benson's Visit

XX. The Gold

XXI. The Castaway

XXII. The Absentee

XXIII. A Witness

XXIV. Overdue ...

PAGE

322

343

364

385

403

423

443

462

OVERDUE

CHAPTER I

PHYLLIS

In Ciirzon Street, Woolsborough, stands a block of
buildings containing seven shops. These shops are owned
by men who style themselves Universal Providers. The
honest term " tradesman '? seems disagreeable to them ;
so they call themselves general merchants. Neverthe-
less, for cash, they will sell you drugs, wines, fish, iron-
mongery, meat, game, and other commodities, including
coffins. If they kept but one of these seven shops they
would not be able to elude the terminology of society.
They would be absolutely and helplessly tradesmen, or
to sink lower yet, shopkeepers. .But seven shops, it
seems, may form the pillars or supports of a social plat-
form from which those who occupy it can proclaim
themselves general merchants.

One of these general merchants was Mr. Spencer
Stanhope. He was a man of hard appearance ; hard of
face, hard of grip of hand without cordiality, hard in
business, hard in his views of life, and he had a dead-
black hard eye like the head of a nail. He was the son
of a man who had died accountant of a bank, and his
mother was the daughter of a clergyman. His claims,
therefore, upon gentility, though slender, were yet not.

I B

2 OVERDUE

without substance. The death of his parents had cast
him upon the world very poor indeed ; so poor that he
had been glad to make a beginning of things as an errand-
boy, at six shillings a week and his meals, and a mattress
in the basement.

There are many instances on record of gentlemen who,
having begun life as office-sweepers and errand-boys at
six shillings a week and a dish or two of broken victuals,
did so well, that they were not only able in after years
to employ office-sweepers and errand-boys of their own at
even better pay than six shillings a week, but to live in
handsome houses, to link their Christian and surnames
with a hyphen, to rise to the noble height of a knight-
hood, and to entertain at dinners and dances people
whose ancestors might smile at the claims of the lone;
descent of even a moneylender of the House of Aaron.

There Avere other physical and moral reasons why Mr.
Stanhope should be hard. His boyhood had been hard ;
he had worked hard ; life for many years had with him
been very hard, and he found marriage hard because he
made it hard, as hard men do, hardening their wives until
they become harder than hard.

The atmosphere of such a home as Mr. Sanhope was
capable of creating was not nicely calculated to enrich
any sweetness or to brighten any light which might
happen to form the conditions of the offspring of his
loins. He had had four children by his wife. The eldest,
Avho because he resembled her family — that is to say, her
father — was the mother's favourite, was sent into the
Army ; for why should not a general merchant indulge in
ambitious wishes ? And even a man who sells meat, fish,
and game might justly desire to see his son an officer and
a gentleman. Unfortunately, young Stanhope was not
only unsuccessful as an officer, but a dead failure as a
gentleman. His behaviour led to his withdrawal from the

PHYLLIS 3

Army, and within two years of his obtaining a commission
the British Forces lost the services of a subaltern in a
foot regiment. He was variously heard of afterwards :
once in pawn in the Mauritius, from which inconvenient
situation he was secretly redeemed by his mother; once
from Port Said, whence he addressed a letter appealing
for funds dated in the stokehold of s.s. Samaritan.
When last heard of he was dead and buried in Sydney,
New South Wales, having been stabbed in the ribs in
a public-house brawl.

It was commonly believed by the friends and patrons
of the Stanhopes that the career and end of the youth
hastened the period of Mrs. Stanhope's life. She died
shortly after the family received the news of young Stan-
hope's death ; but whether her heart was broken by this
ignoble loss, or whether it had been hardened by her
husband into physical incapacity of further pulsation,
need not be curiously inquired into in a narrative that
concerns the Stanhopes only so far as they relate to the
heroine of the tale.

Of the remaining three children two are thus to be
accounted for : one, christened Matilda, was born an idiot,
and guilelessly descended into the grave, not unseasonably,
at the age of fourteen ; the next, Josephine, a bud of
rich promise, was bitten, when the glowing petals of the
flower were expanding, by that adder, consumption. All
of which might have accounted for Mr. Stanhope being
a hard man. But he would have been hard had he been
an unwedded hermit, grown hoary in a solemn cell, a
culler and partaker all his life of herbs and simples, with
no liver worth referring to, and a drinker of crystal
springs. It was the shape of his head that began it, and
the hammering of life completed it.

He lived in a comfortable house in the suburbs of
Woolsborough. Attached to his house was a huge

4 OVERDUE

conservatory, which was his pride and diversion. Here might
be found a vast variety of bulbs and roots with enormous
names ; big, green, cucumber-like freaks of nature bloated
as by gout, distorted as by rheumatism. Here, too, when
the sun struck the heat of a furnace through the glass,
were to be witnessed a ceiling of grapes, a rich and
gorgeous tapestry of green and purple bunches. Clusters
of these grapes, along with nosegays of white and red
roses and other enchantments of the garden, Mr. Stan-
hope was accustomed to send to the best paying customers
of his firm with Mr. Spencer Stanhope's compliments.

Now, one morning in September, not very many
years ago, Mr. Stanhope sat at breakfast with his
only surviving daughter Phyllis. This young lady
was about twenty-two years of age. It is difficult to
describe a pretty girl. Fielding, the great master, who
with curious diligence laboured the portrait of Sophia
Western, fails, with all his art, to communicate to the
intelligence what is instantly apprehended by the eye in
the delicious, the alluring, the fascinating ideal portrait
of Tom Jones's sweetheart painted by Hoppner. What
idea shall I convey to you if I speak of Phyllis Stanhope's
auburn hair, her dark violet eyes, not too large and full
of light, her complexion, which could alone find expression
in a couplet by the pen of Suckling or Waller, her milk-
white teeth and rose-red lips, and small ears tinged in the
curve with the faint pink of the sea-shell, her nose slightly
Roman, with nostrils capable of enlarging with scorn or
to the respiration of passion in cai'ess of arm or kiss of lip ?

Enough that Phyllis Stanhope was a very pretty
young woman, with a suggestion of plain good sense in
the look of her face, in her clear calm gaze in discourse,
and in her mode of clothing herself, wherein I think she
was fitter to please the taste of men than women, because
she did not love colours, but, on the contrary, chose sober

PHYLLIS 5

greys and greens and dark blues, of which her figure made
the first and best beauty, setting off' her simple attire as
the daisy crowns with grace the plain little natural hand
and stem which point its petals to the sun.

It was a fine morning, and the window lay open. A
pleasant breeze twinkled in the trees and poured the
aroma of the land into the breakfast-room. The open
window framed a charming prospect of garden painted
with the surviving colours of the summer, and some birds
were still in song, and mingled their flutes and the classic
note of oaten reeds with the castenet tinkling of some
fountains. A universal provider should in reason sit down
to a good breakfast, and Mr. Stanhope's table was by no
means a display of coarse plenty. If he could sell
American and New Zealand cheese to his customers as
genuine Dorset, he did not partake of it. Not that he
ate cheese for breakfast, though his views of life were so
hard that one could easily believe a considerable portion
of American cheese entered into them. The very choicest
of the fish in season, the very primest ham that was ever
yielded by a carefully fed pig, eggs warm from the nest,
and Devonshire cream, and coffee richer in bouquet than
the incense of the real Cuban cigar, savoury tongues, care-
fully selected — marmalade from firms who did not advertise
for the sweepings of theatres, beautiful flowers from the
garden, real silver and cut glass whose facets shone in rain-
bows upon the white cloth. Here was what Bulwer Lytton
would have called elegant profusion, and it was looked
down upon from the wall by an oil-painting that was
uncommonly like Phyllis.

In fact, it was the portrait of her mother, and with the
cynicism of a Talleyrand you would have instantly seen
that it was not from monsieur voire pere she had received
the fascinations of her flesh, and the qualities of spirit
proclaimed by her face.

6 OVERDUE

Said Mr. Stanhope, suddenly : " Mrs. Robertson told
me yesterday that she met you walking with that man
Captain Mostyn last Friday by the river, at Bleat-
field."

" Yes, I met her,1"1 answered Phyllis, without change of
face ; " and Captain Mostyn was my companion.'"

" I thought I had told you to drop his company."

" What was my answer ? "

" Yes ; but my will must be law whilst you remain
under my roof and are dependent upon me. The parish
holds me responsible for your maintenance, and though
you are over age, yet whilst you choose to remain dependent
upon me, the law holds you subject to my wishes."

This he said in his usual hard voice, and with his usual
hard face, so that one would say no temper had as yet been
excited in him. She sipped a cup of tea, making no
answer ; but breakfast, though scarcely begun, was ended
so far as she was concerned.

" Mostyn is a poor man, and a sailor in the merchant
service, and in no sense desirable,'''' continued Mr. Stan-
hope. " Even if he were in the Royal Navy he would be
undesirable. What is the pay of a naval officer ? Even
when full-fledged he can just clothe himself and pay his
wine-bill, and what is his wife going to do in an ill-furnished
semi-detached villa at home, with a husband for three years
on the American or Australian station, no remittances,
two or three babies, nurse and doctor, and duns at the
door ? What, then, are you going to do with a merchant
sailor who gets no pension, who is at the mercy of his
employer, whose certificate may be suspended for six
months if he breaks his propeller-shaft through being
underladen ? Hundreds of these men are starving, and you
are walking about with one of them.''1

Phyllis clasped her hands upon her knees and directed
her dark gaze at her plate on which reposed untouched a

PHYLLIS 7

poached egg and a crisp curl of bacon. Eggs and bacon !
The sentiment of this dish, though rapturously exalted by
Douglas Jerrold, scarcely keeps time with the sweet tune
of dark violet eyes and auburn hair. And yet, if one will
but reHect, the object of the whole struggle of life goes
but a little way beyond eggs and bacon, even when it
reaches apparently so far as a moated castle or a throne.
And some such thought as this was possibly in Mr. Stan-
hope's mind when, masticating slowly between whiles, he
proceeded thus —

" It is certainly not my intention to support a com-
munity of beggars, and there is no sort of beggars more
troublesome than poor relations. You may order a
common beggar off, or give him into custody; but you
cannot so deal with your poor relations, because society
bristles with ridiculous prejudices — the aggregate society,
I mean ; the individual does not conform to them though
he may be loud in his professions — and then again you
have to reckon with the overseers of the poor. If you
marry you will probably have a family ; if your husband
is Mostyn he will be a poor man, with nothing but risky
professional opportunities to depend upon, without per-
haps twenty shillings of capital to fall back upon when he
is compelled to be idle. You then look to me to help
you. He to whose marriage I strongly objected claims
my assistance in the sentimental name of my child and my
grandchildren. Have I slaved like a Portland felon year
after year, rising winter and summer at six o'clock in the
morning, begrudging your mother and myself things
which most people would regard as necessaries, but which
we rejected as luxuries, to find myself burdened in my old
age by that obligation of poverty which it has been my
life-long struggle to escape ? But you are perfectly well
acquainted with my views, and yet I am told that you are
still walking with Captain Mostyn. Talking to you is

8 OVERDUE

like writing on sand— like breathing on glass and signing
your name on the steam."

He was her father, and possibly her beauty would not
appeal to him as it would to a stranger. Once during
his speech she sent a glance that should have moved him :
suspense that was but the paleness of the heroine, and
resolution that is the spirit of heroism, met in that look,
and the charms of her face must have given it a most
touching eloquence to any one with a heart that stood by
and looked on and listened to what was said. But Mr.
Stanhope saw things only from a practical point of view.
If he allowed that his daughter was fair, his admission
was based on the merits of her beauty as an appeal to a
rich man, for he preferred wealth even to titles, and I
do not think that a lord on five thousand a year would
have been half so acceptable to him as a general merchant
on twenty thousand a year.

Her silence did not seem to anger him. No doubt
she was used to listen to his views without interruption.
He should have noticed, however, that never before had
his conversation been able to scare her away from her
meals. He would talk and talk, and she would eat on, of
course thinking of other things. But seemingly this
morning she was not going to make any breakfast at all.
In fact, her face was taking an expression that should
have given him an idea, remote from the common topics
of his harangues. Her fingers began to flutter upon her
lap, her mouth worked a little, and then, flushing deeply,
she said, with an abruptness that was like the escape of
syllables in madness, or the palsying shout of the
epileptic —

"I must tell you that I am married to Captain
Mostyn ! "

He looked at her, and she looked at him. He was
hard, but he was not made of iron or of wood. He

PHYLLIS 9

blinked as though a dazzle of lightning had swept across
his eyes ; he lifted his eyebrows into arches, but it was
quite clear that the confession was, say by the length of
his nose, beyond him as an instant percipient of it. The
fork that was raising a piece of ham to his lips stuck
midway, then slowly descended, and his hand let go. His
whole face now showed like a biceps, or a collection of
muscles in any part of the body where muscular action is
visible ; all the features hardened, and the suggestion of
his countenance then was that of a clenched fist.

" How long have you been married to Captain Mostyn ? "
he inquired.

" We were married last Monday," she answered.

" Where ? "

"At the registry office in Bloomfield Street."

" Do registrars oblige married people to wear wedding-
rings ? " he asked, looking at her left hand, which was now
visible, for she had raised it from her lap to her forehead.

" I have my ring in my purse," she said ; and putting,
her hand in her pocket, she pulled out her purse and
extracted a wedding-ring and keeper, which she slipped
on to the finger they belonged to, after removing from
that finger a ring of emeralds and diamonds.

Mr. Stanhope's face had lost its arches of eyebrow ; a
whole lifetime of the hardness of his character was knitted
in his expression like finely woven steel in a doublet. All
that was of the very worst in him never could so have
shaped the gaze he fastened upon his daughter had she,
instead of being flesh of his flesh, a sweet flower of his
growth, a holy symbol insomuch that she typified a union
of souls sacramental in the judgment of the devout, had she,
I say, instead of being his daughter, been one of his shop-
walkers who had neglected a rare opportunity to introduce
an expensive "line'" to the richest of the firm's patrons.

" I should like to see your certificate of marriage,11

10 OVERDUE

said he, as coldly as if he were asking her to give him
another cup of tea.

" It is in my bedroom.11

" Eetch it," he exclaimed, not as though he spoke to
a dog, but peremptorily, nevertheless.

It is sad, it is often distracting even to hard men who
have driven hard bargains all their lives to find themselves
without the confidence of their children, to find their
social condition, not to speak of their feelings, betrayed
by an action that is irreparable, by a piece of behaviour
that means despotic domination of parental discipline, and
power defiant, victorious, exultant amid the wreckage of
domestic ambition, happy in the defeat of the cherished
hopes of a home. Whether Mr. Stanhope deserved what
he got should not be conjectured. Such an inquiry would
prove immoral. What we are concerned in is the behaviour
of the girl, and, as she leaves the room, we say to our-
selves—

"You pretty fool, you should not have done this
thing. You should have boldly asked your father for his
sanction, given him plenty of time, then have told him
plainly what you intended to do. If he had persisted in
denying you, the consequences would have been shared
between you, one not being more guilty or stupid than the
other. This would have been honourable, as your aim was
honourable, and honour would have been an angel at the
altar of your nuptials though so mean and unadorned as a
registry office.11

She returned with the certificate, which she placed on
the table within his reach, and remained standing. It
was a very familiar official form, cold as a county court
summons, dry as a shipping Act, naked as a Quakers
meeting-house. It diffused no scent of the orange
blossom, it inspired no fancies of white satin, of bride-
groom's gifts, of the rolling melodies of the wedding

PHYLLIS 11

march, of solemn parsons who will be smiling blandly
presently when the company comes together at her lady-
ship's house. The sight of a registrar's certificate of
marriage is quite enough to make one understand why
the sentiment of women should find something abhorrent
in unions thus barely decreed — I say barely, for marriage
by a registrar seems to me like standing on the very verge
of the Elysian fields of matrimony, so that the slightest
misadventure must cause a couple to reel into the ditch
of divorce which runs close beside them. Whereas to be
married properly in a church is to be like a newly built
ship, that is not only launched but blessed too, besides
being made brave and gay with bunting, whilst music
attends it, and the acclamations of spectators. Different
indeed from the chill privacy of the Reverend Mr.
Registrar's secular proceedings.

Mr. Stanhope inspected the document as though it
were an invoice. There was no hitch, no flaw ; every-
thing was outrageously specific. Had the Archbishop of
Canterbury and all the bishops of the United Kingdom
assisted at the marriage of Phyllis Stanhope to Captain
Charles Mostyn in St. Paul's Cathedral, London, the pair
could not have been more absolutely and hopelessly
married than the signed and attested sheet of paper held
by Mr. Stanhope proved them to be.

He read the date, the signatures, and silently cursed
the name of the man who was the registrar.

" Who is George Begby ? " he asked, referring to one
of the witnesses of the ceremony.

" A friend of my husband."

Now, her speaking of the man as her husband drove
the truth into him with a sudden pitiless force that was
like the stab of a bayonet. He caught his breath, his
face turned pale, but no other sign of passion or emotion
was visible. He folded the certificate and threw it on the

12 OVERDUE

table, and she picked it up. He rose, and glanced at the
picture of his wife, and quitted the room, leaving his
breakfast scarcely tasted.

She was shocked and frightened by his coldness and
behaviour. Had he deviated into common human nature
by making a great outcry, storming and threatening, and
the like, she would have felt easier ; her conscience would
have supported her with the consideration that she had
deserved his vehement abuse, his storming tongue, that
such a reception of the news was to be expected, and she
might have welcomed it as a piece of discipline she well
understood she merited. Even whilst she told him she
was married she felt she had played a mean part in act-
ing a lie whilst living under his roof and partaking of his
bounty, her father as he was ; but his few cold questions
and his pale face and silent stepping out of the room
terrified her, and she looked out of the window and
around the walls with an expression of uncertainty as
though at a loss.

The question now was, what was to happen ? What
would her father do? She knew he would be going to
business shortly, and she would not leave the room for
fear of meeting him on the staircase or in the hall. She
stared at the certificate of her marriage, and, remember-
ing her father's glance, her eyes sought her mother's face
on the canvas, and she cried a little— just a little— two or
three tears. She was a wife, and there was a man in the
world dearer to her than any spirit in heaven or any
incarnate ghost on earth. The thought of him, the
sudden presentment of his face to her mental vision dried
her eyes with the sunshine of a smile. She had done it ;
she ought not to have done it ; she would do it over
again, for her love for the man was great ; it was not the
love of a miss, a simpering insipid love to be bestowed
upon anything in a waistcoat and silk hat. It was not

PHYLLIS 13

the love of a girl who wants to be engaged to a man that
other girls may talk and envy her. It was the love of a
determined, impassioned woman's heart — the heart of a
woman that was now a wife.

The birds were singing, and the fountains were tink-
ling, and the leaves of the trees were sparkling in little
suns as thev danced to the music of the wind, when Phvllis
heard her father's gig drive up to the hall door. She
drew well away from the window, and presently the gig,
driven by Mr. Stanhope, who sat square, whilst alongside
of him was the jammed figure of his man, sped gleaming
down the carriage drive ; for in this handsome style did
Mr. Stanhope every morning go to business, having for
the past few years abandoned the practice of being at
work and looking after things at six o'clock in the
morning.

Phyllis quitted the breakfast-room and entered the
hall ; a tall, square hall with a central staircase, the walls
embellished by the noble head of a Russian elk, golden
eagles, bears1 heads, and other trophies of foreign fields
and woods. A letter lay upon a table in this hall.
Phyllis took it up ; it was addressed to Miss Stanhope.
She did not need to ask who was the writer ; she had
lived long enough in the world to recognize her father's
hard, round, clear hand — an ideal hand for a weak-eyed
compositor. She opened the letter then and there ; some
girls would have taken such a missive, coming; to them at
such a time, to their bedrooms, with their heart loud in
their ears, there to read secretly, perhaps with the door
locked, in anticipation of a swoon, in which case they
would like to be found corpses ; for what could be more
romantic than giving up the ghost under such conditions
as these, even though the story must be told in the bald
prose of the report of a coroner's inquest ?

The first thing she found in this letter was a cheque

U OVERDUE

for one hundred pounds, payable to the order of Miss
Phyllis Stanhope, so that she was not to be Mrs. Mostyn
with her father apparently, at least for the present, if at
all. The letter consisted of a few words —

" Since without my knowledge you have chosen another
protector, I must request you to go to him and to leave
my house for ever. I enclose a cheque for ^100 (one
hundred pounds). You will take all your wearing apparel
and other effects belonging to you, and I expect you will
have left the house before I return from business."

This was a brutal letter, but, then, as the doctor said
to the patient who was writhing with gout, " You can't
help it, my dear sir.-11 Mr. Stanhope couldn't help it,
any more than he could help the shape of his head.
Certainly, if a man with twenty children may seriously
regard himself as over-married, surely a man whose off-
spring had turned out as Mr. Stanhope's had — one a
blackguard, another an idiot, a third a miserable sufferer,
and the fourth a girl who, in playing the game of
matrimony, had assured herself against the hazard of the
die by loading it — might consider himself entitled to write
such a letter and to enclose such a cheque as Phyllis held.

And then, again, we must take into consideration the
school in which this general merchant had been brought
up. Though his firm was extremely prosperous, and had
ruined, even into bankruptcy, several milkmen, green-
grocers, butchers, and two undertakers, all whom they had
undersold until they had expelled them, they were not
superior to certain customs of the trade upon which they
knew the law would frown if they were ever brought
before it. To give an instance : to a major-general who
was suffering from scirrhosis of the liver, they sent with
their compliments on approval a savoury tongue. The
general tasted it, for to what other test than the palate
can you subject an edible commodity? It was tasted,

PHYLLIS 15

objected to, sent into the kitchen, and finally hove into the
dustbin. A bill was addressed to the major-general for
one savoury tongue. Several serious explosions of temper
followed, and the major-general entreated the firm to
summons him before the county court judge for the amount.
This they declined to do, as " not being worth their
while.11 Several libels were afterwards published by the
major-general against this firm, none of which the general
merchants thought proper to take notice of.

What sort of letter, then, would you expect a member
of such a firm as this to send to his pretty daughter,
his sole-surviving child, who had married clandestinely ?
She read it by the light of the windows in the hall. She
did not faint: on the contrary, she seemed to knit her
figure and to hold herself more erect. Wrath and
wonder : these were the emotions which besieged her.
Wrath that her father should have written such a letter.
Wonder that a man so hard, so cold, so heart-killing
should be her father.

She went to her bedroom and rang the bell. A
housemaid responded.

"I want you and Greatbatch to bring down my trunk,
dress-basket, and portmanteau. My handbag is in that
closet. Then you will help me to pack up, please ; for
I am going away at once — away for ever.11

Perhaps she had not yet fully realized her situation ;
certainly she delivered these sentences as coolly as though
she was about to start on a holiday for a few weeks to
Brighton or Bournemouth.

The housemaid looked astounded. But she had
been bred in good families, where all kitchen emotion is
rigorously suppressed, where a butler, though of forty
years1 standing, durst not smile at grouse in the gun-
room, and where the suicide of his lordship, or the
elopement of her ladyship with the Spanish Ambassador,

16 OVERDUE

merely makes softer yet the hypocritical whisper and
keener yet the glance of the menial eye.

There was nothing in Phyllis's demeanour to court
sympathy from a housemaid, even had she been ill-trained.
After a brief pause of astonishment the young woman
left the room. And meanwhile Phyllis flung open her
wardrobe and pulled out the drawers of two handsome
walnut chests. Indeed her bedroom betrayed the taste
of the universal provider ; Tottenham Court Road never
produced anything choicer in the shape of furniture than
the stuff that filled the sleeping chamber of Phyllis.

The housemaid and the parlourmaid arrived, bearing
the things that Phyllis had asked for. They had evidently
talked the matter over in the trunk-room in the attics,
and their gaze had something of the character of a stare
full of thirsty, helpless curiosity. The parlourmaid walked
out and Phyllis and the housemaid went to work, and
whilst they packed up Phyllis said —

" I must tell you, Robey, that I am married."

"Lor!" ejaculated the housemaid. "But I declare
only this minute I was saying the same to Greatbatch."

" I am going to join my husband, Captain Mostyn, at
my father's request," said Phyllis, with an accent of deep
disdain in her enunciation of the word " request," so that
even Robey instantly understood that the girl was being
literally turned out of her home.

The human nature in Robey broke out.

"If I 'ad a husband, miss, wherever that man lived,
if it was a dog's kennel, there would be my 'ome."

But as the packing proceeded — Phyllis had plenty of
clothes ; her husband was poor and she meant to carry
to him all she owned — a tear or two would now and then
roll down her pretty cheeks. If she had been a servant
caught in the act of theft she could not have been more
harshly treated. How could she help thinking, seeing

PHYLLIS 17

that she was in her bedroom, where she had passed many
lonely hours lost in thought, often sad, because her father
had made his house piteously dull ; she had no sister, no
mother to talk to, to vent the thoughts of her heart to,
and until Captain Mostyn came into her life existence
with her had been a dull round, so that when morning
came she would often wish it were night, and when night
came she would often wish it were morning. All which
was due to her father, who held himself too good to
mingle with tradesmen, and who was reckoned by the
squires as holding one of those anomalous social positions
which have not sufficient merit to be honoured by their
contempt.

So she dropped a tear or two as she packed up her
clothes, helped by Robev, who would have given her
prospects of immortality in heaven to change places with
her. For Robev had met Captain Mostyn walking with
Miss Stanhope in the sweet country lane, between two
tall hedges, that leads from Ramsfield to Shearman's
Manor, and, having dropped a curtsey, she had said to
the young man with whom she was walking, and with
whom she kept company, that her mistress's lover was
the sweetest and boldest-looking young gentleman, the
manliest in colour and clothes, she had ever seen or read
of; which caused the young man to say —

" Ain't there no 'ception, Lizzie ? ""

The gardener was fetched to cord the boxes ; he then
went to a livery stable half a mile away and returned
with a carriage, and the clock was striking one — which
made it five hours before her father would return from
business — when Phyllis was driven away.

CHAPTER II

PHYLLIS GOES TO LONDON

Me. Stanhope's residence stood about four miles distant
from the house which was Phyllis's destination. Had she
been taking the air in a drive for her diversion she would
have found much to engage her attention and even to
enchant her. September is a lovely month in England,
sumptuous in tint, ruddy in orchard, scarlet in creeper.
But the horizon of the hills is green and the sentinel
trees still wear their summer livery. The giiTs road was
hilly — prophetic of the life of the bride — and from one
eminence she drank in the rushing sweetness of three
visible counties.

But she had something else to think of than the
garden scenery of the land through which the carriage
was rolling. She pined bitterly over one feature of her
dismissal ; she deeply lamented that she had not told her
father whilst she stood near him at the breakfast-table
that her husband was leaving Woolsborough for London
next day, that he was expecting to be appointed to the
command of a vessel bound on a singular, even a romantic
expedition, and that when his appointment had been
confirmed he had intended to call his wife to him to
London, and settle her there whilst he was away. In
which case it was quite likely that Phyllis would have
confessed her marriage to her father within a few days.

But would this have helped her honour ? Certainly

iS

PHYLLIS GOES TO LONDON 19

not ; she would merely have been protracting the period
of deceit. In short, neither she nor her husband comes
out well in this part of the story ; but much must be
forgiven to love in a world whose life is full of it. The
long and short of it was, the young couple found it
convenient to hold their tongues as far as Mr. Stanhope
was concerned. The girl was not going to break her
heart for deceiving her father by marrying a man who
was a sailor and a gentleman ; and Mostyn, incapable of
conceiving that any father, let alone a universal provider,
would turn out of doors his only surviving child, a gentle
pretty girl, for marrying him, Charles Mostyn, who
claimed a Welsh pedigree compared to which Stanhope's
was of yesterday — I say that Mostyn, influenced by these
reflections, thought nothing could be more proper than
that his wife should remain with her father until he could
settle her in London.

Phyllis's carriage stopped at last at the gate of a
little house called Pagoda Villa. Scarcely had her foot
pressed the gravel of the walk to the door when a man
rushed out of the house. His head was bare ; he was
without a coat ; his red face and shining brow were
indications of recent physical labour; in truth, he had
been sawing wood in the back garden to help his brother-
in-law, Samuel Matcham, city architect, who meant to
build a fowl-house.

What uncommonly good-looking fellow was this ?
Dibdin, in writing of his brother, Tom Bowling, tells us
that his form was of the manliest beauty. The great
song writer could not have said less had he written of
Charles Mostyn, master mariner. He had been born a
beautiful baby ; he was lovely as a little boy with long
golden curls and dark blue eyes ; for his beauty he was
the pride of the three schools at which he was educated ;
he was a sort of prize boy, the show-lad for the head

20 OVERDUE

master to introduce in a casual way to visitors,
particularly ladies. He was the delight of his ship, the
darling of the crew, the captain's and mates' favourite
when he first went to sea, and old Ocean had fallen in love
with him and cherished him, and had put the floating grace
of her billow into his paces, and her tropical lights into his
eyes, and the magic bronze of her sunsets into his cheeks.

Mr. Stanhope objected to this man because he
belonged to a poorly paid calling ! but there was scarcely
a woman in England but would have done as Phyllis had
on seeing him, on being talked to by him, and, O angels
of light and sweetness ! on being made love to by him.

" Why, Phyllis, have you come to stay ? " he
shouted.

But the expression of her face made it immediately
clear that conversation was impossible on the gravel
walk, with a red-headed coachman with a wall-eye waiting
at the gate for instructions about the luggage.

" Step in," said Mostyn, " and I'll help that chap with
the boxes."

Phyllis entered the house, and in the passage was met
by a tall, slender lady of about eight and twenty. This
was Mostyn's sister, Mrs. Matcham, the wife of Wools-
borough's city architect, who at that moment was occupied
at the Town Hall in responding to libellous questions
put to him by Councillor Meal, a retired pastry-cook.

Mrs. Matcham was so unlike her brother, that only the
monthly nurse who attended their mother would have
been willing to swear that they had proceeded from one
flesh. Her eyes were calm, large, and well shaded with
lashes, and her nose would have been shapely but for its
undue expansion of nostril. Her lips were thin and, when
closed, curved into the clearest possible expression of
acidity of spirit. She had lost her baby, and continued
childless, and as she regarded Mr. Stanhope as a tradesman,

PHYLLIS GOES TO LONDON 21

whilst she held the very highest opinion of her own
Welsh descent, she and Phyllis did not exactly hit it off,
and had not often met in the past; but of course she
was perfectly well aware that Miss Stanhope had secretly
married Captain Mostyn.

She kissed the young wife on one cheek, and said,
" Are you going away ? "

"No,11 answered. Phyllis; "I have come here for a
little — not for long. I hope you can receive me for a day
or two.11

" Oh certainly. But what has happened ? "

And thus speaking, Mrs. Matcham led the way to the
drawinsr-room.

" My father has turned me out,11 said Phyllis.

" Turned you out ? Do you mean, driven you away
from his home ? 11

" Yes, exactly that.11

" What a heart ! — he is mighty complimentary. Really,
one would think that Mr. Stanhope, instead of being
of the firm of Stanhope, Mildew, and Riley, was Earl
Stanhope. It's a little too much,11 said Mrs. Matcham,
with an acid sneer, "that Mr. Stanhope should not
consider a Mostyn good enough for his daughter.11

"It is for his daughter to think,11 exclaimed Phyllis,
without warmth, but with firmness ; " and she has thought
and decided, and here she is, and hopes that her presence
is no inconvenience to you.11

Just then Mostyn and the coachman came bundling
in with the baggage, making one job of it. The captain
paid the driver, and rolled in to his pretty young wife.

" Her father's actually turned her out ! How does he
treat his servants if he treats his only daughter so ? "
cried Mrs. Matcham. " But you want to be alone.11

And very stately, acid, and thin, the lady sailed out
of the drawing-room.

22 OVERDUE

The sailor seized his wife, and they stood glued in
speechless ecstasy in that passion of love which transports
the ill-treated in the arms of the beloved, that inflames
the adorer caressing the sufferer.

" Now, tell me what has happened," he said.

Her story was short, but not sweet, nor did he like it
the better when she pulled Mr. Stanhope's cheque out of
her pocket and said —

" Here is my dowry. Take it, dear. It is all I shall
be able to bring you."

He made as if to tear it up, recollected himself, and
said —

" You could have done without it. But a father's gift
is not a stranger's, and if it had been half a sovereign
you should keep it, if only to buy a veil or a pair of
gloves."

" What time do you leave to-morrow ? "

" Twelve, by the express."

"Did you receive a letter from the office this
morning ? "

" Yes. I have got the appointment."

" Why do you want me to live in London to wait for
you ? " she asked.

" Now, do you think I want anything of the sort ? "
he replied, tenderly passing a few auburn fibres behind
her ear. " It's needs must when old Nick drives in this
world. Shouldn't I be glad — wouldn't the voyage be a
paradise if you were with me on board? But there is
scarcely a shipowner who will allow his captains to take
their wives to sea with them. The business of this
voyage is curious, and the pay and the commission too
good to forfeit on the chance of getting another ship,
where I should be met with the same objections to
carrying my wife with me."

"How long did you say you are likely to be away ?"

PHYLLIS GOES TO LONDON 23

"Four or five months."

She fastened her small white teeth on her underlip, but
held her peace. She had known her fate as a wife when
she married a sailor. He was a captain in one of the
poorest paid services in the world — I mean the British
Merchant Service. If they waited as lovers until he was
old enough to retire and maintain her on the interest of
the capital he had invested out of earnings, they would
certainly languish into the time of decrepitude and decay,
the time of the toothless, the bald, and the paralyzed ;
they would become objects unmeet to make love or think
of it ; nay, they would scarcely remember that such a
passion animated humanity and once informed them with
its luxurious sensations and its divine temper ; and even
by the time when senility should be strong upon them,
when their shadows tottered by their side, even then
Captain Mostyn might have been able to save nothing.
" Something must be left to chance," was a condition of
Lord Nelson's tactics, and a clear recognition of the
limits of human penetration. How many couples durst
get married in this world, if ways and means are to be
strenuously considered before hands are linked ? Some-
thing must be left to chance, and what initial chance,
at least, was to be this married pair's my tale will
unfold.

" When does the ship sail ? " she inquired, after a
pause, during which he had watched her with melting
fondness.

" Early in October," he replied. " The sooner out the
sooner home. Twelve pounds a month, and one per cent,
of the recovery. If we pick up the whole forty thousand
pounds the underwriters will hand me a cheque for four
hundred pounds irrespective of my pay.-"

" That is very good, Charles.1'

" Why, yes ; I should think it is. It will furnish a

24 OVERDUE

house for us, and do more than that ; and perhaps next
voyage I shall be able to take you to sea with me.""

" What is the name of the people ? "

" The Ocean Alliance Insurance Company. They will
not go to the expense of steam, and I understand that
the Dcrdman is smart on a wind. Staten Island is on
this side of the Horn, and I will bring you some humming-
birds from it."

At this she smiled as though she was thinking of
something else, which rendered his reference to his bringing
home a humming-bird remote from her fancies.

" Where do you sail from ? ™ she inquired.

" London."

At this she smiled again, but so faintly that the spirit
of the thought that pleased her was in her eyes rather
than on her lips.

" And where shall I live," said she, " whilst you are
away r

" Oh, I have made up my mind to put you with Kate
Chester. She is a kind good woman, and will look after
you. Feckham is not a disagreeable district to live in.
You will not go there for a fine-sounding address, but
there is as much comfort to be found in Peckham as in
Mayfair. Chester will amuse you with his yarns. He is
hopelessly crippled ; his legs have been bent into angles
by rheumatic gout, and it costs him twenty oaths a meal
to feed himself. But the honest sailorly heart of the
poor devil is always breaking through. His spirits keep
him alive. He spins a good yarn. He was thirty years
at sea and is now fifty-two ; and my cousin — let me see,
how old shall Kate be ? About three years older than
I am, and she will love you like a sister, my honey-bird."
Here he kissed her. "And if you are not happier at
Peckham than you have been at Stanhope Lodge, smite
my timbers, as the old Jacks used to say, if I don't give

PHYLLIS GOES TO LONDON 25

you leave to sue me for a divorce, the curtain to rise on
the arrival of the ship from Staten Island, and here's a
sailor's hand upon it ! "

Now followed some tomfoolery which, as these people
were married, we need not stand by and watch ; for who
is interested in the love-making of married people, even
though the girl be scarce more than a blushing bride,
and the man a handsome rolling sailor ? The wedding-
ring is an extinguisher to that form of amorous procedure
which we hire books from the library to read about and
enjoy in proportion as they are ill-written and nasty, and
instead of the word Finis, the printers should close the
text of the novel with the cut of a wedding ring, so that
all who read novels may know when it comes to that, the
interest ceases.

Instead of telling you that he took her to his bed-
room, which she would use until he summoned her
to London, and that Mr. Matcham, the city architect,
arrived at one o'clock to dine with them and his wife oft'
a roast leg of mutton, and to curse the retired pastry-
cook who had been baiting him with insolent questions
with a view to obtaining a majority when the question of
the increase of his salary was put to the vote — instead of
dwelling on such parish matters let me here briefly refer to
the nature of the undertaking in which Captain Mostyn
was to find a command.

About eight months before the date of the opening
of this story, a brig-rigged steamer, owned in London and
named the Conqueror, of a burden of some three thousand
five hundred tons, foundered in a bay in Staten Island, in
which she sought refuge after collision. Her cargo was
general and of inconsiderable value : the real significance
of her loss to the underwriters lay in the circumstance
of her having forty thousand sovereigns on board, consigned
to a port on the western South American seaboard.

2G OVERDUE

The office chiefly, perhaps wholly, concerned was the
Ocean Alliance Insurance Company.

When the news of the ship's total loss reached London,
the directors of the Ocean Alliance, with two or three
gentlemen who were involved in the risk, held several
meetings, and finally decided that an effort should be
made to recover the money by diving. It was feared that
if the gold was left to lie for months without a struggle
to lift the cases from the few fathoms of brine which
floated over them, then, if others, who need not necessarily
be pirates or desperadoes acting in defiance of the law,
should raise the money from the ooze, legal difficulties,
with their formidable conditions of heavy costs, might
result. So, after putting the question of steam or sail
to the vote, the insurers decided to charter a small full-
ricffrcd sailing-ship called the Dealman, of seven hundred
and fifty tons, and send her to Staten Island in charge of
a highly qualified commander, whose zeal in the interest
of his employers must be inspirited by a commission
on the value of the recovery. With hirn would go a
pi'ofessional diver and his men, and also a gentleman re-
presenting the Insurance, a sort of ship's constable, who
would keep an eye on the insurers1 interests, and take care
of the gold when he got it.

An advertisement for a captain was inserted in the
Shipping Gazette. Mostyn had been promised the com-
mand of a ship in the Australian trade, and was at
Woolsborough, stopping with his sister and brother-in-law,
when he received from a friend a copy of the Gazette^
with the advertisement marked. The terms of the notice
excited his curiosity. He went to London, presented
himself before the Board of Directors, who were so well
pleased with his appearance, the plain good sense of his
speech, the high testimonials he produced, that though
they told him he would hear from the secretary in due

PHYLLIS GOES TO LONDON 27

course, he left the room convinced that he would be
accepted for the berth nem. con. Which proved a true,
if an egotistic monition, for that morning, as he had told
Phyllis, he received a letter appointing him to the com-
mand of the ship Dealman, and requesting his immediate
presence in London, " as it is desirable," the secretary
said, " that the voyage should be commenced as soon as
possible, that the diving operations may be conducted
during the summer months of the South Atlantic
Ocean. "

Mrs. Matcham left the young married couple much
alone together that afternoon and evening. They took
a drive in the afternoon ; in the evening they wandered
through lanes still green, along the banks of a river whose
placid breast in reaches gleamed with the glory of sun-
smitten steel to the brilliant showering of the September
moon. They talked of Mr. Stanhope. He would now
be alone in the world. He had thrust from his side his
only surviving child, or would it not be truer to say that
she had left him ! He was alone, and he would return
from business to a lonely home, and, hard as he was, he
would find no balm for conscience, no syrup of sympathy
to disguise the bad taste in the mouth of memory in
a review of the profits he had made that day, the so-much
meat, the so-much poultry, the so-much hardware the
firm had been sending out since seven o'clock that
morning.

" He will marry again,1' said Mostyn.

"The woman who accepts his hand will deserve to be
his wife,1'' answered Phyllis.

Mostyn was too well-bred to say a word against the
man to his daughter. In fact, he was one of those
gentlemanly sailors I am charged with inventing by
people who obtain their notions of the sea from boatmen,
and regard the old skipper swinging at the end of his

28 OVERDUE

long tiller, as his leaking bucket washes betwixt the pier
heads, the true and only type of the British merchant
officer.

"Do you feel chilly, Phyllis ?"

"Not in the least. There is no air moving. The
harvest moon is bright. Such a moon as that should
make a beautiful picture of the sea night.11

They were close beside the bank of the river, and the
sound of the cascading of a weir some little distance up a
bend was cool and musical as the league-long plash of
summer breakers on the sands of June. Near to them
was the shadowy arch of a bridge, with trees beyond
cloudily lifting their heads into silver, and the hush of
the early autumn night was upon this beautiful rustic
scene. The birds slept in boughs, in ivy, under thatches.
The black spot of the head of a water-rat would stem
through the quicksilver, which mirrored the shadowy
bridge in an arch even more shadowy than the phantom
crown upon the head of Milton's " Death.11

" There is a seat,11 said Captain Mostyn. " It's not
too cold for a ten minutes1 sit down, is it ? "

They seated themselves.

" Are not sailors right," said Mostyn, gazing about
him, " when they hold that a man touches the extreme
limits of idiotcy when he sells a farm and goes to sea ?
This is a picture to recall in some bleak black watch a
thousand miles in the deep heart.11

" Are fortunes ever made at sea ? " asked Phyllis.

" Few are the fortunes which are not made by the
sea in this country. We export and we import, and so
we pile it up.11

" I mean, do men who go to sea as sailors ever make
their fortunes ? "

" What ! are ye beginning to repent, Phyllis ? "

She answered by pressing her cheek against his, which

PHYLLIS GOES TO LONDON 29

she contrived without removing her hat or unshipping
his cap.

" Could a captain like you ever make his fortune at
sea ? " she asked.

" Plenty of captains have made their fortunes at sea,''1
he replied ; " but I don't know whether they were like
me. They couldn't be more earnest or more willing,
anyhow. There's Jack Willis ; he commanded at sea, and
now owns some of the finest clippers afloat, and will
probably cut up for a hundred thousand. There are
more like him, and a very great deal more like me.
Well, it's a true saying that you're always sure of your
watch on deck, but never sure of your watch below.
It may be there'll be a deal of watch on deck with me,
but it'll go hard, Phyllis, if we don't get our watch
below too."

" How much does a ship cost to buy ? " asked Phyllis.

"More than we've got, my honey bird. But there's
never any need to build. Do as the Scandinavians do —
buy rotten hulks from British owners, who dare not send
them to sea for fear of the Board of Trade ; victual them
with offal, man them with Dagos and Greeks, whom you
can kick, curse, and abuse until you force them to desert
and leave their wages behind them ; hoist a foreign
colour, and load the old sieve down to her wash-strake
and over-insure her. This is the owner's road to knight-
hood and mansions in Belgravia. Presently you may
start a steamer, and end as managing director of a line,
with a seat in the House, and a vote that will provide you
with plenty of protection at the hands of the right
honourable the President of the Board of Trade."

" You had better talk Greek to me, Charles," said the
young wife; "but I suppose there is meaning and truth
in what you say. I wish I was going with you to-
morrow." She put her hand upon his, and said, "Do

30 OVERDUE

you think if you took me before the directors, and
explained that I was your wife, and that the mere idea
of being separated from you is heart-breaking, that they
would let you take me ? "

"A pretty girl in the city of London is like a
butterfly in the central silence of a cyclone. You would
suppose, to watch strong men, and stout men, and thin
men, and little men turn and stare at her, that they had
not wives and daughters of their own, that they did not
live in the suburbs, or at railway distances, where girls,
sweet and otherwise, abound, fashionably dressed. I think
I see you asking that whiskered conspiracy for leave to
sail with me. No ! it would not do. Business is very
much business in the street in which that insurance office
stands, and in the surrounding district. The mere
request might bring me into disfavour. And then, Phyl,
the Dealmans a small ship ; she would not be a
comfortable ship for a lady ; she might prove leaky,
troublesome, wet, in which case your presence on board
would add to my anxieties.1'

She understood that he was not sincere in his reason-
ing. Had not he told her that, with her on board, his
6hip would be a paradise ? He merely sought to make the
best of a situation he abhorred by a little misrepresen-
tation.

" It will be a deeply interesting voyage," she exclaimed.
" I wonder if the gold is there ! "

" I don't see why it shouldn't be," he answered. " Its
coffin is iron, its tomb shallow and still."

" Why do you speak of bringing home a humming-
bird from Staten Island?" she asked. "I thought that
all about Cape Horn was the most desolate region on the
face of the earth, frightfully cold, the seas mountainous,
and the short day black with the midnight of snow-
clouds."

PHYLLIS GOES TO LONDON 31

" That's the winter picture of those parts," he
answered. " In the summer you get hollow, silent nights
full of soft stars and the Southern Cross and the fairy
clouds of Magellan, whilst that moon up there stares at you
from the north ; you get flowers and verdure rich as here-
abouts, but I own that, all through winter, Staten Island
is as desolate as an iceberg."

" What time is it, Charlie ? "

He held up his watch to the moon.

" Twenty minutes to nine."

Which was a hint upon which she had no need to
speak, for the Matchams supped at half-past nine, and
their house was a half-hour's walk from the bench on
which the young married couple were sitting.

Next day, at noon, Captain Mostyn hugged his wife
on the platform of the railway station, and shot away to
London. She knew she would not be separated from him
above a day or two at the most. He only asked time
after he had called at the insurance office in the Citv to
drive over to Peckham, there to make the necessary
arrangements with his cousin, Kate Chester, for his
wife's reception at her house, and a telegram would bring
her forthwith. Nevertheless, the young wife, who was
alone, felt strangely low, dull, and depressed as she
walked out of the station. He was gone from her side,
though but for a day or two, and her being at Wools-
borough, in the midst of scenes filled with the associations
of her life, made her feel more keenly than she could
have felt in a strange place how unutterably lonely she
would be made by her marriage if she should lose her
husband. Why did she not think of this before she
stole secretly to the registry office to marry the man who
was to make her a lonely, miserable woman if God took
him ? But girls are not in the habit of thinking before
they marry and vej-y often those who try to think for

32 OVERDUE

them are despised, scorned, morally trampled on, insomuch
that a wise parent or guardian will say to himself,
" I will not take upon myself the trouble of this
woman's perpetual virginity. I will not stand in the
way of her marriage, even though I should think her
choice highly indiscreet, because, if no further opportunity
is offered, and she should not get married, my life must
not be made a burden to me by her being placed in the
situation to affirm with all the venom of an old maid,
that I was the cause of her being unwedded and
triumphed over by all her girl friends who had got
married since.11

Phyllis had no friends, none who would make a home
for her, which seems incredible as a statement applicable
to the only surviving daughter of a Universal Provider
who was in a position to retire next day if he chose on a
handsome income. At the same time, it must be said
that there are always living a large number of girls who
enjoy life in their several ways, who live in comfortable
houses, and fare tolerably well, and who have in their
wardrobes ball dresses which they may wear, perhaps, two
or three times in the course of a year, who, if the destiny
of marriage, the hand of death, or the fiend of the Stock
Exchange should force them into loneliness, might gaze
about them a very long time indeed before they found
friends willing to give them a home. We might be quite
sure that Phyllis could not have lived with her sister-in-
law. The alienation of her father was so abrupt in totality
as to naturally sharpen, even into intellectual pain, her
perception of her dependence upon her husband as a friend,
to say no more, and the fragility of that bond of flesh
which yoked them.

But the reader must not be detained by philosophic
contemplations of life ; enough, then, that, when Phyllis
Mostyn returned to her sister-in-law's home, after a short

PHYLLIS GOES TO LONDON 33

lonely stroll on the evening of the day that followed her
husband's departure for London, Mrs. Matcham, tall,
cool, and insipid, put a telegram into her hand, and the
summons was for her to come to London next morning;.
The day after, by the same train that had carried her
captain away, Phyllis left Woolsborough. She caught
a glimpse of her father's house through the carriage
window. Did a sensation as though she had swallowed
the wrong way swell her throat ? Did a tear slide down
her pretty cheek ? We cannot control our hearts ; no
man dare predict what he will think, how he will act in
a given situation. The study of human nature is not
puzzling and confounding because the human mind is
the most complex of all machines, but because people do
not themselves know nor can foresee their own volitions,
moods, mental states, under varying conditions, and what
a man does not know of himself another man cannot
know of him.

Most people might have thought that Phyllis would
have half choked on catching sight of the home from
which she had been expelled, away far off in the trees ;
instead of which she coloured to a sudden visitation of
wrath ; she considered herself abominably ill-used ; she
recalled the terms of Mr. Stanhope's letter, and a sort of
hate of her father took possession of her. She made up
her mind to think of him as an unfortunate accident of
her life, a darksome detail of her being, something against
which indeed no provision could have been made by her,
but which, as it had happened, was to be regarded by her
much as the flower considers the manure which gives life
to the soil it springs from.

Captain Mostyn was on the platform in a new silk
hat, a fine cloth frock coat, and highly polished boots.
He looked uncommonly handsome and brown, and as little
like a sailor as most sea-captains when they whip off

i)

34 OVERDUE

their gingerbread tomfoolery of lace and buttons, and
dress as a gentleman. But there was some suggestion of
old Ocean in his embrace of his wife. The shore-going
salutation, though ardent, would have lacked the hearti-
ness, the freedom, the idea of there being nothing in sight
all round the horizon which characterized our captain's
salutation of the sweet body who called him husband.

They got into a four-wheeler and went away to Peck-
ham, a long drive which provided them with a wide scope
of time for talk. The address was 5, Sandhurst Square,
and when they arrived, Phyllis found herself abreast of a
very comfortable house, with plate-glass windows which
sparkled in their blackness, a gleaming brass knocker
upon a door which was not going to call its maker Jerry,
plenty of white curtains, and green shutters never used,
but giving a pleasant old-fashioned air to the face of the
house. It was one of a square of houses all alike, and in
the middle of the square was a space of grass railed and
agreeably shaded.

" I should be quite content to bring up here for the
rest of my days,11 said Mostyn, as they waited on the
doorstep.

A good-looking girl, with pink ribbons in her cap,
opened the door, and her smile was a welcome of itself. All
housemaids who open hall doors should be good-looking.
A pretty face is a kindly greeting, and decorates a hall
better than a picture or a chair ; nay, it will embellish a
shabby hall-cloth and gild the dingy walls of a narrow
passage. A stout middle-aged woman, with pale hair and
a ground-swell of chins running into her throat, came along
the passage from the foot of the staircase to greet the
captain and his wife, and at the same time a voice as
loud as thunder was to be heard shouting through a
closed door on the right —

"Why, in the devil's name, am I always locked up in

PHYLLIS GOES TO LONDON 35

here like a damned monkey in a show when anything's
going on outside ? Open the door, I say ! Are you there,
Kate ? Open that door, will you ? "

" It's only my husband — pray don't be alarmed,""
exclaimed the stout lady ; and she turned the handle and
threw open the door and exposed the figure of a broad-
shouldered man with a round whiskerless face, so densely
veined about the nose that you could not look at him
without thinking of the single red lamp of a train with-
drawing into a tunnel. He sat in a merlin chair, and
on the door being thrown open, instantly propelled him-
self with a pair of immense bloated hands halfway across
the threshold.

"Why the devil," he roared, "d'ye always shut the
door behind you when you leave the room ? How in
the name of ruin am I to make myself heard if I want
anything ? I might drop dead of an exploded blood-
vessel for all you'd hear me, with you upstairs and the
cook rattling her blooming old range just beneath, till
it's worse than the stokehold of a tramp. Well, Mostyn ;
glad to see you. And this is your pretty young wife ? "

He rolled a pair of rheumatic eyes upon her, and his
face, dyed in places like raw rump steak, took on a
grotesque expression of admiration.

" My respects to you, my dear young lady, and
heartily hope you'll make yourself at home here.11

"You don't even give me a chance of greeting Mrs.
Mostyn,11 said the stout lady, who was Captain Mostyn's
cousin Kate Chester ; and she took the young wife by the
hand, and kissed her, and viewed her with admiring eyes ;
for joy in being with her husband had furbished up the
girl out of all stain of travel. She was radiant with white
teeth and beaming eyes, and her auburn hair looked more
precious and beautiful than gold as it swept past the ear
under the upward curve of her hat.

36 OVERDUE

The luggage was brought in by the cabman and a
man. Mrs. Chester conducted Phyllis upstairs, and Cap-
tain Mostyn, laying hold of the merlin chair, twisted the
skipper round and ran him to the sofa, upon which he
seated himself, with the cripple close beside him.

CHAPTER III

PECKHAM, S.E.

Captain Chester was a retired master-mariner, who lived
partly on his wife's dowry, partly on his father's legacy,
and partly on money saved, strange to relate, from
speculations on the Stock. Exchange. He died before
this book was written, and, as he plays no material part
in the story, I should not enlarge upon him were it not
that, owing to his face, figure, and attire, he was perhaps
the most extraordinary character the merchant service
ever produced.

Mostyn, who knew him well, could not help surveying
the warped and helpless man as he sat in his merlin
chair. He was about fifty-four years old, and wore his
brown hair in a net, over which was drawn a peak-ended
silk cap with a tassel that dropped below his ear, and
nothing but his Peckham or Iiotherhithe face rescued
him from the suspicion that he was a piratical fisherman
in an opera, from whose troupe he had fled in a fit of
madness. His turn-down collars were not particularly
clean, and his scarf was a sort of cloth-mosaic, which
might to the undiscriminating eye have involved frag-
mentary representations of St. Peter's at Rome, the
Pyramids, a camel, and a whale. In this extraordinary
neck-cloth was plunged a large brooch, whose white
medallion was a portrait of George IV. He sometimes
feigned that the King had given this brooch to his father

37

38 OVERDUE

for singing "Tom Tough''1 before his Majesty at the
Pavilion at Brighton. His waistcoat was of more colours
than Joseph's coat, and seemed to suggest a worn-out
carpet in a faded parlour full of flue and dust. Upon
this wonderful waistcoat reposed — shall I call it a silver
chain ? Rather let me term it a silver chain cable. The
bight or loop of it was so considerable that the middle
links of the semi-circle rested upon his thighs. His
fingers leaned from the palms of his hands like a row of
seaside lamp-posts after a hurricane ; his legs were right-
angles, and these angles for conveniency were clothed in
trousers which would have reminded an old admiral of
the petticoat breeches of the tars of his youth.

" Tea will be served up soon," said this singular
retired skipper. " Hand us that jar of tobacco and that
tray of pipes, will you ? Does your wife object to
smoking ? I hope she don't. She'll have to put up with
it if she stops along with me. Only that I know when
ladies are what Jack calls in a delicate way, the smell of
tobacco is like onions to a beautiful woman who reckons
her breath a part of her charms, as it should be. I can't
do without my pipe, Charles. There's no bleeding good
in talking. The doctors wanted me to knock off whisky.
I says, you may call it rum, you may call it gin, or you
may call it brandy, but when, says I, you come to whisky
you'll find yourself talking to a man who knows his rights,
and who'll fight for them, in spite of his bent legs, which
you can't cure."

During this harangue Mostyn had placed pipes and
tobacco before the eccentric figure in the pirate cap, who,
having with slanting fingers plugged a bowl full, looked
about him for a match. Mostyn pulled out a small box
and struck a wax vesta.

" No, damn it," cried Chester ; " never strike a match
for a fellow whose fingers have gone by the board. How

PECKHAM, S.E. 39

am I to catch hold of that flame without burning
myself?"

He was able to strike a match on his own account
without scorching his ringers or burning a hole in his
small clothes, for it is true that men who suffer as Chester
did are very careful not to hurt themselves. If they are
occasionally subjected to excruciating agonies the reason
must be sought in the tender solicitude of others who help
them on with their coats, or pull off their breeches, or
haul on their slippers regardless of distorted toes. The
tongue that dictates these words has frequently had
occasion to vent itself in the ignoble language of the
forecastle, because of tender ministrations termed angelic
by outsiders who know not arthritic agony.

" You've managed to pick up a fine young woman for
a mate," said Chester, after cock-billing his head to light
his pipe. " I guess shell improve as I see more of her.
It's a pity you can't take her to sea with you. And yet
I don't know ; it's subjecting the sex to more than they
deserve to carry 'em to sea."

"The insurance people have declined in a most
positive manner," answered Mostyn. "The job will pay
me handsomely, and I want it to run out without a hitch,
because if we recover the money I shall get reputation.
It will be mentioned in the newspapers. I want to get
command in steam and in a mail company, and a good
name in what they call shipping circles is a good
thing."

" Is the day of sailing fixed ? " asked Chester, sucking
at his pipe with an action of the lips which resembled
that of a cow's mouth when chewing the cud.

"Ten days' time."

" Who's your diver ? "

" Stephen Dipp. He has worked for the Trinity
House. I had a short yarn with him last evening. He

40 OVERDUE

seems very confident, and has the air of a man who means
to do his bit no matter what the job."

"Well, you'll be fetching Staten Island in the summer,11
said Captain Chester. " I've heard tell of flowers blowing
in those parts when the sun's rolled south. It's a pity,11
he repeated, "you can't take your wife along with
you "

He ceased to a sound of footsteps, and the ladies
entered the room.

" I can't get up to receive you," said Chester. " You
see how bad my legs are. I haven't stood for four
years."

" Whafll you stand now ? " exclaimed Mostyn.

" Ring for a cup of tea," said the cripple. " And if
it isn't strong enough there's a bottle of whisky in the
sideboard."

Phyllis sat down. She looked as fragrant and sweet
as a bunch of lilies-of-the-valley in a glass of water.
Mrs. Chester helped the divinity of the young woman's
charms of face and person by the contrast of her homely
appearance, her chins and swelling bust, and just such
rotundity of skirt as fascinates the Dutchman's eye.

Mostyn looked with pardonable delight at his wife,
and in spite of his aches, from which he was never free,
Chester's expression was that of a man whose heart is
moved by beauty, whether in poetry, or in marble, or in
the marvellous brush of the great artist, or in the radiant
white-breasted structure of the shipbuilder's yard.

"I was just saying to your husband," said the retired
captain, " that though it would have been a good thing
for your young affections if he could have carried you
along with him this voyage, yet, taking it all round, the
sea is no place for ladies, particularly such ladies as
you."

" I'm in very good health, Captain Chester."

PECKHAM, S.E. 41

" Why, yes ; and I hope you'll remain so. You
certainly look it. But it isn't that I mean. The ladies
best fitted for the sea are those who wear their bonnets
perched over their noses, who can smoke short black pipes
and chew Irish twist, and who don"t mind sitting in the
companion-way with a shawl round their heads peeling
onions for hishee-hashee, or mending their husband's
pants whilst the old man loafs at the tiller-head and tells
Bill, who's leaning over the side, that he means next
voyage to have his hooker look as smart as an Antwerp
lighter."

" Nonsense, Joseph ! " exclaimed Mrs. Chester, with
some warmth. "To hear you talk one would suppose
that captain's wives, when they are ladies, never go to
sea with their husbands. I can assure you, Phyllis, there
is no great lady in the land superior in manners if not in
breeding — for we can't all flow from kings and dukes —
to many captain's wives I have met."

" Are you speaking of the merchant service, Kate ? "
inquired Chester, with the irritability in his voice of the
tweak of a gouty toe.

" Certainly ! "

" Will you name one of those fine ladies ? "

".Airs. Torton."

" Why," cried Chester, with an exasperating laugh,
" she's a German ! "

" What does that matter?" responded his wife.
" Are there no Germans in high life in England ?"

" A merchant skipper's wife may be a lady, I hope,"
exclaimed Mostyn.

" And so may a naval chap's," grunted Chester.

"The Navy's a very unfortunate service so far as
marriage is concerned," exclaimed Mrs. Chester. "A
midshipman makes nothing of marrying a barmaid. You
hear of commanders who do not talk of their wives —

42 OVERDUE

neither the commanders nor the commanders' families.
I have heard of an admiral who married the daughter of
a pawnbroker, and she's now her ladyship.1'

" What are we arguing about ? " exclaimed Mostyn.

" But all the same," said Chester, as though he
thought aloud, without the slightest regard to the feelings
of his listeners, " whether a captain's wife be a lady or
not, it's bloomed hard upon her, if she's young and good-
looking and newly married, to be left alone ashore perhaps
two years, whilst the husband's chasing cargoes from port
to port all over the world."

Phyllis looked down. She did not relish this talk.

" What's the remedy," asked Mostyn, " if owners won't
allow wives to ship with their husbands ? "

" What's the remedy ? " bawled Chester. " Why, of
coui'se, don't get married."

" You got married," said his wife.

" Yes, and here I am," answered Chester, looking at
his legs.

" You would not surely imply," cried Mrs. Chester,
" that your marriage is the cause of your rheumatism ? "

" You must sadly feel the loss of your legs, Captain
Chester," said Phyllis, perceiving that remarks of this sort
must easily lead to a quarrel between a piratically dressed
man with angle-irons for legs, and a plump woman whose
good nature disposed her sooner to dispute with her
husband than to allow him to vex a pretty young wife
with his views.

" Yes," answered Captain Chester. " Gord has been a
o-ood deal of trouble to me. Gord or the Devil. You can
take your choice. I believe in both. Not in Gord as a
white man, nor in the Devil as a nigger ; but there are
two principles of good and evil always fighting hard in
this world, and evil gets the better, as you may judge by
the little pleasure there is and the amount of suffering —

PECKHAM, S.E. 43

as you may judge, I say, by looking at my legs. When's
tea going to be served ? "

How did Phyllis enjoy the prospect of being boxed
up, during her husband's absence, with a rheumatic sailor
whom gout had filled with profanity and sulky views on
problems which lie beyond the grave, and who acted and
talked like a curmudgeon ; though his heart, deep-seated,
might be as true and soft as Tom Bowling's, when you
gained it through the intricate corridors of his temper?
Certainly Peckham, so far as Phyllis could judge by
looking out of window, was not Woolsborough, that is,
the environs of Woolsborough. How far off from Sand-
hurst Square were meadows, groves, and streams like to
those she had been brought up amongst ? On the other
hand, Mr. Stanhope was not here : he was about a hundred
miles distant, and would stay there ; and this consideration
should make Peckham, nay, even Clo' Street, Houndsditch,
a very desirable place for a dwelling, to use the language
of the house agent, for our young wife.

But she had a scheme in her head, a plot as complex
as a detective story ; and it was that project and her
resolution to carry it out, and her conviction that she
would triumph because of aid promised, a compact ratified
by a hearty kiss in the bedroom above, that enabled her
to view with complacency the curious figure of Captain
Chester, to listen, sometimes with silver laughter, sometimes
with nun-like gravity, to his deliveries, whilst she sipped
her tea, often looking at her husband, and often looked
at by him.

It was arranged that the Dealman should sail on
October 1st. This would give her plenty of time to take
in such stores as she needed for the voyage. Her crew
were to consist, besides the commander, of Mr. James
Mill, mate; Mr. Thomas Swanson, second mate ; Matthew
Walker, boatswain, and carpenter, cook, steward, twelve

44 OVERDUE

A.B.'s and six O.S. The diver's name was, as we have
heard, Stephen Dipp, and with him would go three men,
Jackson, Brown, and Riding, to tend the air pump and
lines when he was over the side.

This was a strong company for a ship of 750 tons.
But it was a voyage in which labour would play a large
part, for the profits, if the money was recovered, were
considerable, and the directors of the Ocean Alliance
Insurance Company were much too prudent and practical
to starve their adventure.

On the morning following Phyllis's arrival at Peckham,
Captain Mostyn, at his wife's request, took her to the
East India Docks to show his ship to her. There are
plenty of girls who will exactly describe to you the
fashions of the hour, who will tell you the cheapest places
to go for what they call " costumes," who can talk with
more or less good sense about the University match, Lord's,
the Oaks, the new religious novel, and so on. But I have
never met a young lady who has been able to look me
in the face and utter a syllable about the docks of the
Thames, Mersey, Tyne, and other rivers to which much
that she eats and drinks all the year round arrives in
prodigious quantities, and from which is exported all that
helps to make up the riches of this country. In truth,
there is nothing very sentimental about a commercial dock.
It is not a place in which people can easily make love.
The grind and groan of lifting and lowering machinery
must badly break in upon the religious musings of the
man who proposes to sell the fruits of his holy communing
with his heart at six shillings a volume. Phyllis had
never visited any sort of docks before this trip to the
famous docks situated in the Isle of Dogs. No docks
were to be found at the seaside places she had visited.
In fact, seaside places with docks are not fashionable
haunts even to the shrimp eater, or to the young man in

PECKHAM, S.E. 45

the hard hat who stands upon the thwart of a boat loaded
down to the gunwale with people like himself, and sways
her from side to side with consequences useful to society
sometimes.

Of all the docks of Great Britain, I love the East
India Docks best. I sailed from them year after year as
a boy, and haunted them as a man for auld lang syne.
Phyllis saw what was not visible to me when I was young,
with the life of the rigger in my heels. She beheld huge
steamers, which could have shipped as longboats the hulls
of the old Blackwall liners. But wherever there was a
sailing-ship, with royal-masts aloft pointing their star-like
trucks to the heavens, there she saw more beauty than
in the mighty metal shape of the steamer rigged with
poles and funnels, and deprived by science of every
suggestion of the ocean life save that of flotation.

The Dealman lay astern of one of these large steamers.
She looked very small. But as much as could be seen of
her from the wall-edge seemed shapely enough. There
was a deck-house forward for the crew, with two berths
abaft it for the boatswain and steward. And on the
quarter-deck was another deck-house for the use of captain
and mates. Phyllis stood a little while side by side with
her husband looking at the picture of the ship's decks.
AYhat imaginable object in life could be more interesting
to her ? It was to be her husband's ocean home for some
months, to sav no more.

" Is she an old ship ? " asked the girl.

" She is old-fashioned," he answered.

" What is that barrel yonder ? "

" It is called the windlass ; it winds in the chain cable,
whose links pass through the hawse-pipes, which are holes
in the bows. As the barrel is wound the sailors
sing a song, and the anchor rises out of the mud.'"

M Take me on board," said Phyllis.

46 OVERDUE

The gangway was a plank stretched betwixt the wall-
edge and the main sheer-pole. It was not a bridge which
Phyllis would have adventured single-handed. But her
husband grasped and steadied her into the main-rig-gino-,

, Till l n dO O'

then lightly hove her feet on to the rail, and in a moment
they were on deck, she a little pale, for the crossing of
that plank had scared her, and she felt that if her husband
let go for a second she would shriek and topple over
betwixt the wall and the ship's side into the water. The
mate, a square man, was bawling down the main-hatchway
to some people below. This ship was to sail without
cargo, and probably they were trimming ballast in her
depths. What was in her was enough apparently ; she
sat with a comfortable freeboard, for there was stability
in the immersion of her strake, and she was not a ship
that would shift without ballast, an expression some sailors
and all shipbuilders will understand.

The mate, Mr. Mill, erected his shell-back at the hatch,
and saluted the captain and his wife. He was a man of
nearly fifty years old. His face belonged to a vanished
type of sea-farers. You thought of the fruiter that swept
on the wings of the wind from the Chops of the Channel
to the golden Azores ; you thought of the butter-rigged
schooner dancing at her cable in the streaming Downs ;
you thought of the tall, black, finely-straked ship with
white skysail masts and royal studding-sails, when you
looked at him. He had a bunch of furze-like growth
under his chin, which, with his cheek and upper lip, was
carefully shaved. He had broken his nose through falling
down the fore-scuttle, and the lower half of it sat somewhat
athwart-ships. Years of professional experience were
entrenched in every wrinkle and discharged volleys of curses
at you as you surveyed him.

Captain Mostyn touched his cap and passed on with
his wife. He had nothing to say to the mate, and had

PECKHAM, S.E. 47

no idea of introducing Phyllis to him who, as a representa-
tive of the jacket, did not by any means rise to Captain
Mostyn's ideal of the British merchant officer. High
aloft some riggers were dangling in the shrouds and on
the foot ropes. The sun shone, and clouds as sable as
London smoke rolled along ; the dark water of the dock
mirrored the black, white, and grey sides of ships and
steamers of all sizes and of three or four nationalities. You
saw the simulacrum of a red funnel, top part black,
trembling, like the ruddy ore from the foot of a blast-
furnace, into the shadow of its hull upon the water. You
saw the barge and the lighter, the dueless curses of the
dock-owners, and if you had listened you would have
heard the language of those who manned them. But even
the rhetoric of the enraged bargee must pale to the
thoughts that breathe and words that burn of the tramp
master. On a steamer, not far off, a skipper in velvet
slippers, walking his bridge, was shouting to a foreigner
forward —

" Let go that there line ! "

The back of the foreigner was turned upon the bridge,
and it stood as stone deaf as ignorance of the British
tongue could make it.

" Let go that there blooming line ! "

And nothing could seem more deaf than the back view
of the foreigner.

" Let go that there blooming, boiling, bleeding line,
dyer hear ! "

And I am very glad to think that Phyllis did not
catch the conversation that followed between the captain of
the ship, who rushed off the bridge, the boatswain, and the
deaf back, that was animated into the life of a windmill
in a gale, by kicks, blows, and abuse.

I have tried hard to extract romance out of the Isle of
Dogs, but it is one of those flowers towards which Nature has

48 OVERDUE

denied me the power of acting the bee. There are the scents
of the world in its atmosphere, the sweetness of Arabian
perfume, the choice aromas of the Indies, and the nostrils
find it romantic : otherwise the imagination must co hard
to work to discover the real and rooted poetic sentiment
of the docks in apparitions of ships from all quarters of
the globe, in thought of the human loads they have carried,
the white flight of the hammock over the side, the sickness,
the mutiny, the unrecorded heroism. You will find the
poetry of the docks in the shipping papers and nowhere
else, and as the people who read them are probably the
most prosaic of the countless who blacken the ways of
trade, to all intents and purposes such sentiment of
romance as you detect in the Isle of Dogs appeals to
none.

Mostyn conducted his wife into the cabin deck-house,
a term by which I distinguish the house in which the
ship's officers lived from the house which the men
occupied. It was an old-fashioned sea-going compart-
ment, that had been repeatedly doctored by the chinser
and mauled by the overhaulers of the Dry Dock. The
bulkheads wore a spotty look, as though blistered by
weather. The walls were snuff-coloured, with a grey
ceiling, and down to port and starboard went six cabins,
three of a side. Between these cabins ran a table, with
revolving hair-cushioned stools for chairs, and the interior
was illuminated by two little windows and a door in the
fore-part, and a skylight in the ceiling right over the
table.

When they went in, a young fellow was at work
cleaning a brass lamp. He sprang erect into the bearing
of a soldier, and saluted, just as a soldier would.

"My servant, Prince. Was in the Black Watch — a
smart chap, apparently," whispered Mostyn into Phyllis's
ear.

PECKHAM, S.E. 49

At this she looked at the young man so intently that
Mostyn might justly have thought Chester was quite right
when he held that pretty young girls should not be left at
home by their husbands when they went to sea.

The young man called Prince was of a middle height
and fair, a clear white skin, white teeth evenly set, and
soft blue, intelligent eyes. He was not a Scotchman,
though he had served in a North British regiment; on
the contrary, he hailed from the most unromantic part in
England — Pegwell Bay, a nightmare of mud and low-lying
fore-shore, renowned for nothing but shrimp-paste and
historical lies associating it with the landing of Julius
Caesar. What brought a soldier to sea? What could
have induced a 42nd Highlander to ship as steward on
board a small merchantman ? The question is of no
interest, and need not be answered. There he stood, one
of the manliest, best-looking — for his class — best-humoured
young fellows you could ever wish to do a kindness to.
And Phyllis stared at him until Mostyn, to mark his
surprise, exclaimed peremptorily —

"AVhat sort of lunch can you put upon this table?'"

" There's yesterday's cold fowl, sir, the remains of the
tongue, and the claret you sent on board. "

" Well, lay the cloth, and do the best you can for
us ! " said Mostyn, in the tone of a sea captain who gives
orders, and what sort of tone that is no man better knows
than the wretch who waits upon him.

" Which is your cabin ? " asked Phyllis, waking up.

He took her to the after starboard berth, and opened
the door, and exposed a little cupboard or closet lighted
by a hole in the deck-house wall, fitted with a piece of
plate-glass in a metal hoop, which you could screw up or
screw open as you pleased. The bed was a bunk which was
only not a coffin because it had not been knocked together
for a corpse; and in this sea-couch were a mattress, a

50 OVERDUE

bolster, and a blanket ; a washstand, about big enough
for a monkey to wash his face in, was screwed near the
door.

" This is my bedroom, Phyllis," said Mostyn. " Does
Windsor Castle own a more commodious chamber ? You
will suppose," said he, kissing her, " that a sailor who
loves his girl as I love Phyllis would not be very willing
to bring her into such accommodation as this and subject
her to the discomforts which that rat-hole only dimly
hints at."

" Are the rest of the cabins as small as this ? " asked
Phyllis.

" They are smaller," he replied.

She seemed astonished.

" How can people breathe in such dens ? I should
like to see them."

Pie opened the door of the cabin that lay abreast of
his. It was furnished as his was.

" Who sleeps here ? " asked Phyllis.

" Mr. Montague Benson."

« Who is he ? "

" Oh, he goes as representative of the Ocean Alliance
Insurance Company. He is to look after the ship, and
see that she don't sail away with the gold."

" Yes ; I remember your speaking of him. Is he a
pleasant man ? "

" He's a hairy man. His nostrils are smothered in
his moustache. His eyes shine like a couple of lamps set
in a hedge. His whiskers spread out in fans like the wake
of the moon rising over a still sea."

" I hope hell make a pleasant companion for you."

" It's for him to hope that of me," answered Mostyn.
" D'yer know, Phyllis, that the master of a ship at sea is
God A'mighty. The Queen on her throne has less power.
Benson goes as a passenger. It is in the power of captains

PECKHAM, S.E. 51

to make passengers very uncomfortable if they are dis-
agreeable.1''

" What cabin is this ? w said Phyllis, turning the
handle.

It was the pantry, and the handsome young steward
was in it, seeing what he could collect for provender for
lunch.

The girl took so much interest in her husband's little
ship that she resolutely inspected the other cabins. The
foremost to port belonged to the mate, and the foremost
to starboard belonged to the second mate. Abaft this
was the diver's cabin, next to the captain's. Six compart-
ments in all, and where was she to sleep ? But warrant
the woman's heart ! Let her get a footing aboard and
keep it, and where to sleep would be a trouble not to
overwhelm her in a vessel commanded by her husband.

It was about half-past twelve, and they sat down to
such cheer as Prince could provide.

" I might imagine myself in the middle of the ocean,"
said Phyllis, who would occasionally dart an interrogative
look at the young steward ; but it was the glance not of
a woman who admires, but of a woman who dumbly
conjectures.

" I can't imagine what sort of a sea-boat this hooker
will make," exclaimed Mostyn. " She has plenty of beam
and a flaring bow, and that's promise enough in a sea-
way for a wet jacket forward."

" I have often thought," said Phyllis, " that the most
beautiful sight in the world must be the mountain of
cream which the blow of a ship's bow sends recoiling as
the vessel plunges into the valley, swept by wet squalls
and guns of wind which measure her paces to the strains
of a hundred orchestras."

"Whose sea-novels have you been reading?" asked
her husband, dryly.

52 OVERDUE

" I think I have read every sea-story that was ever
written,11 she answered, smiling.

"What you have just said,11 he exclaimed, " is exactly
in the tall-talkee style of a fellow who never puts to sea
in fiction without a girl, and whose style and methods are
greatly despised by sailors.1'

" By sailors who write, do you mean ? "

" Well, they must write to deliver their opinions."

" What sort of an opinion on such books as * The
Green Hand,1 and ' Tom Cringle,1 and ' Moby Dick,1
which are as rich with gems of thought and description
as the night sky is with suns, would a man like that mate
on the quarter-deck be able to form ? /

" Never heard of two of the stories you speak of, Phyl.
Oh yes, you must eat this piece of breast.11 He filled
her glass with a second bumper of claret. " I shall
presently want to leave you alone for about twenty
minutes. There's a man owes me ten pounds, and I mean
to get the money. He is Captain Harrison, and his ship
Bristol, which arrived yesterday, lies about ten minutes
distant. He will have received his pay, and is now flush,
and if I don't tackle him at once it will be all up the
spout. It reminds me of the Jew pawnbroker, who said
to the midshipman who wanted to pawn his sextant : ' I
thuthpect this ith about the last of the Niobes thextants.
All the rest are in pledge 'ere. No vunder your engines
is always breaking down.1 A fine confusion, Phyl, to
associate the engines with a sextant, which bear about the
same relation to each other as the figurehead to the
rudder. But it always comes to Harrison's sextant before
he's been long ashore.11

" Is he married ? "

" No. He'd pawn his wife if he were. He was up in
China, and received several dozens by order of the provost-
marshal for looting. The most reckless devil ; floating

PECKHAM, S.E. 53

locks, curly beard, and rings in his ears, bell-mouth
breeches, and swings in his walk like a buoy in a popple.
I was a fool to lend him ten pounds. But then, Phyl, I
lent it before I knew you. You've taught me to under-
stand that ten pounds mean two hundred shillings, and
that I might call upon two hundred thousand people
without being able to collect that sum in the holy names
of a leg of mutton and quarter-day."

She looked at him wistfully, and suddenly said —

" I wonder if father misses me."

"/should, if you left me," he answered.

" It is you who are leaving me, Charlie."

" My honey-bird ! they will not let me take you.
And only think of five or six months of this ! " he added,
with a flourish that contained the deck-house. " This, and
the company of a diver and a hairy city gent, who under-
stands all about Lloyd's requirements, and never read a
line by Algernon Charles Swinburne in all his time, nor
wonders why it is that flowers should differ in fragrance,
and whether their colour is due to light which may be
one condition only, or to infinite variety of face-texture
possibly interpretable by the microscope." He pulled out
his watch. " I'll not keep you waiting long," said he.
" Go out on deck and lean over the side and admire the
ships. The mate will show you the cook-house and the
sailors'1 quarters if you care to inspect them."

They stepped through the door, and the captain, before
he went over the side, said a word or two to the mate,
who was still at the hatchway. Mr. Mill looked at Phyllis,
and touched his cap. She gazed at him full, smiled
sweetly, and bowed gracefully.

Prince, the good-looking young steward, was removing
the dishes from the table.

" I want to say a few words to you," Phyllis
exclaimed.

54 OVERDUE

He was much surprised, as well he might be. He
stood erect, soldier fashion, with a slight flush in his clear
skin. What did she mean ? What did she want ? She
looked extremely pretty in her hat and jacket, and if I
did not know what was exactly passing in her mind then my
respect for the reader would make me honestly afraid to
go on.

" Do you know who I am ? " she asked, very nervous,
but smiling nevertheless.

" You are the captain's wife, ma'am ; " and he saluted
her with a military flourish, a seasonable and sympathetic
expression of civility combined with discipline.

" Yes," she said, " and we have only been married a
few days. My husband earnestly wishes to take me to
sea with him and I am passionately desirous to go, for
the mere idea of a separation of even a few months is
almost as bad as my husband's death would be to me.
The people who have hired this ship for the voyage will
not allow the captain's wife to sail in her, and the captain
is too anxious to retain the post to insist that 1 should
be permitted to accompany him. But I mean to go,"
she exclaimed, looking at the young fellow with the
resolute eye of a woman who thinks only of the intention
she is unfolding, and not of the impression she is creating,
the varying movements of her beauty, nor the grace of
her attitude, if these things be part of her ; " and I am
talking to you in the hope that you will help me."

He was shy and awkward, and looked so, sunk his
eyes in modesty upon the deck, at a loss, not as to meaning,
but as to its vehicle. After a short pause, he replied —

" I should be sorry, m'am, not to do anything that I
could to oblige you."

" I was sure of that," she cried. " If you had been a
common sailor — I mean one of those people that my
husband describes as pier-head jumpers — I couldn't have

FECKHAM, S.E. 55

asked you to help me. But you have been a soldier in
one of the finest regiments in the world,'11 — the young-
fellow looked a little proud at this — " and I am sure I
can depend on you to enable me to sail with my
husband.'"

"What can I do, ma'am ?"

"First of all I shall want you to receive my luggage,
which shall be addressed to Mr. Prince, ship Dealman,
East India Docks."

" What will it consist of, lady ? " he asked, a little
anxiously.

" A large trunk and a portmanteau.''1

" Whatll the mate think if he sees luggage of that
sort addressed to me coming over the side ? "

She instantly appreciated the objection.

" If it were a seaman's chest," he began.

"Ill buy one," she exclaimed, quick as lightning.
" A seaman's chest will hold my clothes better than my
trunk."

"If a regular sea-going chest came to me," said the
steward, " why, of course, no questions would be asked,
and I could stow it away in my berth forrard."

" Oh, it is so easy — so xery easily done," cried the young
wife, with her face lighted up ; " and then I shall come
on board on the morning the ship sails — my husband
says the tide will serve at three o'clock in the afternoon —
and I shall follow him here after he has left me at Feck-
ham where we are stopping, and you'll put me into a
cabin and let me know when the ship is at sea and it is
too late to send me on shore."

" It'll have to be the pantry, ma'am," said Prince. " All
the cabins will be occupied by "

" The pantry will do ; any hiding-place will do."

"Do the captain wish this to happen, lady ?"

" Oh yes, oh yes ; more ardently even than I. He will

56 OVERDUE

thank you again and again, and be sure that I shan't
forget you.11

" I should be ashamed to oblige you for a reward,
ma'am,11 said Prince. A resolved look entered his face, he
clenched his fist, and exclaimed: "I don't care what the
consequences are, I'll do all you want, and willingly ; and
if the captain thinks proper to punish me, that'ull be his
lookout. I'm on board the ship every day until she
sails, and all you've got to do, lady, is to send your gear
along in a proper sea-chest, and I'll be on the lookout
for you on the morning of the day the vessel sails."

If her tongue was speechless her face was not ; no
glowing, happy, triumphant smile was ever more eloquent
of gratitude. She pulled out her purse and took a five-
pound note from it ; but he put his hands behind him, and
said quietly, but in a tone rigid with obstinacy —

" I can't take money for helping a lady who wants my
services."

Scarce had this heroic sentiment escaped him when
he sprang to the table and went on removing the dishes.

Phyllis glanced behind her and saw the mate standing
in the door. He had been insulted by a ballast trimmer,
and looked like a man who had seen the devil.

CHAPTER IV

THE " DEALMAX " SAILS

There used to be (there is no longer) a mixture of fun
and tears in the picture of a sailing-ship hauling out of
dock. Emigrants were weeping on the main deck.
Drunken seamen were tumbling about in contortions of
hornpipe upon the forecastle. The dock master cursed
the mud-pilot, and the mud-pilot swore like a fiend at the
captain of the tug. It was a brave departure, house flag
and ensign flying, little brass bounders twinkling on the
poop, Sail on the pier head yelling to Jim to jump over-
board and she would pick him up,

The picture demanded a grave and penetrating eye
for something more than a slender and superficial inter-
pretation of its deep significance. The world was all
before that ship, the measureless world of waters, wild
and placid, black with the raven-plume of storm, bright
as the portals of heaven in the flash of the tropical day-
spring. In that ark, at any noontide, at any midnight,
in the deep heart of the fathomless brine, would be con-
tained the passions, the griefs, the hopes, the memories,
the yearnings of a city in little ; for one heartache would
perfectly represent a million heartaches in a populous
district, and one tear is as the tears of millions, and love
is the same, and hope is the same, and memory the same
operator, whether contained in a fabric of eight hundred
tons or in a city of five millions of souls.

57

5S OVERDUE

In the first week of October, at three o'clock in the
afternoon, the Dealman, commanded by Captain Mostyn,
hauled out of dock and was taken in tow by a powerful
tug with two funnels abreast. Her going was a com-
paratively quiet one, her crew had been carefully selected,
and there were scarcely more than six amongst them who
were drunk. Orders were shouted without passion or excite-
ment of gesture. Two of the directors of the insurance com-
pany had come down to see the ship off, and stood on the wall
as the little vessel slowly glided through the gates, waving
their hands to some people on the quarter-deck. One of
those people was Captain Mostyn. A second was Mr.
Montague Benson, representing the insurance company.
Mostyn had described this man to Phyllis as hairy, and
hairy he was, with a long nose and large nostrils sunk
deep in a moustache that curled out of his upper lip in
a very cataract of hair. His whiskers were spread down
his cheeks and were immensely thick and wiry ; here and
there lay a faint streak of grey, otherwise his hair was
as black as a crow, and his shorn chin betwixt the stout
besoms of whisker was as blue as an anchor on a sailor's
arm. His eyes were overshadowed by heavy black brows,
some of the fibres of which curled upwards upon his fore-
head as though he had been making up for the part of
Mephistopheles and had changed his mind. The ex-
pression of his eyes was rendered unpleasant by a sort of
plausible leer. He looked full of self-sufficiency and
affected concession. It was the eye of a man who could
say a hard thing and do a mean thing to a subordinate
or person depending upon him, and bow, acquiesce, smile
with deference and admiration, bend a deferential gaze
downward in the presence of a title, of a director, of
anything that could add another figure to his income.

He stood beside the captain in brand-new clothes.
He wore a monkey-jacket, which looked no more like a

THE "DEALMAN" SAILS 59

sailor's monkey-jacket than he looked like a gentleman.
It was one of those " garments " which you may see in
ready-made tailor shops, buttoned over busts on legs, and
marked, " our newest style for the seaside : price two
guineas without vest.1' In such garments as these, stock
jobbers, drapers1 assistants, bank clerks, and the like may
be met with in Mai-gate, Ramsgate, and other such places
in the summer holidays, walking about in the happy con-
viction that young ladies mistake them for Naval officers
on leave, or owners of the yachts in the harbour.

The third person who formed the group, at which the
directors on the wall were flourishing farewells, was the
diver, Mr. Stephen Dipp. I shall surprise you by affirm-
ing that this man was extremely stout. For years I had
been of opinion that the best diver must be the man
who most closely resembles the living skeleton. A thick
neck, fat chops, and a belly shaped like half an apple, do
not suggest a prosperous career down in twelve or fourteen
fathoms.

Mr. Dipp presented exactly the appearance I have
hinted at : he was heavy, thick-set, overlaid, with a sunk
voice of a greasy note which made you think of warm
fat strained through paper down his gullet, and putting
the bubble of its music into his utterance. Yet Mr.
Dipp was one of the most noted divers of his time. He
had dived for the Trinity House, for Lloyd's, for
Insurance Companies. He had dived to blow up ships,
to discover where telegraph cables had parted, to penetrate
the cabins of foundered craft for treasure. He was
dressed in plain pilot cloth, and his big head was
sheltered by a cap with a nautical peak.

" Good-bye, gentlemen, good-bye ! " he greasily yelled,
flinging; a hand like a fillet of veal at the men on the wall.
" Well, this is taking things easy ! " and now he addressed
Mr. Benson. "This is starting like gentlefolks. Why,

60 OVERDUE

upon my word, I can't make out more than two men
forrard who seem drunk.11

" How would you have us haul out, Mr. Dipp ? w said
Mr. Benson.

" Why, like this, sir. It's enough to make the
blood run thick as cheese, capt'n, to see some of them
'auling out. Particularly steam tramps. Watch 'em
waiting for the dock gates to open. Funnel guys adrift,
the decks an 'urrah's nest, with fenders, derricks, spare
hatches, and the like. Drunken firemen tumbling over the
coamings of the hatches, drunken sailors trying to get
ashore, meaning to run. Sure to be short of lines on the
forecastle head. Perhaps she carries away one of her
propeller blades before she goes clear. The row's worse
than a menagerie when a fire breaks out in sight of the
beasts, and there's the capt'n chipping in, then there's the
mate exchanging Cardiff or Newport civilities with the
Dock Board official. And either she 'auls out so light
that you shall swear she must carry away her tail-shaft in
the first fresh blow she comes across, or she's so deep that
you're certain her six or twelve months' charter don't
mean longer than the first gale of wind she steams into.
It's the likes of your orfice makes it possible for the one-
boat managing owner to be a bigger rascal than any that
stands in Toosaud's Chamber of 'Orrors.'1

"Insurance means risk," exclaimed Mr. Benson; "but
I confess I could wish that the moral standard of our
shipping industry was raised."

" It'll never be raised," said Mr. Dipp, firmly, " whilst
there are sailors to rob and starve, and shareholders to
plunder or pay."

" Yes," said Captain Mostyn, whose duties of command
were heaped upon the shoulders of the mud pilot.
" The British merchant service has sunk very low.
They build splendid ocean mail steamers, but the

THE "DEALMAN" SAILS 61

profession as a calling couldn't be lower. You seldom
meet a gentleman in the merchant service. It was the
rule for gentlemen to command and to officer the ship in
the days when the East India Company's flag was flying.
What were those days ? They scarce rose to a thousand
tons, and were homely in hull though regal in heights,
but they held in their hearts such a race of seamen as
surely you shall not find now under the red flag. Yes,
the steamers of to-day are magnificent : twelve thousand
and sixteen thousand tons, with drawing-rooms for cabins,
and the luxuries of the world for the table. But their
crews ! Go into their stokeholds and talk to the firemen.
Go into the forecastle and talk to the men, if they
understand English. The outports pour their kennel-
dregs, and the crimp directs the channel of the filthy flow,
into these glorious examples of the shipbuilding art, and
we are proud of the British merchant service in the name
of tonnage, but, by God, Mr. Benson, not in the name of
sailors."

" It's awful to contemplate what must happen to this
country ? said Mr. Dipp, " if there should be a Heuropean
war which finds our merchant service filled with furriners.1'

" We should starve,11 said Mr. Benson.

" The absurd blunder they make,11 exclaimed Captain
Mostyn, " lies in supposing that the merchant service is
any longer a fishing-ground for the Royal Navy. Suppose
a tramp sailor to be an Englishman : what use could you
make of him aboard a man-o'-war ? The greatest of the
shams of the age is the Royal Naval Reserve. They are
only intended to do bluejacket's work, and that they
must do badly, because they are seldom drilled. The
English merchant sailor is wanted for the food and cargo
carrier and for nothing else, and since the shipowners choose
to employ foreigners in preference to Englishmen, then,
when war breaks out, the foreigners will sneak off with

62 OVERDUE

our cargo boats whether convoyed or not. Night often
means blackness, and fog withers the searchlight, and
steam is steam even at ten knots, and there is not a
foreigner the wide world over, call him captain, mate, or
lookout man, who will not help with keenest interest the
struggles of our enemy to starve our island into
submission. "

" But what will our Navy be doing ? " exclaimed Mr.
Benson.

" Who is to answer that question until you name the
nations we are at war with,r> replied Captain Mostyn.
" My own opinion is that the heaviest assaults upon our
commercial fleets will be dealt by privately owned ships.
Our Navy may lock up the enemy "'s ships, may keep the
Channel and North Sea free, may preserve our fashionable
seaside resorts from all possibility of bombardment, but
how the admirals will deal with the Alabamas and
Shenandoahs of eighteen and twenty knots which will
pepper the ocean in the good time coming nothing but a
Naval war will explain."

By this time the Dealman had been towed clear
of the docks, and Avas now going down the river, sliding in
good trim through the wake of yeast which the paddle
wheels ahead were viciously grinding out of the water of
the Thames. The old river smiles into beauty above
bridges ; its stately swans fitly image the tender elegance
and soothing graces of its scenery ; the emerald slope, the
white house whose parterres breathe in gushes of sweetness
into the air, the duplicated bridge, and the thin yellow
streak, with feathering oars flashing into gold, a bending
shape amidships, a crimson sunshade in the stern-sheets.
Fairy-like are the pictm*es which you paint upon the
surface of your waters above bridges, old Father Thames,
and much do I love your moods and humours there, where
your waters will pout and sulk in some leaf-shadowed pool

THE "DEALMAN" SAILS 63

or fishermen's haunt, where the inverted cow crops the
visionary growth of the soil, where the patient boy watches
his equally patient quill which shall not erect itself or
vanish once in two hours.

But below bridges the old Father goes to business ;
he smokes in chimneys, he startles the welkin with the
clash and clangour of the rivet hammer, he hoards his
receivings in docks lofty with spars, splendid with flags,
rich in acres of warehouses and storage buildings. Here
he hugs the rum-cask and the bale of wool ; here he
stacks his mahogany and heaps his bitter aloe ; here his
broad back trembles under the weight of strings of barges
loaded with produce and crowned by sleeping men ; and
with mighty steamers slowly making for the docks, jetting
water from their sides like pulses whose dull throbs report
the dying beats of the heart within ; and with agitated
penny steamers, whose crowded decks would fill the air
with bonnets, hats, and umbrellas if a boiler burst ; and
with deep-laden sailing-ships in tow, iron sailing-ships
which mock the old benignant form with their grinning
trumpery of painted ports, so deep laden you may easily
swear, spite of the red ensign at the monkey-gaff, that
the whole of the crew are foreigners, including the
captain ; and by this other sign, that the masts are ill-
stayed and half the sails still hanging by their gear,
though she took her tug off the North Foreland.
Certainly the merchant service of to-day does great
honour to our Imperial dreams. And our slack notions
of territorial expansion old Father Thames will any day
illustrate for you in the spectacle of a five-masted sailing-
ship, deeply laden and manned, for all the weathers of
heaven, by four Englishmen and sixteen foreigners.

This picture of busy Thames was a familiar scene to
the eye of Captain Mostyn. But his mood just now did
not incline him towards admiration of the many-coloured

64 OVERDUE

tapestry of river life which snaked in arras-like reaches
with the curving of the banks. He had talked lightly
about the merchant service, and things he took no very
sincere interest in, with Mr. Benson and Mr. Dipp ; but
his thoughts went streaming further and further astern to
where the end of them was anchored by the kedge of love,
in proportion as the tug towed the Dealman farther and
farther away from the latitude of Peckham.

He left his companions, and went right aft, where stood
nobody but the helmsman who gripped the wheel, and,
folding his arms, gazed thoughtfully into the air, behold-
ing nothing but visions of his own conjuration. The mud-
pilot was in charge ; the captain would have leisure to
think before the release of the tow-rope in the Channel,
whither the vessel would be conducted by another pilot
shipped at Gravesend, should heap the whole dead weight,
moral and material, of the ship's life of white wing and
beating hearts upon his one devoted head.

Of whom could he think but of Phyllis ? He had left
her that morning at nine o'clock, had held her to his
heart in the long embrace of a man who loves deeply,
who says farewell to his love on the eve of a voyage from
which he may never return ; for if it be true that in this
world you can make sure of nothing but the uncertain,
then it is a truth more applicable to the sea-life than
any, and a man may go to his business every morning
and never doubt that he will return safely at night and
dine with his wife ; but no sailor capable of thinnest
reflection but inwardly feels he could not put to sea for a
day without holding his life in his hand, and that at any
moment in any hour of that day God may give him the
order to let go.

Now Mostyn had been a little struck by his wife's
behaviour, not only that morning, but overnight, and
when they had gone to their bedroom. For the overnight

THE "DEALMAN" SAILS 65

had been the last night they would be together for
many a long week, and she was not so pensive, not so
tearful, not so thoughtful as he had expected to find her.
She had made a good supper, and seldom omitted to
laugh when Captain Chester said something as odd as he
looked. He did not indeed suppose that his departure
would press with much weight upon the spirits of his
cousin Kate, and yet he could not but consider that her
levity was a little unseasonable, seeing that he might
never sup again at that house, indeed might never live to
return to it, and that to-morrow morning was to behold
the piteous spectacle of two loving hearts torn asunder
by stress of bread.

Phyllis had not even shed a tear when they clung
together in a final kiss. He tried to please himself by
reflecting that she showed a proper spirit in schooling
herself ; in all probability she had given way after he had
driven ofF, flooded her face with tears, cried out his name
again and again, fainted perhaps. But as he stood look-
ing sternwards over the taffrail of his little ship he could
not persuade himself that she had exhibited a single
token by which he might suspect that her grief was pent
up, and that her agony of separation would, the instant he
was out of sight, prove as torrential as anything in fiction.

This sort of reverie darkened his humour. He was
extremely fond of her. No pen could express how greatly
this man loved his wife from the hour of his affecting; the
charming woman he had met at a garden party. He was
sure of himself, of course ; but will any man in his senses
affirm with any degree of solemnity of conviction that he
is sure of his wife ?

"How little do we know of what passes in one
another's mind ! " says Sidney Smith. Husbands and wives
know no more than others who are not husbands and
wives.

F

Go' OVERDUE

It is quite true that Mrs. Mostyn had defied her father
and all his works by marrying Mostyn in a registry office.
It was equally true that her love had procured her
expulsion, with assurance of a bitter legacy of penury if
her husband proved a failure as a sailor. But still,
thought Mostyn, a new complexion may have visited her
mood. Her thoughts may have turned to her father ;
she may secretly lament the loss of the fortune which
would certainly have been hers ; she may ask herself, is
Charlie worth the enormous sacrifice I have made for him,
not only the surrendering of all my past and the wealth
that was in it, but the yoking myself to a man whose
company I may enjoy perhaps for two months in three
years, who, by professional obligation, must leave me all
alone or with a baby, or with two or thi'ee babies, to live
in beggarly fashion ashore, without any social position
worth hinting at, and without means to support it if it
were susceptible of hints ?

" I wish she had cried," he thought. " Dash it all !
even one tear would have been pleasant to remember.
There is a great deal of truth in some of the opinions of
that cheesy old beggar, Chester. Ifs not fair " — and here
he punched the eye of the breeze with his clenched fist —
" to leave a pretty young wife ashore — not fair to her
or to her husband." His handsome face put on a scowl
as he looked round, sending the gaze of a tragedian out
of the corner of his eyes at Mr. Dipp, who was talking to
the mate. " Why should the infernal insurers object to
my taking Phyl to sea with me ? May "

But I will not proceed. Enough that Mostyn had
worked himself up into a passion.

Just then some cries from the tug ahead, coupled with
the rush of several figures aboard the ship to the side,
disengaged him from his uncomfortable reflections. Oft'
the starboard bow of the tug a steam launch was rushing

THE "DEALMAN" SAILS 61

in a circle at about ten knots an hour. A man on a
barge at some distance ahead was yelling instructions in
fainting tones to the one man in the steam-launch. It
was easily understood that the launch had plumped into
the barge, and that the stoker in control of the engines
had leapt on to the barge in the conviction that the
launch was going down, leaving his mate alone. This
mate clearly knew nothing about the engines, nor what
to do with them, and as the yelps grew more and more
indistinct in the distance, he had evidently thought that
the best course he could shape was to keep his helm hard
over and waltz the furnace lifeless. This would have
been an admirable stroke of nautical policy on a lake or
in any untenanted stretch of water. But the river
crowded this one man's tactics with drawbacks ; and first
of all he thumped into the tug that was towing the
Dealman with such a recoil that he was flung from the
tiller several feet forward. The helm instantly righted
itself, and off went the launch for a towering National
liner which, with lofty solemnity, was picking her way
down the river. However, the man was too swift for his
launch, and in a moment was heading her off for the
liner's stern, sweeping through it at ten knots, and shoutino-
for help as he went. When he reappeared he was astern
of the Dealman, and Captain Mostyn yelled to him,
" Beach her, beach her ! " for what could be more alluring
than Thames mud to the dizzy keel of a steam-launch
sick with the gyrations through which the irresponsible
fiend inside was rushing her ? But either the man did
not hear, or declined to acquiesce. He preferred to go
for a dumb barge like a floating haystack, and a man
running along her side with a sweep as long as a signal-
mast. He was quite successful in hitting her, and the
recoil produced an elaborate somersault. Twice the
launch nosed the barge, and then went away, with a heap

68 OVERDUE

of foam under her low counter and a figure in the posture
of supplication steering her. The bend of the river
clapped her out of sight.

Mr. Dipp strolled up to the skipper.

"A queer job,1' he said. "But, you see, he couldn't
stop her, and didn't know what to do. In that there
steam-launch lies, I'm thinking, the 'ole moral of the
British Navy."

"What do you mean ?" inquired Mostyn.

" The hadmiralty,11 said Dipp, " keeping obstinately
holding on to the traditions of the old sailing days,
continues to look upon Naval engineers and their men
as" of little or no importance compared to hadmirals,
captains, commanders, lieutenants, and bluejackets. All
these people, from the hadmiral down to the newest
arrival from H.M.S. Vivid or Britannia, know no more
about the hengines of a steamer than that chap who is
veiling in the steam-launch. Now, sir, in war one third
of the hengine-room complement are on deck to see that
the ship don't take fire, to look to the water-tight doors,
and so on. If these men are knocked on the head by
the enemy, "bo's to do their work ? Most sartinly nobody
out of the hengine-room, for outside the hengine-room
nobody knows anything about machinery. Another third
must be drawn from the hengine-room, leaving the
remainder to work hengines of perhaps twenty thousand
horse-power. But suppose the second third on deck are
mopped up : then you must bring up the remaining third
and leave the hengines to look after themselves, and put
the ship in the situation of that there launch, because it
is quite certain that all the fine gentlemen they now call
hadmirals, officers, and midshipmen, and all the square
shouldered blokes they've nicked-named 'andy men, as
though they was a tribe of parties imported into the
Navy from the Andaman Islands — I say that all this part

THE "DEALMAN* SAILS 09

of the ship's company don't know the difference between
a gauge-glass and a piston-rod, between the hengine yer
steer by and the hengine that works a capstan."

" What's the remedy ? " inquired Mostyn.

" Why, every man aboard a steam machine of war
must be a hengineer, and if beneath the grade of a
commissioned officer must 'ave the knowledge of an
hengine-room artificer or a leading stoker, so that the
'ole ship's company may be equal to the emergency which
the Admiralty take care that only about a fourth shall
at present be able to confront. You may keep on term-
ing of them hadmirals, captains, commanders, and blue-
jackets ; but the time's coming when all these men will
be required to possess as perfect a knowledge of the
hengine-room and the rest of the machinery as the
engineers and their men now have, as perfect a knowledge
of their ship of steam as their predecessors had of their
ship of sail." And with a fat-headed nod of self-gratula-
tion Mr. Dipp made his way into the cabin.

At sea it is customary to call the last meal supper.
Jack preserves his primitive traditions in spite of cross-
heads and angle-irons, nor is it a question that threatens
the foundations of society whether you label your mutton-
chop at one o'clock, luncheon, and your dish of liver and
bacon, and rice-pudding at seven o'clock, dinner. These
matters may be safely left to the adjustment of Jeames
under the superintendence of Mr. Snob. On board the
Deahnan supper this evening was served in the cabin at
six. She had been in tow since three o'clock that after-
noon, and as her rate of going would not exceed six
geographical miles in the hour, she had measured in that
time about eighteen miles of what the poets of Queen
Anne called the " Silver Thames," before the Victorian
output from Whitechapel and districts odoriferous with
Polish Jews stank into being.

TO . OVERDUE

At six o'clock in September the shades of the prison-
house begin to close, and this afternoon the shadow was
an early night at six, because a north-east wind with two
sharp teeth betwixt its viewless lips had driven, sheep-like,
a scattering of dingy cloud, which grew compact and made
a sort of corrugated floor for the flight of u<rlv feathers of
vellow scud, and at six o'clock it had been raining; for half
an hour ; the river was not shrouded, but you saw things
as through a wet sheet of glass : things swollen and
distorted out of the aspect of the airv ship or the sentient
steamer which went by sobbing and bleating, whilst the
shore resembled the strand of a desert coast, and the world
was full of wetness and a cold wind, the tuneless noises of
breeze-fingered rigging, the hiccoughing of the swollen
scupper.

Thus in tranquil forlornness glided the little ship in
the yellow scum of the slapping paddles ahead, betwixt
whose boxes the chimneys climbed, breaking off into a line
of purple-black smoke, sometimes gory at the mouth as a
gashed throat, and sparkling like a fiend-invented firma-
ment with the crimson stars of the fuimace.

Mr. Benson, Captain Mostyn, and Mr. Dipp, the
diver, sat down to a supper which might easily have been
named dinner. A little daylight lingered above, but
within this deck-house the gloom had obliged Prince, the
steward, to light the lamp. It burnt brightly, and yielded
a hospitable show. A white damask table-cloth ; knives
with ivory handles, and sparkling forks of electro-plate,
pink wine-glasses for claret, pony-tumblers for sparkling
wines, two handsome brass swing trays within easy hand-
reach to receive your drin king-vessel in a sea-way, a cold
ham, a brace of cold fowl, a tongue, a dish of potatoes
bursting, wool-white, through their jackets; yellow butter,
as though the cow still cropped the buttercup ; white
cheese from Frome. And these, and perhaps one or two

THE "DEALMAN" SAILS 71

other matters which I cannot recall, formed the supper to
which the three gentlemen sat down.

The captain took the head of the table, that is
to say, the after end ; Mr. Dipp sat on a cushioned
revolving stool on his right ; Mr. Benson occupied a
similar stool on his left. There were three stools more at
that table, but they were not occupied that evening, at
least not two of them, until the captain and his com-
panions had supped. It will be plain to you that the
pilot could not leave the deck, and whilst he kept mostlv
forward on the forecastle the mate would be required aft
to see that his instructions were instantly carried out, and
the second mate, Mr. Swanson, would not eat until the
pilot and the mate had supped, for in this voyage the
second mate did not sit with the captain at table.

Prince waited ; he waited well. He was respectful,
swift, and watchful, and his skin and teeth, and his
looks in general, showed uncommonly pleasing in that
lamplight. He had occasion to go in and out of the
pantry several times, and every time he went in he shut
the door behind him, and every time he stepped out he
was careful to close the door, which was in no sense a
noticeable thing. And yet a certain quality of nervous-
ness might have been observed in the young man's general
bearing ; not in precipitancy of waiting, not in excess of
zeal, that curse which makes the rural footman strike the
over-loaded coal-scuttle against the corner of the side-
board and discharge half its contents on the new Brussels
carpet ; not that curse of the provincial page who carries
a can of boiling water upstairs, with the spout aimed so
as to insure, if he do not slip and fall down in his hurry,
that he shall smite the banisters with his can in such a
way as to deluge the hall with boiling water and steam,
amidst the curses of the elderly cook who is on her way
to bed.

n OVERDUE

Prince's nervousness was rather subtle, it was elusive,
it was furtive. But the gentlemen paid him no heed,
except to give their orders, and they talked as they ate
and drank.

" This is what they call on the stage a festive board,"
exclaimed Mr. Dipp, hewing off one- third of a chicken, and
then heaping his plate with ham. " This is not the food
I got when I first went a-fishing."

" How long were you at sea ? " asked the captain.

" Four year," answered Mr. Dipp, whose voice, when
it began to ooze through the food he was masticating, set
one thinking of treacle running from a spoon.

" How long have you been diving ? " inquired Mr.
Benson.

" Two and twenty year come the twentieth of this
month. My precious eyes ! 'oever laid in these potatoes
deserves a pair of wings."

" Four years ! " exclaimed Captain Mostyn. " Well,
in that time you could get the life by heart."

" I gave it up on account of the grub," said Mr. Dipp.
" A man can't do a day's work on worms. In every ship
I was in, the pig under the long boat was fed better than
us men forward. Of course it was good for the cabin
table to fatten the pig. There was no call to fatten us
men. We was expected to make another sort of dish
than what's sent out of the cook's galley. I tell ye,
Captain Mostyn, that to live hard, work hard, fare hai'd,
and, haixler still, go to hell after all, is the lot of the
British sailor, and I should advise no respectable man to
send his son into the merchant service, but let the owners
get their crews out of the perlice courts."

" I quite believe," said Mr. Benson, " that a great
proportion of the criminals of this country would sooner
choose a term of treadmill than a sentence of six or
twelve months sailoring in a British ship. Well, well, the

THE "DEALMAN" SAILS 73

shipowners are our very good friends," he added, with a
smile which showed only in the wrinkling of the skin
about his eyes. He raised his heavy fall of moustache,
and drained a glass of sparkling pale ale.

" How long is it agoin1 to take us to reach Staten
Island ? " asked Mr. Dipp.

" I'll let you know when I find out what heels this
ship has," replied Mostyn.

" How are we agoin1 to amuse ourselves ? " continued
the diver.

" You'll smoke, you'll read, and you'll sleep, I guess ;
and there'll be interludes in the shape of meals, and
you'll have an opportunity for studying the motions of
the flying fish, and often the black curtain of the night
will sink upon a set piece in the west, a spectacle of
sunset quite as fine, Mr. Dipp, as you'll get in the West
End theatres, with a moon to follow, a real moon, look
you, shining over real water, with a real ship glimmering
like a ghost in the middle of the hazy girdle. So cheap,
too, not even sixpence for the gallery ! "

" I'll smoke, and I'll sleep, but the devil a bit of
reading do I do," said Mr. Dipp. " There's nothing
worth readin' but noosepapers, and there's to be no
noosepapers aboard us. Talk of beautiful writing ! Give
me the heditor's remarks in some of the mornin1 papers.
Whenever I get upon this subject I say to my friends,
' Read them articles, and name me the printed book that's
going to match 'em.1"

" I'm not much of a reader myself," said Mr. Benson.
" People talk to you about Shakespeare, and Milton, and
other writers, but they don't read them. For my part
I can't understand a man letting himself down so low as
to write poetry. There's only one meaner occupation —
that of a man who earns his living by dancing on the
stage. What's there in poetry that's not better said in

74 OVERDUE

prose ? Take such a line as this, which a young lady once
said -to me was the most beautiful she'd ever read, which
is the only reason I can give for remembering it, for my
memory don't hold a scrap of verse : ' The music of the
moon sleeps in the plain egg of the nightingale,1 and
until the young lady explained, I didn't know what the
man meant. I've heard of a plain egg, and I hope I know
what a nightingale is, but what's the music of the moon ?
Take any practical man of business, a man capable of
looking a fact squarely in the face, and ask him first of
all if there's any music in the moon, which is a dead bodv
without an atmosphere ; and if there is, how music can
sleep in an egg, because, if music is asleep, it's making no
noise, and can't be music.1''

"If yer want poetry you must dive for it,11 said Mr.
Dipp. " Not that I understand what poetry is ; but under
water things don't seem real, and that's the impression
which them gents called poets tries to produce, I believe."

" This conversation is exceedingly interesting," said
Captain Mostyn ; " but it rains hard, and I must find out
if things are real or not on deck."

And, so saying, he entered his cabin for a waterproof
coat, and stepped out, leaving Benson and the diver
eating.

CHAPTER V

PHYLLIS AT SEA

At half-past seven in the evening, the De oilman was off
Gravesend, where the services of the river pilot were ex-
changed for those of the Channel pilot. This man was
one of many who were licensed by the Trinity House to
pilot ships, and I do not say that the privilege of earning
a living by this sort of sailoring ought to be resti'icted to
pilots who receive licences ; because there are very many
'longshoremen who are better acquainted with the sound-
ings, shoals, and navigation of the British Channel and
the Thames estuary than the men empowered by law to
convey ships through them. A captain has to pay a
licensed man handsomely ; a small sum will satisfy a 'long-
shoreman. And, although the licensed pilot is in full
charge of the ship, yet the captain is held as responsible
for her safety as though he alone were in command. The
sailor has very little to thank the Legislature for.

The river spread in a breast of black grease, and a
sort of smoke seemed to rise off it as steam rises after a
thunder-squall on a hot summer day; but it had ceased
to rain, and you could see, and on one hand was the
fire-fly galaxy of Gravesend, and on the other hand was
the blackness of the Tilbury shore, and between that
sterile gloom and the Dealman hovered the white riding
lights of ships of divers pattern and burden slumbering at
their mooring-buoys or anchors. Overhead it was thick

75

76 OVERDUE

with the sighing of air that no sailor would call wind, and
the water slobbered along the sides and bends with the
oily gurgle of melted slush. But when Mr. Gordon, the
Channel pilot, came on board, a shout swept from the fore-
castle to the tug, the strained hawser lifted until its bight
hissed in the darkness between, with the noise of a skate
cutting along ice. Yes, the Deahnan was to tow through
the night into the green brine of the Channel, there to
spread her wings for dark blue solitudes, and for skies as
various in dye as flowers in a garden.

It was a blessing that the rain had ceased. You
could see a little way around you, take heed of the danger-
light, keep your tow-rope a bee-line, walk the deck in
comfort, and enjoy your pipe. There was a gangway be-
twixt the cabin deck-house and the bulwarks which yielded
space for two men shoulder to shoulder. For some time
after leaving Gravesend, Mr. Gordon and Captain Mostyn
paced this starboard gangway, emerging abaft with the
regularity of a pendulum, and wheeling round when
abreast of the wheel, which was set far enough aft to
enable the helmsman to obtain a clear view of the sails,
which would be about as much as he needed to see when
the ship had taken up her burden of loneliness ; but the
forecastle was blocked out of sight of the wheel by the
cabin deck-house, which is one of those blunders of marine
architecture our nation should be incapable of. For why
blind your steersman ? Why not provide him with as
wide a command of the sea he steers the ship through as
he would get if he stood on the bridge ? But the sailing-
ship grows fewer and fewer, and this gross obstructive
condition of the wheel, fit only as a detail of the life of
the foreigner, is rapidly decaying, if indeed it is not
already dead. Certainly steam has conferred more bless-
ings than the annihilation of the head-wind and the
swift and ceaseless passage of the keel.

PHYLLIS AT SEA 77

Mr. Gordon was a talkative pilot ; he had seen much
and suffered much, and held strong opinions on the subject
of " Goosie-men " and Deal boatmen. He was now in
trouble, and, like most men whose minds are in labour
with the load of anxious expectation, he was willing to
make a midwife of every ear that would lend itself to his
complaint, and in Captain Mostyn he found a companion
who was not only intelligent but knew the ropes.

This trouble of Gordon was a little affair so far as this
story is concerned, and may be dispatched in a few
sentences. He was pilot of a ship in tow of that well-
known tug the Gamecock. They fell in with a majestical
array of armour-clads coming along in a double line. The
tuo- towed the sailing-ship into what Wordsworth calls
the " water lane " between, and the leading ship on the
port line shifted her helm to clear the vessel in tow, which
she contrived with so much niceness and dexterity as to
drive her ram into the midship section of the sailing-ship's
thin plates, and down she went, carrying fourteen foreigners
with her ; but Gordon and four or five others managed
to float out of the abysm — for a sinking ship makes a big-
hole in the water — on a grating or something of that sort,
and they were picked up by the boats of H.M.S. Rammer.
The loss of the ship was nothing ; it was for her owners
to rejoice and the underwriters to make moan ; and the
drowning of fourteen foreign sailors was less than nothing,
for they stood in the way of the British seaman, and it
was good of H.M.S. Rammer to send them home. The
only question of the least possible gravity was, " Who's to
blame ? "

Thus these two men conversed : the time passed, and
Captain Mostyn entered the cabin to lie down on his
locker for a brief snooze.

At two o'clock he awoke, and when all his senses had
come together into his brains he found himself afflicted

78 OVERDUE

with a violent thirst. This he attributed to the ham he
had partaken of at supper. It was that sort of thirst
which views cold water askant, and finds no promise of
appeasement in it. It was a thirst for champagne, for
sparkling moselle, for seltzer-water, for a drink nimble
and pungent to tongue and palate, and as there was
plenty of soda-water on board, Captain Mostyn made up
his mind to drink a bottle or two. He would find a store
of bottles in the pantry ; that he knew.

He stepped from his berth into the interior of the
deck-house. The flame was small in the lamp, the fore-
most window-blinds were red, and a strong light within
might easily puzzle a tramp on the port bow, or a sailing-
ship on the starboard bow, and lead to complications,
violent language, to a steady inrush of water, to a taking
to the boats and all the rest of the tragic programme of a
collision at sea.

He stepped across to the pantry to try the handle, and
found the door locked. This was perfectly in order, and
a thing he should have anticipated. Not likely that the
steward would leave his pantry door open for some main-
deck skulker to sneak through the blackness and fill his
belly and his pockets with cabin victuals, and cabin
liquor.

Captain Mostyn went on deck, and his pang of thirst
was sharp and sore. The difference between thirst and
hunger is noteworthy. The beginning of hunger is plea-
sure, and it becomes suffering only when it grows into
craving. But the beginning of thirst is pain which rapidly
passes into anguish, and from start to finish there is no
pleasure in it until you drink something cool, foaming, and
biting, and then, I think, the pleasure of thirst is a larger
pleasure than the pleasure of eating in hunger.

The night was very dark ; there was nothing to be
seen on either hand. No green glimmer of starboard

PHYLLIS AT SEA 79

lamp, no red shimmer of port lamp like the ghastly motion
of the corpse-light in the cemetery ; the low shores of
Whitstable might be away down there off the starboard
bow. The tug was towing bravely ; some fore and aft
canvas had been hoisted on the ship, and the wind hummed
in the curved and steady pinions, pale in the dusky
heights.

" Is that you, Mr. Swanson ?"

" Yes, sir ; " and the second mate came out of the deep
dye shed by the main rigging.

'Tin half dead with thirst," said Captain Mostyn.
" Take this bull's-eye and get the key of the pantry from
the steward.11

The second mate unshipped a bull's-eye lamp which
illuminated a clock under the overhanging ledge of the
ceiling of the deck-house. The steward, I think I have
said, occupied one of two berths abaft the house in which
the crew lived. The other berth corresponding to his was
the boatswain's. The captain went up to the pilot, who
was standing aft near the wheel, and after a few words
about the business and navigation of the ship, he told
him that his throat was parched with thirst, and that
nothing seemed to promise relief except a bucketful of
soda-water.

" I know what that sort of thirst is," said the pilot.
" It's not the thirst you get after drinking. It's nerve
thirst. You may drink plentifully without helping it,
or if you didn't drink at all it would go when it thought
proper."

"I'm not going to wait for it to go," said Captain
Mostyn. " If I were a drinker, which I am not, it's a
sort of thirst I should be glad to pay for ; a red-herring
thirst."

He left the pilot's side to meet the second mate who,
bull's-eye in hand, was coming along the deck, a dusky

80 OVERDUE

shape, and beside him trudged another dusky shape. The
second mate's companion was Prince, attired in a pair of
dungaree breeches and a jacket.

" Have you got the key of the pantry ? " exclaimed
the captain, with the feverish impatience of a man con-
sumed with thirst.

" Yes, sir," answered Prince. " What shall I get you,
sir ? "

"Oh, damn it, I'll get it myself. There's soda-water
in plenty, I hope."

" Yes, sir. Ill fetch some bottles " — and the young
fellow, who had not delivered the key, was making his
way into the cabin ; but the captain huskily yelled, " Give
me that key, d'ye hear. I shall find what I want. Go
forward, and turn in. Hand me that lamp, Mr. Swan-
son;" and with a bull's-eye in one hand and the key in
the other, Captain Mostyn walked into the cabin.

Prince stood motionless outside on deck.

"Go and turn in," said the second mate. "It's a
devilish good picnic for you. Have you no mattress ? "

The steward seemed not to hear, but with a swift
soldierly motion of his body wheeled on his heels and
went forward, talking to himself.

Captain Mostyn put the key into the pantry door,
unlocked it, turned the handle, and pushed the door
inwards. Something obstructed the door, which scarcely
opened far enough to admit of his thrusting through.
He was in a hurry of thirst, and damned the obstruction
as he hove with his shoulder. Be the obstacle what it
would, it had something of elasticity in it, for on pushing
harder, the captain jammed himself through, bull's-eye in
hand and dry as a cat's tongue in the throat, and what
he saw by the light he carried his wits could not
immediately grasp and understand.

A mattress was extended upon the floor, the head of

PHYLLIS AT SEA 81

it against the dresser under a scuttle in the ship's side,
and the foot of it against the door, so as to prevent it
from being opened wide. Upon this mattress stood a
young woman ; she was without a hat ; her hair glanced
like gold in the flash of the bull's-eye. She had manifestly
sprung out of a sleeping posture into a full vitality and
consciousness charged with terror. A blanket lay at her
feet. She was clothed in skirt and bodice.

" Good God ! " cried Captain Mostyn, reeling as though
he had been hit over the head, and wildly sweeping the
light of the bull's-eye over his wife's figure and face. He
was almost stunned ; he could not believe his eyes.
He cried, "Good God!" and then stared at her like a
madman, incapable of thought or speech beyond that
utterance. Why, yesterday morning he had kissed her
and said good-bye at Peckham, and at Peckham down to
that instant he had most reasonably supposed her to be,
and there she was, erect on the mattress, white as marble
in the flash of the light, and as sweet in face as anv
sculptor's dream — his own wife ! By Heaven ! he was so
staggered that he forgot he was thirsty.

" You have found me out too soon," she said.

"Lord, Lord ! " cried he. "But what are you doinr
here ? Hush ! Benson sleeps next door. Speak softlv.
I am choking."

He sought and found a bottle of soda-water and a
tumbler, and drained it as a sleep-walker might, always
staring at his wife, and acting a part of perfect un-
consciousness or insensibility to the life.

" And you haven't one kiss for me ! " said she, and
began to sob.

" A thousand, my honey-bird," he answered, and took
her in his arms. " But why have you done this ? "

" I could not part with you."

" Montague Benson is on board," he said, whispering.

c;

82 OVERDUE

"The next cabin is his. He represents the Insurance
Company, who absolutely refused, as you know, to allow
you to sail with me. He may, he doubtless will, insist
upon my landing you with the pilot ; and there you are,
for the second time, left behind, with all the cost and
fatigue of a long railway journey to London."

"Charlie," said she, also whispering, "they must
throw me overboard if they want me to leave this ship,
for I vow to God no commands will make me stir, and
if there is a man brutal enough to attempt force, you will
be a spectator and will know what to do."

Now, how he might have reasoned had this sweet
woman been his wife of say twenty or twenty-five years1
standing, I must leave the discreet to conjecture ; but
the woman he held was his wife of, comparatively speaking,
only a few days, and her presence therefore appealed with
the full and conquering witchery of the sweetheart to the
impassioned lover, and having found her on board the
ship, he, with the utmost enthusiasm of his soul and
heart, backed by all his strength, desired her to remain.

" It may be managed ! " he whispered. " Anybody
lay hands upon you ! Not if there is an iron belaying
pin aboard. Oh ! I am so infernally thirsty."

He drank another bottle of soda, and then closed
the door and hooked the bull's-eye so as they could see
each other.

"I suppose," said he, " that Kate was in this job ?"

" Oh yes, and so was Captain Chester. Neither
could bear to think we should be separated, being just
married."

"I thought you took my saying good-bye rather
coolly," said he ; and he saw her smiling. " Why, your
lack of tears actually fretted me. What'll you do for
clothes if Benson don't turn you adrift ? "

" Don't mention Mr. Benson's name," said she, in a

PHYLLIS AT SEA 83

voice which indicated that she pouted with contempt ;
the light was not strong enough to reveal each subtle
facial play. " I have all my clothes with me.11

He looked round the pantry.

" Where ? " he asked.

" In my sea-chest."

" Speak plainly, Phyl."

"I bought a sea-chest big enough to hold all my
clothes.1'

"Did you bring it with you ? "

"No, I sent it."

" Addressed to whom ? "

She held her tongue.

" Addressed to whom ? " he repeated

" Oh, Til tell you in good time, Charlie," she answered,
as though peevish.

" Where did you get that mattress ? " said he.

" All in good time ; don't wake Mr. Benson up."

"Damn Mr. Benson !" he exclaimed, a little irritable
with suspicion, for his idea was that the mate or second
mate had helped his wife to stow herself away, and there
was a certain indignity in the fancy that annoyed him.
Nor did he like to believe that his officers connived
against him, though their conspiracy should result in
delighting him. " Somebody on board this ship must
have helped you, Phyl," said he.

" Oh, Charlie, what can that matter, since I am with
you ?" and the sweet body threw her arms round his neck,
and rubbed his cheek with hers like a purring kitten.

He was profoundly stirred by this heroic behaviour of
the girl. He guessed that she had lain in hiding in this
pantry since the hour of their departure from dock.
The atmosphere was not particularly sweet, with its relish
of cheese and raw hams. That rude, second-hand, some-
what mutilated mattress was a coarse couch for her noble

84 OVERDUE

limbs and golden head. He contrasted this sea pantry
with her Woolsborough bedroom, and the smell of the
shelves with the scent of Woolsborough gardens. From
time to time a thin creaking noise might be heard, the
feeble lamentation of a bulkhead, the complaining groan
of something strained below. The ship was light,
and floated buoyant along the gleaming path framed
by the froth cascading from the sponsons. But the
English Channel was under the bow, and the respiration
of the sea was in it, the panting of a breast that had not
that night been vexed by the wind, and Phyllis, standing
up on her mattress, began to sway a little with the
motions of the vessel. But she was so pale in that light
that her husband could not know that her pallor was now
the whiteness of nausea.

"I believe I shall be obliged to lie down, Charlie,"
she said.

He immediately understood what was the matter with
her.

" Come to my cabin," he exclaimed.

He took down the bull's-eye lamp, opened the door,
and conducted her to his berth. If he had been seen,
from without, conducting a lady from the pantry to his
bedroom, it was all one to him. He required a little
time for reflection as regarded Mr. Benson, but as to the
mates

His bunk was readv. It was clothed with sheets,
blankets, and quilt, and was equipped with pillow and
bolster ; he was a little choice in his sea-beds, holding
that man a fool who suffered the ocean to make the
life harder than it was rendered by owners, weather,
and perils. His mattress was thick, stuffed with horse-
hair, and fit for a king to rest his uneasy head on.

"Shall I lift you in ?" said he.

" Where are you to sleep ? " she asked.

PHYLLIS AT SEA 85

Oh, there are plenty of soft planks in the deck," he
answered ; and without further ado, seeing that she was
truly poorly with the motion, he put his arms about her,
laid her in the bunk, and after removing her boots,
covered her up with the care of a man who restores a
treasure to its casket.

He took from his locker a bottle of brandv, and cave
her a nip, and kissed her, dwelling with a husband's
privilege upon her lips, and though it is hard to smile
when you are seasick, the young wife parted her lips
into an expression that was as sweet as a smile when he
lifted his head from hers and " God blessed " her.

He crossed the cabin to lock the pantry door, put the
key in his pocket, and went on deck.

" Mr. Swanson ? "

" Sir ! " and the second mate, who was standing in the
weather gangway, came round to the front of the deck-
house.

" Ship this lamp."

Swanson slipped the light into its frame and the white
face of the clock gleamed out : three minutes before
seven bells of the middle watch, and the darkness and the
silence upon the water and the near stoop and dusky
illusive frown of the shadow just above the trucks were
like a mystic syllabling to the soul, but to no physical
functions, of the words " Middle watch." For truly it is
that one watch at sea in which the black ooze of a
thousand fathoms deep might give up its dead, in which
that dark and trembling disc, that dusky eye everlastingly
looking up to heaven, might be astir with gaunt and
terrific shapes of the drowned in all ages, alive with the
ghastly pageantry of fragmentary shipping, the broken
galleon, the dismasted slaver, the sternless frame of the
East India trader, which in her time had blown in royal
pomp under the moon and along the pathways of the sun.

8G OVERDUE

" Did you see me hand a lady to my cabin just now ?"
said Captain Mostyn.

"No, sir,11 answered the second mate, who, as he
had not seen the thing referred to, spoke in a note of
unmitigated astonishment.

" Well, the lady is my wife. She is Mrs. Mostyn.
She has paid me the high compliment of coming to sea
with me without my knowledge. Now, Mr. Swanson, did
you know that Mrs. Mostyn was on board ? "

" Certainly not, sir,11 replied the second mate, with
honest emphasis.

" Do you think Mr. Mill knew she was aboard ? 11

" I can't answer for Mr. Mill, sir. But I should say
he didn't.11

" Naturally it gives me very great pleasure to have my
wife with me, but unfortunately the insurers are opposed
to her presence, and Mr. Benson, who represents their
interests, may do me the indignity of requesting me to
send her ashore with the pilot."

" He'll never have the heart to, sir.""

" No lady,11 continued the captain, " can be sup-
posed to know the sea-life. We have not long been
married. It is natural that she should wish to be by my
side.11

" Ay, natural in her, and natural in others, sir,1' said
the second mate, thinking of his girl.

" But it would annoy me,11 continued Mostyn, " to
believe that you and Mr. Mill had connived at an act
supremely innocent in her but of a sort to subject me to
misconstruction and to some humiliation.11

" Captain Mostyn, speaking for myself, I know nothing
about it,11 said the second mate, who added, after a brief
pause, " In whose cabin was the lady hiding, sir ? "

" I found her in the pantry,11 replied Mostyn, starting
to the conviction with which that simple question had

PHYLLIS AT SEA 87

instantly penetrated him. " Why, of course, the steward
was in and out of his pantry all day, and "

He took down the bull's-eye and walked forward.

It is not customary with captains of even small ships
to go on errands of their own to their forecastles. The
case of Captain Mostyn, however, was peculiar, was singular,
was extraordinary. He blackened his bull's-eye and walked
to the after-part of the crew's deck-house. All about here
everything lay in indigo in the dark palm of the inky
hand of night. There were no stars against whose trem-
bling sparkles the ratlines could trace their squares. There
was no colour of night in the sky to outline more than
the paleness of triangular canvas. The ship pitched a
little, and the bow-sea, mingling with the froth of the
churning paddles ahead, broke away in dim glancings like
sheet lightning with the steady hiss of escaping steam.
If the figures of men stirred upon the forecastle you could
not see them.

The captain struck on the door of the berth occupied
by Prince. The door slid in grooves which formed a
coaming for both the after-berths, and, when the captain
knocked, the steward sung out —

" Who's that ? " and ran his door half open.

He had been a soldier, and could continue the practice
and sentiment of " sentry go" even at sea.

The captain bared the lens of the lamp and the light
was full upon the narrow low-pitched interior.

" Is that Mrs. Mostyn's chest ? "

"Yes, sir," answered the man, without an instant's
hesitation, which was the more admirable in that the blow
of the captain's fist upon the door had awoke him out of
a deep sleep and a dream of being one of the Queen's
imard at Balmoral.

The captain poured the lamplight upon the lid of the
chest, and easily read, in painted letters, " W. Prince," and

88 OVERDUE

stepping close, he likewise read, in his wife's hand writing,
on a stout card, nailed to the lid, the words, " Ship Deal-
man, East India Docks, London, E."

'• You helped to conceal Mrs. Mostyn ? "

The steward, with a military salute, answered —

" Yes, sir."

The captain hung in the wind. Here was candour
that was fearless, and here was conduct that merited
either cordial thanks or angry reproof, official logging, and
any penalties of degradation, diminution of wage, and the
like, which the commander of a ship might think proper
to inflict.

" I acted against my sense of duty,11 said the young
fellow, respectfully but firmly ; " but the lady was not to
be denied, and it was not for me, as a man, to stand by and
see her cry at the thought of being separated from her
husband she'd just been married to, and so I cfid what
she asked, and I told her I'd do it, and then, if I was
punished, it must be the captain's lookout.11

" I'll not keep you waiting to find out what that
lookout is,11 said the captain, smiling, and he walked aft.

The steward shut his door and lay down again as eight
bells were struck.

On several occasions until the morning broke Captain
Mostyn visited his wife. She needed his attentions. She
was, indeed, grievously seasick. It would be sometimes
serviceable, in the interest of the beautiful, the
sublime, and the romantic, if we could eliminate from
representations of these things the sundry ugly conditions
of life which do most unfortunately enter into them and
form a part of their being. I will not undertake to speak
for Phyllis ; but I have no doubt that there are a great
many young wives who, had they followed their husbands
surreptitiously to sea, would, in the agonies of seasickness,
the headache, the faintness, the death-damp, the being

PHYLLIS AT SEA 89

hove up, the swooning sensation of falling, regard them-
selves as incomparable fools, and give, yea, even their
beautiful heads of hair, to be safe on shore in an uncradled
bed, with nothing worse to worry them than the wish that
their husbands were by their side.

However, before the dawn turned the eastern sky to
granite, the girl was sleeping and no longer seasick. It
is strange the doctors do not suggest that the best and
only remedy for seasickness is sleep, and procure it for the
sufferer, at the beginning of the voyage, by artificial means :
because no man vomits in his dreams, and the insensibility
of slumber ends motion and all that proceeds from it.

The captain stood looking at his sleeping wife, lost in
thought. He found her devotion admirable, and her
sufferings now, and her hiding in a little close pantry, and
her heroic willingness to confront as many months of brine
and weather as the ship should remain upon the sea,
heightened her behaviour and devotion as a wife to a
degree that nothing in all his memory of reading and
listening to yarns could parallel. How would it be
possible for him to part with her, now she was with him,
lying in his sea-bed there, all her clothes aboard, and room
enough for her by an easy arrangement of sleeping accom-
modation ? A small bracket-lamp feebly lighted his
cabin. By it he looked at her. The ashen stare of the
new-born dawn made an eye of the large circular port
hole. He swore, with as great an oath as could ever
escape the swelling heart of a sailor, that, if Mr. Benson
insisted upon putting his wife ashore, he would go too,
take his chance of law-suits, leave the ship without a com-
mander, and the gold down in Staten Island to be dived
for under another skipper's jurisdiction. This resolve
greatly comforted him, for when you are in doubt you
will get no ease until you make up your mind, and the
sense of this— the need of shaping a course — is so strong

90 OVERDUE

in human nature that people will toss coins for the head
or tail of them that one chance or the other — both
chimerical and superstitious — shall enable them to decide
what to do.

He had slept but little, nor did he feel the need of sleep.
It was not that he lacked a bed : a sailor can sleep any-
where or anyhow, amid violent noises or in tomb-like
silence, which disturb the nervous ashore. The captain
put out the lamp and walked quietly along the cabin on
to the deck. The sea-rim eastward was a black line
against the grey sifting. But it was a fine dawn ; some
stars shone, and away on the starboard bow, about two
miles off, hung the shadow of the Ramsgate and Broadstairs
cliffs, slowly whitening their chalk faces as the morning,
beyond the Goodwins, brightened into the flash of sunrise.
And then it was a blue, cool October day, with a sea
merry with smacks from Ramsgate, Shoreham,< and- west
country ports, frisking with porpoise-like grace on the
small, brisk, crisp, and sparkling send of the surge as they
hugged the wind with sheets well flattened in, some bound
for the North Sea, and all going a-fishing. Far away down
south-west, the white light of the east smote into life a
grove or wood of funnels and masts — the Downs ! where
black-eyed Susan came on board, a piece of water more,
pregnant with historic interest than any in this whole
globe full of memorable things. The light of the sun
kindled the thin stretch of the Goodwin Sands into a
thread of amber fringed with white coral, and into this
remorseless beauty of the English Channel bit the. gangrene
of death. What was it ? The black and ribbed hull of
an old collier, to be absorbed presently by deadly suction,
as the bubble reputation explodes out of being, as it streams
for a breath or two down the River of Life. But the
Goodwins, with that old brig, was, on that bright morning,
a glorious picture for the pencil of a Cooke. As a star

PHYLLIS AT SEA 91

clothes the evening air with beauty, so did that vein of
amber and white sand deepen the spiritual significance of
the material delights which met the eye by its token of sea
loveliness and the sailor's death.

And who shall say that the scene betwixt the Forelands
is not one of the most pleading in variety of colour, in
tender contrast of white fronts and crowning sweeps of
silken verdure, of any round the British coast ? Often
have I contemplated those shores when the sun has flashed
five hundred windows into brilliant beacons, when scores
of lamps have made a Milky Way from the east cliff to
the west, when sunset, beyond the melancholy plains of
Sandwich, fainted to the beam of the full moon, newly
risen, bloated, but soaring into silver, and draining its glory
into a trembling river of light.

At half-past seven Captain Mostyn was conversing
with the pilot. The South Foreland was then well astern
on the starboard quarter, all three topsails had been loosed,
whilst, as through the night, so now, the tug with sway-
ing funnels and a plunging bow, continued to slap a
foaming wake at the Dealmans stem, and what with the
steadfast drag of the hawser, and what with the diligent
pulling of the Dealmans clothes, flights of white wings
betwixt the masts and six divided sails on square yards,
the pilot had a right to hope that his services would cease
to be required in about an hour's time. Captain Mostyn
had told him all about his wife, and that matter having
been discussed and dismissed, the pilot roamed into a dis-
course concerning the grievances, perils, and hardships of
his own calling. He swore that there was scarce a pilot
in the United Kingdom who averaged by his earnings
more than a pound a week. How could a man dress
neatly, clothe his wife, educate his children on twenty
shillings a week? Everything so dear too. Beef nine-
pence, when he remembered prime cuts at sevenpence,

92 OVERDUE

coals always on the rise, house-rent horrible to talk about,
and one pound a week, mind you ! What would the
people ashore think ? What did they know of the work
of the men who carried them through waters where,
perhaps, it was sometimes a little more than six feet under
the propeller ? A pound a week ! and on top of this a
bond to the Trinity House for one hundred pounds, to be
forfeited along with the fees if anything went wrong. And
why shouldn't things go wrong when you are in charge of
a British ship whose crew don't know the tongue of the
Hag, who, if you say " port," starboard ; who, if you say

" let go," take another turn ; who ?

But at this moment he was interrupted by Captain
Mostyn abruptly walking away from him and going up to
Mr. Benson, who stood on the starboard side of the cabin
deck-house, looking, in a sleepy, bloated manner, first up at
the sails, then at the coast, then at the sea, as though he
thought somebody had called him, and was trying to find
out where he was.

CHAPTER VI

PHYLLIS STAYS

" Good morning, Mr. Benson," said Captain Mostyn.

" Good morning, captain," replied Mr. Benson. " Yon
are running a fine show yonder. What place is that ? "

" Dover, sir."

" Then Folkestone will be bevond. Dungeness should
soon be heaving in sight."

" It is over the bow," said Captain Mostyn.

The picture of coast was not so far off abeam but
that most features of beauties dear to the Englishman's
heart were within eyeshot. You saw the mail steamer
coming out of Dover, thickening the blue October air
with two dense sooty lines of smoke, which at their
extremities feathered upwards, and threw into keenness
the light of the towering cliff. Inshore, too, you saw the
lazy smack flapping a red mainsail and darting a ray of
noontide effulgence from her black wet side as she rolled
from the sun. It was Shakespeare's Cliff, and far away to
port hovered, in mirage, the film of another historic
stretch of shore, the Calais coast, with the sails of a four-
masted vessel, hull down, pictured on that blanched
ground like a shadowy pencil-drawing on paper.

It is as hard to perceive the brains of a man through
the wig he wears as to observe the operations and motions
of the spirit through such whiskers and moustache as
Mr. Benson wore. Every portion of the exposed human

93

94 OVERDUE

face is an index to the feelings of a man who chooses to he
ingenuous in countenance. But how can the cheek blush
or whiten visibly under such whiskers as clothed Mr.
Benson's face ? How can the brow express the mood by
contraction or by rippling into wrinkles, when the best
part of it is concealed by Mephistophelian eyebrows ?
How are the lips, ambushed by a cataractal moustache,
to avow by the thousand varying movements of the
mouth the multitudinous humours of the human heart ?
If you looked hard at Mr. Benson, even with a critically
interpreting eye, you got but little more than hair. His
eyes indeed reposed in their sockets ; but the wizardry of
the human eye in its power to spiritualize the lineaments
was neutralized in Mr. Benson by hair. He stared at the
passing scene of cliffs. Captain Mostyn watched him,
considering how best to approach him on the subject of
his wife.

Just then Mr. Dipp, the diver, came, with a lurch, to
the cabin door. He was clothed in pilot cloth, and
rubbed his hands as he looked at the land. After " Good
morning11 had been exchanged, Mr. Dipp said —

" Capfn, 'ave you got such a thing as a drop of milk
on board ? "

" Swiss milk,11 answered Mostyn.

" Oh, damn it ! no — excuse me,1' exclaimed the diver.
" I would rather spoon down a gallon of treacle than a
thimble of that liquid candy- Good for babies, I dare
say, if it ain't off" to keep 'em laughing with wind. I
find,11 he added, in a greasy, confidential note, " that a
glass of rum and milk taken afore breakfast is the same as
adding twenty year to a man's lifetime. It settles the
stomach, and prepares the road for any herrors it may be
guilty of at table.11

"There is no milk aboard us except Swiss milk,11 said
Captain Mostyn.

PHYLLIS STAYS 95

"Then I must do with the rum,1' said Mr. Dipp.
" Where shall I find a drop ? "

" If the steward is in the cabin he will give you what
you want,'" answered Mostyn.

The stout diver lunffed over the coaming, and vanished.

" Mr. Benson," said Mostyn, in a voice that betrayed
something of nerve, something of anxiety, " you know, of
course, I am a married man.11

" Yes, and newly married,11 said Benson, fastening his
eyes on the skipper.

" I tried hard, as I think I told you,11 continued the
captain, " to persuade the directors to allow me to carry my
wife to sea with me this voyage. They declined n — Benson
nodded — "on the grounds, as I apprehend,11 continued
Mostyn, " that I should not be able to so wholly devote
myself to my duties if my wife were aboard, as I should if
alone.11

" Yes,11 said Benson, gravely.

" Shall you be greatly astonished, Mr. Benson,11 said
Captain Mostyn, gazing now with a cool, handsome face
at his companion, " if I tell you that Mrs. Mostyn is on
board this ship ? "

No doubt Mr. Benson looked surprised. Had he been
clean shaven he might have hung out a dozen signals of
astonishment. Nothing seemed moved but his eyebrows,
which arched a shade or two, and after a pause he
exclaimed —

"I don't think the directors will approve of her
remaining in the ship.11

" If that is the case,11 said Mostyn, " all I need say is,
if she goes, / accompany her.11

Again nothing seemed moved but Mr. Benson's eye-
brows. His eyes took on an expression of reflection, and
he searched the brilliant scene of coast as though for a
thought.

98 OVERDUE

" Why did you bring her on board in defiance of the
directors'1 express objection, well known to you, Captain
Mostyn ? "

" I did not bring her on board, sir.'"

" What am I to understand ? "

" That her devotion as a wife was superior to her
recognition of my professional interests, and she followed
me."

" You found her on board, then ? "

" Yes, sir ; and I shall leave the ship if she goes."

" You will land yourself in difficulties if you do that,*"
said Mr. Benson. " Written contracts are not to be
violated at will. Where's the lady ? "

" In my cabin,-" answered Mostyn.

Mr. Montague Benson was a practical man, if he was
nothing else. Though he sneered at poetry and romantic
views of life, he at least understood the doctrine of
averages, and was as neat a dab at a balance-sheet as the
latest poet at turning a couplet. He could look Captain
Mostyn full in the face and behold in him a man of
strong resolution. Now, Mostyn had threatened to leave
the ship if his wife was sent ashore. That he would
execute his threat in cool and sailorly contempt of all
legal and even moral obligations was as sure as that on
the whole he was the handsomest man Benson had ever
met. More, he was a gentleman, and Benson had tasted
enough of the merchant service to thoroughly understand
that this flavour is a sparse dressing in the salad of the
mercantile navy. If Benson was not a gentleman — and
he certainly was not — he knew what a gentleman was, as
even a strapper may tell a flower by its aroma, and he
enjoyed the society of gentlemen, not only because the
article was rare in the City, and the circles in which
Benson described his orbit, but because, as he used to
say, gentlefolks always put him at his ease. If Captain

PHYLLIS STAYS 97

Mostyn left the ship with his wife, the vessel must be
detained whilst the shore was communicated with, and
telegrams of and for instructions sent to and by the
insurance directors.

Benson thought to himself, we don't want to be
delayed ; we have towed right through the night ; in a
short time the tug will have left us, and we shall be
sailing down Channel for Staten Island. Mostyn may
be replaced by some one who might make himself very
disagreeable all round, which would end in Mr. Dipp
requesting to be transhipped, the crew revolting, and the
whole voyage proving a costly joke. This, thought
Benson, undoubtedly is the right man. What sort of a
woman is his wife ?

All these reflections passed, with the velocity of
thought, through Mr. Benson's brains, and possibly the
pause before he spoke scarcely occupied five seconds.

" Is the lady likely to be at the breakfast-table ? "
Benson asked.

Mostyn instantly reflected : " If he sees her he is
certain to admire her, and that will be going the whole
road for me/'

" I cannot say, sir. She has been suffering from
sickness in the night ; but she was better, and I found her
asleep when I last visited her berth."

"I shall be happy to make her acquaintance,1' said
Mr. Benson, with the adroit ambiguity of a practical
mind baffled and at a loss. And then he moved about,
first here and then there, falling now into an attentive
contemplation of the land, and now into thoughtful
observation of the blue streak of French coast which, by
the hand of mirage, was still hung up in the delicate pale
ether over the horizon ; but any one could see that he was
thinking hard, and that his thoughts neither concerned
the port beam nor the starboard beam.

H

98 OVERDUE

When Benson walked away Captain Mostyn entered
the cabin, where he found Mr. Dipp sitting at the table
revolving an empty tumbler. Prince was preparing the
table for breakfast. The sunshine streamed brightly
upon the little skylight, and the curtseying and slight
rollings of the vessel discharged ripples of light over the
bulk-heads, and the interior was as frolicsome with this
play of reverberated splendour as a garden full of flowers
nodding and swinging in a summer breeze.

u I don't think," said Mr. Dipp, " that I ever swaller'd
a mellower sup of rum. AVho shipped it?"

Mostyn named the chandler.

" Him ! " shouted Mr. Dipp. " What's caused him to
turn aside into the paths of godliness ? Whv," he went
on, looking stealthily at the steward, " he was brought up
twelve months ago, and charged with supplying con-
demned Admiralty stores to a British owner."

" And what made the British owner step off
his road into the byway of honesty," said Captain
Mostyn. "I should have thought that condemned
Admiralty stores were entirely to the taste of the
shipowner."

" To change the subject," said Mr. Dipp, observing
that the captain was passing on, " may I ask if there's a
lady aboard ? "

"My wife's aboard," answered Mostyn, looking at
Prince.

" You astonish me ! " exclaimed Mr. Dipp. " I thought
that we was to be all men. I'm but a rough party for
the ladies." He pulled at his shirt collars as though to
improve the decoration of his neck. "There'll be no
dressing, I hope — meal times, I mean. Us divers, you see,
capt'n "

" I don't know what you want to say, Mr. Dipp,"
said Mostyn, " but I'm quite sure if the presence of my

PHYLLIS STAYS 09

wife is not unwelcome to you, your presence will be very
welcome to her."

Mr. Dipp swayed in his chair in a bow that was like
looking at the motion of an upright figure under water,
and Mostyn passed into his wife's berth.

It is the privilege of few men to suggest the flower.
The cauliflower perhaps ; but nothing outside the
kitchen garden. Shelley was but one of a few. Three
persons who knew him spoke of him as a flower. One
said, "he looked like an elegant and slender flower, whose
head drooped by being surcharged with rain.1' Another
said, " his form, graceful and slender, drooped like a flower
in the breeze," and a third, " that the poet's figure bowed
to the earth like a plant deprived of its vital air, whilst
his face suggested a flower that has been kept from the
light of day." One could not speak thus of many of one's
male friends. But to how many fair girls may this
charming fancy of the flower be applied? It was an
image instantly present to the thoughts of Mostyn when
he looked at Phyllis resting in his bunk. She had been
sleeping ; she was now awake, and her gentle languid
eyes were immediately bent upon his, with a motion of
the mouth whose meaning he would have been a fool
to miss.

Seasickness does not improve beauty : it tinges the
cheeks with yellow, the lips grow ashen, and the
expression of piteous and helpless suffering works with a
cunning which is almost death's own in its subtle power of
transformation in the whole face. But, though Phyllis
had been bad, she had not been very bad. She had not
been nearly so bad as some Frenchmen I have travelled
with. She had slept, and now she was awake ; let her
tell her own story.

* How are you feeling ? w said her husband, lifting his
head from hers.

100 OVERDUE

"A little dizzy, and about forty years of age,"" she
answered. " But the worst of the sensations are gone.
I don't seem to mind this rolling. I think I should like
a cup of tea.11

He put out his head and ordered Prince to get a cup
of tea for Mrs. Mostyn at once.

" I must look a sight,11 she continued.

" No,11 said he, " I see no change in the colour of your
hair and eyes, no change in your mouth, teeth and all the
rest I love. Benson knows that you are on board.11

" What does he mean to do ? " she cried, starting up
on to one elbow.

" He desires the pleasure of making your acquaint-
ance.11

" Are we far out at sea and safe from him ? " she
inquired, exhibiting no very marked symptoms of dizziness,
or even of advanced age.

" Dungeness is over the bow,"1 he replied, " and the
pilot is still with us. Mr. Benson exactly knows my
sentiments. If he demands that you should be sent ashore
then I accompany you bag and baggage.11

" Oh ! but he'd not do that,11 she cried, sitting erect ;
there was no upper bunk for her to knock her pretty
head against. " What is the ship to do without a
commander, and how can I be in the way ? I should be
content to eat the food of the sailors, bad as I know it is.
They must throw me into the sea to get me out of this
ship, Charlie ; " and emotion was so strong in her that I
believe it exorcised the last of the seven fiends of nausea,
which had possessed her bright body since the ship began
to reel in the tug's white wake ; for the light of passion
was in her eye, and the flush of blood, urged by a
tempestuous heart, was in her cheek.

" I don't think, Phyl,11 said Mostyn, " when our friend
Bees you he will continue to object to your going this

PHYLLIS STAYS 101

voyage with me. Do you feel equal to getting up and
dressing for breakfast?"

" I'll do anything to remain with you,'" she replied,
throwing her feet over the bunk. "Anything, at least,
but eat. I am sure," she said, with an arch and engaging
simplicity which yet could not expand into a smile,
" I could not eat even to oblige Benson."

He laughed outright, and then opened the door to
receive a cup of tea from Prince.

" The milk is Swiss," said he, " for we carry no cow,
even for Dipp, who sprang upon me this morning the
announcement that milk and rum increase his years.
Will you be able to manage alone ? "

" Let me first see if I can stand."

She got out of the bunk but held on to its sideboard.
She presently let go, and found out that she could
stand.

" Is there everything here that you want ? " said he,
peering about. " That's the washstand. You'll find
water in that can. I've got nothing but brown Windsor,
Pm afraid. You must use that pannikin for a tooth
glass. You'll find a new sponge in that bag." He
lifted the lid of a locker, and said, " Here are hair-brushes.
Happy girl, not to want my razor ! Drink your tea, and
I'll take away your cup."

This was done, and he went out? telling his wife not to
leave her berth until he looked in on her again. A short
flight of steps conducted you to the top of the cabin deck-
house. On this roof stood Mr. Benson and the Diver in
conversation. What they talked about Captain Mostyn
could not hear and certainly was not eager to know. He
had made up his mind, and was at peace with conjecture.
He walked right aft to survey in the water something
which had been a secret and silent condition of the ship's
life ever since she had come abreast of Deal Castle,

102 OVERDUE

Whilst passing through the Downs in the darkness of the
night, one of the several scores of hungry men who haunt
the narrow waters in search of bread had marked the
Dealman towing steadfastly through the Gulls, and then,
to the drag of her big lug, the galley-punt swept
transversely to the ship's quarter, where her men " hooked
on," as it is called ; that is, they caught a mizzen chain-
plate by a boarding-hook attached to a line which they
paid out and then belayed. And this silent, subtle ark,
with three patient figures sitting aft, streamed along in
the wake of the Dealman with no grander expectation in
the hearts of her crew than the hope to land the ship's
pilot, and so earn a few bitterly needed " shullens."

The Deal galley-punt has immemorially proved the
most famous of longshore fabrics, not excepting the life-
boats. She may be seen slowly flapping in to the
shelving beach of Deal when its pebbles blacken, stirless,
to the soft summer lipping of the water. She may be
seen soaring and vanishing amid the flint-coloured ridges
of the storm-swept Channel, flying like the seamew under
a fragment of sail, vanishing to her own plungings in the
hurling spray lashed out of the back of the savage
snapping surge of the Downs by the pitiless thong of the
gale. She ascends the river as high as London Bridge,
and often tows down the long distance, cold and foodless,
in hope of earning a sovereign by putting a pilot ashore,
and just as often as not her men's expectations are dis-
appointed.

Close astern of the Dealman was one of these galley-
punts. Probably the three men in her had not tasted
food for twenty-four hours. Their being there was a salt
stroke of gambling ; how could they make sure that the
pilot would use their boat? A smell of cooking from
the ship's galley seemed to diffuse itself in a sort of aroma
of ham and fresh fish to as far aft as where the captain

PHYLLIS STAYS 103

stood, and this may have put the thought into his head,
though his own natural humanity could not stand in need
of the impulse of a frying-pan. He hailed the boat, and
asked the men if they had had anything to eat.

" No, sir,1'' shouted one of them, a mass of a man in a
jersey and yellow sou'wester, and a cobra shawl about his
neck ; "nothen to eat, and nothen to drink.*"

The captain returned to the cabin-door, and told
Prince to make up a parcel of ship's bread and beef and fill
half a bottle of rum. Who was to lower these things into
the boat ? The captain's humanity could not rise superior
to his dignity, and the steward was a soldier. It is only
a sailor can sling a bottle of rum — and a sailor with bushy
whiskers, and dungaree breeches, and a hairy hand all
acrawl with ancient marks of tattooing, lovely blue rings
on the fingers, a sweet bracelet round the wrist, a miniature
of Christ crucified on the back from the knuckles down —
this man lay aft to the orders of the captain, dropped the
biscuit into the boat that had hauled up under the
counter to the slackened drag of the tug, and cleverly
swung the bottle of rum — an extinct fine art at sea,
I should say — into the impassioned embrace of the mass
of manhood in a yellow sou'wester.

" Poor devils ! " thought the captain, as they eased off
line and dropped astern. And the reason why Mostyn
was touched was the reason why most thoughtful men at
sea are silentlv but consciously moved by the illustra-
tions of shore life of the country that is dear to them.
It is not now as it hath been of yore — steam shortens
absence, though it is true that a man in steam shall see
less of his home in the course of a year, during which he
makes six voyages, than a man whose ocean trip runs into
twenty-four months. But figure yourself a sailor — it is
three years since you sailed away from home. Your
memory is foul with the dead bodies of the Hooghly.

104 OVERDUE

Recollection reeks of the flavour of the camel-dung
cigarettes of Alexandria. An intellectual nausea oppresses
you when you think of the Malays of Capetown, the
sanitary humours of that place, the ear-thrilling trombone
of the Dutch throat. Nothing can you recollect of
Chusan, Shanghai, Rangoon, and such places, into whose
skies nature is said to pour the splendours of the Arabian
night — nothing, I say, to sweeten the remembrance of
the dry white East, with its Pagan stinks, and lily-
livered rogues. What boots the sight of a junk or a joss-
house, and what happiness attends the looting of a China-
man's tray loaded with silver fal-lals? The illustration
of the home-shore life moves the affections and passions of
the homeward bound after long absence. It is the tug,
the barge deep with stone from Calais, the smack rolling
home with her hold sparkling with silver fish, the old
collier brig staggering over the short seas on a wind, with
well-patched canvas, and a woman mending her husband's
hose in the companion-way ; and it is the Deal galley-
punt too, called in the parts she belongs to " knocktoe."
All these things bring the summer holiday, the time of
youth, the play-ground, the day of sport, pleasure and
glorious heedlessness, back to the mind of the watcher on
the ship's deck. He witnesses in each familiar object a
theatre of memory — the white cliff, the golden shore, the
group of houses cuddled in the embrace of the gap with a
solemn finger of spire pointing to God. The band is
dimly heard in fairy music ; again he is paddling in the
surf, or later yet walking with some nut-brown maid
between tall scented hedges, and on them, and on the
yellow haystack, and on the motionless horse, and the
red-roofed cottage, with its romantic peak of white-washed
gable, the English moon, the beautiful English moon,
pours her light. There is no whiff of hubble-bubble to
be caught, no unseasonable flavour of curry that is cooking,

PHYLLIS STAYS 105

no chink of rupee in the money -lender's flagged hall,
no beastly baboon of a god, thumped through malodorous
ways by the tom-tom. This is how many men feel when
they come rolling home after having been long away ; and
scarce nothing could have excited a keener sense of fare-
well to Old England in the heart of Captain Mostyn than
that slender homely Deal galley-punt towing astern.

A bell was rung in the cabin, breakfast was on the
table ; Mr. Benson, the diver, and the pilot were hungry.
Mill, the mate, stumped the look-out, and the captain
and the other three went in to eat. The men were
for taking their places at the table.

"Not that seat, if you please,11 said the captain to
Mr. Dipp, indicating the stool next his on the starboard
side.

He opened the door of his wife's berth and passed in ;
she was ready, waiting for him, seated upon a locker. To
pretend that she looked as blooming as was the practice
of her beauty at Woolsborough would be absurd ; she had
undergone a term of imprisonment in a pantry flavoured
with ham and cheese. She had suffered from sickness,
had slept but little, and then again, a passion of anxiety
consumed her. Whilst she dressed she kept on wonder-
ing what Mr. Benson would do, whether her love had
not proved too selfish for any ideal of wifely, lofty, and
beautiful devotion by imperilling her husband's pro-
fessional chances, so that this very day he might be
without command of a ship, with a black mark against
his character in the sight of shipowners, with legal
difficulties to confront, with the unholy certainty of
poverty, and very short commons later on. But she was
bound to please ; her looks preserved their fascination, her
hair was lustrous, her shape the perfect woman's.

" Do you feel equal to joining us,11 he said, looking
at her, well pleased, as indeed he had reason to be.

106 OVERDUE

" Yes," she answered, rising ; " but what will Benson
do?"

" We shall see," was his answer ; and, opening the door,
he took his wife by the hand and led her into the cabin.

" Phyllis, allow me to introduce Mr. Montague
Benson — Mr. Dipp, the celebrated diver — Mr. Gordon,
the ship's pilot, who is shortly leaving the vessel. My
wife — Mrs. Mostyn — gentlemen."

She greeted each of them with a bow; there was
dignity and there was repose in her manner which would
have been more exalted as an illustration of breeding but
for the circumstances of her situation and the haunting
dizziness. Benson returned her salute with the best City
bow he was master of, and the critical and jealous eye of
the husband instantly witnessed appreciation of the lady
in what was visible in the meaning of flesh in the hairy
face that stared at his wife. Mr. Dipp saluted with a
sudden convulsive drop of his head, as though he had
been hanged, and a '"Appy I am sure, ma'am," as if he
was drinking her health. Mr. Gordon's bow was rendered
somewhat remarkable by the large and sustained smile
that accompanied it. It was the smile of admiration; it
was the smile that a man will put on when he views a
pretty woman. Prince, standing at the pantry door, gazed
intently, though unobserved, at the lady. Any one equal
to the interpretation of looks, knowing what this young
fellow had done for Mrs. Mostyn, would have sworn that
in that man she had a friend in whom connivance had
bred a chivalrous interest, and who, common as he was,
would act as nobly and knightly a part on her behalf as
ever may be read of in the romances of the old Provencal
poets.

They all sat down, Phyllis on her husband's right,
Benson opposite her, Mr. Dipp on her right, and the pilot
took the stool at the bottom of the table which lay nearest

PHYLLIS STAYS 107

to the cabin door. Mostyn slightly, scarcely noticeably,
glanced at Benson to judge of the impression his wife was
producing by her appearance and bearing alone ; she had
not yet spoken. He was satisfied. He did not want to
quit the job he had undertaken. He foresaw crowds of
difficulties ahead if he deserted his command. He strenu-
ously desired to remain with the ship, and equally im-
passioned was his resolution to keep Phyllis by his side,
whether aboard or ashore, so deeply had he been touched
by the token she had given him of her devotion.

The breakfast was good : fish of yesterday's purchase,
but sweet ; eggs and bacon, hot rolls, a ham, and other
appeals to the mercy of the stomach; coffee and cocoa.
And what better meal could grace the breakfast-table of
a diver and a pilot, and even a City man ?

When men are not gentlemen the presence of ladies
usually promotes awkwardness, shyness, the gaucheries of
perturbation which men who are not gentlemen do not
suffer from when in company with females who take
money for liquor, who may be met behind the scenes of
the music-hall and the shop counter. Therefore, Mr.
Dipp and the pilot were at first a little constrained, and
talked together, and tried to put each other at ease, Dipp
by a joke or two about the tug and the ham before him,
the pilot by laughter and enjoyment of his breakfast,
which included sundry glances at Phyllis.

But Mr. Benson was to be at home ; he rose to the
occasion, hairy, ample, and with that unconscious leer
which men's eyes will assume when they live in no doubt
whatever as to the ornaments of their mind and the
graces of their person.

"Is this your first trip to sea, Mrs. Mostyn?" he in-
quired, in the insinuating voice of one who means to please.

"The very first,11 she answered, with a smile, which
enabled him to admire her teeth.

108 OVERDUE

" A rough beginning," said Mostyn.

" A pity indeed ! M exclaimed Mr. Benson ; " but it is
quite consistent with the traditions of the true English
wife."

" Women of all races have undergone a sight more
than men would have endured for the fellows they loved,""'
said Mostyn.

" Hear, hear ! " cried Mr. Dipp, as though affected by
the sentiment. He added, with a cordiality which lost
nothing in the grease of its passage, "And now you are
on board, ma'am. I hope we shall 'ave a pleasant, a fine,
and a successful voyage."

" I echo you," said the pilot, " though I'm leaving."

Phyllis fixed her eyes upon Mr. Benson. It was a full
question, made eloquent beyond all gift of speech by the
liquid light that vehicled it. He would have been an ape
or an idiot had he mistaken. Looking at Captain Mostyn,
he said, " I agree with Mr. Dipp, and heartily hope that
the voyage will be a fine one, if for no more than for the
sake of Mrs. Mostyn."

She flushed with delight. "How can I thank you,
Mr. Benson ? " she cried.

"It is truly kind of you," said Mostyn, who was un-
affectedly moved. The relief of his heart was great, and
woman's love had vanquished, as it nearly always does.
'' You, Mr. Benson, and you, Mr. Dipp, and Mr. Gordon,
have been informed how this came to pass." He put his
hand upon his wife's. " We have not been long married ;
the idea of a separation running into months after so
brief a spell of partnership ashore was insupportable.
This is the result, and I thank you with all my heart."

" Mr. Gordon," said Benson, " may I suggest that you
do not refer to this little romantic incident when you are
ashore ? "

" I was born without the gift of the gab," answered

PHYLLIS STAYS 109

Mr. Gordon. " I can keep my tongue in my cheek as
well as another. Your case is safe in my hands, Mrs.
Mostyn."

She bowed and smiled her thanks.

" As safe," said Mr. Dipp, " as if it had come on a
thick fog with Gordon on the lookout, and leadsmen in
the chains telling him how deep the water was.'"

Mr. Benson in silence, but with a certain sort of
stealthiness, as though instantly prepared to avert his eye
if detected, watched the young wife, glancing at her
iigure. Then, in a kind of waking-up way, he exclaimed —

" Captain, that berth of yours will never accommodate

two."

"The steward must sling in the men's quarters,"'1
answered the captain ; " and Mrs. Mostyn will occupy
my cabin."

After this the talk became general. Mr. Benson
happened to know Woolsborough, he was even acquainted
with the name of the firm in which Phyllis's father was
a partner. He exhibited a tendency to absorb the talk.
Scarce a subject could be started upon which he was not
prepared to deliver an opinion. He affirmed that his
hio-hest ambition was a seat in the House of Commons.
Like Mr. Gordon, he was not gifted with How of speech ;
lie was not a man, for example, to fill three columns of the
Times with well-rounded sentences, after the style of
Salisbury and Chamberlain ; but there was much he
wanted to say which he could not say anywhere but in
the House, and if he despised poetry he loved plain
English words of one syllable, like to the best passages in
the Bible, whereby great truths could be delivered without
any expense of learning, or dredging of other men's books
for adjectives. He talked for effect ; he seemed to grow
more hairy, more ample, self-sufficient ; and Phyllis, who,
like every woman in the world, had something of the

110 OVERDUE

actress in her, flattered him with approving attention,
which, honestly, she held he deserved, though already she
had made out that he was a character of coarse fibre,
unimaginative, carrying in his tongue the dark menace
of the bore, informed with that quality of conceit which
is graduated by the uninviting qualities, heightening in
degree as the man is personally objectionable in face,
figure, nature, and manner. But, in his small way, Mr.
Benson was a power. As the representative of the
insurance people he could have summarily executed their
mandate by ordering her ashore, the issue of which might
probably have proved her husband's professional destruc-
tion. He had suffered her to stay; he had been kind,
and so Phyllis listened with all the graceful attention
the movements of the ship and her giddiness enabled her
to give.

CHAPTER VII

BENSON AND THE BREEZE

Among the dimming canvases of the sea is the picture
of the tug casting off the sailing-ship. Steam renders the
typical ship of the hour independent of the tug. But
men are alive who remember that wooden ships of the
Iioyal Navy of Great Britain were being toAved out to sea
when fleets of iron steamers flying the red flag blackened
the ocean with soot. It is God's will that official
stupidity, almost bestial in its insensibility to human needs
and progress, should curb the fiery spirit of our country,
and throttle with brutal prejudice the glowing aspirations
of her generations.

The coast of Dungeness lay abeam ; the eastern sky
was embroidered with pale golden clouds, against which,
about three miles distant from the Dealman, a large black
mail steamer was painting a stately picture of herself.
The red lug of a fishing-boat just this side smote in its
passage a living sharpness and diamond brilliancy into
that long shapely mass with its hundred scuttles running
a line of white fire along her side. All about were tender
morning drawings of the Channel — the lifting tramp sloping
her funnel to the horizon as she rose ; the schooner yacht,
clothed in the white satin of her festive holiday-making
branch of sea-faring, leaning from the south-east breeze ;
the hull of an old Blackwall liner towering light on her
bilge streaks, towing down as a coal hulk to Plymouth

in

112 OVERDUE

Sound to transform her cabin, once upon a time gaudy
and beaming with skylights and goldfish, into a hold as
black as a coal-sack.

The tug cast off; all hands laid hold of the hawser
and brought it in, shedding jewels as it came. The main-
topsail was aback, the tug was wheeling an arc of white
foam out of the blue, and on the bridge stood her
skipper, flourishing his cap. The galley-punt hauled
alongside. Mr. Gordon shook hands with the captain
and others, and, in a voice touched with feeling, hoped that
Mrs. Mostyn would have a good time, for she certainly
deserved it.

" Pray step on top of the deck-house, Mrs. Mostyn,1''
said Mr. Benson ; " we shall be out of your husband's way,
and you will be able to get a good sight of the show.
I will carry up a chair for you,"

No, she did not want a chair. She was much obliged.
The October breeze blew with the edge of the east, and
though she was clothed in a jacket her warmer garments
were lodged in her sea-chest, still in Prince's berth. She
climbed the short flight of steps and Mr. Benson followed
her, and Mr. Dipp followed him, and all three stood on
top and gazed about them.

A number of the men were still busy forward, coiling
down the hawser, but a few had been summoned aft, and
were bracing the main-topsail to the wind, and presently
others were at liberty ; commands like pistol-shots broke
from the mouth of the captain, and were re-echoed by the
mates ; figures of seamen trotted aloft slapping the shrouds
as their feet spurned the treadmill of the ratlines. Canvas
fluttered, hanks rattled, sheaves cheeped, the ship heeled,
and spouted a white feather from her weather stem. It
was all " Sheet home ! " " Hoist away ! " " Small pull to
windW ! " " Well that top-gallant-yard ! " The breeze
was full of such barbarous cries, as unintelligible to the

BENSON AND THE BREEZE 113

landsman as the "lead" of the flying jib-stay to a
stoker.

Yonder to leeward, making for the land, was the yellow
streak of the " knocktoe," thrown out to the eye by white
water, and rapidly dwindling to the steady drag of her
lug, a dull and dingy shimmer above her. Though
Phyllis did not feel perfectly comfortable, she could not but
take so lively an interest in this picture of her husband's
ship, starting on her own account for deep solitudes and
foundered treasure, as to almost overwhelm the lingering
sensations of nausea. She was astonished by the ease with
which Charlie gave orders. It seemed impossible that any
man should remember the names of all those cords and
sheets up there, and pronounce words quite unmeaning
but instantly construed by the sailors, who hopped, sprang
and waltzed in their zeal, and made her see that they
knew what was ordered by rendering the ship more and
more sightly and sprightly every time they yelped a
chorus and dragged a rope. She had never been to sea
before. She would not, therefore, be able to distinguish
a good sailor from a bad one. Indeed, she might not
have been able to tell the difference between a sailor and
a costermonger, for, bar the " pearlies,''1 both would look
very much alike, especially the cos term onger, and his
would be the capacity of deeper and wider utterance, in
invective.

But, as a matter of fact, the men whose movements she
watched were as likely a body of sailors as ever came
together in one ship. You missed in them indeed that
suo-o-estion of smartness which the clothes of the man-of-
war impart to the limbs and trunks of their wearers.
Their garb fitted the humble obscurity of their calling.
It was in keeping with the traditions of the red ensign.
It suggested hardship, peril, the barbarous unknown
coast, all that has entered into the life-story of the

I

1U OVERDUE

merchant service. That fellow yonder was fitted by a
Jew crimp ; his boots will presently go to pieces like
a bag of brown paper in water; his belt and sheath-
knife cost him the money value of a dinner-set of cutlery.
He looks as wild as Crusoe in that cap which the crimp
threw in as a sop to a bargain that paid him about five
hundred per cent. Men do not go thus attired on board
men-of-war, neither do they sing bold far-streaming wind-
lass chanties to rude words. But this forecastle side of
the merchant service, this side of hoarse sea music, and
coarse and varied clothing, provides an element of romance
which the severe uniformity of the man-of-war fails to
yield. It is not the music, it is not the words of the
sailors working-chorus, which he times with the pulse of
the pawls, that are beautiful ; it is their environment
which gives these things their poetry — the desolate plain
of the ocean, the spirit of loneliness in the sky that roofs
the sea, the swelling sail, the dependence of comradeship
that vitalizes the solitary speck and directs it as true as
the flight of a star through the mighty furrowless field.

"Pray, Mrs. Mostyn," said Mr. Benson, "won't you
consider this voyage as your honeymoon ? "

She must please Mr. Benson. She must be kind and
gracious in speech and look. It was an odd question, and
Benson's face, with its corrugation of brow answering in
him to the human smile, fitted it.

" We've certainly had no honeymoon worth talking
about,1' she replied. " I shall accept this voyage as my
honeymoon.''1

" Talk of "oneymoons,11 said Mr. Dipp, " the queerest
I ever "'eard of was told me by a cap^n newly 'ome from
the South Pacific. He said that a Kanaka embarked in a
schooner bound to Noumea. He took his newly married
wife alono; with 'im. She was a native of the New "Ebrides,
and on passing the island his wife was born in he took it

BENSON AND THE BREEZE 115

into his head to carry her ashore and spend his 'oneymoon
among her tribe. Her tribe watched him whilst he landed,
then fell upon him, killed, roasted, and eat him up.'"

Here the group was joined by Captain Mostyn. The
top of the deck-house was a good place to keep a look-
out on. A low brass handrail protected the edge. Aft
was a short length of painted plank for a seat, and im-
mediately in front of this stood a standard compass ; for
gold is gold, even at the bottom of the sea ; and when
you are bound away for treasure you will see to your
compasses.

M Aren't you cold up here, Phyllis ? " said Mostyn.

" No ; the air refreshes me. I'm beginning to feel as
if I could eat some breakfast."

Needless to say she had made no breakfast, not even
toyed, not even glanced at the slice of tongue her husband
had helped her to. Mr. Benson stepped to the skylight,
and called down to the steward, who arrived.

" Now, Mrs. Mostyn, what are your orders ? " said
Mr. Benson, whose affability struck the diver as of a
most predetermined kind.

" Tea and sandwiches," suggested Mostyn.

" Two little sandwiches only, steward," exclaimed
Phyllis, looking with kindness and gratitude at the fine
manly young fellow who had enabled her to be where she
was.

K Will von forgive a trifling suggestion ? " said Mr.
Benson ; " suppose we add a pony tumbler of brandy
and soda."

Phyllis laughed and thanked him. The drink was, in
fact, exactly what she would have wished to ask for.

"This is like yachting," exclaimed the diver, gazing
round the sea with the expression that attends the antici-
pation of enjoyment. " I'm not going to ask the captain,
but you, ma'am, is there any objection to smoking?"

116 OVERDUE

" Absolutely none, so far as I am concerned," whipped
in Phyllis, with a quick look at her husband which stopped
him ; for he was captain, and this was the top of the
deck-house, and a lady made one of the company, and but
for her Dipp would have been referred to the main
deck.

The diver pulled out a piece of cavendish tobacco,
which he cut into thin chips into the palm of his hand,
observing to Phyllis that he hadn't been to sea for
nothing. It took him a long time to learn, he said.
He 'acked the edges of his sea-chest to pieces and spoilt
another man's before he got this art. He then rubbed
the chips together and fingered them, that Mrs. Mostyn
might see how fine was the tobacco he had cut. He
next loaded the bowl of a wooden pipe, lighting the
tobacco with many hearty sucks, during which operation
the muscles of his face worked as though a dentist was
drawing his biggest tooth. Phyllis admired the manner
in which he struck a lucifer match and held the flame
in a fist like a scooped-out turnip ; indeed, she began to
think there would be things inside the ship as well as out
to divert her whilst she was with her husband.

" You're as smart as a yacht," said Mr. Dipp, rolling
his eyes about, and speaking in a greasy note of enjoyment
of his pipe.

The ship was clothed to her trucks. The wind was
about a six-knot breeze, the sea ran in thin melting lines,
and each brisk head, singing saltly as it poured, glanced
in the bright eastern light ; and through the morning's
frolic of waters streamed the Dealman, with her crew busy
about the decks coiling down. The steward made his
appearance with a small tumbler of brandy and soda and
a plate of two sandwiches on a tray. Phyllis drank ; the
sandwiches were placed upon the skylight, and she ate
standing, her bright hair trembling, her dress rippling

BENSON AND THE BREEZE 117

like the fly of a flag, her pale face eager, her eyes charged
with the surprise of all this miracle of novelty, and starred
by the morning sun. Her husband looked at her. He
turned to Prince, who was descending the ladder.

" Get a hand," said he, " to help you to bring Mrs.
Mostyn's baggage aft to my cabin ; " and by the time this
was done, the sandwiches had been eaten and Phyllis
went to lie down in her husband's bunk to sleep as long
as she could.

Captain Mostyn, followed by Mr. Benson, stepped down
on to the quarter-deck.

" I can't wonder," said Benson, as they came to a
stand abaft the deck-house, " that you should have wished
to be accompanied by your wife. I congratulate myself
upon her presence. Female society will brighten the
tedium of even a sailing; voyage.1''

"You quite understand how it's been brought about,"
replied Captain Mostyn. "I repeat my thanks to you,
I am sure. I hope the directors will appreciate your
kindness as fully as I do."

"Chaw!" cried Mr. Benson. "If the directors
challenge me, what is my answer? Oft Dungeness a
charming lady makes her appearance on board. She is
the captain's wife. She had been prompted by devotion
to her husband to take a step, to court inconvenience,
suffering, possibly expulsion — a step, I may say, the mere
thought of which would make most women's hearts shrink
in their bodies. Now, gentlemen, I think to myself, what
am I to do ? I admit that life is a tight fit with human
nature on board a merchant ship ; but room had to
be found, gentlemen, room had to be found. It was not
in me, gentlemen, to ruin the hopes of a loving and
faithful young wife. Your interests have not suffered,
and, if offence it was, I am prepared to repeat it when
the occasion arises."

118 OVERDUE

He declaimed rather than conversed. He moved his
arms in several dramatic gestures ; plausibility was in his
eye and in that which stood for a smile above his eye-
brows. But Mostyn was a sailor ; he had used the sea
for many years. The world is right in speaking of Jack
as a simple-hearted man. Not because he cannot swear
and drink, bilk a skipper, raise a panic in a theatre by
falling out of the gallery, pay his landlady with the fore-
topsail and the like. It is because, living, as he does,
during the greater number of his years, with men of the
same order of understanding and knowledge as his, seeing
nothing in port but the back side of society, never, dur-
ing months at sea, provided with a chance of talking to
women and learning from them their method of looking into
things and understanding them, their arts, graces, and
vanities, he fails to master the science of human nature as
it is studied and expounded ashore. Hence, like a man
who argues illogically, he will fasten his eye upon one
corner of the tapestry of truth and his inferences from
what he sees are right ; but he is incapable of casting his
eye a little further afield ; if he did, then what he saw
would vitiate his deductions from the corner his eye dwelt
on. So with Mostyn ; he saw but the surface of human
nature, and was extremely obliged to Mr. Benson for his
kindness in allowing his pretty young wife to remain on
board the ship.

A very brief conversation sufficed to transfer Mr.
Swanson without protest to Prince's berth, and Prince to
the crew's sleeping quarters. But now that the issue was
exactly as Captain Mostyn could have prayed for, it was
proper that he should say a gracious sentence or two of
thanks to the steward. He did this as man to man,
scarcely as the captain of the ship to the person who fills
one of the humblest posts in her. How a " tramp " cap-
tain of to-day, one of those steamboat captains, who, as

BENSON AND THE BREEZE 119

man and boy, do but little honour to the service they keep
traditionally illiterate and savage, and a stinging reproach
to those who do business in the jerry hold washed along
by leaking boilers and red-hot bearings, would have borne
himself, I will not pretend to know. It is an old saying
at sea that the man who ill-treats a sailor is no sailor
himself. Prince was not a sailor, but he had done the
captain so great a service that Mostyn's heart accepted
the obligation as a blessing, and why, then, because the
captain happened to be a gentleman and master of a
small ship, should he omit to play his part in the whole
duty of man by neglecting to thank the poor fellow ?

The cabin dinner was served at one ; somewhat earlier
Mostyn had noticed a fall in the glass. His wife did not
appear at table. A sudden swell had grown out of the
north-east, and came rolling and swooning in lateral rows
of wind-wrinkled humps, and the Dealman sank and lifted.
Three sat down to dinner — the captain, Benson, and Dipp.

"Your wife," said Benson, who looked of the colour
of butter above his eyebrows, " feels this motion, I fear.""

" Yes," answered Mostyn. " What's in that dish,
steward."

" Pork chops, sir."

"They look damned greasy," exclaimed Mr. Dipp,
peering down his nose at the stuff.

"There is always grease enough going at sea," said
Mostyn. " You meet with it everywhere, in the sea-boots
of the sailor, in the duff, in the scum simmering atop of
the water in which his meat is boiled, in the lamp that
stinks him out of his forecastle, in the red gleam of sun-
set in the greased top-gallant and royal masts. Tell the
cook, steward, to be a little less greasy."

" I'm for trying one, anyway," said Mr. Dipp, plunging
his fork into a chop, and peering at it, poised on a level
with his eyes, like a botanist at some grotesque vegetable.

120 OVERDUE

" I'll eat, if only to report. Good cooking makes men feel
young. It's John Chinaman as fixes the seat of reason in
the guts."

Mr. Benson did not appear in a hurry to begin his
dinner. The buttery pallor of his brow lingered. He
looked at the roast chicken, the piece of boiled pork, and
the dish of pork chops, which, with the pudding and cheese
to follow, formed the noontide repast of that day, with a
lustreless and an unseeking eye. To Mostyn's inquiries
he vouchsafed no further answer than a stupid stare.
The heave of the swell filled the ship with a complication
of motion. Whilst the bow was sinking, the broadside
was heeling, and the recovery of the fabric, immediately
followed by a depression of the stern and a staggering
reel to starboard, was as abrupt as the shock of a gun-
blast to shore-going nerves. It was easily seen that Mr.
Benson was rapidly going to pieces. The hand of old
Ocean was upon his anatomy, and his various parts were
beino- dislocated, the stomach rising into the mouth, the
brains sinking into the belly. He stood it for about five
minutes, then, with a half-choked shout for brandy, which
he did not wait to receive, he revolved on his seat, stumbled
against his cabin door, which burst open, and raised such
an outcry, not unsanctified by an occasional ghastly damn,
as would have awakened a parish full of sleepers. The
steward went to his relief.

" He suffers horribly," said Captain Mostyn.

" Men of his build always go in for a bust when they
begin," exclaimed Mr. Dipp, who did not appear to find
the pork chop he was eating too greasy.

The mate, who had charge of the deck, stood in the
doorway of the cabin, and sang out —

" Weather looks dirty north-east, sir."

" Take in your royals and mizzen top-gallant sail.
Til be out in a minute," exclaimed the captain, beginning

BENSON AND THE BREEZE 121

to eat rapidly ; for he saw weather in the colour of the
skylight ; he could hear weather in the stormy slap of
canvas aloft ; he could feel weather in the swing of the
plank under his feet, and he guessed that if he did not
make a meal then, and at once, the next chance for eating
might be a long way off.

It was about one bell in the afternoon watch. All
away north-east the sky was thick and sallow, with a
horizon as tallowy as a Portuguese, and the swell came
out of that dirty yellow wall in long sparkles to the pale
glance of the mist-smothered sun in the south. It was
about this hour when the breeze freshened. It drummed
and sang in small guns, and a hundred screams in the
shrouds, and the heads of the swell sprang in racing
feathers of froth that vanished like snowflakes, or smoke,
or steam.

Now was set fairly under way the true business of
the deep. High seas in heavy weather may be found in
most parts of the world, but there is no sea so quarrel-
some, snappish, snarling, wrangling, as our home waters
in half a gale well to the westward where the shores of
hereditary antagonisms yawn out of ken in the middle-way
from the loftiest masthead that ever sank from truck to
kelson. The brine was presently swelling white in the rich
splendour of foaming water along the weather bends of
the Dealman as she swept onwards, bending low, then
stiffening her spars with her fore and main-topgallant
yards on the caps, and six " souls," as they call sailors,
stretching their legs on the foot-ropes, with men on the
jibboom, grasping and silencing the white terror and wrath
of the canvas, with hands hauling up the mainsail, with
hands busy with the mizzen-topsail — this ship had the
good sense to forbear a crossjack — for the boatswain had
piped and thumped, and all the people of the ship were
busy in snugging her. An old world scene ! though

122 OVERDUE

happening every day in long iron sailing-ships, in cranks
flying the bilious colours of old Italy, in apple-bowed
lumpers, which, before they founder, will seize the flag of
Norway in the sea-posture of distress to any shrouds which
may be standing.

But I warrant that few who read these lines have been
aboard a sailing-ship snugging down to a growing gale.
What memories do they carry of the song of the reef
tackle, the rattle of chain sheets, the slatting of half-
suffocated canvas, the shouts of the mates, the yells from
aloft, the jockey at the yard-arm, with the earring not in
his ear but in his hand ! The plunge of the ship shrouds
her forecastle in a thunderstorm of crystals through which
the flash of the slung froth is as the stab of lightning:.

Whilst the men were aloft, knotting a single reef in
the topsails, a picture hove into view, and as they were
sailors it doubtless cheered them. It was a steam tramp,
of about two thousand tons, " flying light,11 that is to say,
with nothing in her but water in her ballast tanks. She
was outward bound, to fetch a cargo from North America
or any other seaboard you please ; and she sat like an
egg-shell, which would have been a safe and proper
posture to adopt in dock or on the smooth surface of a
river. But the sea here was now running high, it was
under-sweeping this balloon of a " tramp,'1 in low, flint-
dark cliffs with brows of snow, which poured in a mighty
roaring under the counter and along the port beam of the
pitching, galloping, staggering, stumbling water-borne
symbol of the jerry shipwright's base art. The heavens
were dark beyond her ; they streamed wild and torn over
her ; she flung high and low her black and red side ;
she was like something alive, wounded, and privily but
barbarously goaded by a devil-hand, and you saw a wet
gleam in a piece of bi*ass-work, a moist flash off' a binnacle-
hood, pale as the draining of moonlight in water when

BENSON AND THE BREEZE 123

the cold satellite looks down with blurred and tarnished
face through her prophetic circle of storm.

" She's knocking herself to pieces,"" said Mr. Dipp, to
Captain Mostyn.

She pitched till the stowed anchor in her hawse-pipe
was lost in the boiling smother, and then you saw her red
propeller under her high-lifted stern whirling like a ship's
wheel when the volcanic swing of the rudder to the blow
of the sea smites the spokes into the velocity of a Catherine
wheel.

When a propeller, liberated from its grip of the water,
revolves as yonder tramp's, the engines are said to race.
They go mad, they work like the pulse in fever. Their
convulsion is that of the circular rush of the mechanism
of a great clock whose spring suddenly breaks. But in
a moment or two — for the pitching of a ship is often as
rapid as breathing — the stern is submerged, the propeller
buried, the mighty hand of the sea is upon its blades, the
arrest grips the steam fiend by the throat. He is near
choked, when up again darts the stern. The liberated
screw rushes round with the speed of a gale, the engines
fall wild and mad again, for if engines have not souls
they are quite as human in behaviour, and particularly in
protest, as a good many two-legged things who seriously
believe that they possess souls, and even pray for those of
others. That tramp was a pitiful spectacle to the eye
of a mariner. How much more would she have appealed
to the sensibilities of the marine engineer ?

"She's atearing her bowels out," said Mr. Dipp.
" Why do the Board of Trade let them rogues, called
managing owners, send vessels after that pattern away to
sea, to cross the Atlantic in winter, so light that a rat in
a trap might feel safer, though half dead, than the men
who sign articles for the likes of her?" He nodded to
the steamer, which had overtaken them whilst the

12 i OVERDUE

Dcalman was snugging down ; but she was bound to fall
astern presently, when the song of the topsail halliards
should thrill an impulse of buoyant vitality into the heels
of the ship.

" I should be sorry to be in command of that bridge,11
said Captain Mostyn.

" I should be sorrier to be in command of her engine-
room,11 replied Mr. Dipp. " That's where it is. The
pity goes to the man on the bridge, because he's seen.
The real pity belongs to the engine-room, where the ''eart
of the ship beats, and sends the blood, "ot and alive oh,
into all the arteries. I say the pity, and all other proper
feelings that a man may have, belongs to the engine-room,
where the work is dark and 'idden, and the danger a
hundredfold more'n it is on deck ; where a bursted boiler
strips a poor fellow of his flesh, and plucks his eyes out,
as if steam was a skunking hook-nosed vulture ; where men
in the depths of the stokehold, sweating and half dead
in a temperature of a hundred and sixty, founder with
their ship, helpless to escape, and refusing to escape if
offered whilst dooty1s to be done. Think of the Queers
ship Victoria, lying several hundred fathoms deep off the
coast of Tunis ; and if I could dive fur enough to get at
her, you lay I'd find the engineer of the watch at his post
with the telegraph at half speed ahead, meaning that no
engineer would ever leave his place until the telegraph says
'Stop!1 and dooty's ended, and the struggle for life begins.11

" Yes,11 said Captain Mostyn, thoughtfully, with a
glance aloft to mark the doings of the men on the yards.
" It's true we make nothing of the hearts who are the
life, and must become the fighting life, of the steamship,
but who are overlooked by the crowd because they are
sunk in the vessel's bowels. In my last voyage in calm
weather, I came across such a tramp as that with her
nose dipped deep, and her stern cocked high, and a couple

BENSON AND THE BREEZE 125

of engineers dangling in bowlines over the stern, fitting
a new propeller. It is the engineer who is the real handy
man. I think I should feel pretty small as captain of
one of Her Majesty's ships, if ignorance forced me to put
elementary questions about the mechanism of my vessel
to the engineer. No man should take command of a
steamship without knowing as much about her machinery,
how to deal with it, how to nurse it, how not to slap-
dash at it, as is the custom of the ignorant and incon-
veniently vehement bluejacket, as I know of the hold of
this ship, and the spars and sails by which I navigate her."

The scurvy example of man's stupidity and Christless
indifference to the lives and sufferings of those who use
the sea and toil for them, staggered, and slobbered, and
o-rovelled, and lurched astern, with hideously immoral
disclosure of naked propeller coming and going, going
and coming, till the box-shaped fabric, bow on, blotted
the unwholesome sight from the eyes of the honest sailors
of the Dealman. Possibly ten knots was her guaranteed
speed. This was no doubt reduced by leaky joints, now
she was at sea, to seven, and as the propeller was half the
time out of the water you will readily conceive that she
fell stumbling astern like a buoy when the sailors mast-
headed the Dealman s upper yards as high as a single reef
would let them soar. The ship rushed with the wake of
a comet through the swelling and foaming under-run, and
the breaches of the sea made by the stormy thrust of her
bow, raised a thunder like the trumpets of the hurricane
blown amongst the heavy foliage of the tropic forest.

" She walks, I think," said Mr. Dipp, beginning to
step the weather quarter-deck alongside Captain Mostyn.

The tail of the wake spread in a boiling white road to
abreast of the floundering tramp, where it vanished in
the sea-throb and vapour of brine, through which you
saw the dark green surge melting and pouring from the

12G OVERDUE

horizon. The mate paced the length of a plank or two
in the gangway. The crew were variously employed.
The men would be divided into watches in the second dog-
watch. Black smoke from the galley chimney blew sharp
down in a swift scattering through the lee fore-shrouds.

" Yes, I think she has legs," said Captain Mostyn. " I
should be pleased to carry this breeze to Staten Island.11

"I wonder how Mr. Benson is getting on?11 said the
diver. " Do you think that he is going to make himself
comfortable this bout ? "

" There's plenty to eat and drink,11 replied the captain ;
" and he has all night in and the day to himself. Does
your scheme of happiness at sea go beyond that ? "

" You'll forgive my speaking personal to your face,11
said Mr. Dipp, after a brief pause, which he filled by
staring at Mostyn, "but dye know you're one of the
best-looking men Fve ever met in all my going afishing.,,
Mostyn preserved his countenance with the gravity of
an actor, who aware that he is being stared at as a great
man must not appear to know it.

" Where was you educated ? " continued Mr. Dipp.
Mostyn named the three schools.

" Well,11 said Mr. Dipp, " my learning cost my father
less than a shilling a week. I ask because you speak in a
way that is most uncommon amongst the skippers that
I've knocked about with."
" A little high falutin ? "

" No, sirree. It does me real good to hear you. Mr.
Benson's idea of words of one syllable won't wash. Big
thoughts ask big terms. Look at the Germans — they'll
pay out half a fathom of syllables to express one notion,
but that notion contains fifty others, like the Chinese
puzzle of balls within balls — one ball with half a score of
kiddies inside ; and that's where Mr. Benson doesn't do
himself proud. He's got ideas, but how are you going to

BENSON AND THE BREEZE 127

rork up a nine-gallon cask in a quart bottle ? Lor1 ! if
I had but the language ! "

" Write the life of a diver, Mr. Dipp — write your
story.""

" Yes, and whether you're coddin' or not, captain, if
properly wrote, the book \id be the talk of the country.
That's where I want language. Was you acquainted with
Mr. Benson before this voyage ? "

" No."

" Wonderful growth of 'air, sir. Must be like livin'
inside a scrubbin1 brush. When it comes on hot hell be
shavin' of himself. "

"Hell want it three times a day,'" said the captain.
" I have admired the military blue cheek when nothing in
the regulations talks of whiskers. Do you fancy him,
Mr. Dipp?"

The diver looked with something of archness at Captain
Mostyn, and in the greasiest note of his chest answered —

" Ask me that question when I get 'ome."

The master-spirit of the last century affirmed of the
child that "custom shall lie upon thee like a weight, heavy
as frost, and deep almost as life." This is a quintessential
truth, nobly sought, and grandly revealed. The peculiar
custom of the sea is to feel unmarried. A man leaves his
wife ashore, and will no doubt often think of her, but all
the time that he is at sea and abroad he is alone. Custom
lay with the weight of frost on Mostyn. He had always
been alone at sea. He was newly married, and there was
no habit of wedlock in his mind. This habit takes time in
acquiring. It is easy to sling two in a hammock, but the
habit I refer to is all that marriage signifies, the solemn
obligation of one dependent on your love and loyalty,
the mysterious meaning of children, who, as that gouty old
manatee, Captain Chester, justly observed, make sacred the
only unity which in this world can in any sense of the

128 OVERDUE

word be considered sacramental. When, therefore, Mr.
Dipp, after his arch look and darkling saying, added, " I
hope that Mrs. Mostyn isn't suffering as Mr. Benson do,"
the captain absolutely started to the instant impression
of novelty conveyed by the diver's remark.

His wife was aboard ! and so engrossed had he been
by tending the ship, and so deep-rooted was his habit of
thinking himself as alone when at sea, that Phyllis, as a
condition of his existing shipboard life, had gone clean
out of his head. He thought to himself, " Good God,
I had forgotten her ! " But the instincts of the seaman
must even dominate the perturbation of love, and he
paused to send a critical eye around the sea at the weather
to windward, at the weather to leeward, at the lightning-like
rush of the surge beyond the taffrail, at the freckled back
of the polished green knoll which showed as though in a
frame, when the ship sank her head, betwixt the yearning
curve of the foot of the forecastle and the headrails round-
ing to the eyes. Then, with a heart teeming with love,
he entered the cabin.

He opened the door of his sea bedroom, and there was
his wife, lying in his bunk, wide-awake. Those eyes, soft
violet wells, pure in their spirituality as the blue ether of
heaven is calm and gentle, in which he had sought love
and found it, were instantly turned upon him, and she
smiled. He kissed her, and asked how she felt.

" As giddy as the ship," she answered. " What sort
of a sea have you steered into ? "

" Just a pleasant little hubble-bubble. The ship races
like a yacht. Are you sorry to be here ?"

" About as sorry as you are that I am here. But, as a
sailor's wife, why should my head be affected by the sea ? "

"Benson fell away from the table hideously ill."

" I know. I heard him. His brand-new monkey-
jacket has no salt in it. So thick and coarse a man as he

BENSON AND THE BREEZE 129

might easily break a blood-vessel ; which would be a good
excuse for you to set him ashore, and then we should have
the ship to ourselves," she continued, with the languid
smile of the sea-tossed woman. " It would be strange if
he should go and I stay, as I shall.1'

" He'll have to hurry up with his blood-vessel,'" said
Mostyn, " if his mind sets shorewards. This breeze will be
speedily sweeping us past the Scillies, clean away from all
convenience of port, unless he begs me to shift my helm.
For what good ? The insurers might send a worse man,
who would report you on board. No ; let him keep his
blood-vessels all fast. Do you feel like getting up ?"

" Let me see."

She threw her feet over and stood upon the deck. The
chasing sea shouldered the sweeping keel with a regularity
that was like the revolutions of the crank of a marine
engine. She lifted buoyant with a slanting rush which
yet gave you time ; for aloft was a staying power which
controlled the weather-roll, and put a measure into the
fabric's paces as timely as a dance to music. A pole-mast,
with a shoulder-of-mutton sail, though supplemented by
one or even two funnels, will not do in a rolling or
pitching sense for a ship what is done by the braced yard
and the steadfast pull of humming canvas.

" I feel quite able to go on deck," said Phyllis.

It was his privilege to place her hat upon her head,
and to overhaul her sea-chest for a warm jacket. This
done, they linked hands like Adam and Eve in Milton ; but,
unlike that forlorn couple, they shed no natural tears.
On the contrary, Phyllis burst into a laugh, for Mr.
Benson raised his pipes as they passed through the cabin,
and his gurgle, gasp, and groan reminded the young wife
of one of the several quarrels which occur in the tragedy
of Punch and Judy.

K

CHAPTER VIII

THE BALLOON

When the Dealman was seven days out she had measured
nearly thirteen hundred miles of ocean. Her average
speed had therefore been about one hundred and eighty
miles every twenty-four hours.

On this seventh day in the afternoon a pleasant breeze
blew from the westward, but the frown of a thunder-
squall darkened the horizon here and there, and in places
you could see the rain falling from the clouds in shafts
like old yellow marble, and wind was in the slant of the
rain. They had traversed some twenty degrees south and
west, and the sunshine was warm, and the afternoon a
bountiful picture of cloud, streaming seas, the frolic of
lights of foam, and the fire of Heaven, with three ships in
sight abeam, all hull down, and on the lee bow, at about a
league and a half, flapped a little brig, heading the course
of the Dealman.

Phyllis sat in a deck-chair abaft the deck-house, where

the plank ran clear from scupper to scupper, and beside

her, sitting on another chair betwixt his divided coat tails

— for strange to relate the gentleman had shipped this

day a city and suburban coat much affected in financial

circles, and he needed but the top hat of the London

streets to make you involuntarily glance round for the

Royal Exchange or the Mansion House — was Mr. Montague

Benson. Between the deck-house and the bulwark-rail

130

THE BALLOON 131

paced the captain, and the second mate lurked somewhere
to leeward, whilst Mr. Dipp, abreast of the wheel, had
hung his body over the rail, and, pipe in mouth, with an
occasional cloud blowing away from his nostrils, lay
looking intently upon the passing surface as though he
mused upon what might be reposing on the bottom.

Now, if we direct our gaze at Phyllis we shall at once
see that she had entirely recovered from the bad effects
of seasickness. Her eyes were bright and lively, and
flashed signals of a heart at rest, grateful, happy, beating
steady to a pulse of secret rejoicing. Her lips wore the
bloom of the sweet blood in her veins, and the searching
and betraying daylight, with its added glare of white deck
and white canvas and sparkle of sea, did but accentuate
that refinement and delicacy of her features for which she
was under no obligation to the member of the firm who
sent out savoury tongues on approval to irritable generals
half dead with gout. This improvement by revelation of
daylight in the refinement of woman's beauty marks but
that feature of nature which the microscope renders
superbly visible ; for if you take anything made by human
skill, and subject it to the test of enlargement, you will
find that, in proportion as it is magnified, so do its
coarseness and defects multiply in grossness ; whereas, if
you microscopically examine the handiwork of Nature, you
will discover that its exquisiteness of finish increases as
the magnitude.

Phyllis was to be complimented on falling happily
under a law whose operation, let me assure you in
the case of features and complexion, is by no means
universal.

It was this young wife's business and self-imposed
duty to make herself entirely agreeable to Mr. Benson.
In some sort of way the sweet young creature had come to
think of him as a power, He represented enormous

132 OVERDUE

commercial interests — enormous to her, who was the wife
of a poor sea captain, a bride with a scurvy dowry of one
hundred pounds, not a rap to give her man outside
herself and her clothes, which, as he could not wear them,
were profitable only to the extent of saving his pocket.
She dimly dreamt that if she rendered herself particularly
engaging to Mr. Benson he would stand by her husband
as a friend after this voyage, get him a fine command,
perhaps help him into an ocean mail line, which would be
a dowry of her own earning, and the sweeter and dearer
to her because he would owe it entirely to her love.

To most women — I speak with submission — nature
has supplied a sort of mental feeler or moral forefinger,
like to that which physically garnishes the anatomy of
the spider, whereby, through sedulously keeping it pressed
upon one of the silver fibres of its weaving, it feels
whether the thing entangled is a house-fly, a bluebottle,
or a wasp. For we are not to be told that a spider can
distinguish the forms and natures of the coloured surfaces
which fly foul of its web by its sight. So with women.
Men may differ in beauty as the stars in glory, but few
women by simple inspection only would be able to gauge
the moral character and worth of the thing that has been
caught in their meshes. I do not propound this in the
spirit of dogma. I abhor the blockhead who thrusts his
proposition into this world of fallacies as indefeasible.
There are many women who do not seem furnished with
feelers, who accept the wasp as artlessly as they accept the
house-fly, who will pine for the betraying rogue, and
yearn for his return to the web from which the more
prudent spider has artfully bitten him adrift.

Phyllis was a woman who enjoyed amongst her other
gifts that of the moral feeler. She did not like Mr.
Benson. She could never feel entirely at her ease when
conversing with him ; but her anxiety for her husband

THE BALLOON 133

and his interests naturally, to a certain extent, vitiated
her inferences. Moreover the voyage was still young, and
nothing had been said, or even looked, of a sort to dismiss
her to her husband's ear with a trouble. To prove that
she could have more shrewdly employed her moral feeler
but for her husband and his necessities, I may affirm
that the intellectual mercury in Phyllis's mind stood at
about fifteen degrees higher than the average girl's. She
was fifteen degrees more clever, ardent, sympathetic, loyal,
generous, unselfish. You will sav that if she had risen
to twenty degrees she would have been an angel. Probably ;
and I would cheerfully throw in a pair of wings if I did
not know that the angels men like best are unfeathered.

Benson and Phyllis sat on deck, whilst the captain
walked, and the second mate lurked, and the man at the
wheel held the ship to her course, and Dipp, hanging over
the rail, dived with his eyes into the deep sea. Phyllis had
already, during a day or two past, tried Mr. Benson with
a number of topics of conversation. Having lived, when
with her father, much alone, she had read pretty widely,
and, her taste being good, she had read with profit to her
mind. She could quote you couplets out of Waller,
Suckling, Herrick, Shelley, Swinburne, and others who
have made English verse the sweetest and the most
exalted of the world's poetry. She could taste the
humour of Charles Lamb, and portions of "Paradise
Lost" awed her as the swelling melodies of the cathedral
affect the devout who are musical. Her mind was stored
with passages from Charles Dickens, and she regarded
"Vanity Fair1' as the most vital and virile novel of the
century. She had wished to read Fielding, Smollett,
Sterne, and Richardson, and was sorry, on peeping into
them, to find that they had not written for young ladies
who refused to stoop low merely to see dirt. But when it
came to Jeremy Bentham, and John Stuart Mill, and Sir

134, OVERDUE

William Hamilton, and Dr. Whewell, and the famous
Archbishop of Dublin, she found herself entirely at fault,
t'other side of the hedge, in short, and unable to climb
over it. And Benson had no literature, no music, no
sculpture, no architecture, no anything in the smallest
degree delightful to be found outside the pages of these wise
and painful enthusiasts.

" I don't go the whole road with you,'" said Captain
Mostyn, who had come to a stand to listen to Mr. Benson,
" maybe I don't understand. I'm quite sure my wife
doesn't."

"You do Mrs. Mostyn an injustice," exclaimed Mr.
Benson, casting upon her anything but a fatherly look.

" Well, to my way of thinking, it's like this," said
Mostyn ; " free trade is very good when there is reci-
procity, but when all the benefits are conferred by one
side and all the ports are sealed with tariffs by the other,
free trade seems to me merely a term to express the
privilege and profit you concede to the foreigner and deny
to our people. Take the French system of bounties to
the shipowners. You say our shipping has thriven
enormously, though no bounties are granted ; but that is
what is called begging the question, for would it not
thrive more enormously, helped by bounties, seeing what
the unaided spirit of it is ? "

Mr. Benson smiled in pity ; at least his eyes smiled,
and his forehead may have helped the mirth of the
superior person to the extent of a wrinkle or two.

" It's clear you don't understand the fundamental
principles of free trade," said he ; whilst Phyllis thought
to herself —

" What a bore the man is ! Is there nothing else to
talk about but trade — here, in the face of those gilded
clouds and those beautiful spires of canvas towering above
us ? "

THE BALLOON 135

And her musings flowed to Woolsborough and to the
universal provider's shops, whilst Mr. Benson continued,
with a frontal largeness of demeanour that gained in
breadth by a powerful display of shirt-front —

"I will give you Mill's definition of free trade. He
says, the purchaser of British silk, encourages British
industry ; the man who purchases silk at Lyons encourages
only French. One, by people who don't think, is called
a patriot ; the conduct of the other ought to be put a
stop to by the law. But Mill points out that the
purchaser of any foreign commodity of necessity causes,
directly or indirectly, the export of an equivalent value
of some English article, something beyond what would
otherwise be exported either to the same foreign country
or to some other ; and this fact, he declares, though it
cannot be verified, rests upon evidence of reasoning
impossible to disprove."

He looked as though he had delivered his maiden
speech amidst spasmodic storms of " hear ! hears ! " in that
august assembly upon one of whose benches he hoped
some day to sit between his coat tails.

" It's about as clear as mud in a wine-glass to me," said
Mostyn.

Here Mr. Dipp came slowly to the group from the
rail, and Phyllis, wishing to end Mr. Benson's chatter,
said, in a pleasant voice, for a girl's voice is always pleasant
on board ship where life is mostly all hoarseness and
whisker —

" What ship have you been looking at, Mr. Dipp, in
the bottom of the sea ? "

" Don't reckon," replied Mr. Dipp, "because a man's
a diver he's always thinking of diving. I've been listening
to Mr. Benson, and allow that if 'is real sentiments are the
same he's been trying to make clear, he'll get no votes
when he offers himself."

136 OVERDUE

Mr. Benson turned in his chair and viewed him with
a frown.

" What should a diver know of political economy ?" he
exclaimed.

" All I know," answered Mr. Dipp, firmly, " is that
free trade is a blooming fraud, if buying and selling aren't
mutually conducted."

" Stick to compressed air," said Mr. Benson.

"You're not going to tell me what compressed air
consists of."

" Tut ! tut ! " said Mr. Benson. " Men who breathe
it don't seem to run lean."

" Tell me something about diving, Mr. Dipp," exclaimed
Phyllis. " I dare say there are places still undiscovered in
this world ; but there is one mysterious awful place which
will never be explored. It is the mightiest of all mansions.
It is the green halls of the sea."

Mr. Dipp looked pleased. It was glancing a comple-
ment, so to speak, at his calling.

" What would you like to know about diving,

i - an

ma am r

" How deep can you go ? "

"Speaking of myself, I've never been lower than
twenty-five fathom."

" A hundred and fifty feet, Phyl," said the captain.

" Like sinking from that truck," said Mr. Benson,
looking up.

"No fear," answered Dipp. "That depth 'ud be
murder."

" What's the greatest depth ever reached ? " asked
Mostyn.

"Why, sir, a diver named Hooper sank thirty-four
fathom — two "undred and four feet — to a ship named
Cape 'Orn, sunk off the coast of South America."

" What was the water pressure ? " asked Mostyn.

THE BALLOON 137

" Eighty-eight and a 'alf pounds to the square inch,11
answered Mr. Dipp.

" That's more than the pressure that drives a Channel
packet from Calais to Dover. I wonder it don't burst
you,11 said Mr. Benson, looking at the Diver's fat neck.
" How long can you stop under ? "

" It depends. From one hour to four, but not longer,
and that was done by a diver named Ridyard, who in that
time sent up sixty-four boxes of treasure from a depth of
twenty-six fathom. The ship was the Hamilla Mitchell,
and forty thousand pounds was got out of her.11

"There should be many wonders down in a depth of
two hundred feet," said Phyllis.

" What sort of wonders, mum ? " asked Dipp.

" Coral caves, and mermaids with golden hair and
golden combs,11 answered the young wife, with a smile and
a merry look at the diver, which, had he ever read " All
for Love,11 by Dryden, would have instantly set the poor
devil thinking of those lines about Cleopatra, who —

" Cast a glance so languishrngly sweet,
As if, secure of all beholders' hearts,
Neglecting, she could take them."

" Don't know that I should be in a 'urry to come up
if I fell in with one of those parties,11 said Dipp. " Half
tails, though.11

Mr. Benson laughed.

"I've heard tell of them people sitting on the sands,
strumming instruments and singing songs to coax poor
sailormen to jump overboard and swim ashore. They're
artful enough to conceal what's fish in them by cultivatin1
their hair, which grows prodigious long and wrops up their
extremities in locks of gold."

" When you dive do you ever see any queer fish in the
sea ? " asked Phyllis, sweetly.

138 OVERDUE

" What would you consider a queer fish ? " asked Mr.
Benson, with the insinuating manner he was used to adopt
when he desired to be uncommonly courteous.

" Such a thing as a Jesuit saw," answered Phyllis.
" It rose close to the ship ; it had a bald head and two
wicked, black eyes ; it shook a fin at the father and
sank.11

" I hope that nothing answering to a gent of that sort is
likely to come across me,11 said Mr. Dipp. " I do believe,
mum,11 he added, with a great grin, " it would make me so
afraid that I'd never dive again.11

" Td much like to see you in your diving dress, Mr.

Dipp,11 said Phyllis.

"Would you?11 he answered, looking with a face of
honest kindness at her. " Well, capt'n, you've got a wife
who's not to be said no to when she asks. Where are my
pumpers and signalmen. ""Ere, Jackson ! " lie shouted to
a man who was standing near the galley door, " lay aft.11

The fellow came along. He was one of three stout
sailors who had signed to work the pumps and tend the
diver's lines, and also to help in the general work of the
ship ; but the boatswain was chary of putting these men
to a deck job unless it was pulling and hauling. They
were useful men aloft to the cry of " all hands,11 but it was
tacitly understood that they were Mr. Dipp's men, whose
real duties were to follow. And so they did more loafing
than would have been easy or even practicable had they
formed a portion of the regular crew.

Mr. Dipp said something to the man, and both entered
the cabin.

Meanwhile Mr. Benson praised Jeremy Bentham to
Phyllis, who felt exceeding glad that this insipid unin-
telligible mouthing must end abruptly with the reappear-
ance of Mr. Dipp.

" Oh, Bentham was a glorious fellow. Utility ! That

THE BALLOON 139

was his grand theory. The greatest good for the greatest
number, and that's why he would have James Watt a
greater man than William Shakespeare. He taught
people to ask the question ' Why ? ' You must be aware,
Mrs. Mostyn, that the only way to get an answer is to
ask a question. Ask your question shrewdly, and your
answer works out in truth. Why was it supposed by the
ancients that if you dropped a ball from the masthead of
a ship in motion that the ball would fall at a little
distance behind the mast — a distance proportionate to the
speed of the ship ? "

He paused. Captain Mostyn was looking at a squall on
the weather beam. Phyllis who was deeply uninterested,
listlessly gazed at the hairy face that confronted her.

" Because," exclaimed Mr. Benson, " they never tried
the experiment."

" Where would it fall ? " answered Phyllis, who was
wondering whether divers took as long to dress as
ladies.

" At the foot of the mast of course.""

" Are these matters of much consequence ? " asked
Phyllis.

" Now you are putting it as Bentham would ; you are
asking a crucial question by which you extort the truth."
She looked a little away from him, not liking the
expression his eyes took. " They are of first-rate con-
sequence. The law of gravitation is involved in this
simple question of the dropped ball."

" Dipp will have to bear a hand," said Captain
Mostyn. "There's wind in the brow and wet in the
wake of that dirt."

But it was forming slowly, it was on the horizon and
was taking it leisurely whilst it filled its bag for a pibroch
in the shrouds. And it was going to be a squall that
you could see through; which is a cheery sea token, just

140 OVERDUE

as the breaking of the dawn in the middle of the sky is
a solemn presage to the shipman of the bowline.

It turned out, however, that divers do not take long
to dress, and Phyllis nearly let fly her honey-sweet breath
in a girl's shriek of amazement when there emerged —
shall I call the thing Dipp the diver? — an outrageously
grotesque figure; a compound of a knight of the joust,
and a penguin — a something consisting of helmet,
stomach, and elephantine legs. It was such a figure as
being set up in a moon-lit castle hall, surrounded by a
moat and coloured by painted windows, would have
affrighted the most experienced and bloody-minded
burglar that ever broke into a house with intent to
murder, if life stood in the way of booty. One glance
would have sufficed. Terror would have rendered a second
impossible.

The figure approached Phyllis with the strides of one
who wades. A man shod in gun-metal, his head clothed
in a helmet weighing sixty-four pounds, is in no physical
state to dart " the light fantastic toe." Yet, though Mr.
Dipp may have converted himself into an object of horror,
the figure he cut was not without splendour. His helmet,
which was of planished tinned copper, decorated with
neckrings and brass tabs for supporting lead weights, and
thick plate glasses on each side in brass frames with
guards, and a front round glass, likewise framed in brass,
streamed with the white glories of the sun as thousrh
feathers of fire blew from it down the breeze.

Phyllis stood up. The shape was so monstrously
novel, she felt, if she remained seated, its presence would
be too oppressive. The right flipper of the figure rose
to the helmet and opened the front window, and a portion
of the features of Mr. Dipp was revealed.

" Would you think me a queer fish, Mrs. Mostyn,"
said he, " if you met me under water P "

\

THE BALLOON 141

•

" If I was a mermaid," she answered, laughing, " and
you threatened to stop, I don't think I should wait."

"Fancy Mr. Dipp making love in that dress in a
coral grotto," exclaimed Captain Mostyn.

" He has got men to pump sighs into him," observed
Mr. Benson, " but how would they escape his lips ? "

" And you sink in that dress to the bottom of the
sea ? " said Phyllis, deeply interested.

" Yes, mum, yes," answered Dipp, in rolling greasy
notes ; " I step down a short ladder, catches hold of a
weighted line like this," he raised his arms, " and slide
down it."

"And where do they pump air into you?"

He touched the parts of the helmet.

"And if you feel faint or ill, what do you do ?" said
Phyllis.

" Pull my signal line."

She looked at the strange figure, then glanced at
the sea.

" You have wonderful courage," she said.

A laugh of gratification filled the chambers of the
helmet.

"You want your wits, ma'am, whether you call it
courage or any other term," spoke the voice behind the
window. " Not long ago some divers went down in
Australian waters to find a torpedo that had sunk.
They had scarcely disappeared when they signalled to be
hauled up, and they came aboard half boiled, having gone
down in water where there was a volcany."

" Stand by all three royal halliards — mizzen top-gallant
halliards" — rapped out Captain Mostyn, in the quick
harsh note of the sea command. " Helm there, let her
go off two points. In with you, Phyl, before you're
drenched, and send Prince with my water-proof."

The squall had put out the sun, and the sudden

142 OVERDUE

srloom made the oncoming mass seem wilder and harder
than it was. It was livid in the brow, white at the base,
scarred and mouldering in half a dozen dyes of dirty
vapour on the breast, with shreds and rags and tatters of
stuff flying off it into the thick blue it was discolouring
and would immediately blacken. Flash ! the stroke was
spiral, crimson, dazzling, and, as though a mine had been
exploded, the roar of thunder was a single blast of noise.
Then the ship was rushing in the first of it, royals and
mizzen top-gallant-sail clewing up, flying jib and main
top-gallant staysail hauling down to a hoarse bawling, lee
scuppers sobbing with rain ; the brine, white as milk,
seething smooth as silk along the depressed bends, the
taut weather-rigging and running-gear shrilling or trom-
boning in diabolic concert as though five hundred cats
were making love, with a lion roaring at the noise.

But, as I have said, it was a squall you could see
through. It swept its shrieks betwixt the masts with a
second flash and a second great gun of the skies in the
grey mess to leeward, whilst the sea began to snap and
lift in sudden leaps of foam blown into smoke. Soon the
weight of the wind sank. You saw the sunlight on the
weather horizon, and presently they were singing out at
the royal halliards, with blue sky over the trucks, and
large, lazy, magnificent masses of cream-breasted cloud in
the weather heaven painting violet shadows on the water,
and the ship was brought to her course, having closed,
during the rush of the squall, a brig, on the lee bow, to
within a mile and a half.

There is no fairer picture in the world than a shapely
well -clothed sailing-ship newly washed by rain, when the
sun is shining. She sparkles with gems of the beauty
of the rainbow ; her decks flash as she rolls ; she leans
from the breeze, and her side glows over the cold sea-
snow ; the delicate shadow of wet adds loveliness to the

THE BALLOON 143

sky-yearning curves of her heights. She walks in grace
and glory, and her path is a light upon the sea. Phyllis
came out of the cabin. She beheld this picture, and with
an eye quick to love the highest when it sees it, stood
still in admiration. Her husband's gaze was upon her,
and if she saw beauty in his ship how much more that
was beautiful did he witness in his wife !

" How near that little ship is down there, Charlie."'1

" She is a brig, and I twig the tricolour just hoisted
at her trysail-gaff'-end."

" What long words you use at sea ! Try-sail-gaff-end.
Four words to signify one thing. How would single-word
Benson relish your lingo, Charlie ?"

"A brig hangs up a trysail and a ship a spanker.
Confuse these things, Phyl, and farewell to Britain's glory.
And pray, missy, what's the difference between a brig and
a snow ? "

" I'll answer if you'll explain the difference between a
blouse and a bolero."

" Blouse is right enough, but it's kidding me you are,
ducky, when you talk of bolero."

She laughed, with all the love of her heart for him in
her face, and said —

" What's a snow if that yonder's a brig ? "

" That yonder may be a snow, for all I know," he
answered. " A snow is a brig with a mast abaft the
main-mast, upon which you set the trysail."

" What clever people you sailors are. You must have
a language of your own ; you are too great and fine and
good to converse in the easy speech of the shore. Who
first invented this romantic dialect of royals, top-gallant-
sails, and trysails ? I have read a good deal in Dean
Swift, but the lingo of the sea is much older than
< Gulliver's Travels.' "

Suddenly her eye caught something in the sky on a

144 OVERDUE

line with the weather lower fore-topsail yard, and she
cried —

" Is it a black planet ? Good gracious, Charlie, look ! "

He looked, and saw a balloon, big as the disc of the
moon and yellow as cream, against a background of
snow shot with rose and violet, and burning with the
glory of God at the shoulder it gave to the sun. The
captain sprang for his telescope. He took a long and
thirsty look, whilst Phyllis, with one finger to her eye,
stood close behind him ready for the peep-hole he must
hold for her.

" Let me see it," she cried.

It swept in and out until curiosity grew frantic for
gratification. But who on earth can hold a telescope to
a giiTs eye and keep the thing she wants to see steady in
the object glass ? It is a good sign, to be sure, when a
girl is obliged to seal her eye with her finger ; it proves
she cannot wink ; but it also reports that she will need
training before she becomes mistress of the art of the
telescope. Phyllis saw nothing but a large yellow globe
that sped up and down and then fled from left to right
without impressing a single detail, a lonely picture upon
the retina.

Mr. Benson came bundling out of the cabin.

" Hallo ! " he cried, following the example of the
others, and looking up. " What have we there ? A balloon ?
All this distance from land ! "

" Two men are in her car,'" said the captain, speaking
with his eye at the glass ; and slowly depressing the
telescope as he spoke, he continued, " I can follow the
thread of their grapnel line. Yes, by George, there's
the grapnel, dangling about twenty feet above the sea.
They mean to run her foul of that brig. They may hit
her, if not then another ship. That's their scheme.
They are in deadly danger, and want to get home."

THE BALLOON 145

How the balloon happened to be all that way out at
sea who is to say ? She may have been blown from the
land. But what land ? She may have been filled and
sent soaring from the clear forecastle of an ocean steamer.
But no matter how or why, those two miserable men in
the car of that balloon were in their doleful situation;
their sense of their ghastly extremity was visible in the
dangling grapnel moving like fingers attached to the
tentacle of something monstrous, living and air-borne,
blindly feeling along for succour.

" Is she descending ? " asked Benson.

"Not to judge by her grapnel."

" If they miss that brig they'll perish," said Phyllis.

" That's more than likely," answered Mostyn, watch-
ing the motion of the balloon with the impassioned and
pulsating interest a true man will take in any circum-
stance which involves risk to human life.

" I wonder how long they've been up in the air blow-
ins: about?" said Phvllis.

" Long enough perhaps to have eaten their larder
clean," answered her husband.

" Frightful ! They may be starving, and dying from
thirst."

The young wife fastened her eyes on the balloon with
a face so sweetly transparent in its disclosure of her simple
and affecting; thoughts that no great actress, not even
Mrs. Jordan, the one delicious and perfect romp of the
English stage, the most artless in her incomparable art
of all actresses past or present — not even that delicate
beauty could have subdued nature to the expression of
Phyllis's face which Mr. Benson with furtive eye found
more admirable in the sense of wonderful than the
balloon.

Mr. Dipp emerged. He had shed his equipment of
helmet, gun metal glories, and shape of penguin composed

L

146 OVERDUE

of indiarubbcr, and was the stout, good-humoured person
in pilot cloth we have before met. A greasy " ' Ullo ! M
announced his perception of the balloon, which apparition
so greatly affected him that unconsciously he pulled out
a piece of black tobacco and a knife and fell to cutting
a pipe-load, his features working in a way that changed
the mystical heaven of feeling in Phyllis's face to the light
of merriment.

" What's she a-doing of down here ? " cried the diver.

" They'll never make anything of ballooning," ex-
claimed Mr. Benson. " Air's not water and it's not land."

" Babies know that,'" said Mr. Dipp.

" I mean,''1 continued Mr. Benson, talking as usual for
effect with special reference to Mrs. Mostyn, " that air
don't supply you with resistance enough to get loco-
motion. Where's your friction ? Where's the wheel's
grip of the metal. Where's the paddle's clutch of the
water it scoops ? Where's the solid opposition which
enables the propeller to force its fabric onwards? You
may think to stem the air, and by all sorts of highly
dangerous arrangements you may drive a contrivance,
shaped as you please, on a quiet day at three or four
miles. But what's going to happen when the wind blows
at ten miles, fourteen miles, thirty miles, fifty miles an
hour? Would you like to be alone with a clever man,
Mrs. Mostyn, in a flying machine that has busied your
companion for twenty years, as if a razor or a revolver
or a grain or two from a chemist's shop were not surer,
speedier, and less messy than a body that has fallen through

a thousand feet " he broke off ; in fact, nobody wanted

to hear more.

But I am bound to say that, to my humble way of
thinking, Benson was right in his arguments. The utmost
uses the balloon can be put to have been proved. They
are many and valuable. But it is a dream of Bedlam,

THE BALLOON 147

magniloquently ridiculed in " Rasselas,11 that man with
his feet off a solid platform of plank or soil shall vanquish
the element that bloweth as it listeth, and renders him
when high hung, like yonder two poor devils, as tragically
helpless as a drowning man.

Silence fell upon the ship ; it was a moment vital
with suspense. Would those iron claws, moving slowly
under the path of the balloon, catch a hold of the brig's
rigging ? The men dropped their several jobs, and
neither Mostyn nor the second mate said anything to
them, being profoundly intent themselves. The brig
was now about three-quarters of a mile distant, upon the
Deahnans lee bow. It was manifest that her people
wished the balloon should hook them, for sometimes they
luffed so as to shake the way out of the little vessel,
and sometimes they starboarded their helm and kept her
away, which tactics clearly indicated that the Frenchman
wanted so to contrive it as to be fair and full in the
road of the grapnel when the balloon was over her.

" They must bear a hand,11 said Mostyn. " See that
squall on their track ? "

A large body of snuff-coloured vapour, gilt-edged by
the sun, with grey shafts of rain leaning from its belly
to the darkling waters, which were spitting and rushing
in short, savage springs under it, was fast overspreading
the sea to windward of the brig, and again Mostyn sang
out for hands to stand by the royal and other halliards,
as his ship was heading so as to nose the smother before
it should howl and flame and sweat itself out.

" By Heaven ! they've caught on ! " shouted Mr.
Benson.

The slant of the balloon proved without telescopic
interpretation that the grapnel had hooked the brig.
What part of her ? Apparently the fore-topmast stay
and one fluke had pierced the canvas, and in its own way

148 OVERDUE

had riveted itself. A flash in the squall was followed by
a loud burst of thunder, which pealed across the sea in
volleys like the reverberation of hills, and with deep
excitement all who were looking saw that the first of
the rush of the wind had caught the balloon, which was
slowly descending, and that the great bulb-like power,
straining at its moorings, was towing the brig's head
dead away to leeward, mocking the helpless helm and
the useless lay of the yards. One could only guess that
the men in the car were letting out gas as fast as it
would shoot, and hauling in the slack of the grapnel line.
Before this extraordinary incident could be consummated
to the desire of the beholders aboai-d the Dealman, the
fury of the squall, flashing lightning from her viewless
eyes and bellowing thunder from her lips of cloud, with
rain-like hair falling from her storm-swept head, rushed
upon the brig and balloon, and put them out as a cloud
puts out the stars.

Phyllis fled to the cabin for shelter. The rain swept
the ship like a league of carbineers. It blew twice as
hard as t'other had, and not only were all three royals
clewed up — the top-gallant halliards were let go, staysails
hauled down, and the spanker, whose gaff was a standing
one, brailed in, and the ship fled through the smoking
wrath of the moment, the sky as black as if the moon
had clapped her shutter on the sun, vapour-like remnants
of crape flying through the topmast rigging, and the
whole ship slanting and plunging as though, from truck
to mastcoat, she shrieked to her people to tell her what
the shindy was about.

When the grey riot was a blinking, shivering shadow
to leeward, with a thickness of rain upon the water all
about, the sea opened to windward to a sudden glance of
the sun, and the French brig, with her top-gallant mast
gone, swam out clearly almost within hailing distance on

THE BALLOON 149

the ship's weather quarter, and they could see her people
running about, some climbing the fore shrouds and some
bustling at the braces, for those small French vessels go
well manned. But where was the balloon ? Not a shred
of it could be traced ; not a sign of the car, though the
telescope disclosed the grapnel still fast to the stay in
the cloth there and a length of line streaming astern.

" She blew adrift, and's gone down with her car and
its people," said Mr. Dipp.

" Can't we find out ? " asked Phyllis.

It needed but a very small manoeuvre to bring the
brig within hailing distance. Mostyn from the top
of the deck-house shouted, " Brig ahoy ! w But Phyllis
was too full of excitement, and the sense of sudden and
violent death, to admire the dripping fabric, with her
chequered side and rain-shaded canvas, and the curtseying
and the rolling which washed the brine bright to the
headboards, and left them waterfalls to the next lift,
which slanted the deck into a vision of caboose and long
boat and tarry men in blue blouses and crimson shirts.
A figure on the brig's rail flourished his hand and shouted
something in French.

" Have you the men belonging to the balloon on
board of you ? " bawled Mostyn.

The man shook his head, not understanding. A row
of heads, French fashion, studded the bulwark rail to
listen and stare, but it was clear there was no English
dictionary in that hooker's cargo.

" Who speaks French here ? " said Mostyn, looking at
his wife, at Benson, and Dipp.

Phyllis waited for Mr. Benson to speak. Benson,
whose knowledge of the elegant and finely-edged tongue
of Victor Hugo, Balzac, and Moliere did not extend
beyond the word garqong, sent a smile with his eyes
through his eyebrows to his forehead, and said —

150 OVERDUE

"If Mr. Dipp will not try them in French let him
attempt German. Some of them may understand the
language of conquest."

"Modern languages is a dead broke joke with me,"
answered Mr. Dipp. " If they was Greek now, or even

Romans " He chuckled and looked at Mrs. Mostyn

to help him with a laugh.

" Ask this, Charlie," said Phyllis ; and she translated
into the French, which she had acquired at Miss Loadeufs
school for young ladies, High Street, Woolsborough,
this sentence, " Have you saved the men belonging to
the balloon ? "

Mostyn parroted his wife's sentence with a scoundrel
Brummagen accent. But the fellow on the brig under-
stood him, and yelled back simply " Non."

"Repeat this, Charlie," said Phyllis. And in grace-
ful Woolsborough French, she said, "What has become
of them?"

The Frenchman pointed to the water over the stern,
and no further intimation was necessary, or perhaps
practicable, seeing that the Dealman, which had sheeted
home her light canvas, was streaming ahead out of
speaking distance of the brig through the long ocean
sunshine and through the little seas which curled in
waterfalls under the brisk and pleasant breeze, and over
the undulating shadow-islands painted by the cream-
breasted clouds.

CHAPTER IX

benson's champagne

The tedium of life at sea in a sailing-ship belongs to that
order of sameness which Sydney Smith was thinking of
when he recalled his first cure of souls in the middle of
Salisbury Plain. But this is true of human life only,
whose index upon the ocean circumnavigates its dial plate
of twenty-four hours with the heart-taming iteration of
the tick of the pendulum. The monotony is not the
sea's ; her passions, her moods, her broodings are as fickle,
tempestuous, lightly-winged, holily serene, or wickedly
fierce as the heart of woman ; it is the inner, not the
outer, life of the ship that repeats the story of the relieved
wheel, the growl over the mess kid, the malediction flung
at the red-headed mate, the askant glance, blue as a
bayonet in the Irish eye, red as the gory poniard in the
black iris of the Dago, at the captain whose heart is as
vermin-ridden as the biscuit his owners shipped for his
men.

On board a Babel steamer, whose steel ceilings and
walls resound the dialects of Europe, whose saloon, crowded
with gorging and guzzling travellers, is swept along at
twenty-five miles an hour, and spans the distance from
Bristol to London before the last toothpick lurches for
the smoking-room ; in such a mail steamer as the Babel,
whose voyage is of five or six days, the dulness of the
internal life weighs upon the spirits of even a Yankee

is i

152 OVERDUE

professional joker, and men seek relief in cards, in lies,
in tobacco, and brag. To the inhabitants of this water-
borne city, an abandoned brig, with a frozen man lashed
in her rigging, is a break, a diversion, a rememberable
circumstance, something for the stuttering prose of the
gaping reporter ashore, and it may season the fireside
talk afterwards. A collision is another break, but, then,
all must be well with the Babel; it is a three-masted
vessel close-hauled, in charge of a Norwegian skipper, that
must founder in a fog which thrills with the groans, cries,
and shrieks of the drowning. It is something to talk
about. This is the first time the BabeTs captain was ever
in collision. His behaviour was admirable. Mrs. Gamp
forward, and Mrs. Chuzzlewit aft, affirmed it so. With-
out moving a muscle he heard that the fore-compartment
was not full, and that his ship was safer than when she
went into dry dock. He ordered two boats to be lowered,
and the ship having disappeared, the BabeTs syren set up
its hideous iron throat, as though a man, after the
Hogarthian theory, should saw through a signboard
sitting outside of it.

Therefore, it will be supposed that the incident of the
balloon and the brig was an interlude charged with all
merit of rough comedy and hard tragedy.

" I don't suppose," said Mr. Benson, who stayed with
the others on top of the deck-house, whilst the leaning
ship, sparkling with the lights of the afternoon, streamed
in a bed of soft, white, singing salt along the edges
of the feathering surge, " that you'd have got more
out of them had you signalled with the International
Code."

" Not so much, perhaps," answered Mostyn. " What's
more expressive than the downward pointing finger when
the sea is under it ? "

" Is it possible that a balloon could be kept afloat in

BENSON'S CHAMPAGNE 158

the air all this distance from the place it started from ? "
inquired Phyllis.

"Look here, Phyl," said Mostyn, "you saw it, didn't

you?"

" Of course I did."

" Then Mr. Benson will tell you that an axiom, ac-
cepted by all philosophers, is this : if a thing has happened
once it is established as a truth. If it never happens
again, no matter. No man shall presume to say that
what took place once can never take place more."

" Ay ; but look here, capt'n," said Mr. Dipp. " Sup-
posing a diver should sink three "undred feet. It never
happened afore. Gord knows what the pressure would be.
He comes up as a show, and the doctors explain that he's
made sorter fish-like. They find lungs that ain't like
mine or yourn. They discover a belly hard as my
helmet with muscle. Perhaps his blood mayn't be like
\ours or mine. Am I going to be told, because an
onnatural man gets into a diving dress and lowers himself
three 'undred feet, that soch another will ever again come
upon the earth whilst she keeps on turning out people
like you and me ? If you says no to that, as I say no,
why, then I savs, says I, how does the circumstance of a
thing happening once prove that it must happen again?"

"Might, I said — not must, Mr. Dipp."

" What my husband means, Mr. Dipp, is that the
balloon, having been seen in the air yonder, existed, and,
because it existed, such a phenomenon might happen
ao-ain," said Phyllis, who was always amused by Mr.
Dipp's play of expression when his mind was in labour.

" Take spirits, Phyl," said Mostyn.

She looked at him, astonished by his remark and its
apparent irrelevancy. Mr. Dipp burst into a laugh.

" A two or three-finger nip, captain ?" he asked, with
an oily chuckle.

154 OVERDUE

Mostyn viewed him sternly. He was master of the
ship, and Dipp was diver, whose social horizon, whether
ashore or afloat, was not sufficiently boundless to admit of
his taking liberties. Mr. Benson sent a sidelong glance
at the stern handsome face of the man whose eyes were
upon Dipp.

" Take the question of ghosts," said Mostyn, relaxing
a little in face and tone. " Suppose three men, whose
sanity is beyond dispute, whose intellect is of a high
order, affirmed that whilst they were in company in the
day or in the night they saw a spectral being, a something
shadowy and visionary, a thing that seemed a thing, and
that wore the likeness of what might have been the clay
whose essence it once was. I should hold that these men
spoke the truth, that they had not been misled by any
fallacy of the sight, because they were all three agreed on
one point, and they could serve no interest of any sort by
conspiring against the credulity of vulgar and ignorant
people. Their evidence to me would absolutely establish
the existence of the thing called ghost, and since one was
seen others might have been, and others continue to be,
seen. But evidence about ghosts is so tainted by super-
stition, fear, blunders of the eye, prejudice, racial blood-
convictions that no man of average mind will or could
believe in spirits."

He emphasized this last word with another stern look
at Dipp, who was listening to him with the attention of a
plain, sincere, illiterate man struck by another's fecundity
of thought and breadth of vocabulary.

" Now," continued Mostyn, " here is a ship full of
people, all whom have seen the balloon, and whether such
a sio-ht so far out at sea was ever witnessed before matters
not. It has been seen once."

" That's good reasoning, capt'n," said Mr. Dipp, who
was busy again with a plug of tobacco.

BENSON'S CHAMPAGNE 155

Mr. Benson's gaze, in a furtive way, hovered over the
face and figure of the young wife, in a manner to remind
you of a wasp that hums with wings of electric tremors
over a bowl of sugar before it settles. She well knew,
without looking at him, he watched her ; but there was
nothing yet to render sapid the dry austerity of the
thought, the fancy, even the fear which such a face and
such a man must kindle in any woman to whom super-
ficially he was but commonly courteous.

And what was the truth about that balloon? Had
it depended upon the report of the Jeanne U'Arc it must
have gone a-begging. In a word, the brig went down
with all hands when she was two hundred miles from
her port, and the people of the Dcalman were obliged to
wait until they returned home to supply a log extract
to the newspapers which fetched this fact into print.
At Rotterdam, Professor Heine and Herr Hoch rose into
the air in the car of a balloon in the interests of the
science of bacteriology. Their main motive was to make
experiments, by the most delicate set of instruments ever
contrived, on the effects of the atmosphere at any altitude
on microscopic organisms. To what extent the observa-
tions of these intrepid voyagers of the deeps of heaven
would have proved valuable must be left to conjecture.
It was clear that a steady gale had blown them out of
the sphere of knowledge into the region of terror, and
that for days their experiments had been conducted, not
with a view to improving their acquaintance with the
bacillus, but to hooking on to a ship to save their lives.

When our grandmothers spoke of eyes or no eyes
they merely signified all the world to nothing. For it is
true that if you do not exert your observation your soul
will wither within you, and the majesty and the splendour
of God will be eclipsed to your life. I have known one
who could not look upon a star, who could not muse upon

156 OVERDUE

a daisy, who could not converse with a ploughman, who
could not mark the restless heapings of the sea upon the
shore, who could not view the motions of a fish in a bowl,
or a bird winging down the breeze, but that he found
liberal enlargement of his knowledge and a closer approach
to the spiritual conditions of this miracle of universe.
And I know one who has travelled all over the world, who
has wealth and opportunity of observation, who remains
what he was in the beginning, the greatest ass that was
ever clad with human ears, who can tell you the several
national drinks of Europe, and pay out a cable scope of
yarn about a billiard match. But to him the meadow,
grove, and stream, the earth and every common sight,
assuredly wear no apparel of celestial radiance ; the
mountain towers to the blind eye, and the cataract blows
its trumpet to the deaf ear.

Now, Phyllis had eyes, beautiful eyes, which she could
employ to loftier ends even than looking love to love.
She would have adorned one of our grandmother's tales
as an observer. She had come to sea as the captain's
wife, it is true, and was dwelling by his side through a
tender and moving artifice ; but she had also come to sea
with the eves of a poetess, who witnesses beauty in what
to others is the commonplace, who can feel the pulse of
human nature in the obscurest artery of human life, who,
in short, being born a lover of nature, is loved in return,
and receives in all variety of impulse, mood, passion, and
feeling, revelations of meanings, and expressions of beauty,
which are concealed from others not cast in her mould.
Therefore the days were not to prove a monotonous
routine to Phyllis. A ship was not to be a fabric of
timber or iron, and spar and wing ; she found this
example of man's industry and amazing intelligence as
much alive in its own way as the dolphin that flashed
its rainbow through the green curl at the bow, as the

BENSON'S CHAMPAGNE 157

sea-mew which she sometimes mistook for a patch of the
foam that freckled the hollow.

There is no good in going to sea for a voyage in a
sailing-ship unless you carry Phyllis's mood and talent of
eyes with you. She was never weary of overhanging the
taffrail and watching the swell swooning into valleys, or
the nimble flight of the foam-feather oft* the wake to the
breath of the lateral breeze, and building down into the
sea, visions of marble halls which at night would be gilded
or lighted by mysterious stars of phosphor ; and deeper
yet would imagination penetrate, so deep that even the
manifold experiences of Mr. Dipp ranged bald alongside
the gorgeous and fantastic pictures of her mind.

You will suppose that her husband helped her nautical
education. One evening, shortly after the ship had struck
the north-east trades, he led her by the hand forward on to
the forecastle to show her one of the glories of the deep.
The sea was unusually phosphorescent, and the weather-
bow of the ship shouldered the water into seething sheets
of foam and fire, whose bulk raised the spectacle to the
sublime. She watched the flame-lanced race spreading
aft from the rejoicing roar of the cutwater. She looked
up, and beheld the sails doing their work stirless as though
from the sculptor's chisel. She put words to the music
in the rigging ; she found the wide night of keen-cut
stars, sliding beyond the shadowy wing of trade cloud,
repeated in the spangling of the mirror which the sea
for ever holds up to the lights of heaven.

But the part of the life that interested her most was
the part that concerned her husband most, and this side
of the calling was the life of the crew. Mostyn in his
day had lived with Merchant Jack, slung alongside of
him, swallowed the poor fellow's nauseous pea-soup and
shared in the sufferings inflicted by shipowners on the
men who make their fortunes. Naturally Phyllis was

158 OVERDUE

keenly interested in the ways, doings, and work of the
sailors. She had sometimes read of seamen as people
who in fine weather lounge ever the windlass ends, and
smoke their pipes until it is time to dine or to go to bed.
She was astonished to discover that the men of the
watch, when on deck, were ceaselessly worked at every
possible job the imagination of mate and boatswain was
equal to. Her husband took her into the galley, and
showed her the furniture of the ship's kitchen, the coppers,
the dresser, the cook himself. She tasted some of the
sailors1 pea-soup, and honestly told the cook that it was
disgusting.

"But what can a man do with peas like this, mum ?
Peas which was never growed in a garden nor in a field,
but was cast in a shot tower, lady. Fit only to grind the
grub in a hen's crop. And slush like this, mum ? " cried
the cook, showing her a handful of ships' peas, and point-
ing with his chin to a dollop of the fat of pork that
was sweating like cheese in a temperature of ninety
degrees.

" But they make good soup on shore, and tin it," said
Phyllis. " Why do not they serve it out to the sailors ?
Would a shipowner allow his cook to send up such pea-
soup as that to his table ? "

But the captain stood by, and the cook durst not
argue.

She desired to take a peep into the men's sleeping
quarters, but Charlie would not permit her to show her
pretty little Roman nose in Jack's den.

"Vm not afraid of sailors," said she, "they'll not
molest me."

" I dare say not ; who would ? Some things must be
left to the imagination, and the sleeping berth of the
merchant sailor should remain an illusion with pretty
young girls."

BENSON'S CHAMPAGNE 159

She wanted to know if Jack's life at sea is, on the
whole, more comfortable than it is ashore.

" Well, you know, Phyl,11 said he, as they strolled aft,
" some kind-hearted folks drown their kittens in warm
water. Ashore or afloat is merely a question of hot and
cold with Jack. Drowned he is, sooner or later. He
may be drowned in hot water ashore by crimps who pillage
him, by Sues and Polls who drug him, by professional
agitators who plunder and then starve him. Certainly he
has a hot time of it whilst going under. At sea it is all
cold water, very cold. Could a husband tell his wife how
Jack drowns ashore ? The men who put the truth into
books write in vain. Women shrink from the subject and
men drop the narratives of brutal violence and the rest
of it with loathing and doubt. Let's keep our idealism
sweet. Let Jack remain the Jack of the song.1'1

"I hate him in the song,11 cried Phyllis. "When he
becomes a rover, a corsair, a heart of oak, a handy man,
and goes to sea with Eliza Cook, and worse versifiers than
even Eliza, he is the poorest creature in the world, a
rolling, drunken, hitch-up-my-band, turn-my-quid, a-life-
on-the-ocean-wave sailor, a fellow you'd not trust for
three minutes at that wheel, who'd fall from aloft if he
dared to climb, and who believes a sheet to be a sail.11

If Phyllis watched the ways of the crew, she also
watched the ways of her husband and his mates, and
discovered that the situation of the captain of a merchant-
man is the most unenviably responsible in the whole
catalogue of unremunerative posts. His owners send him
to sea undermanned, and sail he must, or Captain Van
Dunck of Rotterdam is perfectly willing to fill his berth
for pounds a month less ; and though his ship be under-
manned to a degree that is not to be expressed in
numbers, since three-fourths of the crew are foreigners
who do not understand the language of the Red Ensign,

160 OVERDUE

and are therefore almost useless, yet sail he must, for
Mynheer Van Dunck is for ever present, and for ever
eager to oblige. She learnt, by talking with her husband,
that if the master of a British ship meets with a disaster,
he may be tried by a man who is seasick if he looks at a
wherry, and whose decision is wholly determined by the
views of Royal Naval gentlemen (retired), who through-
out their professional career had been protected from the
inclemency of the weather by cones hoisted ashore, who
could clap fifty men on to a rope when the culprit at the
bar could not command the services of five, who could
court-martial a man for an oath or even a look when the
master-mariner in distress had no remedy but the official
log-book, and a choice among any number of examples
of nautical depravity at the first port he reaches, as
substitutes for the offenders who have run.

But the interest she would have been glad to take in
chief mates and second mates, was stubbornly resisted by
Mr. Mill, the " first officer," as the occupant of this
uneasy berth is sometimes sarcastically termed. I have
elsewhere faintly glanced at him. He was a moody,
gloomy man, in whose carcase years of salt experience had
hardened his spirit, as the beef and the pork of the sailor
grow harder and harder in the white pickle of the cask.
Phyllis could not get near him, in a moral sense. Her
policy — but it was her nature too — was to be kind,
gentle, tactful to every man under her husband to whom
she had anything to say. But Mill, I tell you, was not to
be got at. His mental hide was thick ; his sensibilities
none ; all his answers, all his statements were as brief as
intelligibility would permit. He was a mule of a man,
and dwelt apart ; he did not betray a single characteristic,
peculiarity, weakness, such as you will often laugh at in
men who have used the sea for years. I have met old
sailors who have argued like a missionary with a Zulu

BENSON'S CHAMPAGNE 161

upon the beauty, wisdom, and inspiration of the Bible
Others have held strong opinions on politics, and
gloomily foretold that if the Government continued in
office the country must go under. Others proved
exquisitely diverting in the sea prejudice ; they had given
up the sea, and that possibly was the reason why they
swore they'd sooner sign articles for a water-tank, and
wash round the world in her, taking their chance, than
sail in an iron vessel. Timber was intended by Gord
Almighty to float, and sailors, from the flood down to a few
years ago, knew this and built according; what notions,
then, was they to form of the hintellectuals of the men
who riveted iron plates, any one of which, if you dropped
it into water, would sink like a slate off a house-top?

But if Mr. Mill thought at all, if he held a prejudice,
or was governed by any sort of prepossession, he locked
his ideas up in the safe of his mind, and was always the
same surly mule of a man, more after the tvpe of the
longshoreman perhaps than the deep-water Jack, with a
sullen eye for the weather and a sullen yelp for an order,
and a sullen acceptance of the master's instructions, and
a sullen walk in any lonely part of the after deck, when
he had charge. And yet, though he was one of those
men who negatively tease you into a habit of aversion, he
was perhaps the last man in the ship to suggest himself as
equal to breaking out of the harness of the mule into
lawless action. His was a face to decorate a bench in a
Bethel. He would pass, he did pass, with Phyllis and
Mostyn, as a sulky old salt who had or had not a wife and
troubles ashore ; who was chagrined by idle expectation of
command; who abhorred the life he was compelled by
hunger to follow ; who was too proud for the workhouse,
and too old for the middle watch, and who on the whole
was, socially, to be carefully neglected and professionally
ensured whilst he did his dutv.

11

162 OVERDUE

The second mate was one of those colourless characters
which memory identifies by some external symptom or
label, such as a face of freckles, bandy legs, a cast in the
eye. He sneaked into his watch and sneaked out of it,
ate in the cabin when the others had finished, and
exhibited a disposition to be familiar with the men,
which Mostyn told Phyllis was the surest of all sea signs
of a bad officer.

The ship had been about three weeks from port, and
was in hot weather, with wrinkles of gold under the
setting sun, and variable moods of wind and sky between,
when it fell to the lot of Phyllis to discover, with no
uncertainty in the perception, that Mr. Benson was in love
with her. She could not have gone to her husband and
told him this, because outside her conviction, which was
not evidence, she would have been absolutely unable to
furnish any proof. It was not her conceit; it was not
the interpretation of vanity ; quite the contrary, her
discovery made her secretly unhappy, or at least very
uneasy ; it was the instinct of her sex, that gift of
intuition which was Eve's bequest to the women of the
earth : it was the mystical light which one soul has
the power to fling upon another by which it reads the
thoughts that are brooding there. She perfectly under-
stood that Benson was in love with her. She also
perfectly understood that Benson's love was that of a man
whose passion is not wholly the animal's. For example,
she felt that if Benson had met her before her marriage
he would have fallen in love with her, proposed to her,
persecuted her with the pursuit of adoration, and all this
without the least reference to her father's ducats. She
never by chance met his eye but that she felt, as it were,
and felt with recoil and disgust, the heat of the hairy
creature's heart, which was not, by the smallest sprinkling,
the more well-flavoured to her because she felt that in its

BENSON'S CHAMPAGNE 1(53

elements, and even in its aim, his love was about as pure
as a man's can be who covets something which the Bible
would damn him for thinking of.

What was there to do ? Charlie had eyes in his head,
and was a young husband on his honeymoon, and jealous
as Othello ; but he seemed to see nothing ; certainly he
said nothing, and how could she begin ? Besides, it was a
situation that demanded the exercise of all the tact she
possessed. First of all she would be acting faithlessly to
her husband's professional interests if she brought Benson
and him to high words and frowning brows. Next, a
quarrel and its consequences must make the voyage dis-
tressingly uncomfortable, and what would be her feelings
if news of such a trouble aft got forward amongst the
men? She would never be able to show her nose on
deck. If a fellow hanging in the rigging glanced down
at her she would imagine he grinned in his sleeve, and
the careless spit of the brown froth of his quid into the
sea would carry to her fanciful sensitiveness a meaning it
certainly must lack while things stood in their present
posture.

The Dealman was still to the north of the Equator
when one afternoon Phyllis and her captain, and Dipp
and Benson might have been found seated on top of the
deck-house sheltered by a little awning, for which the
carpenter had fitted the necessary stanchions. It blew a
small hot wind out of north-west, and the sails pulled with
languor. The bright blue liquid heave, taking its hue
from the turquoise eye of heaven, was scarcely brushed,
and silence, which heat deepens, lay all about the ship,
from the flash of her wet side to the hazy winding of the
horizon, from the reel of the truck to the highest reaches
of the infinite ether. But inside the ship was the ship
herself freighted with human labour, moods, and passions,
and so there was some noise, but not much. The tread

164 OVERDUE

of the men's naked feet when they moved was as a cat's.
The canvas hollowed in and out from its yards with slaps
that would fetch a creak or groan from the ridded masts.
A light blue haze hovered over the line of bulwark-
rail, and one thought of steam and wet straw. A spun-
yarn winch was clicking on the forecastle, and Prince
made the dinner crockery rattle as he washed up the
plates alongside the galley. Mr. Mill stood in the shadow
of the mainsail, with a look of sour indifference on his
face, and upon the coaming of his cabin door, without a
collar, and in his shirt sleeves, sat Mr. Swanson, smoking
a pipe, and manifestly, though furtively, exchanging from
time to time a word with Prince.

There was a small show of good cheer on the top of
the deck-house in the shape of a tray of champagne and
light sweet wafer cakes. Mr. Dipp smoked a pipe. His
head was sheltered by a white cap, such as the country
milkman wears when, in midsummer, he roars his clanking
cart from the farm to the town, with perhaps a cherry-
cheeked charmer holding on for a lift as far as the dress-
maker's. Benson was airily attired in an alpaca jacket,
which, as he was built with a full run, as the shipwrights
say, scarcely suited him so well as his city and suburban
costume. He smoked a cheroot, a very mild Manilla, the
vapour of which he would expel in gapes. Mostyn was also
smoking a Manilla, the gift of Mr. Benson. Phyllis was
dressed in white drill and the round straw hat of the sea-
side. She would have passed for eighteen years of age.
I do not desire to go on praising God's gift of face, hair,
eyes, and figure to this young wife, but it is sure, from
what I have been told, that this afternoon she was
never more fascinating, whether because of the glow of
health in her cheek, or of the light of the sea in her eyes,
or the smile of love on her lips. It was her honeymoon,
and whenever her husband was bv her side, though Mr.

BENSON'S CHAMPAGNE 165

Benson should be seated directly opposite, her mood was
tranquil. The champagne and cakes were a slender
expression of Mr. Benson's foresight for himself. He had
gone to a universal provider in Bayswaterand had selected
for his private consumption during the voyage sundry cases
of champagne and other wines, delicacies in china and
in tins, cigars and other such matters, all which had been
received by the mate when the ship was in dock, and
carefully stowed. It was kind of him to share his cham-
pagne and other good things with Mrs. Mostyn and her
husband. Fortunately Mr. Dipp did not drink cham-
pagne. When offered a glass he had answered that he
was not a young woman. He preferred a glass of old
Jamaica rum to the best wine the Continent can send to
this country, and they were talking about this matter now,
as we find them seated upon the deck-house.

" My own opinion is," said Mr. Dipp, " and I was told
it by a publican of thirty years'* standing, that there's no
real champagne to be 'ad. The little that's made goes
to the crowned 'eads of the Continong and the Far East,
where the rupee's a-rolling."

"This is very good champagne," said Benson, lifting
a bottle. " It's an honest dry wine. They charged me
five pounds a dozen. If I'm cheated I don't want to
know it. Mrs. Mostyn, another glass."

In his hairy way he beamed upon her, extending the
bottle.

"No more, Mr. Benson, thank you."

" Half a glass."

Mostyn took the glass from his wife's hand and held
it to the bottle, and Benson, with a smile which I have
described, and shall describe no more, frothed it full.

" Now, captain."

He charged Mostyn's glass, and seemed perfectly
happy in being kind to the young married pair. Dipp

1GG OVERDUE

sent rolls of tobacco-smoke through his nose. His palate
appeared to be seated inside his nostrils.

" But I grant you this, Mr. Dipp," said Benson.
" You'll find in the market a great deal of champagne
that's no more wine than rhubarb's magnesia. Did you
ever hear of Lambert the barge-owner ? "

" A great corpulent man with a boy's face," answered
Dipp. " Yes. He was once showed to me in the London
Docks. The gentleman who pointed him out, said —
' What I like about Lambert is, he's worth ofi'SOjOOO, and
shows no side.' 'He shows plenty of belly, though,'
said I."

"Well," continued Mr. Benson, "Mr. Lambert was
in the habit of laying champagne down by the hundred
dozens in his cellars. Some party in the city sent him
a sample of champagne warranted as the finest. He
forwarded the sample to an analyst, who reported that
there wasn't a trace of grape, and that its constituents
were in every chemist's shop. How d'ye like that cigar,
captain ? "

" It's a delicate smoke for a Manilla," answered
Mostyn.

" They're very old," said Benson. " Ah, Mrs. Mostyn,
give me the old," he exclaimed, with tepid enthusiasm,
unconsciously paraphrasing Goldsmith's Hardcastle : " old
books, old wines, old cathedrals, old friends, old paintings,
and old slippers."

"And old women?" asked Mr. Dipp.

Benson looked as if hard of hearing, and Mostyn,
with a laugh, said —

" When they're our mothers."

" How long have you been married ? " asked Mr.
Dipp.

"It happens that I never have been married,"
answered Mr. Benson, in a voice that made you think of

BENSON'S CHAMPAGNE 167

Pecksniff when that gentleman insisted upon blessing an
acquaintance.

" And Fin not here to blame you,-" said Mr. Dipp,
looking at the bowl of his pipe. " You may talk senti-
mentally about 'usbands, wives, and children, but I tell
you the experience of most men is that the greatest kind-
ness they ever received came from strangers and 'ireKngs.?

" You and I must argue that point, Mr. Dipp," said
Phyllis.

" Oh,1' said the diver, " nothing is ever true in particu-
lars. The captain of course don't agree. 'E allows that
you showed him more kindness than Vs ever got from all
his friends put together, including relations.11

" Not a word about relations — I hate 'em,11 exclaimed
Mr. Benson. " I know a stockbroker who married a Dis-
senter for the sake of her rich connexions. Dye think
they ever bought a pound's worth of consols through
him ? No, sir, it was Jones, Brown, and Robinson of the
street who enabled him to earn a living.1'

Phyllis thought of her father, and Dipp of a brother.

" I've been admiring that there alpaca garment of
yourn, Mr. Benson," said the diver. " I believe Eve
come aboard a, bit too thickly clothed. Whenever the
ocean's talked about, somehow or other it's always the
North Sea that enters my head. This," said he, pulling
out a white-spotted scarlet pocket-handkerchief, with
which he wiped over the whole surface of his face as
though he cleaned a window, "is going to be a hot job,
and if you've got another jacket like what you're a-wear-
ing of I'm quite willing to hand you the tailor's price
for it."

" I have not such another jacket," answered Mr. Ben-
son ; " but I shall be happy to lend you a washable linen
coat. Certainly, if I were you, before I got into a jacket
I should consider the feelings of others."

168 OVERDUE

" You don't set me any example in that line," said the
diver, with a grin at the chair which Mr. Benson's figure
loaded.

"Your jacket's a good fit," said Mostyn, hoping, by
a faint sarcasm, to help the diver, whose honest, plain-
spoken character he had at once, and now cordially,
recognized and admired.

" It's a Cheapside fit," said Mr. Benson, looking some-
what vacantly into the horizon, as though he could wish
the subject changed.

" It has amused me," said Mostyn, admiring the
ammoniated white of the ash of Mr. Benson's cigar, " to
think of a West End nob getting himself up, with the help
of his valet, for a visit to the lady of title he hopes to
marry. They are three hours in company with the cheval
glass. His tie is exquisite ; his coat Poole's ; his waist-
coat a dream ; his boots have reached the topmost plat-
form of Japan ; his spiked moustache guarantees the
highest quality of self-satisfaction; his hat, for silkiness
and curl, might be the despair of every dude in Pall Mall;
his gold-knobbed umbrella is furled into the dimensions
of a cane ; he fixes a glass in his eye, and, after three
hours, departs, adored for his beauty by the valet who
made him. He is scarcely in the middle of the road
when a hansom-cab knocks him down; and now his hat
resembles a ripe fig that has been sat upon, his choice
umbrella is in halves, Poole is ripped down his back, and
instead of being a nob he is a mess, which is picked up,
washed, put to bed, and waited on by a doctor."

" Your jacket, Mr. Benson, has nothing to fear from
hansom-cabs," said Mrs. Mostyn, laughing.

Scarcely had the words left her lips, when a man, who
was standing on the sheer-pole in the fore-rigging, shouted
in a voice that resembled the explosion of a nine-pounder —

"Man overboard !"

CHAPTER X

MOONSHINE

It is commonly believed that the most heart-thrilling cry
at sea is " Man overboard ! " This is one of those sea-
propositions which have been parroted so often and so
widely that, like many another fallacy, it is generally
accepted as a fact. But, in reality, the most startling cry
that can be raised at sea is " Fire ! " and next, " Breakers
right ahead ! " or " Under the lee bow ! " next, " A
steamer's red and green lights right aboard of us ! "
Because fire at sea threatens the destruction of numbers
by the most shocking of all deaths; and breakers right
ahead is a menace of the crash of timber, the skating noise
of rending iron plates, the inrush of water, the panic of
fifties or hundreds, the capsized boats, and black figures
of the drowning spotting the ghastly breaches of the sea
as the grease-smooth water is pitted by the thunder drops.
And the collision !

But "man overboard" implies the jeopardy of one
human life only. It startles, it is true, and it is a sad
cry if the ship is steaming or sailing fast, and the man
can be seen with white appealing face, and black hair,
plastered like sea-weed on his forehead, stemming on the
swing of the sea which rolls melting from the quarter,
sliding the struggler, in a few heart-beats, afar in the
trouble of the wake.

Who had fallen overboard from the Dcalman ? Mostyn

could not see over the side from the top of the deck-house.

169

170 OVERDUE

He rushed down the steps, followed by his wife, Benson,
and Dipp, and, looking over the rail, they all saw Mr.
Swanson, the second mate, clumsily struggling in the clear
profound as he drifted past, shouting, " Help ! "

Instantly Mostyn hove a lifebuoy. It fell close to the
man ; but he had neither the art nor the coolness to reach
it. I speak of the clear profound. Over the side, the
brine went for the space of a fathom burnished as a burn-
ing-glass, and you'd think you could see, God knows how
deep, into the majestic secret. But a small fiery breeze
sang like bees aloft, and the lighter sails gave the ship
way, and wire-like ripples, harp-wise, widened off the cut-
water, and had you looked over the stern you'd have seen
little eddies and blue bubbles and tiny foam bells spring-
ing from the moving rudder and dotting the short, glazed
scope of wake like snowdrops.

"Aft here, and lower away this starboard quarter-
boat. Bear a hand, men, for God's sake, before that
shark there gets him," shouted Mostyn, in a voice that
trembled with the passions of the moment.

His quick sea-trained eye had descried, a little way
under the blue surface, the trembling sheen of the back
of a tigress of the deep, hung too low for the dorsal fin to
signal the existence of the deadly monster by the familiar
wet flash. If the unhappy man was to be saved, there was
nothing for it but a boat. But Jack Muck is not Navy
Jack. He may be willing, but he lacks the springing heel
and, above all, the talent that comes from constant drill,
which always was, and still remains, the bluejacket's
incomparable characteristic.

The sailors of the Dealman sprawled aft. They slapped
the deck with their naked feet; they floundered at the
tackles of the boat ; they were slow in releasing her from
those bands of sennit called gripes, and then, even as the
sheaves squeaked in the davits, a loud shriek broke from

MOONSHINE 171

the lips of Phyllis, and she fell fainting on the deck,
mercifully preserved from further sight of the hideous
orgies ; for not one but three sharks had got hold of the
wretch in the sea, and now nothing was to be seen but a
star-shaped surface of crimson, red as the portals of the
hell of the monks in the sweating glare of the sun ; and
noio appeared a nightmare spectacle of headless trunk
with a shark at each arm tearing furiously and whipping
foam with a tiger-lash of tail. And now the purple
surface spread smooth and unbroken, and so the tragedy
of a few minutes sank out of sight, leaving the boat
with men in her hanging over the water, every face as
pale as heart-sickness could bleach it through the dyes
of weather, and all turned into images of wood by this
sudden confrontment of individual calamity, bloody and
appalling.

Mostyn had carried his wife into the cabin. Benson
was retching in spasms into the water. Who shall tell
what was passing in Mr. Dipp"s mind ? Perhaps he
wondered what would happen if three sharks should
attack him in his diver's dress.

" Aft, some of you, and hoist this boat,1' sounded the
sulky note of the mate.

And the boat rose slowly to its place, helped by the
men in her who hauled upon the falls.

How did it come to pass that a man, seated, pipe in
mouth, on the coaming of his deck-cabin door, should, in
a few minutes, and without benefit of clergy, be sentenced,
executed, and entombed under seals of voracious flesh ?
The unfortunate man had felt the heat ; he rose from his
batten-like seat with an idea in his head. He would seek
the refreshment of coolness by lodging himself as close as
he could to the surface of the sea, where the side of the
ship would shade him from the biting daybeam. He
climbed over the rail, exchanging a word all too familiar

172 OVERDUE

with the man on the sheer-pole, and dropped into a
narrow platform affixed to the ship's side, called the fore-
chains or channels. Few ships in these days are thus
equipped. The rigging is set up inboards with screws.
The Dealman spread her shrouds as of yore with dead-
eyes and landyards, handy for the carpenter's axe if the
cargo shifts to the hurricane that buries the lee top-
gallant bulwark -rail. The second mate may have dozed,
and, dozing, fallen overboard to his destruction. This is
how Mostyn summed the thing up, and sailors are com-
monly right when they turn their bull's-eye of conjecture
upon sea affairs.

Phyllis came to presently. Pier husband fanned her
and damped her brow ; but when she opened her eyes she
witnessed the horrible sight again in memory's instant
presentment and shuddered. It had been far worse than
seeing a man hanged or guillotined, or garrotted or
impaled.

" Did he suffer much, do you think, Charlie ? "

"No," he answered, to comfort her. "One of them
bit his head off, after which it was like tugging at the
branches of a dead tree."

Here Mr. Benson came in, as black as night in the
hair, and sallow as the dawn in the rest of his face. He
held his hand tight pressed to his stomach, and presented
a figure proper for the pencil of John Leech, what with
his jacket and the round of his "run," as the shipbuilder
calls it. In silence he took the decanter of brandy from
a swing-tray, filled a liqueur glass, drank it, and sat down.

" You are now without a second mate," said he.

" I certainly am," answered Mostyn.

" What shall you do ? "

"Find another."

" I am distressed that Mrs. Mostyn should have been
an eye-witness of such a ghastly scene."

MOONSHINE 173

They suffered him to enjoy his distress without
comment.

"I am often surprised that men should be found to
fill the shrievalty,11 said Mr. Benson. " I certainly could
not attend an execution.11

"Would you like to lie down, Phyllis?11 asked
Mostyn.

'Td rather go on deck. The cabin's very hot.11

"If you want to attend to the duties of the ship,
captain,11 said Mr. Benson, with a strain of sickness in
his effort of courteous look and speech, " I shall be happy
to see to Mrs. Mostyn.11

"I think I can manage, thanks,11 answered the
captain.

The two walked out, but Benson stayed to take
another nip. He was glad that Mrs. Mostyn had fainted.
He should have been ashamed of himself had she seen
him vomiting. He was very much in love, and knew it,
and meant it, and by no means wished that he could not
help it ; and as the young wife stepped out of the cabin,
Benson's eye pencilled her shape and swaying motions
upon his passion, and when she was gone he took his
second glass.

I say that this unwholesome man, Benson, was in love
with Phyllis ; but what did he mean to make of it ?
What was he going to do ? The husband was aboard —
a handsome, stern, strong man whom she adored — who
adored his wife with a honeymoon passion. What did
Benson hope to reach ? Did he ever dream that that
dark blue eye would be lighted for him with a look which
could never shine for her husband, who would go mad if
he detected it ? Benson was a chartered accountant. He
was accepted as a respectable man in the city of London.
He was wise in his own walk of life, and could audit
the accounts of even an insolvent solicitor, yea, to the

174 OVERDUE

production of a masterpiece of balance-sheet. You will
suppose that the moral feelings of such a man had
become so tautly complicated by the severe and chilling
influence of mathematics that the intellectual part of him
resembled nothing so much as a ball of twine, of which
you must first get hold of the right end, and, when you
pull, all is twine that comes. It is indeed difficult to
imagine the spectacle of a chartered accountant kneeling
with the sentiment of a poet at the feet of Venus. But
he knows very little of human nature who shall predicate
of any man a character he will work out to the final
period of the prophet's conjecture. No image is truer
than that of Holmes1, the Charles Lamb of American
literature, who says that you shall sometimes see a green
flat stone lying in an old garden which, when accidentally
turned over, reveals to the sunlight scores of wriggling
horrors, nightmares of vermin and of scurrying bugs. It
happens often that a respectable man is turned over, and
then, as the Welshman says, "you shall see what you
shall see.11

What chartered accountants in general are capable of,
who shall decide ? But how Mr. Benson behaved himself,
to what degree the devil inside of him was enlarged by
the hand of passions never to be encountered in Thread-
needle Street, to what extent he proved himself mortal,
fallible, and disappointing as a respectable man and an
ardent admirer of Bentham and Adam Smith, you shall
discover, if your patience do not fail you.

The impression produced by such an incident as the
destruction by sharks of the second mate takes some time
to wear off aboard a small sailing-ship to the north of the
Doldrums, where the breeze is inconstant, where the cat's-
paw is extinguished by the sullen plash of perpendicular
rain, where the watch brace the yards about five or six
times in four hours, and where sometimes the ship sits

MOONSHINE 175

bewitched like the lady in Comus, transfixed in her liquid
bed, with the sunlight on her canvas trembling in silver
under her dark blue shadow. On board such a ship as
this there is

" Nothing to talk about,
Nothing to hawk about.
Nothing to make an old woman cry ' lawk ! ' about."

There is no dance last night to serve as a topic, no
dinner party, no new play. If you want excitement you
must create it, and from such diversions as Mr. Swanson
yielded to the spectators of the Dealman the mariner will
mutter, deep in his gizzard, " May the Lord deliver us ! ,1

But, in the course of another week, memory grew hazy,
and even Phyllis found the thing passing out of her mind.
At the end of that week the ship was in six degi-ees north
latitude, and on the whole fine weather had been hers.
Matthew Walker, the boatswain, whose whiskers and nose,
lying slightly athwartships through falling down a hatch-
way when overtaken in liquor, formed a picturesque
addition to the quarter-deck when he stumped it on the
lookout, had replaced the second mate. Had it not been
for Mr. Benson's secret, though controlled, passion for her,
Mrs. Mostyn would have accepted the voyage as a delight-
ful yachting trip, with nothing to do but to admire what
was glorious in the heavens and the ocean by day and bv
night, to sit and talk with her husband when his time
was hers, to study the motions of the ship, to listen to
Mr. Dipp\s recital of his own and the experiences of
others, and to be entertained by his homely practical
views of life. Indeed, it was one of her recreations to
help her husband in the navigating part, and let no lady
doubt my assurance when I tell her that, before the Deal-
man was up with the line, Phyllis could take an observa-
tion ; grasping her husband's spare sextant, she stood, a

176 OVERDUE

sweet and charming figure of a young Englishwoman
beside her man, and ogled the sun, and screwed him, with
white fingeis, down to the line of the sea, until the fiery
monarch broke from the fascination, and sank from the
soft, blue eye more divine than any dew-laden violet he
shines upon ashore. And when eight bells had been made,
she would enter the cabin with her husband, and work
out the latitude by his books. Her figures were as true
as his, but she never rose to the height of finding; the
longitude, and all the astronomical problems, which addle
the brains of the apprentices when they go up for their
second -mate's ticket, she wisely left to Charlie.

But Benson was always on board. He was like an
atmosphere in the ship. He permeated everywhere and
everything. It was Benson in the cabin, and Benson on
the deck-house, and Benson at the table. And it was
Benson who talked political economy, with an occasional
hedge-school flutter in the direction of poetry and the fine
arts, to please Phyllis. But he was no fool ; he knew
that his genius dwelt in the ledger, and his excursions in
the direction of Shakespeare and the musical glasses
were few. Had he been a common sailor on board, the
length of the ship would have separated him from the
young wife, and apparelled in a jumper, and a marline-
spike, he must have surveyed her from afar. Had he been
Prince, the steward, with access to her presence, his posture
would have been harmless as a servitor. But he was Mr.
Montague Benson, representative of the insurance office,
more important on board than even the captain. The
poor girl deemed him a power, and he was amazingly
courteous to her husband, of whom he could report as he
listed. Further, she was there by his consent, and she
was obliged to him, she was his humble servant for that,
for he could have sent her ashore had he chosen to do so,
and if his not doing so was ominous on one side, it was

MOONSHINE 177

handsome and gracious usage on the other. Her husband
sometimes spoke of it, and yet he had nothing whatever
to say about any sort of attention Mr. Benson was paying
Phyllis ; which would temporarily disarm the sweet creature
of her fears, though they recurred with Benson, and, as I
have said, as an atmosphere in the ship he was always
recurring. He sat over against her at table ; he dragged
his deck-chair to her side, and how was it possible for her
to say aloud what she thought, " Go away, you ugly,
black, hairy animal ! I distrust you ; your conversation
bores me. But I dislike most of all the spirit of your
manner, the expression of your eye, that smile of courtesy,
that level voice of social converse which the passion
in you makes painful even to your sneak's gift of
plausibility.'"

We dare not avow to one another what passes in one
another's mind, else this earth were soon a shambles, and
the last man like a negro, " Adam in mourning,11 to quote
George Colman.

The most difficult passage in the day with Phyllis was
the evening, when it was time to go below and before it
was time to go to bed. The interval must be filled with
amusements, and Benson offered to teach her chess, which,
on her refusing, enabled him to bag her at draughts. She
found it unpleasant to sit at a draught-board with Benson,
even when the skylight was wide open, and the heel of a
wind-sail kept the atmosphere fresh with the " salt-sweet "
breath of the sea. But Charlie seemed perfectly satisfied
when they were thus together, and she must please Benson
for his sake, and to hold the ship happy.

Mr. Benson was good at sleight-of-hand, and did really
astonish her by his tricks at cards. Mr. Dipp would
occasionally help the evening harmony by delivering a sea-
song in falsetto. You needed but to look at his neck, and
hear his laugh, to know that if ever he exerted his throat

N

178 OVERDUE

in song it would be in the pipe of the boy or the maid.
He found out that one of his three men strummed the banjo
and owned one, and on several occasions he brought the
fellow aft. This man's name was Brown. Small wonder
he could play the banjo, for in his day he had been a
nigger minstrel, with a corked face, broken white hat,
Gladstonian collars, and continuations stitched out of the
stars and stripes. He sang a good song, and was airy in
his utterances, with the graces of those popular stages on
the sands of Ramsgate and Margate, and the beach of
Southsea and Brighton.

No quainter sea-piece was ever painted by a natural
conjunction of fabric, colour, and human aspects of several
sorts than the inside of the deck-house submitted when the
cork-blackened man played and sang. The night had
poured her lap-full of jewels into the velvet depths ; the
moon glowed in the skylight; the glances of the lamp
touched this ocean canvas into life ; the queen of the little
floating kingdom sat beside her husband, and I cannot
think of her without recalling Steele's description of a
portrait : " She had an orange in her hand, and a nosegay
in her bosom, but a look so pure and fresh-coloured, you'd
have taken her for one of the seasons." The table was
hospitable with Mr. Benson's cheer. Dipp was a dab at a
bowl of rum punch, of which he sometimes partook too
heartily ; but the truth of wine was with him a proof of
qualities which one liked the better as one saw into them
deeper ; his merriment of drink was without depravity ; his
laugh was frequent, his joke was candid, and never would
his smile have been profounder than when he had become
speechless, which, by the way, did not happen during
this voyage. Mr. Benson was not far from Phyllis ; but
that, to be sure, was not his fault, for in that cabin they
never could be parted by more than the width of the table.
The corked man sang, and Benson smiled, in unconscious

MOONSHINE 179

illustration of Hamlet's thoughts — " a man may smile and
smile and be a villain. "

Mostyn was as well pleased with Dipp's music-hall
songs as though he had been a schoolboy in a holiday,
tipped by an uncle, and out on the spree. He laughed
consumedly, and Phyllis's flute-like laughter timed his, for
his enjoyment was hers, and she loved her man the more
for his ingenuous display of the sailor's character.

For it is true that no man more relishes the trivialities
of the earth — and what are its English comic songs but
these ? — than Jack who is fresh from a voyage in which
he has heard no sweeter music than the curses of the mate,
no funnier words than the mutinous extemporized doggerel
of the " chanty." Mostyn was commander, but never
went there to sea a fore-mast hand more soundly and
rootedly a sailorman than he. On these few occasions of
the fine tropic night, the humours of burnt cork, Dipp's
lifting and falling glass of rum punch, the tallowy smile of
Benson the hospitable, with eyes often askant on the fair
face, the fair form of Mostyn's wife, had you peered through
the open door of the cabin you would have caught a sight
of the Jack Mucks of the ship in a shadowy heap
about the main hatchway, listening, and often from that
shadowy heap broke a growling laugh of delight in a song,
a laugh reminiscent of the Liverpool, the Newcastle, the
London East-end music-hall, with its pathos which fails to
make strong men weep in spite of bad grammar, and its
humour, which is always successful in shaking the ribs, and
most especially the ribs of poor Jack.

The ship was hi about five degrees south when one of
these harmless evening festivities came along. At half-
past nine (three bells) in the first watch, Dipp's man
having drunk his grog and made his conge, the captain
stepped on deck, and Phyllis went with him. Instead of
mounting to the deck-house top, they passed along the

180 OVERDUE

alley-way between the house and the bulwarks, and came
to a stand at the rail out of earshot of the man at the
wheel, if they did not raise their voices. The air was
cross, and very scant ; the yards were braced for a wind on
the port beam ; the countless suns of heaven sparkled in
the indigo profound of the tropic night. The ship had
way, but she made no noise, save when, now and again, the
sleeping breast of the deep swelled to a larger suspiration
as though the great mother dreamt ; some sail aloft then
cracked a pistol-shot into the silence, and the shrouds and
rigging, counterfeiting the echoes of the shore, strained in
a little confusion of tongues.

Hand in hand the young couple stood, and would have
spoken, but utterance of thought was arrested in them by
the sight of the rising moon, whose dawn was a blush
which changed to silver as they watched. The moon is a
symbol of death, and the companion of sleep. She rolls,
airless and lifeless, along her course, and her lustre is the
gift of the sun, who, in this image, may be likened to God.
It is fit that that shining disc of death, which we call the
moon, should purify and beautify into the fairness and
tongueless eloquence of marble sculpture everything that
her beam touches ; whether it is the ship in full sail which
the oi-b transforms into a vision of pearl and silver wire,
or the noble cathedral which she whitens, and whose
windows she adorns with silver stars, or the lowly cottage
in a sleeping dell, whose ferns stand bleached as ostrich
plumes ; for she sweetens even the labourer's cot into a
fairy fancy. As a symbol of death she does well ; for she
fables by her shining the power of death upon life, that
uninterpretable power which purifies the spirit and frees
it from the soil which the sun exposes.

"I've had my dose of salt-water, Phyl," said Mostyn,
"but I'm never weary of that sight. It always carries me
ashore, and I am walking under the stars, with trees about

MOONSHINE 181

me, and a bed to go to, and a fire for roasting chestnuts,
if it's winter.'''

" That's the picture I've most often tried to create in
thinking about the sea and what it means," she answered.
" Look how the light shines under her, like the wake of
a ship streaming farther the swifter she rises. Do you
think she's inhabited, Charlie ? "

"By what sort of people?"

" Like you and me. I can't imagine any other sort."

" She has no atmosphere, Phyl. D'ye know what that
means to the likes of you and me, honey-bird?"

" Not a bit."'

" No lungs, no voice, no digestion ; in short, no
nothing of all that makes you and me."

" We couldn't breathe, you mean."

" Nor make love even in whispers, dear. If you fired
a cannon from a volcanic hill in the moon, which you
couldn't, no thunder would follow. We are so contrived
as to be in the unfortunate situation of not being able to
manage without an atmosphere."

" Well, the one we have is sweet enough, with that
moon to gild it."

She drew a deep breath of placid enjoyment, and
looked at the moon, with a tiny moon in each of her eyes,
as though the satellite was a manly sweetheart, who saw
babies in what he peered into.

" I wonder," she continued, " what Adam Smith or
Jeremy Bentham would have to say about such a picture
as that. Is there any utility in it ? Is it meant for the
greatest happiness of the greatest number? If so, you
and I seem alone in enjoying it. I don't see a sign of a
man anywhere about whose attitude shows that he knows
the moon's in the air."

She was right ; and so was Jack, for there is con-
stantly happening a great deal of watch on deck in Jack's

182 OVERDUE

life, and a seaman would be talked of as a ship's idiot
who chose to keep awake and admire the moon rather
than nod out forty winks over his folded arms, ready, even
in his crouching dose, for the call of the mate.

Her philosophic references brought Benson into
Mostyn's head. Benson and Dipp were on the deck-house.
Each blew a cloud and scented the air, and Dipp, who was
slightly sprung, or cocked, or slewed, or muzzy, or boozed,
or tipsy, or drunk — every cup has its shade of meaning,
and the vocabulary of inebriety is more copious than its
stages — lay down the law. Charlie must therefore talk
low.

" If Benson, the utilitarian, has no eyes for a moon-
rise,''1 said Mostyn, " I believe he knows a pretty woman
when he sees her."

" Don't let him hear you,*''' exclaimed Phyllis, turning
her head to cast a glance in the direction where the law
was being laid down.

" He greatly admires you, and who's to blame him ?"

"I don't like to be made uncomfortable.'"

" Has he once made you feel so ? "" he asked, with a
curious sea-note of command in his tone, which augured
ill for Benson if he had erred.

" Never once."

" It would be impossible," continued Mostyn. "Beauty
is given to a woman for the admiration of men. She
knows it, and she courts it, and she embellishes herself to
keep it, and often to prolong it, until her charms become
a vice in her old face."

" Yes ; all that's very true," said Phyllis.

" I'm so much in love with you that I should be piqued
if Benson did not admire you. You are my all — my
sweetest all — and who likes his all, when it happens to be
the choicest of God's works and gift, to be neglected."

She watched the moon in silence.

MOONSHINE 183

" He was kind to let you stop. I don't forget that.
A man in my situation meets with little kindness at the
hands of those set over him. Let his admiration proceed ;
it is a tribute ; it is the natural homage of the male eye.
How can it possibly expand to any degree that shall pre-
vent him and me from keeping the peace ? He may prove
useful to me.11

"Yes," she exclaimed quickly. "That thought, or
hope rather, is always present.11

"If you were alone in this ship, going out to join me
at Staten Island, and this man was with you — alone, I
mean, with the power he enjoys; for the skipper and
mates would of course be his humble servants — and he
paid you close attention, I could understand your
uneasiness.11

" I don't say I am uneasy, Charlie.11

" No, sweet ; and I don't want you to work yourself by
imagination into any mood of uneasiness. I am .with you.
I command here. Let his admiration illustrate itself by a
very pleasant behaviour to me, by offerings of champagne,
cakes, and cigars. As to his mind — who is it that says,
God hides from every eye but his own ' that hideous sight,
a naked human heart ? 1 "

" Young,11 she answered. " It's in the ' Night
Thoughts,1 I think. He was a parson, and how dared he
write those words, knowing — for he wrote well, and
thought wisely — that at root people are infinitely better
than they seem, and that, as Tom Hood says, most of the
evil that is wrought comes from want of thought and not
from want of heart.11

" Poor Tom Hood was a sufferer who spat blood and
puns all his life, and wrote the ' Song of the Shirt.' How
shall a memory such as his be fitly honoured?" said
Mostyn, looking at his young wife's face, pale as a nun*s
in the moonlight. " I'm not jealous, Phyl."

184 OVERDUE

She laughed.

"I'm proud that you should be admired. It's a
natural effect, and if I miss it in a man I despise the
wretch for his blindness. Don't let Benson tease you —
that's all. Admiration stales with observation. Do you
remember the old saying —

" ' For to dance without doors

Is the way to be weary before we get in? '

Let the hairy Benthamite dance. We may pipe him to
capers useful to us when we get home."

" Do you suppose he has influence ? "

" His position in this ship shows that, and if the sal-
vage be a success, and there is every reason to believe it
will be, Fin certain hell be glad to be useful to me.1'

" Capt'n," broke in the boozed voice of Mr. Dipp,
" 'ow 'ig;h is Table Mountain."

"Don't know, I'm sure, Mr. Dipp," answered Mostyn,
who did not mean to trouble his mind to remember.

"I say ifs all ten thousand foot," said Mr. Dipp,
swaying slightly as he stood at the rail on top of the
deck-house, " and Mr. Benson won't allow that it's more
than five."

" Our minds think double, as our eyes see double, on
certain occasions," said Mr. Benson, coming to the rail
alongside Mr. Dipp. " Isn't that a charming prospect of
ocean, Mrs. Mostyn ? "

" How can it be charming if it 'asn't got nothing to
do with perlitical economy ? " said Mr. Dipp, with a
greasy hiccough in the laugh that attended this sally.

" It only wants a vision of the Phantom Ship to make
it perfect, Mr. Benson," exclaimed Phyllis.

" Look 'ere, Mrs. Mostyn," said the diver, talking
down to her with a dusky flourishing arm, "folks may
laugh at the Flying Dutchman, but I'm for believing

MOONSHINE 185

that yarn's as true as every hallegory should be. For
ain't the Dutchman a curse whether ashore or afloat ?
Ain't he always getting in the road of people belonging
to other countries ? Ain't he turning out our workmen,
clerks, and sailors ? The very parson1!! be a Dutchman
soon, and soil the beadles and the sextants. They're the
ants who are going to whiten the bones of old England ;
and sarve us right," he continued, erecting himself with
drunken dignity, " for standing by and looking on whilst
they manufactures for us, and cooks, and waits upon us,
and runs our ships and 'otels."

" You're thinking more of Germany than Holland,"
said the captain.

" I'm a-thinking of the men called bally Dutchmen.
Excuse me, I'm sure, Mrs. Mostyn ; " and here he laid
himself over the rail and flourished his hand in tipsy
deprecation of the adjective he had used. " But I'm an
Englishman, and, when I think of them Dutchmen, mv
blood boils."

He ierked himself erect again.

" Did you say just now that admiration stales with
observation ? " said Phvllis, softlv.

" Yes."

" Is that moon stale to you ? "

" She is a thing of unchanging beauty. I refer to the
admiration of what is beautiful, but passing and wither-
ing."

" As, for example, a woman's face, Charlie ? "

" Yes, a woman's face, if you like that illustration."

" How long do you give me to grow stale ? "

All this was spoken very softly, though some words
which the diver was then dropping to Mr. Benson must
have effectually sheathed the ears of both of those gentle-
men, had the voices in the alley-way been louder.

" You are my wife. And is my love founded on your

186 OVERDUE

face, do you think? We shall grow old together, and
our admiration at eighty shan't be stale, though it won't
be young. The admiration I meant was that of

Benson "

" Mrs. Mostyn," sung down the diver, overhanging
the rail like a wet hammock, " when I was a young man,
I had a bootiful, powerful, tenor voice, and I might have
made pounds a week by it if I hadn't gone to sea or took
to diving. And what do you think was my favourite
song ? Although it was originally wrote, I've been
given to onderstand, for what's called a basso — ain't
that the word, Mr. Benson ? Him that sings deep,
you know."

"Bass, Mr. Dipp, bass we call it in London."
"What do you think that song is, or I should say
was, as you never 'ear it now," — and exalting his fat
figure, he sang in his falsetto —

" There was a jolly miller once
Liv'd on the river Dee ;
He work'd and Bang from morn till night ;
No lark more blithe than he.
And this the burden of his song
Forever us'd to be —
I cares for nobody, not I,
If nobody cares for me."

He burst into tears, with a loud exclamatory tipsy
sob, that was like saying, " Yaw ! "

Two or three sailors in the shadows forward murmured
in laughter.

" You had better turn in," said Mr. Benson.

" Who the devil are you addressin' of yourself to ? "
exclaimed Mr. Dipp, projecting his chest, cocking his
head, and speaking with a boozed temper in which you
heard no hint of tears. " Turn in yourself, sir. Why,
it ain't ten o'clock. This 'ere night ain't a-shining for the

MOONSHINE 187

likes of you. Why," he continued, with a greasy chuckle,
" I dare say that moon ain"t 'alf so pretty to a perlitical
philosopher as a bran'-new five-shiUm1 bit."

Mr. Benson descended the steps. Mostyn laughed
secretly with all his might. But though Dipp had un-
doubtedly allowed himself to be overtaken by liquor, yet
he had sung his little song well, albeit his pipe was a
falsetto ; and the ship had been silent whilst he sung those
English words to their brave and hearty old setting, and
Phyllis had been moved in this brief passage whilst she
listened. Dipp's voice was echoed by the canvas ; the
sound of his notes died away in the radiant distance over
the side. The spirit of home was strong in the song, and
the stronger because the words came to her ears upon the
wide, wide sea. She did not guess that Dipp blubbered
because he was drunk ; the sob of the man seemed the
natural expression of a heart affected by memory. But
Mr. Benson was approaching them.

" Light on the lee bow, sir," roared out a man on the
lookout on the forecastle.

Mostyn fetched his binocular glass and instantly
distinguished the bright mast-head light and green side
lantern of a steamer heading north about four miles
distant.

" Let me look," said Phyllis.

The binocular, though each tube was long, was as easy
in her hands as an opera glass, and, her husband's vision
being hers, she caught the steamer in a moment ; saw
a little winking green eye and a steady stare of white
light higher, a line of shadow, like a stretch of coast,
dyeing the darkness. That was all ; no funnels, no smoke,
no mast, for the moon is a poor revealer of the secrets of
the sea-night ; she hints, she dissembles, it is too near
or too far for the truth you get from the sun ; she
silvers a melting liquid ridge till the look-out's throat

188 OVERDUE

tightens to the suppressed yell of " Breakers !" The
steamer was moving rapidly ; in a little while her green
light was lost, and the white light vanished like a falling
star.

Captain Mostyn was passing with Phyllis to the cabin.
He stopped dead, and shouted, with his eye upon the sea
far astern of the steamer —

" Good God, that's a rocket ! "

CHAPTER XI

GOETz's SAFE

A rocket on any night, fair or foul, at sea will surprise
even the most seasoned seafarer, and Captain Mostyn
must be forgiven for ejaculating " Good God ! " His eye
had been upon the darkling space of water over the lee
bow when he caught sight of a spark of light shooting,
like a length of white-hot wire, into the star-clad heights,
for an instant blowing like a scarlet rose on her stem,
then dissolving in a rain of spangles.

He intently inspected the recess of sea whence the
rocket had darted. Nothing was determinable; no
shadow of sailing-ship, no light of steamer, no burning
beacon in an open boat. In my own experience I have
discovered that a powerful ship's glass will expose more
in darkness than the finest lenses of the binocular or
nio-ht-glass, and Mostyn, being of this opinion, fetched his
telescope, and carefully searched the dusky surface on the
lee bow. Absolutely nothing but the phantom tremor
which the flat ocean at night casts upon the object-glass
was the reward of his minute and critical inspection. He
levelled the glass in the direction of the steamer whose
lio-hts had passed away. But she was sunk in the dark-
ness, and gone to the human eye, no matter how aided.
They all stood together, the captain, his wife, and
Benson ; and Mill, the mate, made one of them. Mr.
Dipp remained on top of the deck-house, sucking a pipe,

and silent in drunken thought.

189

190 OVERDUE

" It must be a small boat that sent it up," said
Mostyn. " Something too little to see. Wheel there, let
her go off three points. Check the weather main-braces,
Mr. Mill."

The watch came along and braced in the mainyards
a trifle. The yards of the fore and mizzen served as they
stood, for the ship was not to be kept off her course after
she had arrived at the place out of which the rocket had
sped. Whilst this business of braces was doing, a second
rocket shot aloft exactly from the same spot, and broke
in a faint flash like sheet lightning. Scanty as was the
air, the ship found life in it, and shook some fire out of
the sea round about her. Her pace might have been
about three knots and a half, and they must wait an hour
at least before solving this extraordinary problem of the
first watch, unless the thing that fired the rockets helped
time by approaching them. The moon shone bright on
the starboard beam, the waters rippled in delicate lines
of quicksilver under her. Her light extinguished the
stars in a greenish silver glow round about her face, but
her wake made the sea on either hand of it dark by
contrast, and the darker the further it swept from that
flittering walk.

" What do you make of it, Mr. Mill ? " said Captain
Mostvn.

" It's a boat, sir," answered the man, in his surly let-
in e-alone note.

" Why did they wait to send up their rockets until
the steamer was out of sight ?"

As the mate could not tell he did not answer.

" The steamer passed right over the spot where the
rockets are fired," exclaimed Mr. Benson.

" See ! there's another ! " cried Phyllis, and a third
rocket flashed in the sky, almost directly in a line with
the flying jibboom.

GOETZ'S SAFE 191

Again Mostyn levelled the telescope. He overhung
the rail, steadied the glass with a grip of the back-stay,
and pored, one-eyed, upon the dusk ahead.

" What do you see ? " asked Phyllis.

" Nothing."

" It's a boat, as Mr. Mill thinks," said Mr. Benson.

" Or an electrical disturbance," said Phyllis, " or the
head of a submarine volcano sending up fireworks."

" Common rockets," grumbled the mate, " and there
goes another."

"Some practical joke, I reckon, for our edification,
left astern by the steamer," said Mostyn, who was never-
theless profoundly puzzled.

"Who pays the reckoning of such jokes," said Mr.
Benson. "Rockets cost money; masters and mates run
short ; owners stick to business."

" Some fool of a passenger, perhaps," suggested
Phyllis.

" An open boat, and a case of distress, I fear, Mrs.
Mostyn," said Benson, who stood so uncomfortably close
to her that she made a step nearer her husband.

"But why do they wait until the steamer is out of
sight to send up rockets ? " demanded Mostyn, fretful
with helpless conjecture.

"Perhaps they couldn't wake up the only man who
knew what to do," said the mate.

" There's nothing there, not even a boat, 111 swear,"
exclaimed Mostyn, with all the emphasis that superstition
might give to speech, letting the telescope sink again
after a long, dumb, and thirsty hunt.

Mr. Dipp, a-top of the cabin, began to sing in a
maudlin way.

" Isn't it about bed-time, Phyl ?" said Mostyn.

" Bed-time ! with that mystery unsolved ! " she cried,
haughty with contempt at the suggestion.

192 OVERDUE

'« Blow, my sweet wind, blow," murmured Mostyn.
" Mr. Benson, tell me the time by that scoundrel clock
there."

" Ten-twenty-five," answered Benson, peering at the
illuminated dial plate under the cabin pent-house.
" Why ' scoundrel clock,'' captain ? "

"Because it robs us of time, Mr. Benson, and rings
an infernal joy-bell at every hour it filches from us."

" But that clock don't strike," said Mr. Benson.

" Oh, what a fool is that man ! " thought Phyllis, with
a sigh of disgust ; and she stepped close to the side to
stare into the liquid gloom, which the moonlight left
unvisited, and in which the stars were trembling like dew-
drops on a wind-stirred bush.

" What's a-goin1 on down there ? " said Mr. Dipp,
from the top of the deck-house ; and his portly figure came,
with a reel and a lurch, to the rail near the head of the
steps.

" Somebody's sending up rockets ahead," answered
Phyllis, who liked Mr. Dipp, whether in his cups or out,
and was invariably sweet and engaging in her behaviour
to him.

" Rockets, rockets," stuttered the diver. " What
part o' the world's this ? Anybody in want of a pilot ? "

" There goes another," said the surly mate.

The spark broke and flashed.

" Extraordinary ! " exclaimed Mostyn. " Here, give
us another look through that glass. Nothing but black
water, so help me God ! "

" That wasn't no rocket," gurgled Dipp.

" What was it ? " said Benson.

" A rocket in your eye," shouted the diver. " Is there
ne'er a shooting star in all London."

" He ought to go to bed," said Benson, keeping his
voice to himself and the two or three about him. " He'll

GOETZ'S SAFE 193

be ashamed of himself in the morning. He has no right
to drink, as a diver. Alcohol inflames the blood, and
with that man's thick neck — he's our only diver, capt'n.
He'll be expressing his regret to you to-morrow, Mrs.
Mostyn, I hope."

" I hope he won't," said Phyllis, in a voice too low for
Dipp's ear. " I liked his song, and I like the man."

If Mostyn had been away Benson would have rounded
a sentimental period. Instead, he held his peace.

For the next three-quarters of an hour no more
rockets were seen. Nearly all hands were on deck. The
excitement and wonder forward was as keen as were those
same sensations aft. The head-rails were studded with
dark figures, every man eagerly straining his sight at the
sea in obedience to the quarter-deck command to " keep
a bright lookout, my lads, for anything resembling a
boat." Very languid and tiresome indeed was the floating
motion of the ship. From time to time she'd give a
sleepy roll, and the slap of the cloth aloft was like
a housemaid punching a pillow. Sail teaches patience ;
there is no speaking-tube in connection with the engine-
room of the wind. You may hold up your moistened
forefinger and whistle in vain. Mostyn laid his hands
upon his wife's blouse to find if the dew damped it. Some
blockheads contend that dew never falls at sea. I have
slept through my watch on deck in a stark night-calm,
with a small ensign for a pillow, and when a friendly
kick disturbed my rest, I have arisen and found myself
soaked and stiff. But Mostyn, who understood the theory
of dew with scientific accuracy, was right in feeling his
wife's blouse ; the moonlight sparkled in wet along the
rail, on the skylight, on the capstan head. Will the
reader tell me whether the ship that night was cooler
than the atmosphere, or the atmosphere than the
ship ?

o

194 OVERDUE

Suddenly a brace of hurricane lungs almost burst
themselves with the roar of —

" There's a raft a cable's length ahead, sir.'"

Mostyn sprang to the side and saw it : saw a square,
flat object, like the top of a dining-table, equipped some-
how, but so mistily that the night-glass alone revealed
an oblong, raft-like surface, with short stanchions and a
life-line rove through them, and not a hint of a living
creature aboard.

" Back the main-topsail ; I must examine this,"
shouted the captain. "Aft here, some men, and lower
away the starboard quarter-boat. Starboard your helm."

" Starboard it is, sir."

" Where's Mr. Walker ? Call Mr. Walker."

" Hei-e, sir," — and aft came the second mate or boat-
swain, just as Mr. Dipp, who had carefully descended half
the steps, fell down the rest.

Phyllis sped to his help.

" No 'urt done — no 'urt done," said the diver. " Thank
you kindly."

He got up unbruised and sound, and muttering,
" Who's been a-greasing of that ladder ? " lounged
through the cabin door, not too drunk to suspect that if
he stayed after that fall he must excite mirth unseemly
to his heroic calling.

The object — I cannot yet label it — floated at about
twenty strokes of an oar off the ship's bow. The ripple
driven by the hot draught of air was light, the swell was
scarce a pulse of sea, and the raft-like shape could be
watched continuously. The moonlight shone bright, and
it was easily seen to be a sort of huge box or locker,
about twenty-five feet long by seven or eight feet broad,
and drawing perhaps ten feet, with a freeboard of the
height of a ship's quarter-boat's side when water borne.
All along the top of this singular and inexplicable piece

GOETZ'S SAFE 195

of handiwork ran seats within the stanchions through
which the life-lines were rove. At one end was a support
for a bell, shaped like a horse-collar, and you saw the
moonlight glistening in the bell, but the sea was so gentle
that the clapper slept or swung without striking. Yet
once, and whilst the men were busy at the boat's tackles,
the bell struck one, a silver clear note, which, to a lonely
man, would have been subduing to his imagination, com-
bined as it was with the silence of the moon, and the
ocean, and the limitless heights of calm made holy by
the stars.

"Jump into that boat, Mr. Walker, and overhaul
that queer fish out there. The rockets sprang from her,
but how ? I see a short scope of tube amidships with a
white thing attached to it. Bear a hand, Mr. Walker.'"

The boat sank, the oars sparkled, the huge floating
box was gained, and Mr. Walker, followed by another
sailor, leaving three in the boat, jumped aboard it.
Hardly had their feet touched the deck, or lid, when bang,
whiz, flash, boom, went a rocket out of a little spout
amidships, the mouth of which was instantly sealed by a
heavy metal cap obviously operated by a spring. The
man who followed Walker was an Irishman, who, shouting
" Murder ! " in the voice of panic, sprang over the life-
lines and fell smash among his shipmates in the boat.

"Look out for another rocket, Mr. Walker,11 yelled
Mostyn, from the top of the deck-house, whence he com-
manded a good view of the box in the moonlight and the
proceedings of his people on it.

Matthew Walker was not only acting second mate, he
was by trade boatswain, sailmaker, and carpenter, and,
above all, an old shell, without a recoil in his body or an
exclamation of alarm or surprise in his mouth. The
weather had worked his face up into the aspect of a
walnut-shell; his whiskers, which, when ashore, a barber

196 OVERDUE

curled for him, at sea hung slack as a horse's tail; the
instincts of the carpenter were his, and working at their
fullest power, too, the moment the rocket exploded, and
he cast his eye around. Here was human contrivance.
Here was some enthusiast's patent. At first he took it
to mean a deck-house intended to float off a drowning
ship and save the lives of the people who had the good
sense to sit upon those seats or crowd inside, and hold on
whilst they waited. But no. This theory did not fit
the carpenter's knowing eye. More was meant by this
structure than a deck raft.

Bang, whiz, flash, boom !

Another rocket shot up within two feet of Matthew
Walker's nose, and another yell came from the ship, and
you heard exclamations in the boat alongside. Matthew
Walker watched the metal cap shut down after the
explosion, and, pulling out his knife, he sank on his knee,
clear of the spout, but within reach of what proved to be
a waterproof receptacle or envelope, a large square of
white sheet-rubber, which he cut adrift and pocketed.
Then he observed that he was kneeling on a little hatch
fitted with a ring-bolt. He raised it, and peered into the
blackness of a well.

" Send me a lantern, sir," he shouted.

The boat splashed to alongside the ship, and in a few
minutes Mr. Walker was cautiously dangling a sparkling
lantern just inside the square of hatch, with a man, but
not the Irishman, out of the boat alongside of him,
looking on.

" Hold this light, Bill," said Mr. Walker, and, grasp-
ing the coamings, he dropped his legs into the middle of
the hatch and sank by the familiar sailorly expedient of
lowering away by blocks in his arms called biceps. His
feet grounded. The man handed down the light, and
what Walker saw was this : directly under the spout was

GOETZ'S SAFE 197

a turret-shaped box, filled with the noise of machinery in
motion, and even as he gazed he heard the stroke of the
detonator, instantly followed by the explosion of the
rocket, which signified to his acute perception as a skilled
artisan that a belt of rockets, so placed as to be exploded
in fours at intervals of time, was worked inside the box
by machinery of a clock-like character. It was not for
him to meddle with this turret-shaped contrivance, for he
valued his life, and had no desii'e to be blown up whilst
exploring the fruits of another's ingenuity.

" The man that put this together was a button short,
I allow,"" said a Gloucester sailor in the boat alongside.

But if Mr. Matthew Walker had overheard this
opinion he certainly would not have shared in it. This
was no lunatic patent, but a clever device to preserve
mails, specie, and lives, with an automatic signalman,
warranted to keep his head in a panic. The lantern
threw its light upon an interior divided amidships by a
bulkhead. Walker easily saw that the contrivance was
a model and an experiment, that no ship had foundered,
that this box had been trundled over the side of the
steamer that had passed out of sight, and that the water-
tight bag he had pocketed would probably provide further
and full information. So, handing up his lantern, he
hoisted himself out of the hatch, put the cover on, got
into the boat, and was rowed away to the ship.

"Mr. Walker," said Mostyn, putting his head over
the side, " step on board. You men keep your seats in
the boat."'

Just then whiz, flash, bang ! fled a rocket, making-
lightning in its explosion, and a gay firework in its gaudy
cloud of sailing sparks. A great laugh went up from the
ship. The sailors were beginning to understand the thing,
and were diverted by these spontaneous and irresponsible
appeals for help.

198 OVERDUE

"Well, I think I can tell you all about it, Mr.
Walker," said Mostyn, beside whom stood Phyllis, whilst
Benson was very close, and Mill not far oft'. "She's an
automatic signalling raft."

"But who fires the rockets, and how many are there
of them ? " asked Phyllis.

Mr. Walker, in that slow if not nice conduct of tattooed
arm which is a characteristic of the British merchant sailor,
drew forth the waterproof letter and handed it to the
captain, saying —

" This here was seized to the rocket spout.'"

The captain pulled out a penknife, and slit one side
of the white rubber open. The inclosure, when unfolded,
was of the size of two sheets of foolscap pasted on end.
The lantern was held up, and the captain read the paper.
At the head of it was printed " s.s. California, from
Melbourne to Liverpool,1' under which was also printed
these words —

" Goetz's patent automatic floating safe for preserving
life, mails, specie, and jewellery.
"Will the captain who picks up this model floating safe
kindly communicate to —

" Gaspar Goetz,

" Muiderstaat 9 Amsterdam, Holland,
"1. How many rockets he counted discharged.
" % The interval of time between the discharge of the

first four and the next discharge.
" S. At what distance the bell was heard.
" 4. The state of the weather at the time of falling in
with Goetz's patent floating safe for lives, mails,
specie, etc.11

The rest of the paper was occupied by translations
of the above into Italian, Spanish, German, French,
Norwegian, and Russian.

GOETZ'S SAFE 199

"What's the hold like ?"

" It's bulk-headed off into two."

" Anything inside ? "

"Nothing but the box of tricks that fires them
rockets," answered Mr. Walker, following, with a slow
grin, visible by the mingled moonlight and lanternlight,
the flight of another rocket, which was also attended by
much laughter, that rumbled like groans along the decks.

" It is full of rockets," exclaimed Phyllis.

" I expect you'll find that the tube is loaded after the
fashion of a Maxim gun," said^Mr. Benson. "The last
one can't be far off."

" She's lumber," said Mostyn, " and we have no room
for the thing. But I'll take her in tow, and if it holds
fair and smooth, Mr. Walker, you shall board her at
sunrise, and give me a full report for an interesting log
entry. Mr. Mill, get a line for towing that craft."

They got up a small wire tow-rope and paid the end
into the boat, which rowed to the patent safe, and made fast,
and the main-topsail was swung to a scope of tow-line
which held the contrivance well astern, that her rattle of
rockets should not drop amongst the sails and set the
ship, as dry as hay aloft, on fire.

Phyllis stayed a few minutes to watch the picture of
towing. The ship's paces on the moonlit heave of sea
were the stealthy stalking of a ghost ; she sneaked along
the rain of moonshine and over the dimly gleaming surface
as a silent sheeted spectre moves over the paupers' ridges
in a walled cemetery. Such was the image that presented
itself to the mind of the young wife. She yawned, and
her husband said —

" Good night, dear."

" Good night to you, Mrs. Mostyn," said Mr. Benson.
" I trust your dreams will not consist wholly of rockets."

She thought fit to laugh slightly, because she never

200 OVERDUE

could forget that Benson was a power, though an inspira-
tion of disgust and shapeless fear ; and her husband took
her into the cabin, gave her cake and wine, opened the
door of her berth, kissed her tenderly, and returned on deck.

When she was gone Benson found himself weary.

" Hark ! " said he, standing in the cabin door with
Mostyn. " You'd think the ship was straining in a gale.
It's Dipp, snoring. How am I to sleep with the cabin
full of that snore ? "

" The sea's a good nurse. She tucks a man up. She'll
cradle you to sleep, snore or no snore," replied Mostyn,
wondering if his wife would sleep, and talking to promote
a hope of it ; for certainly Dipp was not to be stopped.
One knew what the result of man-handling him would be :
a drunken splutter, a heaving over of a corpulent sweat-
ing body, a grasping grip of the bellows, and then the
" music of the moon," that poetical expression which
Benson despised, and would not despise the less now
because the moon was lifeless, and tuneless, and Dipp was
otherwise.

" I hope he'll not take to the drink," said Mr. Benson.
" I've observed a leaning that way. He began early with
rum, I remember, and asked for milk. It'll be a bad
lookout for this venture if the only diver within thousands
of miles takes steadily to the bottle. I don't like
to drop a hint ; he resents things with an arrogance
that's offensive in a man of his position. You might put
in a word. Why, the fellow might have broken his neck
— he has much too much neck. You're captain here, and
he's under you."

"I don't think he drinks harder now," answered
Mostyn, " than he's been doing all his life. He has
plenty of fat, which soaks up the liquor, and prevents
it from attacking his head, beyond forcing him, I mean,
to talk a little quaintly at times."

GOETZ'S SAFE 201

"Listen to that snore,11 said Benson. "I object to
strong language myself, but to me it's simply damnable.11

" Take a three-finger caulker of brandy, and turn in,
and the snorell cease,11 exclaimed Mostyn ; and he walked
aft, thinking over his talk with Phyllis about Benson.

Eight bells had been struck; the starboard watch
called ; Matthew Walker was in charge of the deck.
The safe astern almost stopped the ship's way, so light
was the air of wind ; but she was under command. The
moon shone over the mastheads ; her light was penetrat-
ing. The white fires of the stars sparkled as though
fanned ; the horizon had opened out, and there was a
smell of salt weed in the draught. The captain looked
into the binnacle, gazed at the thing they towed, swept
the shrewd eye of the weather-wise around the glittering
hall of the night, and said to Mr. Walker —

" Stand by for a breeze.11

"Ay, ay, sir.11

"Has that contrivance sent up any rockets since the
last ? "

" No, sir."

" How many rockets do you suppose are contained in
the turret you described ? "

Walker reflected.

"They are so arranged,11 he answered, "as to allow of
a spell of time between their being fired in groups. It's
difficult to guess how many there be. I allow there's a
full twenty."

"Of which,11 said Captain Mostyn, after a pause,
" sixteen have gone aloft. I^s clever.11

"Yes, sir; it's an idea, and it's been well thought
out.11

"It's so clever, and so useful,11 continued Mostyn,
" that it will never be adopted. If it had been something
guaranteed to go down with the ship, the Board of Trade

202 OVERDUE

would probably insist upon its being used ; " and after
giving Mr. Walker certain instructions, he went to bed.

At about a quarter before one the draught expired.
The sails sank in with a sulky droop like the breast of a
man after a deep sigh ; but almost immediately the water
east-north-east darkened, and some wisps of cloud put
out here and there a star, and in a few minutes Walker
was shouting to the watch on deck to man the starboard
braces. The first of the breeze had scarce more than the
weight of a cat's-paw, but soon there was a pretty bubble
of water, a tropic melody of rippling like the madrigal of
a brook over stones. It was all about the ship, and the
i visionary fabric aloft, chill and wan as a hill of snow
glimmering through a Christmas dawn, heeled a little, and
the cutwater began to purr, which is a good simile, for
the ship's stem was overlooked by catheads.

The noise on deck brought the captain out of the cabin.
He had slept perhaps half an hour. No man on board
a merchant ship has a right to self-ownership. He is the
property of his employers. He signs articles for a working
day which often travels twice round the clock, and this
is as true of the skipper as of the boy. Mostyn im-
mediately stepped to the helm to ascertain if the towage
in the smallest degree influenced the government of the
rudder. When he was abreast of the wheel a rocket
soared, curving its line of fire with the wind, and the flash
of its explosion was more vivid and lightning-like than
that of any other which had burst before. The sense of
the ridiculous was stirred by the spectacle of that oblong
shape, which resembled a dumb barge in the moonlight,
continuing to score the air with flaming appeals, ironical
in their idleness and in their suggestion. The thing had
not been made for towage. It wobbled like a traction-
engine, man's most drunken invention, with its stagger,
lurch, and ludicrous air of lordliness. The ship was now

GOETZ'S SAFE 203

sailing," and the safe followed, and it lunged suds out of
the mighty washing-tub till it looked to be awash.
Mostyn watched her, and fell a-musing, but it was not
Goetz, but Dipp, who was in his mind.

Benson's words had not greatly weighed with him.
Nevertheless they rendered him a little contemplative.
As master of the ship, he was deeply interested in the
success of the voyage. If the whole foundered sum should
be salved, he would do well. Dipp was the only peg on
which the top could spin. It was true he had taken too
much the night before, but on no other occasion had
this happened. Mostyn did not think that Dipp would
fall to hard drinking during the remainder of this outward
passage. The point that more concerned him was the
man's obesity, coupled with the addiction for liquor. The
captain was one who, though comparatively young in
years, and spending three-quarters of his life on the water,
had pried a little into more than one condition of exist-
ence. Considering he was a sailor, he had read much and
intelligently ; but, better than that, he knew how to ask
questions, and was not superior to intelligence in others
and to retention in instruction. A friend of his com-
manded a Trinity steamer, which communicated with
the lightships and disciplined by the sextant the
errantry of the buoys. He had made holiday trips with
this gentleman, and conversed with the divers, and
particularly remembered the statement of a gaunt Scotch-
man: that full-blooded men with short necks should not
dive, nor men who spat blood, who suffered from headache
or deafness, above all, who were hard drinkers. He
subjected Dipp to the Scotchman's recollected assurance,
and found him too fat and too fond of rum. But, though
he was commander of the ship, it was out of his power
to order Dipp to reduce his fat before they arrived at
Staten Island, nor could he possibly fasten a quarrel upon

204 OVERDUE

the man for drinking. He drank, it is true, but certainly
not to excess, and if Mostyn talked to him about drink,
however cautiously, Dipp might " get the hump," or ask
to be transhipped, refuse to dive, and so plunge them
into a greater difficulty than if they suffered him to drink
deeply and take their chance of his diving safely and
sending up the gold.

Whilst he mused (which was not long, for human
thought has a greater velocity than light, and will be
walking with the risen dead at the Crucifixion or flooding
the distant African trench with the blood of Britons,
Boers, and beasts before the ray of a star, to be visible
on earth some years hence, shall travel its first mile), he
caught sight of a light on the weather quarter, and after
a patient stare, distinguished the triangular lamps of an
approaching steamer. The news was reported from the
forecastle in a sleepy bray, and re-echoed by Mr. Walker.
And in about ten minutes a large steamer, manifestly bound
for the east coast of South America, loomed up in stately
shape, a pole-masted steamer of about eight thousand
tons with all lights out, save those of her needs, and
her great black length slowing down to within hail, and
showing like a length of Northumberland coast. The
wind blew from her and brought with it the pulsing notes
of the life-blood in her metal arteries.

How disdainful of the Dealmaris noble show of canvas
was the steamer's easy domination, her contemptuous
reduction of speed to keep pace, her splendid capacity of
swift departure that should owe nothing of conquest to
the elements ! Mostyn felt this as he stood on the quarter,
waiting for a hail from some shadow or other behind the
exalted weather-cloth.

" Ship, ahoy ! " came the shout.

" Halloa ! " bawled Mostyn.

" What ship are you ? "

GOETZ'S SAFE 205

" The Dealman of and from London for Staten Island,
South Pacific. What ship are you?"

"The City of London. Why have you been sending
up rockets ? "

As this question was put, bang, whiz, flash, boom !
sped and burst another Goetz.

" What are you towing ? " shouted a voice on the
steamer, shrill with excitement.

Conversation was easy — the breeze was not hard ; the
steamer held her place on the ship's quarter, like a moon-
touched stretch of rampart spotted here and there with
sentinel lights.

" You may call it a patent box of crackers," cried
Mostyn, in response to the question from the bridge.

"Why do you keep on firing those rockets?"
shouted the shadow behind the weather-cloth above the
wheel.

" They're discharging themselves, like sailors who run,"
bawled Mostyn.

" I don't understand ! Who's aboard the rocket-box ? "
" Nobody."

"Towing it out for Government?"
" Fell in with it."

Bang, whiz, boom ! This final rocket, as it proved
to be, made a fine light when it burst, and the big steamer
glanced out as to a stroke of lightning, with a blue sparkle
of brass work and glass, and an instant revelation of three
figures on the bridge and a group of men on the fore-
castle, and then the whole bulk of her sank back, wan
and shadowy, into the spectral moonlight that was begin-
ning to fly with cloud, coming and going like the radiant
face of beauty which lifts and drops a veil of gauze.

"She'll set you on fire," came a shout from the
steamer. "If she's derelict, cast her adrift! Good-bye,
and farewell ! "

20G OVERDUE

The tongue of the engine-room bell was heard. So
too was the throat of the bell of the safe astern, for the
wobble gave life to the tongue, which sometimes struck
one bell, and sometimes four, and sometimes eight, as
though a phantom crew down there were keeping watches.
The breeze was freshening, the white water streamed freely
from the bows ; the fruits of Goetz's imagination wriggled
and lunged, flopped and swung, hopped and chimed ; but
the last of the rockets had fled, like the soul from Erin's
harp. On board the steamer they had opened her out to
her full speed — call it seventy-two revolutions — and in
a few minutes she was out of hail of the Dealman, and
in ten minutes she was a shadow ahead, and in twenty
minutes the lip of the dusk had lapped her up.

It was a fine sailing breeze now blowing, and after
looking at Goetz in tow, and considering within himself a
little, and reflecting that he was in a part of the world
where such winds of the night as now blew were as
perfidious and capricious as the acted love of the ambling
nymph, the diameter of whose horizon of passion is to the
fraction that of the sovereign or golden pound of twenty
shillings, Mostyn said to Walker —

" We'll keep all fast with that crackling joke in tow.
I should wish you to overhaul her if the wind eases down
into a smooth dawn. Call me if the breeze freshens."

Again he turned in. Dipp's drunken snore had
ceased ; nothing made a noise but the ship and the seas
she broke. Mostyn slept well. No lullaby pleases the
ear of the wearied man in command of sail better than
the songful rejoicing of the prosperous breeze and the
seething of the mill-race under his port-hole. Mr. Mill
had relieved Mr. Matthew Walker when Mostyn awoke
and stepped again on deck. The sun was in the sky
upon the sea-line, and the rich pink of his light graced
the running waters with the hot glory of the tropic

GOETZ'S SAFE 207

morning. The breeze was a steady wind, and the ship
rushed slanting along her course, and from royals to the
hauled-up weather-clew of the main-sail all was pearl shot
by the east with the lustres of the inner skin of the
oyster shell, and softened at the edges by tender curves
as of pencilled shadings

" Where's Guts ? " said Mostyn, going aft, and looking
over the taffrail.

"The second mate reported it gone at eight bells,
sir," answered Mr. Mill.

The wire rope hissed like a snake in the wake ; but the
patent safe was ringing Goetz's ingenious chimes some-
where far out of sight, lost in the heart of the throbbing
blue, which stretched with a windy face and a frost-like
sparkle of breaking seas.

CHAPTER. XII

THE WATERSPOUT

There seems novelty in the measurement of human
passion by a method of reckoning like that you find a
ship's way with — not by the log, but with latitude
and longitude. This formerly could be practised. Now
the sailing-ship is too few, and her passengers a negligible
quantity. Steam is too swift for emotion — that steam for
which the passenger pays — unless, indeed, it be love at
first sight, which, being commonly a one-eyed sentiment,
may afterwards prove as slow in developing ashore as
though it was being tenderly nursed on board an old
East Indiaman.

For in that sort of ship the griffin fell in love off
Madeira, and Emma was beginning to return the eyes
Henry made at her by the time they were up with the
Equator; and in the latitude of Ascension Henry pro-
posed one evening, right aft, when Aunt Sawbite was
sipping port wine in the cuddy ; and in the longitude of
the Cape of Good Hope they quarrelled, but made it up
again in the latitude of Ceylon, and were finally married
on the parallel of Bombay, after five months of courtship
and quarrel at sea.

The Dealman was a sailing-ship, and Benson's passion
was determinable by latitude and longitude. The vessel
had streamed in the flash of a wet squall out of the Polar
limit of the southern zone of Doldrums, which in her

208

THE WATERSPOUT 209

case happened to stretch to about four degrees south,
when Benson, whose passion we have read about, hardened
his mind into a desperate resolution. It is a difficult
situation in human affairs for us to realize. Here was
Mr. Montague Benson, chartered accountant, possessed of
as much sentiment as an emu, and admiring the beauties
of nature with the eyes of a goat, a creature whose only
impulses were those of the ledger, the ruler, and the
bottle of red ink — here was this unfortunate man, locked
up in a ship with a prohibited woman whom he secretly
adored, with whom he was profoundly, most dangerously
in love, without being able to help or control himself in
the smallest degree. Had they lived ashore he would have
seen little or nothing of her unless he pursued her, in
which case his conduct would have worn a menacing
label, and husband and wife known what to do. But
Benson was locked up with the charming young wife, and
unless he sprang overboard, which he was the very last
man to think of as a remedial expedient, there was no
means whatever of his getting away from her company.

Did he wish to get away ? Certainly not. He was
a man of foul thought and dark design, but with so lively
an interest in the safety and comfort of Montague
Benson that he would not have run the risk of inviting
Mostyn to put a bullet through his heart, no, not even if
he had believed in the immortality of the soul, and had
received an Archbishop's autograph-guarantee that the
flight of his spirit after death would be a straight course for
the open gates of the new Jerusalem. Passion will master
prudence even in cowards ; a lily-livered man will greatly
dare and do, though his collapse may be awaited with grave
confidence. Benson was prudence incarnate, dominated by
the most powerful of the conquering passions of this " dim
spot which men call earth." He was inwardly ill with his
love, to give the thing a name, and the disease, without

v

210 OVERDUE

wrecking his prudence, was so adjusting itself to that
quality as to promise a solution of Benson's complicated
problem, which, though it should leave much to be
desired, should likewise yield much that he thirsted for
with the pain of passion's thirst.

Still, I say, it is difficult to think of a man like Benson

going, as we shall see, tragically wrong through the

seduction of passion. He was a disciple of John Stuart

Mill, and other master thinkers. Utility was the

sentiment of his philosophy. He did not believe in the

existence of the soul after death because he could see no

use in his preservation. And yet this doughty thinker

could stumble and fall over so very slender a filament as

the single hair, with which, Pope tells us, beauty draws us

men. This is the stranger because he was regarded by

some members of his club, the City and Suburban, not

far from St. James's Square, as a misogynist, which is

a big word for a mean thing, that is, a woman-hater.

He was frequently loud in his denunciations of marriage.

He wondered that any man could be fool enough to yoke

himself to a human being for life, as the policeman links

the arrested to his wrist, though this twinship be of short

duration ; because, he would argue, you need but look at

the painting of a man when he was a youth to observe

how radical, if not organic, is the change ; which image,

if applied to human character, holds true : because we

are moulded and governed by the thousand obligations

and troubles we take upon ourselves as we march through

life, and it is preposterous to suppose that the hue and

aroma of twenty are to be the colour and flavour of sixty.

He would contend that his argument would be as

applicable to women as to men, providing that women

were as independent as men, could earn their own living,

and do men's work in the world, and, as he had never been

married, his views were received without astonishment.

THE WATERSPOUT 211

It is true, however, that on board the Dealman he was
besieged by arguments he had no logic to resist had he
been willing to oppose them. First, there was his constant
association with Mrs. Mo sty n, an association she found it
difficult to interrupt from the breakfast hour till bed-
time. Then, he was idle ; and we all know that it is an
easy passage from doing nothing to doing ill. Again, his
was the privilege of constant inspection ; if their eyes did
not frequently meet, his eyes, in their furtive way, were
seldom off her. Leisure enabled him to muse ; he lived
fatly, for he had taken care to liberally line his sea-larder,
and the man was gifted with just enough imagination to
enable him to indulge the sensual fancy, and colour the
presentments of memory, and the soiling inquisitiveness
of desire.

One critic, besides Phyllis, Benson had, of whose
scrutiny he was too superior to be conscious. Men of the
Benson type, when they are watched, sometimes conceive
themselves admired. This critic was Prince, whose
bayonet glance at the chartered accountant Phyllis
detected, and afterwards watched for, and saw others
interpretable by her who knew the truth about Benson.
She easily judged that Prince understood what her
husband seemed indisposed to see, or seeing, neglected to
deal with, because there was absolutely nothing in
Benson's conduct to justify an accusation or even to
humour suspicion ; for before all considerations Mostyn
put this question : What can he do ? Prince waited
upon the company in the cabin. He was in the situation
of a man who, looking on, sees the game. It is true he
was in and out whilst fetching the victuals, but he often
stayed long enough to detect. Once he found himself
caught by Phyllis in the glance he had fired at Benson,
who was speaking to her, and he slightly coloured.

There was something about this young man which

212 OVERDUE

might have made you think he had a strain of quality in
him. There was coarseness indeed, as I have said, in his
good looks, yet, for all that, there seemed an element of
the gentle in him. His coarse beauty eluded definition or
description much as did that of the handsome actor who
was barbarously assassinated near the Adelphi passage,
and thus much for the present of Prince the steward.

It was not long after Mr. Dipp had tumbled halfway
down the ladder that he and the others were collected at
the dinner-table. It was blowing a pleasant breeze of
wind from about east-south-east, and the ship, in that
white raiment of the sea which the soot of the steamer's
chimney is rapidly obscuring, was looking up, tall and
queenly, with a regular dip of the bows in haughty
answer to the leap of the surge which they splintei'ed
into spinning yeast and laughing lights of rainbow. Mr.
Mill was looking after things on deck. It was the men's
dinner-hour, for in that ship all hands dined in company,
not by watch and watch, and foul weather made no other
difference than delaying the mess (rightly called) of pea-
soup, green pork, beef radiant with the crystals of pickle,
and the horrible duff of the sea, duff like a man's
footless leg from the knee, duff like a cradle pillow, and
as nourishing, duff whose dark and thread-like texture
could not be made alluring to a sailor's eye by even that
most delicious of all sea sauces — the one condiment
grudgingly conceded by the shipowner — treacle.

" Mr. Dipp," said Mr. Benson, " you seem uncom-
monly fond of rum."

" I love it," answered the diver, who had just mixed
for himself a second-mate's nip.

" Surely it's a very coarse drink," said Mr. Benson.

" That's 'ow it may be," anwered Dipp, drinking.

" I make it a rule to drink very little spirits in hot
weather," said Captain Mostyn.

THE WATERSPOUT 213

" A man can't drink water," said Mr. Dipp, who was
fortified by the reflection that he had been guilty of one
act only of insobriety since the ship's departure, a
reflection which also occurred to Mostyn as they sat
chatting.

" I was once nearly taking the pledge," said Mr.
Benson.

" Haven't, perhaps, much resolution of hintellect ? "
said the diver.

" Pardon me," said Mr. Benson, with a demeanour
which had reference to Phyllis ; " I desired to set an
example."

Dipp laughed. Phyllis's lip unconsciously curled.

" The ancients made Bacchus their god of the cup,"
said Mostyn, " and they did him small honour when they
mated him with Circe, who responded by Comus."

" How noble is Milton's description," exclaimed
Phyllis. " But, for my part, I believe the ' god of the cup,'
as you call it, Charlie, is the devil."

"Do you believe in the devil?" asked Mr. Benson,
blandly.

" Yes, in the name of wicked men," she answered,
looking at him for a moment or two steadily.

" Don't you believe in Satan ? " inquired the diver,
with a stare at Benson, as he held in suspension a laro-e
mouthful of boiled fowl.

" Certainly not," answered the chartered accountant,
with decision.

" Then, what are you going to do with most of your
friends in the City after they've gone 'ome?" inquired
Mr. Dipp.

"Produce me a single witness whose evidence would
convict a prisoner before the most learned of our judges
and a jury-box full of philosophic thinkers, produce me
such a man as your witness of the existence of the devil,

2U OVERDUE

and I'll believe in the devil," said Mr. Benson, in his
amplest, most oratorial way.

" I'll do that for you," exclaimed Phyllis, with sweet
gravity ; and she rose, and entered her cabin, followed by
the bewildered gaze of her husband, who, being a sailor,
must have been superstitious enough to believe that she
meant to bring the devil himself out of her berth to
testify against the infidel.

She returned with a little book. All were silent as she
seated herself.

" Now," said she, " listen to this : * Two ships were
bound for Newfoundland from the west of England, but,
by stress of weather, parted ; some days after one of the
ships sprang a leak, and foundered in the sea, where
every soul perished except one old man, who, being lasht
on the main hatch, committed himself to the mercy of
God and the sea, where he floated three days and three
nights, in which time the devil, in the shape of a
mermaid, starts up before him, and bid him be of good
heart, for if he would but make a contract with him he
would deliver him in twenty-four hours. The old man,
being sensible it was the devil, said, " Ah, Satan, if thou
can'st prophesy deliverance for me, know my God, in
whom I trust, will deliver me without thy help ; but,
however, know, I will not comply to thy wiles. Avoid,
Satan, avoid ! " upon which he vanished. It happened that
the other ship being in the same danger, the cabin-boy
dreamed that night that such a ship was cast away, and
all the men lost except this old man (whom he named),
who was saved upon a piece of the ship, and floated in
the sea ; which dream the boy confidently tells his master,
affirming it must needs be true, and was so impatient,
that he received a check, yet he continued restless,
running to the fore top-mast head, and then to the main-
top-mast head, looking abroad, and at last cried out

THE WATERSPOUT 215

aloud, " Aloo ! there ! I see him, under our lee bow ;" so
some of the men slep'd up, and espied something at a
distance, no bigger than a crow floating ; the master
stood away to it, and when they came near, found it to
be the old. man, as the boy had said, and hoisting out
their boat, took him in, who was speechless and almost
spent, but by the care of the master and chirurgeon, he,
with God's blessing, recovered, and gave this account of
his misfortune and wonderful deliverance : and the ship
landed him safe in Newfoundland.1 "

" Who wrote that rubbidge, ma'am ? " asked Mr.
Dipp.

" The devil as a mermaid ! O Lord ! " exclaimed Mr.
Benson, in the note of a groan.

" Where the devil is, a woman's bound to be,11 said
Mostyn. "That old man knew what's what. Cliercliez
la femme?

" I've proved my case," said Phyllis, putting the book
down, and going on with her dinner. " I have found you
a credible witness, Mr. Benson."

Dipp picked up the book and glowered at it, then put
it to his nose and snuffled.

" It smells of toast and nutmeg," said he, " like a
Hindieman's cuddy."

" It cost me fourpence," said Mostyn.

" An old man wild with shipwreck ! " exclaimed Mr.
Benson. " He clings to a spar like a frog to a frog sail-
ing down stream. In one hour his mind goes to pieces.
He sees something which never was and calls it a mermaid,
and transforms it into something which never was, and
calls it the devil. I can't compliment you upon your
witness, Mrs. Mostyn."

His waistcoat expanded, and he looked at her with
Benson's smile.

" What's your politics, Mr. Benson ? " said Dipp, who

216 OVERDUE

had been secretly chafing under the insinuation wrapt up
in Benson's reference to rum.

" Answer him as the ambitious Hebrew did," broke in
Mostyn. " ' So you want to get into Parliament ? ' said
his friend. ' Yes,1 replied the Israelite. ' What are your
politics ? ' ' That depends upon the vacancy.'' "

Dipp laughed, not with the speaker, but at Benson.

" I'm a Radical," said Mr. Benson.

" Meaning Bradlaugh," said Dipp.

"He's dead and seed for nettles," exclaimed Captain
Mostyn.

"I should have been proud," said Mr. Benson, "to
have sat side by side with him, and fought side by side
with him in the House of Commons."

" You'd have got on like my two hands," interjected
the diver. " You'd have gripped each other, and washed
each other, and 'elped each other all round."

" Bradlaugh," continued Benson, " was a man who
thought and spoke what thousands think, but dare not
speak. I drink his health in silence."

He melodramatically lifted a wine-glass and sipped it.

Mostyn and his wife went on deck, and in a few
moments Benson followed, leaving Dipp to charge his
pipe.

Whilst they were at dinner the breeze had slightly
freshened, and clouds, like a mixture of smoke and steam,
were floating up the sky off the edge of the sea, opening
out their squadrons as they came, and the heavens were
full of them, and their shadows walked the waters. The
ridge of the surge was hard and flint-coloured till it
melted, and the dye of the ocean had something green in
it, reflecting the streaming lagoons aloft, which were
greenish with the discoloration of cloud. A sail was in
sight on the lee bow. Mostyn examined her, and found
her a small topsail schooner bound north. She was hull

THE WATERSPOUT 217

down at that hour, but her rig rolled clear in the object-
glass.

The captain took his wife on to the top of the deck-
house, and sat down by her side.

"I'm afraid,11 said he, "our companions bore you."

"Mr. Benson certainly would if you were not here,1"'
she answered. "As life goes with the ship, every day is
a new pleasure. Was I not right in following you ? "

The look he gave her required no speech.

"What a magnificent scene of ocean!" she cried.
"On shore you have the hues of the garden, fields, and
hills, but how tame is their beauty compared with the
splendid confusion of the colours of the sea ! Nothing
ashore sparkles but water — rivers which would make
narrow lanes through this horizon, lakes which half an
hour of this sailing would measure, and ponds reflecting
gobbling ducks. But all is sparkle here, the dyes of the
rainbow, the sun-flash that lights a glory like the nimbus
of a saint on the head of the foaming wave. If there is
anything in this universe to turn thought into poetry it
is the sea."

" Ask them what tliey think," said Mostyn, nodding
in the direction of some sailors who were at work forward.
" I wonder how your father manages without you."

" Without me ! He never needed me. He never
made me feel as if that were so."

" Hell try to find out what's become of you."

" Not he. Yes ; if I were a runaway mare, or a case of
savoury tongues gone astray."

" Well, this voyage, Phyl, puts us on the high road
to independence. I don't fear Dipp as a drinker. Cer-
tainly he takes more than he should ; but he'll out-weather
his thirst long enough to answer our purpose. You've
found a great admirer in Benson."

" I wish I hadn't."

218 OVERDUE

" Come, come ; every woman likes to be admired.'"

" Not by Benson."

" How shall a woman know what are the thoughts of
the man who admires her ? Yet, let them be what they
will, as black as Benson's silk hat, shell desire his
admiration.'"

"Men profess to know so much about women, their
feelings and ideas. Now, what do you know ? You've
passed your life at sea. You may be able to tell me
what's in that cask" — she pointed to the scuttle-butt —
"or even arrive at a truthful conclusion about the
character of one or more of your sailors. But women ! "
— she laughed satirically. " You were as shy as a girl
when we first met.11

" As a girl ! Produce me, to imitate Benson's style,
a shy girl."

"That shows your knowledge of women is limited,
and you should not know as much as you do."

Is it true that young wives are sometimes jealous of
their husband's prenuptial experiences, and that even Mrs.
Caudle will tease old Caudle into sleeplessness by retro-
spective surmises which do not relate to bonnets and
servants ?

"Phyl, does Benson make you feel uneasy in any
way ? "

" Charlie, it's like this," she answered. " He's an un-
wholesome atmosphere, and I take no pleasure in breathing
in it."

" As how ? " said he, looking into her soft, earnest
eyes.

"Don't force me into defining. You know how hard
it is to convey sensations. A doctor asks, ' How do you
feel ? ' and you don't know what to say."

" Surely," said Mostyn, with a sudden gravity of
countenance, " this man has never said or done anything

THE WATERSPOUT 219

to you which you are keeping back from me in fear of a
shindy and a capsizal of this job ? "

"No."

"You are sure?" he exclaimed, somewhat sternly;
and she easily saw that whatever was grim in his looks
was meant for Benson.

" I said ' no,1 " she repeated.

"I have never observed in him, in his conduct or
looks, anything but admiration for you," said Mostyn,
" and I, who am a man, and cannot help feeling as a man,
as Nelson used to say, am not likely to be affronted by
a compliment that is severely restricted by courtesy. But
you don't like him, and this is the secret of a great deal
of misunderstanding in this world. 'I do not like thee,
Dr. Fell/"

"Oh, I know those lines," she interrupted, with a
note of petulance that could not but add another spice
to the sweet cup, another odour to the lovely nosegay.

"Then," said he, laughing, "take a line that you may
not bear in mind : * Remember, when the judgment's weak
the prejudice is strong.'"

"'Pray Goody' was amongst the first songs I learnt
to sing," she said, smiling at him ; " and I certainly do
not think my prejudice is strong because my judgment is
weak."

" This is not going to be a voyage round the world,"
said Mostyn ; " and we're together all through it, anyhow."

" Do you think we shall arrive by Christmas ? "

"I do."

" How long will it take to pick up the gold ? "

" You must ask Dipp that question.1'

Here Mr. Benson came on to the top of the deck-
house.

" I suppose," continued Phyllis, neglecting him that
he might take the hint and descend, "that there's a

220 OVERDUE

great deal of gold lying in the sea waiting to be dived
for ? "

"I don't think so, Mrs. Mostyn,11 said Mr. Benson,
standing before them on straddled legs to preserve a perpen-
dicular posture by swaying. " Whatever gold is known to
be accessible ashore or under water is at once gone for.,,

" Yes," answered Phyllis, " ' thousands at its bidding
speed ! ' Gold is precious stuff.1'

" I've often thought, with horror,11 exclaimed Mr.
Benson, pulling out a sovereign, and holding it up betwixt
his thumb and forefinger, " that, for this contemptible
coin, or button, or token, there are hundreds of men who
would be glad to cut my throat.11

The ugliness of the idea was not diminished by the
volume of throat which Mr. Benson's open collars revealed,
blue from the chin to the apple with the razor.

" There has been much morality preached about gold,11
said Mostyn. " Nobody heeds it. Men will live, and live
as well as they can, and pocket all they can earn or
plunder. Strokes of fortune in this world are few; but
I do remember one. A man owned a little brig that
traded in the West India Islands. She was lying in a
port, I forget the name of it, when an insurrection broke
out amongst the negroes. The white people barricaded
their houses, and a number of them rushed, in a state of
panic, aboard the brig, and asked the captain, who was her
owner, to take charge of the money, jewels, and valuables
which they had brought with them. They went ashore
to defend their homes, and were murdered. The owner
of the brig waited, but no claims were ever made. The
value of the deposits were eight thousand pounds, and
this laid the foundation of a great fortune.1'

" Captain Mostyn," shouted Mr. Dipp from the alley-
way, " d'ye see that waterspout forming close against that
schooner out there ? "

THE WATERSPOUT 221

By this hour the vessel, which Mostyn had held in
his glass, had risen to her water-line, and as both craft
were making good way, their mutual approach was fairly
rapid. Ahead of the schooner, hung high in the sky,
was a heavy black rag of cloud wearing the face of
thunder — an isolated, local heap of vapour, past which the
clouds of the wind were sailing. From the middle of it
depended a spike, like an end of hose or piping rapidly
paid out, and immediately underneath, the water was
boiling and lifting until a perfect waterspout was formed
and reported by a scarlet flash in the cloud.

" Why, it'll swamp that schooner if; she don't keep
away," shouted Mostyn.

Phyllis, who had never before seen a waterspout, and
who did not master the significance of her husband's
words, gazed with profound interest at a phenomenon
which is always remarkable, no matter how familiar
grown. She saw an object like the trunk of a blasted
tree, rearing high a tufted head like a gigantic umbrella,
its root infixed in a milk-white zone of cyclonic fury. It
seemed to have grown and shaped itself out of the flying
day in a moment, a fury of the deep, an embodied
emanation of pitiless hidden wrath which of old was
regarded on bended knees by the superstitious mariner as
a demon, to be exorcised by an Ave, and the upholding of
a sword with its hilt as a cross.

"Why don't she shift her 'ellum ?" shouted Dipp, at
the rail.

But fallibility must fail somewhere, says the sage, and
nowhere are the methods of fallibility more visible than
on the ocean. Two steamers plough into each other at
full speed in broad daylight, with a mate on each bridge
and a lookout man on each forecastle, and by-and-by a
court of justice scratches its wig over the rule of the road,
and delivers judgment which is appealed from, whilst

222 OVERDUE

seventy souls, including eighteen passengers, chiefly females,
are sleeping the slumber of the dead on the ooze. A
clever captain pricing the duty he owes his owner at ten
thousand times the value of the duty he owes the men,
women, and children who put their trust in him, steams
with headlong speed through a dense fog, and never stops
to fetch a single breath in a cast of the lead, until his
forefoot grinds up some rocky incline amid a hell of
escaping steam, of the shrieks of women and the bawling
of men, and then perhaps the clever captain may be
induced to take soundings over the stern. They are very
brave, these gentlemen. When last seen they are always
on the bridge. It would be well, perhaps, if they rendered
the heroic virtues subsidiary to the natural and reason-
able demands of the people whose lives are at their
mercy.

Why that schooner did not shift her helm Mr. Dipp
would not have been able to tell us. Now she was an
airy and fragile toy, a little more than a mile distant,
a white butterfly, winging with the aimless flight of that
insect into destruction ; two shafts of shimmering mother-
of-peail gracefully bending, striking the lightning of the
sun off every green flickering peak she rose to. And ?iow,
whilst you might have counted twenty, she was drowned
in the cataract of the sky — clean vanished in the haze of
a torrential fall, and the cauldron seething of the sea to
the pitiless stroke. And now she floated, ruined, black and
reeling, with foremast standing and nothing more, not a
rag of sail in the tubes which Mostyn brought to bear,
a boat in halves at her port davits, a stump of mainmast
barbed like a sheath of javelins, and an acre of raffle
lifting and falling over her side.

" What an infernal idiot ! ',' cried Mostyn. " There'll
be men killed there. Up helm!"" and the ship drove
down to that dream of mutilation, that corpse of fabric,

THE WATERSPOUT 223

buoyant erstwhile as the summer yacht of the Solent,
and airy as the clouds sailing over her.

Mostyn put his ship close to the schooner and backed
the mainyards. She was a vessel of some hundred and
fifty tons, with a swan bow, and a gilded cord along the
length of washstrake, and every scupper was gushing
like a hill-stream into a stone trough, and the five figures
of men that stood upon her decks showed like field scare-
crows after a thunderstorm. Small need to inquire as to
the amount of damage done. Galley gone, long boat in
staves, companion gone, wheel standing, but binnacle gone,
and the rest we have heard of. How many tons of brine
are contained in the revolving pipe of a huge waterspout ?
Find that out, and then realize the crushing roar and
ruining bolt of that prodigious descent upon a little
schooner.

" Schooner, ahoy ! " yelled Mostyn. " Are you
sinking?"

" No, sir," answered a man in a billy-cock hat, the
brim of which had sheathed his ears, and who held out
his arms as though letting the water drain off. " We're
wrecked, as you see, and want to be taken off.11

" Anybody hurt ? "

" One man overboard and drowned.11

" Can that boat in your starboard davits swim ? "

" Her bottom's knocked out.11

" Sound your well.11

Some soaked figures went to the pumps.

" How have they escaped with their lives ? " asked
Phyllis. " What an utter wreck ! "

"I'd rather delay the voyage than take those men, if
she's tight," said Mostyn to Benson. " I'd rather stand
by till something comes along to take them home. We're
in the track of ships here, but the further we go south
the fewer they'll be, and we might have to carry them

224 OVERDUE

to Staten Island, and I don't want five strange men
aboard."

" You're right," answered Benson. " I too object."

Phyllis was amazed at the mess the schooner had
made in the sea round about her — such stretches of black
sail-cloth, such lancing of spars, such serpentine undulation
of rigging ! with the galley bobbing in the thick of the
shuffle like a sentry-box, and several drowned hens coming
and going in the hollows.

" Ship, ahoy ! " shouted the man whom the waterspout
had helmeted. " It was seven inches twenty minutes ago,
and it's seven inches still."

" I'll send a boat," cried Mostyn.

He would allow no one but the spout-hatted man to
return in the boat. The schooner was certainly not
sinking. If danger there were, it might be coming, but
it had not arrived. The boat sprang and spat, with
Mr. Walker at the tiller, and five breasts of moss
expanding and contracting at the oars. The sea swung
its coils with rhythm, and in spaces which are safety to
an open boat commanded by a Matthew Walker.

The man the boat returned with was a lemon-coloured
fellow of forty, pitted with smallpox, and dim light-blue
eyes, which squinted shockingly. When he parted his
lips he exposed but two tobacco-coloured fangs in his
upper jaw. He was clothed in a saturated sleeved waist-
coat, soaked dirty drill breeches, stuffed into sea-boots
which squelched with the water in them when he trod.
Certainly he did not approach the type of Dibdin's
manly sailor, and Phyllis could not help thinking, as
she looked at him, that Jack on the whole was rather
over-idealized in English song. He seemed subdued, as
a man who, after the first shock of ruin, had expended
his soul in taking all sorts of holy names in vain, and
then sat down, figuratively, armed with that sort of

THE WATERSPOUT 225

apathy out of whose repose the demon monarch of
Milton's poem started the fallen angels.

" What's the name of your schooner ? " said Mostyn.

" The Milly Mine? he answered.

" Where are you from ? "

" St. Helena. We was blowed all this way to the
westward, or we shouldn't 'ave come to that ; " and his
squint coloured his scowl with impiety as he looked at
the schooner.

" Are you insured ? " asked Mr. Benson.

"Yes, sir."

« In what office ? "?.-

"The Commercial Marine.'"

" Ship and cargo ? " pursued the chartered accountant.

" Yes ; and I'm sorry now I didn't insure the freight,"
replied the cross-eyed sailor.

" Are you the capt'n ? " inquired Mostyn.

"S'elp me God, then, owner and capt'n too," he replied,
bringing his light-blue balls of vision to bear upon
Phyllis.

" Why didn't you get out of the road of that water-
spout ? " said Mostyn.

" I sung out, ' Down 'ellum ! ' meaning to go to
windward of it, and afore she'd answer, it bursted through
us, wiping the sticks out, flooding the deck rails high,
floating all movables overboard, along with the cook,"
he answered, submitting a miserable wet, forlorn figure
as he spoke.

"How came ye to keep aboard ?" asked Mr. Dipp.

" Just as it bursted I yells out, ' Hold on, my lads,1
and I went over the side with the end of the belayed
topsail-brace in my fists."

" Well, what can we do ? " said Mostyn.

" I must ask you to take us men off," was the
answer.

226 OVERDUE

" What's your name ? "

" Ogle."

" And where were you bound to ? "

" Gloucester."

"We're bound to Staten Island," said Mostyn ; "you
don't want to go there, I allow."

" We wants to get 'ome."

Here the conversation was interrupted by the captain
calling to Prince to bring a glass of rum.

" There's no room for you on board this ship,"
continued Mostyn ; " but of course I'll receive you if
nothing bound north heaves into sight before dusk. Is
there no help for your craft ? "

" If she's staunch in her hull," said Mr. Benson, " the
insurers may give you trouble for abandoning her. I
should certainly go to law over such an abandonment as
that."

Captain Ogle squinted at him suspiciously. He seemed
to detect the words, " moves in financial circles," writ in
letters straggling amidst the hair on Benson's face.

" I'd ask any gent, listening to me, if he believes the
insurers would expect me to carry that schooner 'ome in
her present condition."

" Your foremast is standing," said Captain Mostyn.
" Couldn't you rig up a spare gaff foresail, and flap along
till a steamer's willing to give you a tow ? "

" I might be willing, quite willing," answered Captain
Ogle, "if I hadn't a wife and four children dependent
upon me for their daily bread."

" Poor man," exclaimed Phyllis.

" What are you insured for ? "

" Three thousand."

" There's salvage-earning in three thousand," said
Mr. Benson; "besides, it's characteristic of the English
sailor to stick to his ship."

THE WATERSPOUT 227

"With all boats gone, galley gone, binnacle gone,
jibbooms gone, and one lower-mast standing?'1 sneered
Ogle.

" Are you an Englishman ? w inquired Mi". Benson,
which was like asking a dog-fancier the breed of a
terrier.

" If being born in Bristol entitles a man to consider
hisself an Englishman, then I'm one," answered Ogle,
turning his glass upside down and looking about him for
a place to put it on.

" Upon my word, captain,1'' said Mostvn, " I'd think
twice before abandoning that vessel. There are five of
you, and I'll send the carpenter and some men to clear
away the mess over the side, get the foretop-mast out of
the water, and send it aloft. You're in the fine-weather
latitudes, and will have plenty of time to make a jury
job fit to blow you home, or in sight of some tramp that'll
give you a tow.1'

" And you'll get credit by so doing," said Mr. Benson.
" Three thousand is a large insurance for that schooner."

The damp seaman squinted at his little ship, and
there was a pause in the talk whilst he meditated. The
four men aboard the schooner were staring at the ship over
the rail, manifestly waiting for the return of the boat to
take them off. This was so evident that Captain Ogle,
suddenly rounding, exclaimed —

" Suppose my mates refuse to stay ? "

"Suppose I refuse to take your mates," said the
captain, which was an unexpected condition to spring
upon the dilemma ; and Ogle was visibly abashed whilst
he mused afresh, gazing at his schooner.

" By your leave, captain," he suddenly exclaimed ; " I'll
'ail 'em."

He sprang on to the rail, seized a back-stay, and
shouted —

228 OVERDUE

"Tom.'1

" "Ulloa,11 came the reply ; and the man that made it
detached himself from the others and flourished his arm.

" Are you men game to stick to the schooner if so be
the captain of this ship helps us with a jury outfit?11

The two vessels were so close together that conversa-
tion was easy in such bugling as the men's lungs were
capable of, and the easier for Captain Ogle, as the Dealman
lay to windward.

" What sort o1 job are we going to be helped to ?
It can't come to more than mucking about,11 bawled the
detached figure, brandishing his arms at the lonely fore-
mast and at the spiked stump of the mainmast.

"Tell him to sound the well,1' said Mostyn.

This was done, and the report that she was making
no water was proof conclusive of admirable staunchness.
This doubtless served to influence the views of Captain
Ogle, who was already in his mind halfway through in
his acceptance of MostyiVs proposal. The Milly Mine
was a new schooner ; this was her second voyage ; she was
built on lines so graceful that the yards of Aberdeen
never launched a fabric more perfectly proportioned,
keener in entry, more dominating in her flair of bow,
with a prettier swell of side as full of promise of buoyancy
and stability as the breast of the albatross, and a run
that assured the sailor's eye that no quartering sea would
ever drag her in the most meteoric of her flights. But
there was something more than this : Ogle had built her
with money earned out of a lifetime of peril and self-
denial ; he was her owner, and he also sailed her, and,
though he squinted most horribly, he was a mariner with
the feelings and passions of the deep-water calling, and he
loved his little ship. Therefore, whilst they were debating
on board her, he resolved to stop and save her if he could,
for the tumult of mind which the blow of the water-

THE WATERSPOUT 229

spout had excited was calmed ; he had passed successively
through the stages of terror, blasphemy, then, in a sort of
way, resignation qualified by a very strong yearning for
life ; and now, under the influence of Mostyn and Benson,
and his love of the little craft, he had made up his mind,
and with the abruptness of impassioned resolution he
shouted —

" Milhj Mine, ahoy ! The captain of this ship says he
can't receive us ; so we must tarn to and do the best we
can, helped by the carpenter and some men.11

Sailors are incomparable as posture makers. A
merchant sailor will act mutiny to the life without
speaking. He will mutiny by the humping of his back,
by the scowling droop of his head, by the up and down
hang of his arms knotted at the extremities into a metal-
hard bunch of knuckles. The various attitudes of the
men on board the schooner eloquently exhibited their
several states of mind, and you did not want to overhear
their illogical profanities to conjecture their feelings.

" Is that ship a Hinglishman ?" shouted Tom.

" Yes," bawled Ogle ; " from London to Staten Island,
where we don't want to go.11

" Is the captain Hinglish ? ,1 yelled the detached figure.

Mostyn laughed, whilst Ogle replied.

" And he means to abandon us men, who are all
IIino;lishmen ? "

Ogle flourished his arm in a gesture which might
have signified anything.

" Send Mr. Walker aft," said Mostyn ; and aft came
the acting second mate.

" Take four hands, Mr. Walker, and go aboard that
schooner, and make the best job you can of her," said
Mostyn.

" Got a tool-chest aboard ? " said Walker, addressing
Ogle.

230 OVERDUE

" Yes, all you want, and spare sails, and spare
tackles.11

The boat was lowered ; Walker, Ogle, and four men
entered her. One of the men, whilst the boat was making
for the schooner, said to Ogle —

" Been to Gloucester lately ? "

Ogle brought his squint to bear, and cried —

"Why, blame me if it ain't Jim Farley. How's your
old mother, Jim ? "

" First class.11

" Still at the little old dried-fish shop ? "

" Ay, and doing well.11

" Thafs a nice mess for me to fall foul of,'" said
Osrle. " If them watersm-outs moved in a straight line —
I telFee it warked like a hurricane of corkscrews, and
I didn't know what had happened till I climbed aboard
agin.11

The boat swept alongside the schooner, and all the
men in her scrambled on to the deck, where we will leave
them, and watch their proceedings from the Dealman.

CHAPTER XIII

A NIGHT-SCENE

The sun was still high in the sky and a long afternoon
and evening of daylight still remained. The breeze was
brisk and steady without a pause in its regular gushing
through the ripe lips of Phyllis, which were often parted
in deep draughts of that rushing sweetness of brine-
flavoured air. The clouds were putting on a nobler face,
and arraying themselves in the kingly attire of the sun.
How glorious is the scenery of the sky, how grand in
majestic mounds of white vapour, and delicate in cloud
soft as snow that melts as you watch, and sublime in the
tapestries of the recess, here black with a thunder scowl,
there splendid as a reflection from the portals of heaven
with spreading rainbow ! In that south-west dimness
you witness pale climbing configurations as of giants
loftily treading at one another's heels as they lift their
phantom brows ; in that north-east sky shadows of
vapour, wings like scythes, aerial shapes of horses, of the
castle, of the spire, of the crocodile, of the avenging arm,
of a woman's face with streaming hair. These phantas-
magoria of interstellar space scale before the breeze, and
the liquid blue of the sky looks down.

How many glance upwards at this vast and wonderful
show with its infinite variety of shadows and lights, and
its ennobling impulses to those who have souls to receive
them ? It is the habit of man to look around and down,

down where the gold is, around where humanity is

231

232 OVERDUE

warring for bread. But few in the thousand lift the
sight to the unsubstantial pageantry of the air, whose gold
cannot be minted, whose silver cannot be coined, whose
delicate blues and greens, as peaceful as a baby's face in
death, are worthless to commerce.

The little company of actors who tread the quarter-
deck boards of our theatre of ship were seated on top of
the deck-house, where some champagne and cakes of
Benson's providing were also visible. The ship hung
under the arrest of the sails of the main, and lightly
bowed the seas like a horse's head straining uphill. The
sea picture in paint is a refreshment to the eye, and
though it be but a daub, it is pleasant with that potency
of incense which is in reality the gift of the beholder's
mind. But the daub that provides you, say, with a
cottage and some trees, is dumb in suggestion, and those
touches which express the artist's conception of the wood-
bine, yield no aroma to the spirit, because the land has
not the power of the sea, which creates a fascination even
for the portrayal that is ill done.

But how much finer than the uttermost skill of the
artist is the realism and the romance of nature ! And
Phyllis found them both, in splendid plenitude, in the
picture the ocean painted for her that afternoon. Yonder
was a wreck : the butterfly had been blighted back into
its early shape of chrysalis ; its cocoon was alongside, wet
and flashing, springing in lancings of yellow spar, dark-
ling in serpentine folds of sea-blackened canvas. The
spark of the sun in the heave of the metal sheathing was
like the crimson wink of a gun. The broken toy was
framed in foam, and it's frolic was that of a smack which
breaks the north-east surge off Ramsgate.

" They're right to get as much of that raffle inboard
as they can," said Mostyn, watching the ascent of a
spar to the drag of a tackle, made fast to the lower

A NIGHT-SCENE 233

masthead, " A winch and a capstan and ten men ! They
should not take long in making an end."

" Ay, but what's become of the capstan bars ? " said
Mr. Dipp.

" If they were secured as they should have been they "11
be there," answered Mostyn.

" How will they manage without a compass ?" inquired
Phyllis.

" Of course, they carry a spare compass," said Mostyn,
" and a make-shift for a binnacle-stand is easily knocked
up."

"She is over insured," exclaimed Benson. "Three
thousand on her ! Underwriters venture anything in
these days."

" Your trade lies in wrecks," said Mr. Dipp, puffing
at his pipe. "Wrecks is the encouragement you offer.
My opinion of underwriters is this : if ships were so built
as that they never could go down of themselves, Lloyds'
folks would bribe captains to beach or \>le 'em."

" Underwriters are the most plundered persons on the
face of the earth," said Mr. Benson, looking with the
strength of temper in his eyes at Dipp.

" I don't believe," exclaimed the diver, slowly and
deliberately, "that if you was to look all round the
businesses of the world you'd be able to lay your finger
upon anything more dishonest than what's called the
shipping industry of Great Britain. Yes, I allow there
may be one wuss ; and that's purveyors of food, provision
merchants, and the like of that."

Phyllis, with a smile, stole a glance at her husband,
but with the natural taste of a seaman the captain was
preoccupied by the business going forward on the
schooner.

" Take," continued Mr. Dipp, " your one-boat com-
pany. How many parsons, old ladies, and other vegetables

234, OVERDUE

has that job tapped and drained ? Who but shipowners
feed men on offal ? Who but shipowners,11 he went on,
warming up, " force sailors by brutal treatment to desert
and leave their wages be'ind 'em. What's more reckless
and shocking than the jerry ship, something that's been
built at Sunderland or the 'Artleypools. I've knocked
about in shops and yards in my time and could give you
the straight tip about drifts and quarter 'ammers and
blind rivet 'oles, particularly under the counter, where the
plates are rolled, and the 'oles filled up with lead."

" Don't believe it — don't believe it," said Mr. Benson,
looking at Mrs. Mostyn, with a sweep of his hand across
the path of Dipp's utterance.

"Tell yer, then," persisted Dipp, whose unctuous
delivery rendered argumentative iteration irritating, " that
I myself, with these 'ere eyes, 'ave seen a vessel dry-docked,
when it was discovered that her builders had lengthened
her metal sternpost by a piece of wood, and the paint-pot
was to give the proper colour to the lie. Yes, and I've
'card of jobs which ought t'ave whitened the 'air of the
Board of Trade and Lloyds' surveyors. Instead of which
nothing but their noses blushed ; and shall I tell yer why,
Mrs. Mostyn? because" — here he held out one hand as
though he were begging, and then, snatching up a bottle
of champagne and holding it up to his face, he cried — " be-
cause, be your sight as keen as awulture's, you can't judge
of a shipbuilding job rightly through a medium like this."

"I'm afraid, Mrs. Mostyn," said Benson, blandly,
" that this conversation is of little interest to a lady of
your delightful tastes."

" You can't get away from the truth, any'ow," said
Dipp, replacing the bottle and looking with something of
contempt in his homely face at the chartered accountant.

" They're swaying that topmast aloft very handsomely,"
exclaimed Captain Mostyn. " I'm wondering how Walker's

&

A NIGHT-SCENE 235

going to make shift for after-canvas to keep her head up.
He can do nothing- with that stump of mainmast.''1

Mr. Benson was lying back in his chair contemplating
the heavens between the masts.

"Mrs. Mostyn," he asked, "did you ever bring your
mind to think of that inexplicable condition of the
universe called space?"

" Who has not?" she answered out of mere politeness,
leaning back her head a little and exposing a throat of
snow, and sending from the violet depths of her eyes a
srlance into the lifeless blue above.

" What do you mean by space ? " asked Captain Mostyn.

" The void in which every ball of sun, moon, and star
is rolling," answered Benson.

"You can make nothing of it," said Mostyn. "IVe
sounded beyond the stars in the middle watch very often,
and have come to the conclusion, with others, that the
human perceptions and functions are a very limited
liability company."

"Well, I take it upon myself to say," observed Mr.
Benson, sitting up and expanding his waistcoat, "that I
have annihilated space."

Mr. Dipp delivered himself of a grunt.

" How ? " inquired Mostyn.

"By that simple demonstration in logic called a
syllogism."

" Oh, lor, Mr. Benson," said the diver, " I thought you
was a gent of one syllable."

"I put it thus," continued Benson, talking at Phyllis
and for her admiration, and as though Dipp was drunk in
his bunk out of sight : " every form of existence con-
ceivable by man has its limitations.''''

Pie paused to give Mostyn time to reflect.

" Matter is indestructible," said Mostyn. " Where do
your limitations come in ? "

236 OVERDUE

"I think not,"" said Mr. Benson, with his smile. "But
well deal with that subject presently. I proceed to the
next term of my syllogism: space as a form of existence
has no limitations.''''

" I agree," said Mostyn.

" Therefore space has no form of existence."

He spoke with a note of triumph, and his ai'gument
perhaps excused him for keeping his eyes fastened on
Phyllis.

" You try to make out," said Mostyn, " that the space
this earth rolls through does not exist."

" How can anything conceivably exist without limita-
tions- ? " answered Mr. Benson.

" What about matter ? "

" Ah," cried Benson, " indestructibility of matter was
very well until the nebular hypothesis of the universe was
proved and established."

" Not being able to swim, Mr. Benson, don't you think
you're a-wading in too deep ? " inquired Mr. Dipp.

"The nebular theory implies gas, and gas is matter,
and the definition of matter is anything that occupies
space," said Mostyn.

"The nebular theory means the cooling down of
gaseous fires into worlds or suns," said Benson, "and these
lires were originally so attenuated throughout space — "

" Throughout that which doesn't exist ? " interrupted
Mostyn, with a smile.

" — as to permit us to conclude that each was gene-
rated sui generis, which means finality at that end, which
also means finality in their course of duration. And so I
find you limitations for your matter, Captain Mostyn."

"Who kindled those primeval sidereal fires?" asked
Phyllis.

"It must always come to that question," exclaimed
Mostyn. "I remember talking to a medical man about

A NIGHT-SCENE 237

protoplasm. 'What is it?1 'Life,1 he answered. 'No,1
said I; 'it is the consequent of which life is the ante-
cedent.1 Protoplasm may be life, but what gives it life ? "

"What did the medical man say?" Phyllis inquire.!.

" Nothing."

"Ain't this conversation a si^ht more interesting- than
the Shippin1 Hindustry ? " said Dipp.

But the most fascinating of metaphysical arguments
must languish before man's commonplace, even trivial
occasions. A waterspout had wrecked a schooner. The
schooner was in the wav of the Dealman, which was
detained by her and obliged to watch her. Here was
blowing a fine sailing breeze, and but for that schooner
the ship must have shortened the voyage bv forty or fifty
miles ere sundown, and Mostyn, speaking to this effect,
broke the metaphysical thread and the beads slipped off.

" How long are they going to take over this job ? " the
diver asked.

It was easily seen that the fellows were working hard.
Probably the crew of the mutilated schooner had come
into the business with ardency, perhaps because of liberal
offers by the captain, or perhaps because they understood,
since the Dealman refused to ship them, they would be
left to their own shifts ; and they were wise, therefore, to
accept help for a jury outfit, since so wide is the sea and
inconstant the apparition of vessels, that days, nay, weeks,
might elapse ere their bruised schooner, with her broken
boats, floating helpless, should be sighted and relieved.

A ship is like a woman — she needs fine clothes. This
is painfully understood in the Navy, where the Admiralty
theory of efficiency is believed to mean, not the capacity
of the engines, the strength of the engine-room crew, the
weight and power of the guns, but the paint-pot, and the
oil-rag for the brasswork. The housekeeper is in com-
mand of the bridge, and the housemaids do the spitting

238 OVERDUE

and polishing under her eye and at her expense, and my
Lords praise the ship because of her very clean looks in
paint, brass, and deck-plank. It is an old tradition. It
has worked its way down through this century, but I
certainly do not find much about spit and polish and the
industry of the chambermaid in ships of the State of the
eighteenth century and in times preceding. If Smollett
be a credible writer, the ship of war in his day was scarce
sweeter than a blind alley both to eye and nose. But
she bore her part nobly. With little paint to speak of,
and her 'tween deck and hold as noisome as a jakes, she
valiantly maintained the flag of our country at the world's
masthead — where it continues to fly.

How were they going to dress that schooner, the
M'illy Mine? I do not propose to burden your under-
standing with technical terms which sailors will not
need, which ladies will not read, which the critic will not
understand. They were striking two bells in the second
dog watch aboard the Dealman, and the viewless hands of
the breeze were drawing the purple curtains of the west
about the couch of the setting sun before they had made
an end of the schooner, and she then showed thus : the
fore-yard had been left swinging at its truss by the water-
spout ; the men under Matthew Walker, after getting
the fore-topmast out of the water, had sent it aloft with
the topsail-yard, and bent the topsail, and they also bent
the square foresail, which they furled. The fixing of the
gaff foresail was easy to those many men, and they gave
her two jibs. But how did they manage aft? Well,
from the fore-topmast head they brought along a stay
and set it up at the taffrail, and boused it taut with
hanks ready for the big jib, which they bent to them, and
this sail they hoisted.

Any yachtsman will see the picture — square foresail,
and topsail, gaff foresail, and triangular canvas spreading

A NIGHT-SCENE 239

aft to the taff'rail to take the place of the gaff
mainsail.

"That'll do," said Mostyn, with the pleasure of a
sailor in his critical survey. " It's well done. I confess
'tis a trick above my seamanship.11

" Shell want a lee helm on a wind,11 said Mr. Dipp.

"Three, perhaps four, spokes, not more, you'll find,1'
answered Mostyn.

" The insurers ought to be mighty obliged to us,11
said Mr. Benson. " I'm not sure I shan't advise the
office to put in for a claim."

"Your office, you mean, I suppose," said Captain
Mostyn.

" I represent the interests of no other," answered
Benson, with his smile.

It will not be supposed that they had been sitting on
the top of the deckhouse throughout the afternoon
watching the schooner and nothing more. Phyllis had
gone to her cabin, where she fell asleep over one of her
husband's books and slept an hour. Mostyn had a small
shelf of books, some of which consisted of works relating
to navigation. Others were a little more interesting ;
he possessed representatives of Lytton, Tennyson, all
Shakespeare, and the Bible, of course, and others (not
many), including a few curious collections of sea narra-
tives, from one of which, called " God's Tokens on the
Deep," Phyllis had read, as you have heard, and over this
same book she had fallen asleep. When she awoke she
saw to her beautiful soft auburn hair in the little square
of looking-glass, smoothed a wrinkle or two out of her
skirt, and adjusted a little gold anchor brooch — the gift
of Charlie — at her white throat, and entered the cabin for
a cup of tea, where she found Benson, but also Dipp and
her husband. Then, after another term of deck, they sat
down to " supper," the last meal at sea, and were again

240 OVERDUE

assembled on top of the deck-house when a man struck
two bells.

The Dealmans boat shoved off from the schooner's
side, and shot through the cream of the ridges with oars
whose blades the sunset steeped in blood. She arrived
alongside, and Mr. Matthew Walker came aboard. He
was hot and weary, and, after saluting the captain, he
said —

" It's the best I could do for 'em/'

" Have they fed you at all ? "

" Oh yes ; they have been lavish in wittles and drink.
The work's been a bit delayed by two men — the schooners
men — mopping of it up too freely. They've asked for a
boat, sir, and will pay for her."

The Dealman carried four boats and a long boat.
Mr. Benson was talking to Phyllis, and was telling her
that he had never met any lady possessed not only of
her capacity of witnessing the beautiful in nature, but
of expressing her sensations ; and Phyllis shuddered
whilst she seemed to smile, for the least compliment from
that man was loathsome to her perception of his thoughts
about her, as the moist coldness of a toad's belly thrills
the sensitive hand of those who hate toads.

" Mr. Benson," called out Mostyn, " that schooner
wants a boat, and has offered to purchase one. She has
none, you know."

Phyllis went to her husband's side.

" I don't know, I'm sure, how the law stands," said
Benson. "These boats are not our property. Have we
a right to sell one of them ? "

" The law expects humanity in captains," answered
Mostyn ; " and I protect the interests of the owners by
selling Captain Ogle a boat, whilst I am helping men to
save their lives if trouble comes."

" I leave it entirely to you — entirely to you," said

A NIGHT-SCENE 241

Mr. Benson. "What value do you put upon one of
those boats ? "

" She'd be cheap with sail, oars, breaker, and mast at
fifteen pounds."

"Don't drive a bargain, Charlie," whispered Phyllis.
" Captain Ogle's a poor man, and if he can't afford
fifteen pounds "

" Mr. Walker," said Mostyn, " get that quarter-boat
lowered, and tow it to the schooner, and ask fifteen
pounds for it, and if he can't pay, close with any
reasonable bid. They must have a boat. Have you
shipped a binnacle ? "

" Yes, sir ; secured a piece of spare boom end in front
of the wheel, and seized a spare compass atop of the flat
with copper wire."

" Off now, Mr. Walker, before the dark comes on."

The sun, trailing his clouds of glory like the soul in
Wordsworth's immortal ode, was no more than a frao--
ment, a glowing ember upon the sea-line, when Mr.
Matthew Walker and his boat's crew finally returned
from the Millie Mine. The stars floated into light, the sea-
flash was all about, a tender horn of moon graced the deeps
of the north-west. You could easily see the schooner, as
she hung out yonder, waiting for the Dealman to fill on
her topsail before she proceeded. Mutilated, indeed !
For how should so airy a structure as that vessel show,
shorn of her mainmast and the wide white wings of sraff-
mainsail and topsail ? But all the same, the life of the sea
was now hers again. She was on the port tack with
shaking canvas, that her keel might stay, and she did
not look so forlorn as a yachtsman might suppose.

"Swing the main topsail, Mr. Mill!" said Captain
Mostyn, adding to his wife, " It's time for us to go."

And then Mr. Matthew Walker stepped up to him,
whilst the boat rose to the davits she belonged to.

11

242 OVERDUE

The sailors have a song for every rope, thought
Phyllis, as she listened to the hoarse bawling of the men
at the falls.

Mr. Walker held a chamois-leather bag.

" This is all the captain said he could afford, sir.1'

" How much ? "

" Eight pound."

" Poor man !" exclaimed Phyllis.

" We shall put in a claim for the balance,1' said
Mr. Benson.

" You horror ! " thought Phyllis. " I wish you were
alone in the boat ! " Indeed, she hated the man so
violently that she would have felt no concern had he
been alone without food or water. The flower-soft hand
of the sweetest girl will often project the tiger's claws
from her finger tips, and there is more real danger and
devilment latent in the heart of the gentle, chaste, and
devoted woman than in the lady who nags, who lectures,
who sits up for you, who hunts your side pockets for
letters, and in a general way treads the path that conducts
life's ill-assorted goods to the distribution of the divorce
court.

" Ho, the Dealman ahoy ! " was cried in the voice of
Captain Ogle.

" Hallo ! " answered Mostyn.

" I thank you for all your kindness, and wish you
farewell and a prosperous voyage."

" The same to you," shouted Mostyn ; and in a few
minutes of silence, scarce broken by the sailors coiling
down the braces over the belaying-pins, the two vessels
began to sail.

Captain Mostyn watched the schooner intently, and
strenuous was the gaze that honest Matthew Walker
fastened upon her. A red eye winked at the schooner's
bow.

A NIGHT-SCENE 243

" It ain't her quality of falling off that Fm afraid of,"
said Walker, who stood close beside the captain, and felt
himself privileged to indulge in speech, seeing how service-
able he had proved all round that afternoon, "it's the
luffing part I'd like to hear about."

" You will, some of these days," answered Mostyn.
" But she's off and away, anyhow. What did Ogle think
of that after-stay of yours ? "

" He thought as I did, that there was nothing else to
be done, sir. There was no making a dandy of her. But
they'll never be able to show that head sail on a wind."

Mr. Benson stood close to Phyllis. " I have no doubt,"
said he, " that you are witnessing many beauties in this
picture. But where are we to find a match for your eyes,
Mrs. Mostyn ? "

An observation which, as the reader will see, was a
double entendre, to be taken by her literally as a compliment,
by her husband figuratively as implying eyes for scenery.
But the husband did not happen to be listening ; he was
attending with a sailor's interest to Matthew Walker's
account of his doings. Phyllis, of course, must answer.

" The sea is a Royal Academy ; its walls are well hung,"
she said.

"I am no judge of paintings," said Mr. Benson, in
that level voice of courtesy which sickened the spirit of
Phyllis by intuitive perception of the strain of the man
upon the reins of his passions ; " but I believe a great
deal of rubbish finds its way into the Royal Academy."

" I was never there."

" Do you know London ? "

■ A little."

" Are you fond of the theatre ? "

" I like good acting. It must be good. I do not like
the acting that suggests the curtain which rises and
sticks and exhibits a row of gaiters, or pumps or sandals."

244 OVERDUE

" Very good, very good indeed. I quite take you,
Mrs. Mostyn," cried Benson, laughing so heartily that the
captain turned to look at him. " I have much to thank
you for. You have taught me to see what the dull
routine of business life has kept invisible. The moon is
something more than a moon now ; I can find poetry
in the stars." He turned his hairy face up to heaven,
and Phyllis averted hers to conceal her smile, which was
dangerously close to a laugh. " And even so common-
place an object as a three-masted sailing-ship, which from
the insurer's point of view involves nothing but considera-
tions of classification and other matters, becomes what I
once heard you speak of as 'a thing of beauty.' "

" What do you think of that sea-spectre of Walker's
creation, Phyl ? " exclaimed Mostyn, as the acting second
mate quitted the captain and decended the steps.

The wife was at her husband's side in a heart-beat.
Mostyn was pointing to the schooner that was floating
off into obscurity in a pallid shade.

" She flits like a ghost," he continued, " and every
breaking head of sea is a sailor's white tombstone for her
to slide over. A good riddance and ably managed.
You'll find she'll wash through it all right. What was
Benson laughing at just now ? "

His wife explained.

" But where's the point ? " said the captain. " A lifted
curtain that sticks fast, and a row of boots showing under
it, and nothing more."

" Your mind grows prosaic in the atmosphere of
Benson," said Phyllis. " Not to catch my meaning !
You'd understand my point fast enough if you were
sitting with me by the river's side under the full moon
at Woolsborough. Suppose," she went on in a note of
pique, " I should ask you what you meant by a sea-
spectre and the foaming head of a wave as a sailor's

A NIGHT-SCENE 245

white tombstone ! Oh, Charlie, what a fool you'd think
me ! "

" Now, my dear ! "

"Even Benson," she exclaimed, breaking into a little
laugh, "admits the influence of my poetical interpretations
of scenery upon his mind."

" God help him," said Mostyn, sarcastically, looking
at the man who was a shadow talking to another shadow
called Dipp, at the after-end of the deck-house top.

" He finds the moon more than the moon used to be,"
said Phyllis, murmuring softly, but with continuous light
laughter.

" You are writing what characters you will upon the
virgin parchment of his mind," said Mostyn.

" Virgin parchment. Ha, ha, ha ! Oh, Charlie ! "

"Parchment, anyhow. Parchment for engrossing.
Parchment for deeds. I should like to see the drawing
of the moon you have made upon his mind."

They ceased to speak as Benson and Dipp passed them
to go on to the quarter-deck.

" I hate the man," said Phyllis.

" So I observe. But you are judiciously courteous.1'

" Oh, it is such an effort, sometimes."

" Would you have come to sea had you known that
this man was to be locked up with you ? "

" Yes, yes, a thousand times over," she answered,
passing her arm through his.

They began to pace the short scope of deck.

"It's a humdrum life for you, dear, and you are sweet
to find pleasure in it. You make the voyage all sunshine
to me, and even when I think you are most bored by
Benson and the rest of it, I would not have you be
ashore. But observe this, Phyl, should Benson ever utter
a syllable when you are alone with him distasteful to your
ear, or glance a look which might cause me to take

246 OVERDUE

him by the throat if I saw it, you'll report the thing
to me.11

She thought to herself, " If he had but my eyes ! But
then he would have my sex. There must be a cleverness
in the wretch to make me see and feel what Charlie is
blind to ! "

" Why don't you answer, Phyl ? " said Mostyn.

" The man has done nothing to send me to you.1'

" Well, that's what I say. Whilst he behaves himself
discreetly he may admire and be damned. I can't forbid
him from admiring you. I can't go up to him and say,
* You hairy scoundrel, if you dare discover beauty in my
wife's face, and for one instant of time presume to admire
it I'll send you forward to live among the men and do
boy's work."

" Could you do that ? "

" I'm lord paramount, and can do anything. "

"But he's only a passenger."

" He's in the service and pay of the charterers of this
vessel, who hold me responsible for all that concerns her,
and if I ordered Benson forward to do boy's work you'd
find him at the spun-yarn winch in the morning."

" Do you think he knows that ? "

" He knows that I am supreme in command, and that
granted, the rest goes without saying."

She knew what a spun-yarn winch was, because she
had seen it revolve, had listened to its castanets, had
watched the fellow backing slowly with the yarns in his
hand, and she burst into violent laughter at the idea of
Benson in his short alpaca jacket, city whiskers, and
suburban aspect winding the winch-handle like an
organ-grinder.

" The schooner's swallowed up," said Mostyn, pausing
to look astern, " and Ave are fifty miles short of our day's
work."

A NIGHT-SCENE 247

"Can't a captain be called to account? Can he do
just exactly what he pleases ? ,1

" At sea, I tell you, he is monarch of all he surveys.
Jack, forward, knows that. So does Benson. He may
act like a brutal madman, and then there are courts of
justice ashore for his victims, if they survive. But the
power of the shipmaster at sea is practically unlimited.
An owner, for instance, will tell a captain to work a crew
so infamously, to keep them at hard labour so unneces-
sarily, to feed them so starvingly, as to compel them to
desert at the first port, and so save the wages. I was
once in the smoking-room of a hotel in Melbourne, and
heard the captain of a clipper ship boast that he had
touched at six ports, that at every port his men had de-
serted, and that down to that moment of his bragging-
he had not paid a penny piece in wages to a single man
of his several crews.""

« What a beast ! "

" Such are the powers of the British skipper."

" Are there no laws, Charlie, to help the sailor ? "

" Not against scoundrels of the type I mention. The
Consul always backs the captain. The British Consul is
one of the worst enemies of the heaps which the unhappy
merchant sailor numbers."

" Poor Jack ! "

" Ay, poor Jack, and trebly poor if you knew all,
Phyl."

Meanwhile, sunk some eight or nine feet below the
pacing of our honeymoon couple, sat Dr. Faustus think-
ing of Helen of Troy, who to him was —

" Fairer than the evening air
Clad in the beauty of a thousand stars."

In other words, Mr. Benson was seated at the cabin
table lost in meditation, with forefinger and thumb press-
ing the old-fashioned stem of a public-house tumbler.

218 OVERDUE

charged but a few minutes before to a beaded brim with
seltzer and brandy by Prince the steward. This young-
fellow was in and out of his pantry whilst he placed
glasses and biscuits, and wines, spirits, and cakes upon the
table for the cabin gentry when they chose to enter and
partake of the refreshments. The steward's brief, but
intense, gaze at Benson was extraordinary. He seemed
like one who, having set himself a lesson in a language of
which he scarce knows the alphabet, is bent with im-
passioned resolution to master it. And as this young
fellow seemed already to have conquered some few of the
Bensonian hieroglyphics he might have found it easy to
follow the current of the thoughts of the hairy man whose
eyes would be sometimes lifted to the skylight through
which the murmur of talk on the upper deck could be
dimly heard.

Benson sat at that table, and love, that with him was
not the rosy little god of the ancients, but one of those
spirits whose bed is sulphur, and whose monarch is the
devil, had got hold of his heart and his soul, and there
was but one refuge for him from his tormentor. But rest
assured that things must be at their blackest before Ben-
son took that step. How many men since the days of the
Garden of Eden have been ruined by bad women and by
good women ? by beauty as treacherous as the half-frozen
viper, which the husbandman in the fable warmed in his
breast ? by beauty chaste and cold as the moon, innocently
luring, artlessly inviting, kindling a burnt-offering of a
man's heart to the god of lust ? Shall you tell me that
the spirit of hell had any hand in the influence of Phyllis,
who was pure as snow, over Benson ? It is so ordered
that innocence may lead to a man's ruin, and compel him
into acts of madness which may result in the official
receiver, or Portland, or the coroner s inquest.

Whilst Benson sat deeply and darkly meditating, too

A NIGHT-SCENE 249

hairy for any visibility in countenance of the state of his
mind, Mr. Dipp stood smoking in the lee alley-way, also
lost in thought. But Dipp's musings would be as clean
and clear as the lucent depths in which he found a living.
It is impossible to think of a diver as a doubtful character.
He sinks sheathed from the brine it is true, but a pressure,
ranging from eight to seventy-eight pounds on the square
inch of a man's waterproof body, must in time inform him
with the wholesome sweetness of the water he gropes in.
The moral influence of the ocean, which is pure, is forced
through the rubber overall and the pores of the skin into
the soul, and I salute all whose trade is diving as honest
men.

Mr. Dipp leaned with his back against the rail and
sucked at his pipe, which he thoroughly enjoyed. He
could hear the two talking overhead, but never heeded
them a jot. They were husband and wife ; their talk was
theirs ; they dwelt within the horizon of the wedding-
ring. If his mind went to them for a moment it was with
the gratification that all honest men take in the happi-
ness of young wedded people. The ship was sailing
fast and heeling; the water roared under Dipp, white
and starry with the sea-glow, to the strain of the shout-
ing canvas. The mate paced the weather-alley, and the
man at the helm was a distinguishable surface of shade
with arms stretched sideways, moving the wheel to and fro
in steady obedience to the hints of the lubber's mark.
Suddenly, Mr. Dipp grew conscious of a figure glimmering
in drill breeches and a white shirt out of the deep shadow
which lay upon the forward part of the ship. He was
impressed by its motions. Its stalk was solemn, like a
monk in a cloister poring upon some holy volume.

" What do 'e want ? " thought Mr. Dipp. " What's
he coming aft about ? But Benson guards the cabin
grog " — he stiffened himself and pulled the pipe from his

250 OVERDUE

lips, for the figure continued to come along, always with
the same stalking, ghostly pace until it arrived immediately
abreast of the diver, when, halting, it pulled a revolver
out of its breast and levelled it straight at the man at the
wheel. With the swiftness of one used to emergency,
Dipp struck up the level arm and the pistol exploded.

"Who fired that shot? What's happening down
there ? " roared Mostyn, releasing his wife, and rushing to
the brass rail.

The report of a pistol on board ship at sea will send
a thrill through the nerves of the stoutest. Have the
crew mutinied ? Has the captain been shot ? Has the
ship been seized ? In God's name, what is it ? All is alarm
and, with the timid, terror.

Mr. Benson sprang from his seat, washing down the
table with seltzer and brandy by throwing over his glass,
and bolted to the cabin door just in time to receive the
•whole weight of the twelve-stone-four body of the surly
mate who was running with all his might. The breath
was shocked out of Benson who, believing himself attacked,
could scarcely gasp " Help ! " In hot haste a number
of men came tumbling along from forward. Dipp had
grasped the man by his shirt-collar and seized his pistol,
but there was no struggling, no heaving and wrestling,
as is mostly the way when the mood of the sea-life directs
its attention to revolvers. The fellow stood upright, as
still as the swing of the deck and the grip of the diver
would permit.

" Bring him round into the cabin light,11 shouted the
captain, and he bounded down the steps to the quarter-
deck. " Who is it ? V A dozen sailors had gathered in
the sheen cast on the plank by the glowing globe that
illuminated the cabin, and if real tragedy had been there
the picture could not have taken wilder colours, what with
the faces of the sailors tinted into ash by the light and

A NIGHT-SCENE 251

the curl of moon sliding amongst the ratlines and the
savage seething of waters pitilessly rent and shattering in
dim snowstorms anions; the leeward vallevs of the sea.

Phyllis's hands clutched the rail, and she looked down
with her figure stiff with fright.

" Who's the man ? " said the captain, peering into the
fellow's face as he stood fronting the cahin-door.

Dipp had let go of him. The fellow's posture was in-
comparable for the bewilderment it expressed. His arms
hung up and down, and his fingers were curled like fish-
hooks. He moved his head slowly, as one who gropes all
over his brains for an idea. He was bearded, carried a
hooked nose, his eyes were big and pale, and bare-headed he
stood, with a quantity of black hair curling down his back.

" Where's the pistol, Mr. Dipp ? " said the captain.

The diver handed the weapon to the commander, who,
taking aim at the stars directly overhead snapped five
shots out of six chambers.

" It's Jim Fry," said a voice.

" At what did he fire ? " inquired the captain.

" At the man at the wheel,11 replied Mr. Dipp.

" S'elp me God, as I stand here I know nothing about
it," exclaimed Fry.

" You come aft with a loaded revolver and fire at the
man at the wheel, and know nothing about it ! " cried
Mostyn.

" I don't know where I am now," exclaimed the man.
" I thought I had turned in."

" He's in the starboard watch ? " said the captain.

" Yes, sir," replied the mate.

" Did any of you men know that this man Fry
possessed a revolver ? "

" Oh yes, I knew. He showed it to me plenty of
times."

" And to me."

o.52 OVERDUE

" And to me, sir.11

"Who's at the wheel?11

" Turpin, sir,11 the mate said.

" Had the two men quarrelled ? "

" Quite the contrairy. They was pals,'1 answered one
of the men.

" S'elp me God, capt'n, I don't know nothin1 about it,11
said Fry, whose behaviour, as interpretable by the light,
betrayed tokens of increasing agitation and distress.

" He walked in his sleep, Charlie,11 called down Phyllis
from above.

The conundrum scarcely needed the solution pronounced
in the clear voice of the young wife.

"You'll find that's right, capt'n,11 said Mr. Dipp,
staring closely into the man's face. " He's a gorn sight
the most scared of us all.11

" I dunno why I'm 'ere, I swear, captain,11 exclaimed
Fry, in broken tones. " I believed when I got into my
bunk that I was turned in. I never knowed nothin1 about
it till the blast of the pistol woke me up.11

" Will you ask him if he^ in the habit of walking in
his sleep P11 said Mr. Benson, standing in the doorway.

" Yes, sir, I do walk,11 answered Fry.

" How d'ye know ? "

" I walked overboard three voyages ago, and once I
was found by a policeman in my shirt, looking at a church
at two o'clock in the morning.11

" Where was that ? " inquired the captain, convinced
that the man spoke the truth, not by words which have
no substance, but by voice and demeanour far above the
art of the most masterful actor.

" Dover, sir, where my sister lives ; and it was out of
her 'ouse that I walked.11

" Loaded revolvers form no part of a seaman's kit,"
said the captain, sternly.

A NIGHT-SCENE 253

s

" It was a gift, sir, and IVe carried it with me five
year. After this III chuck it overboard."

" Have you more cartridges ? "

" Yes, sir."

" Bring them aft."

The sailors slowly melted forward, talking low, whilst
the man was gone.

" Don't you mean to put him into irons ? " said Mr.
Benson.

" No," answered Mostyn, stiffly. " We don't iron
men for freaks of nature."

" He might have killed the man at the wheel," said
Mr. Benson.

"But he didn't," was the rejoinder.

" How could you clap a man in irons for walking in
his sleep ? " exclaimed Dipp, with a note of scorn. " Sleep
it was. He came to a stand abreast of me. His actions
was those of a man in a fit. Iron him and you'd raise the
crew, and then stand by, Mr. Benson."

The man returned and handed a small bag of ammu-
nition to the captain, who immediately pocketed it and
the pistol.

" I 'ope no notice will be taken of this, sir," exclaimed
Fry, in a voice of real contrition. " Had I killed the man
in my sleep and found it out I'd ha' killed myself too, for
it's not in me to do such a thing."

" You can go forward and turn in," said the captain.

He called to his wife to come down, and they entered
the cabin.

CHAPTER XIV

THE CONVICT SHIP

The captain stowed the revolver and ammunition away in
a locker in his berth, and sat down beside his wife at the
cabin table. They looked a handsome couple in that
flattering flame of oil ; he, brown, manly of feature,
which might have been chiselled for delicacy, proportion,
and shape ; she, with her auburn hair, softened with
suffusion of gold by the surging radiance, her eyes of
liquid violet, her mouth which made you lament the
extinction of the pledge when the sweet lady would send
a kiss to her lover through her wine. Mostyn helped
her to whisky and soda-water of his own stocking. He
did not choose that she should be often a partaker of
Mr. Benson's hospitality.

Prince filled Mr. Benson's glass afresh, and Dipp
nursed a tumbler of rum and water. This was the dis-
position of our actors shortly after they had entered the
deck-house.

" It blows a nice sailing wind, Mrs. Mostyn," said the
diver. " Staten Island won't be fur off soon, if this keeps
all on."

" I cannot imagine," answered Phyllis, " that humming-
birds are found at any time of the year so near to Cape
Horn as Staten Island."

" I'll catch one for you, Phyl," said Mostyn ; " and
you shall wear the little glory in a hat.

254

THE CONVICT SHIP 255

" Beautiful birds are not meant to be caught for
women's hats, Charlie." #

" Fm thinking of that fellow who fired the revolver,"
said Mr. Benson, lighting a cheroot, after offering a cigar
to Mostyn, but not to Dipp, who was plugging a pipe,
for all three men smoked in that cabin, and if the young
wife found Mr. Dipp's cavendish more suggestive of dog-
fleas, which may be destroyed by the liquor of mundungus,
than a white rose or the lily which her neck excelled as
the bright foam of the mid-ocean surge transcends in
splendour the tarnished surf of the beach, she would still
swear she loved the scent.

" I cannot help thinking," continued Mr. Benson,
" that he ought to be put into irons."

Mostyn shook his head.

"A sleep-walker must be a menace aboard a ship,"
said Mr. Benson. "That proposition is, I venture to
say, irrefragable."

" The man shall be kept under observation," answered
Captain Mostyn.

"Surely murder must be in his mind when he acts
it in his sleep," exclaimed Mr. Benson.

" How many men haven't I suffocated in my dreams ! "
said Mr. Dipp, hanging his head to light his pipe, and
dropping his words in the intervals of sucking. " A cube
o1 cheese, a pork pie, a late blow-out of sausages will
keep a man fit for the scaffold while he's snorting un-
beknown."

"This man Fry," continued Mr. Benson, "owns to a
habit of sleep-walking ; it's not, therefore, a question of
cheese, or sausages, or pork pics with him."

" Some one has written, ' The wasp is harmless when
the sting is drawn,1 " said Phyllis. " As the revolver has
been taken from him, what can he do ? "

" Oh, my dear Mrs. Mostyn," cried Benson, " Fm

256 OVERDUE

arguing quite as much for your sake as for the sake of
others. What can he do ! " he ejaculated, in a note of
tender and benevolent surprise not unmingled with regret.
" Why, there are such things as iron belaying-pins which
fit loose in holes in the rails, any one of which he might
whip out in his sleep, and so prove even more murderous
than armed with a revolver.1'

" Lock your door," said Mr. Dipp.

"I quite understand your contention, Mr. Benson,11
said the captain; "but I am certain I should not be
justified in confining, and therefore punishing, a man for
walking in his sleep. They used to flog and chain
maniacs. As we advance we grow more humane in our
treatment of any sort of aberration. But he shall be
kept under observation, and the two mates will receive
my orders.11

Benson pulled at his cheroot in silence. He was
uncomfortable, and sometimes looked towards the door.

"I wonder how that there Milly Mine is getting on ?"
said the diver.

" Mr. Dipp,11 said Mostyn, " what do you think, in
my opinion, is the finest stroke of seamanship in the
annals of British sailors ? "

" There's been a good many,11 answered Mr. Dipp,
"and one was a club-hauling job, whole gale blowing,
'igh sea, ship touching bottom with every fall, and rocks
like a wolfs fangs close under the lee bends, but I forget
the name of the vessel."

" In my opinion," said Mostyn, " the most remark-
able feat ever performed at sea, by a British sailor, was
Captain Rous1 navigation of his rudderless ship H.M.S.
Pique across the Atlantic. She sailed from Quebec
September 17th, lost her rudder ten days later, and
arrived in England safely October ] 7th."

" She was a man-of-war, with plenty of men,11 said Dipp.

THE CONVICT SHIP 257

" Ay, but think of the ceaseless anxiety, the constant
attention demanded aloft by the shifting of the wind to
keep her to her course.""

" Didn't that there Rous become an admiral ? " inquired
Dipp.

" Yes, famous on the Turf," said Mr. Benson.

" Captain,'" said Dipp, " 'ave you got your chart of
Staten Island 'andy ? "

" Dye want to see it ? "

" I should that, just a minute or two."

Mostyn entered the berth occupied by Phyllis, and
returned with the chart. It was one of those Admiralty
charts which shipmasters are wise to take to sea with
them, because if they put their ships ashore, they can
plead the misdirections of the Naval hydrographer to
the assessors, who are commonly naval men ; whereas
the " blue-back " chart, being an unofficial publication,
avails nothing as an apology. Mostyn produced a chart
of Staten Island, as surveyed by Kendal of the Chanticleer
in 1828, and by Fitzroy and others in the Beagle in 1830.
He laid it upon the cabin table, and Dipp hung over it.

This was the first time that Phyllis had seen the chart.
She held her fair cheek close to the diver's — closer by a
fathom than she would have held it to Benson's whisker —
and gazed upon a sketch of an island mapped in the form
of a distorted alligator. She saw shadings representing
mountains, outlines of creeks and gullies, and then of
course she was very curious to know in which of those
shelters the Dealman would anchor.

" Here she lies," said Mr. Dipp, putting his finger
upon the chart. " Ten fathom deep. That means a
pressure upon your 'umble of more'ii twenty-six pound
on the square inch."

He fetched a heavy breath, and swallowed a large
mouthful of rum and water.

258 OVERDUE

" Is that the place where the Conqueror sank ? v asked
Phyllis.

" Yes," answered Mostyn, who stood behind the two,
looking down, and unaware, as Phyllis was, of the stealthy
gaze fastened upon the young wife by Benson, who was
alert as a rat in a leap to shift his eyes.

"Why is it called Port Parry ?"

" Named after some officer, no doubt,11 responded the
husband.

" You are nearer to the chart than I, Mr. Dipp,11 said
Phyllis ; " how high is that mountain marked ? "

" Mount Buckland — three thousand feet.11

"There'll be a fine view from the top,11 said Phyllis,
meeting Benson^ eyes, who instantly smiled his face into
an expression as though this encounter of vision was
accidental, and said —

" Captain, if it's without snow or cloud, we'll picnic
on that mountain brow. It'll make a pleasant honey-
moon memory for you, Mrs. Mostyn.11

"Soundings shift very freely, I observe,11 said Mr.
Dipp. " One place is ten, and ""ard by it's thirty.
Appears to me as if the bottom was as 'illy as the
country.11

" Is it inhabited ? 11 inquired Phyllis.

" There's been a talk of a light and a lifeboat station
to be established somewhere near Cape St. John,11 said
Mostyn, running his finger along the chart till he came
to the shaded point. " They're both wanted. The over-
falls are mighty dangerous with wind against tide. See
this counsel ; " and he read from the chart, " ' No ship
should pass within ten miles of Cape St. John.1 "

" A romantic island to choose for a honeymoon,11 said
Mr. Benson.

" Why is he always a-talkin1 about their "oneymoon ? ^
thought Dipp.

THE CONVICT SHIP 259

" But you can't call it a vast solitude, either. What's
that there ? " Benson exclaimed, pointing to the chart.

" A piece of South America," answered the captain.

" It's too close for the romance of solitude, Mrs.
Mostyn," said Benson. " Is the coast visible from Staten
Island?"

"From an elevation, no doubt," answered the captain.

" The more I look at them soundings," observed Mr.
Dipp, " the more I'm sorry they didn't stow the gold in
five thousand pound boxes. One thousand in each box
makes forty boxes to sling, and yer can't call it eio-ht or
ten times more work, because working under water rises
in physical henergy in the ratio of the drag of a plane
surface through water, which means the multiplication of
the pull by the square of the verlocity."

" Are you sure that's so ? " asked Mr. Benson ; whilst
Phyllis was pleased to find that Dipp's knowledge of
the English dictionary was not so limited as she had
supposed.

" Oh yes, cocksure."

"Is it so in the pressure of water per pound upon
you ? " inquired Mostyn.

"No, sir. I've told you it's eight pound at twenty
feet, and eighty-eight pound at two hundred feet, which
is a sight too deep for me."

" But you'll sling the boxes together, and send them
up in fours or fives, which'll come to the same thino- "
said Mr. Benson.

Mostyn rolled up the chart and put it away.

" Same thing to you, perhaps, but not to me," answered
the diver.

"But, my dear man," exclaimed Benson, "you seem
to forget that a chest of five thousand sovereigns is dead
weight for a one man job, and whether you dive for it,
or whether I dive for it," and here he smiled at Phyllis,

260 OVERDUE

" Fm glad to remember that the cases contain one
thousand sovereigns each."

" All I know is," said Mr. Dipp, in a voice that
hinted dislike of Benson's opinion — that is, the opinion
of a man whose experience of being under water was
restricted to his bathroom, or a cautious wade from the
steps of a bathing-machine — " that a diver named Lambert,
in the employ of the first firm in Europe — I alludes to
Siebe, Gorman and Co. — sent up seven boxes of Spanish
gold coin, worth seventy thousand pounds, and if that
don't prove the weight was ten thousand sovereigns in
each box, what do ? "

Benson nodded. Certainly his policy was not to
irritate the diver on matters connected with his own
calling.

Had he been a holy man, with an angel with a drawn
sword as a sentry at his cabin door, he could not have
slept more securely that night, so far as his life was
concerned. Not once did any sleep-walker, armed with
an iron belaying-pin, attempt the invasion of his berth.
Yet he had been visibly nervous when he went to bed,
insomuch that Mr. Dipp, taking the captain apart,
proposed that he should thunder on Benson's door in
the middle watch, and make as though he were trying
to break in, groan a little, and cry, " I'll get at him," and
then rush back to his own cabin. But Mostyn would not
permit any practical joking aboard his ship, least of all
with such a man as Benson, who, as the representative of
the insurers, and a person who could make good or ill
report of the voyage as it pleased him, was entitled to
something more than the consideration due to a first-class
passenger. In fact, the skipper would have put on some
air of sternness if he had not perceived in the oily twinkle
of Dipp's eyes that the worthy fellow had drunk a drop
too much. So if Benson did not sleep well that night it

THE CONVICT SHIP £61

was not because a sailor, in a state of unconsciousness,

armed with a terrible bludgeon, wanted to get at him.

The Dealman was sailing- through that zone of feather-
ed o

ing sea-lights, sudden sunsets, the light blue ocean, whose
gentle surge streams with the grace of a swimming girl,
white with the lace of foam — that zone, I mean, which
Tennyson calls " the summer of the world." It was ten
o'clock in the morning. The cabin breakfast was ended
— a good breakfast. Prince had found some new-laid
eggs in the coops ; and Phyllis thought of her last break-
fast at Woolsborough, when the steward set a dish of eggs
and bacon upon the table. Dipp had done well on brawn
and cold brisket of beef. Benson had fared heartily on
curried fowl, and Mostyn pleased himself with the same
dish. A good breakfast is the foundation of the day's
work, and sometimes of the day's content, and certainly
the stevedore of the table will understand that to insure
a seaworthy stow the hold must be struck at the
dunnage.

Now, the four of them were on deck on the cabin top,
Phyllis in an American chair, with a volume of plays in
her lap, her husband smoking a pipe in a chair alongside,
waiting- for her to read to him, whilst Benson walked to
and fro with a cheroot in his mouth, dropping a sentence
from time to time to Dipp, who was seated over against
the standard compass. Never did a fairer day smile in
heavenly sweetness upon the sea. The breeze was a light
air upon the port quarter, and the ship was showing port
stunsails to it, and a triangular lower stunsail that would
have maimed her airy grace and lofty carriage in the eyes
of one accustomed to the swinging boom. The sky of a
bluish silver was lofty, with a network of frost-like cloud,
that held and fascinated the gaze by its prismatic glances.
The climbing canvas lured the eye to that miracle of
delicate tracery, and Phyllis, lying back, held her sight

262 OVERDUE

bent upon the sky with the rapt expression of one who
adores.

Her husband looked at her as she lay thus, and so did
Benson.

It is proper in the interest of my art to insist a little
upon this young wife's good looks. It was necessary for
the existence of Benson that Mostyns wife should be
pretty and more than pretty. Had she been homely, as
the Yankees term it, the story of the recovery of gold
from the wreck of the Conqueror might have been fully
and easily related in eight or ten lines in the Shipping
Gazette. Therefore I beg you will pardon me if I
occasionally pause before the lady, and invite you to
consider her.

Work was going forward quietly on deck. The men
seemed a contented crew, they understood each other, for
they spoke English, and they had Englishmen over them
as captain and mates. You'd see a fellow in the fore-
shrouds busy at a ratline ; some were mending a sail on
the main-deck ; a couple of men in jumpers were painting
a part of the bulwarks; two ordinary seamen were at
work at the bottom of the long-boat. Dipp's three men
loafed near the galley door ; and the scene was one of
shipboard life far away upon the sea, of breathing canvas,
of the motions of the helmsman smart in toggery for his
trick, and the glint of the sun in the brass circle he
controlled, whilst for outboard variety there lurked in the
shining blue recess bearing west sou'-west a square of
light which all knew by this time to be an oncoming sail,
standing north-east, and crossing the DealmarCs bows.

" Read a little, Phyllis. It's a fine drama. Sir Giles
Overreach in the hands of a master should tread close as
a creation on Richard the Third/1 said Mostyn.

His wife brought her eyes away from the snow-soft
vision that floated high over the pendulum-swing of the

THE CONVICT SHIP 263

trucks, and smiled as she opened the book — one out of
her husband's meagre collection, containing an infinite
amount of trash, and a hundred pages of noble work, and
a sample of Shakespeare, ruined by a writer whose prose
was as good as Steele's or Gay's, or even Arbuthnot's, and
better than Pope's — Colley Cibber. Try his " Apology,"
which yields a thought : that the only two " Apologies "
in our tongue are, one by an actor, the other by a priest.
Though Mostyn lacked the gift of declamation, he was no
humbug — that is, he was not so intolerantly in love with
his wife but that had she read aloud as ill as he did he
would have stopped her. As a matter of fact, she read
with spirit and vivacity ; she knew what was good, and
put power, pulse, and passion into it. She believed she
understood everything in English poetry but " In
Memoriam," the closing passages of which were absolutely
unintelligible to her. The art of reading aloud is more
useful than the art of playing the piano or the fiddle.
The clever reciter agreeably kills an evening ; the clever
pianoforte player very often nearly kills the listener.
Every boy should be taught to read aloud, and to make
rhetoric of the written word. The congregation would
then say Amen ! with the fervency of conviction to the
vitality which our Liturgy needs to render its harmonies
more sublime than a mass by Mozart or Gounod.

The play Phyllis had begun to read to her husband
was Massinger's " A New Way to pay Old Debts," one of
those jewels which "sparkle on the forefinger of old
Time." She was at the second scene, and when her husband
asked her to read she began : —

" I much hope it.
These were your father's words : ' If e'er my son
Follow the war, tell him it is a school
In which all the principles tending to honour
Are taught, if truly follow'd ; but for such

2G4 OVERDUE

As repair thither as a place in which

They do presume they may with license practise

Their lawless riots, they shall never merit

The noble name of soldiers.

To obey their leaders, and shun mutinies ;

To dare boldly

In a fair cause, and for the country's safety

To run upon the cannon's mouth undaunted;

To bear with patience the winter's cold

And summer's scorching heat ;

Are the essentials to make up a soldier,

Not swearing, dice, or drinking.' "

" That would be good advice to give to sailors too,
Phyl. You read well. It is strong and good.''1

" The ruggedness of this sort of rhyme,1' said Phyllis,
" seems a lost art. The breaks give power to the idea as
heights of rock to a landscape."

" When you get ashore, Phyl, you shall earn five
shillings a week by writing reviews."

" Oh, my dear, there is no greater mistake than to
suppose that because we admire we can produce.-"

" What's the next speech ? "

She was about to read, when Dipp interrupted by calling
to the captain —

" Just take a look," said the diver, " at that craft
there."

He handed the telescope to Mostyn. After a long
and silent spell of staring in the one-eyed fashion of the
glass, the Captain exclaimed —

" That ship doesn't belong to this century."

" What do you mean ? " cried Phyllis, shutting up
Massinger with a slap, and springing from her chair.

"Did you ever see the like of her, Mr. Dipp?" said
the captain.

" In picture books, and 'ere and there in a sailor's
'ospital or asylum, but nowhere else, s'elp me Joseph."

THE CONVICT SHIP 265

"Kindly hand me the telescope," exclaimed Mr.
Benson.

" After you," said Phyllis.

" After me ! " ejaculated Mr. Benson, with his smile.
" Shall I hold the glass for you ? "

" No, thanks ; my husband will do that."

" You'll have to kneel, Phyl," said Mostyn.

He laid the telescope along the rail, and the sweet
obedient creature knelt upon the plank that was holy-
stoned into almond whiteness, and between them they
would have furnished a charming picture for a whole page
of an illustrated journal. Only, even if the artist had
been Seppings Wright, Brangwyn, Wylie, and Cooke
rolled into one, this federation of genius could not have
conveyed to the reader's eye the shimmering of the girl's
hair, the light of the sun upon the sea, the life of the
spirit of the deep embodied in the ship as she serenely
swayed along her course, jewelling the water in her track
and whitening it into silver under her bowsprit.

But as before so now : Phyllis held her left eye closed
with her hand, and there was no magic in the violet of
her right eye to detain the object that flashed in and out,
up and down, yielding no other idea than that of the
ancient mariner —

" There was a ship ! " quoth he.

" I can't catch it," she exclaimed, in a note of morti-
fication. " Why do they make telescopes so small ? They
should be as big as a drum for women."

" She'll be showing plain to the naked sight in 'alf an
hour, ma'm," said Mr. Dipp. " Whenever I feel myself
growing impatient I recall the advice an old aunt once
gave me — ' It's like a procession coming along a street,
says she ; ' why do you risk your neck by shoving half
your body out o' window? Sit still, and it'll pass."

The strange ship was close hauled on the port tack,

2G6 OVERDUE

and when she had fetched a part of the waters about two
points on the lee bow of the Dealman, she was thrown
into the wind, and lay rolling with shivering canvas.
At this hour she was easily distinguishable by the unaided
vision. Certainly her appearance was calculated to excite
the astonishment of Mostyn, Dipp, and all others aboard
who saw things through the eyes of the seafarer. Her
hull was black, and along her sides ran a broad red
band.

She was scarce more than a tub in shape — short and
squab — her length, perhaps, three times her beam, her
bows like an apple, her stern tall with a poop ; but she
carried no topgallant forecastle, and the head- boards
curved to the figurehead like the tusks of a boar, creating
a sort of beak as a stemhead, with a hollow between bio-
enough for a ship-load of men to bathe in.

This astounding apparition carried three small brass
guns of a side which gleamed with black tompions in ports
in the bulwarks. She was rigged after the style familiar to
those who are acquainted with the plates in old collections
of voyages such as Churchill's. Her bowsprit was steeved
at an angle of forty-five degrees, and with its jibboom
looked like a mast arrested midway in its fall. She was
a full-rigged ship, saving that she did not carry royals.

But the most surprising feature to the eyes of the
seamen of the Dealman was her crossjack yard, which was
fitted after the manner of the past century — that is to
say, like a lateen, which made the sail a triangle. On the
taffrail was to be seen an iron gibbet for the hanging of
a poop lanthorn by night. A more perfect study of the
marine antique could not be imagined. Some of the sailors
forward gazed eet her with consternation, and often directed
their eyes aft to observe what effect she was producing on
the mind of the captain. Were they thinking of the
Flying Dutchman ? I do not believe that in this age

THE CONVICT SHIP 267

there lives a man who credits that yarn, though some
sailors will feign belief as the perfervid actor blacks
himself all over for Othello, that by a plausible credulity
they may seem more thoroughly sailors to those they
converse with than they are found to be by the captain
and mates they serve.

No man aboard the Dealman believed in the Flying
Dutchman, but yonder was a ship that might very well
have been her sister, a fabric which, had she stolen past
wan in the moonlight, her sails tinctured into gossamer
by the pale night-beam, her deck as silent as a midnight
cemetery, might have justified any agony of superstition
even in the minds of those who thought boldly in
sunshine.

" Is she very extraordinary ? " asked Phyllis, who, not
understanding anything about short topgallant masts,
the crossjack of the last century, the immensely wide
channels, huge round tops and massive hawser-like shrouds
of the days of Captain Cook, naturally failed to grasp
the reason of her husband's and Dipp's astonishment.

" I never saw anything like her before except as a
hulk ; nothing like her under sail, and away out at sea
as she is," answered Mostyn.

" She evidently wants to speak us," said Mr. Benson.

" It's some masquerading job, I allow," said Mr. Dipp.
" Ifs the same as meetin1 a man in Fleet Street dressed
up like George III. If the ocean was perliced she'd be
taken into custody, and charged with misconducting
herself."

"There must be some object in the thing," said
Mostyn, carefully exploring her for the twentieth time
through the telescope, and observing a number of people
apparently idling about her decks, and three men walking
the poop abreast, wheeling with the swing of soldiers
when they arrived at the shadow painted on the planks

268 OVERDUE

by the large red ensign sluggishly flapping at the crossjack
peak end. " Men don't send such a ship as that to sea,
and go afloat in her, without a motive."

" Perhaps some lunatic asylum's been burnt down,"
said Mr. Dipp.

" No, there's too much method yonder to serve that
idea," said the captain. " She's clearly bound for Europe.
From where ? She must be a hundred and fifty years
old. Would they venture the Horn in her ? "

" Isn't the Cape almost as bad ? " inquired Mr. Benson.
" Off Agulhas you get seas which become historical."

" What's she doing so far to the westward if she's
come Cape-wise," said Mostyn, " unless she shared in the
breeze that gave us the company of the Milly Mine ? "

" She don't want no coaxing to go to leeward,"
observed Mr. Dipp, narrowly observing the queer craft,
which grew more barbarous and grotesque in every detail
of hull and equipment the closer she was approached.

" Is she so old as you think, Charlie ?"

" I should say to a week. Never in all my going
afishing have I fallen in with the like of this experience.
You're a lucky girl. The sea gods grace your liquid road
with interests perfectly new to me who am an old hand.
There you have the simulacrum of the Phantom Ship,
that great tragedy of the sea. There you have in living
colours, lighted by the sun and rolling upon the ocean, a
ship that was making voyages when Nelson was in petti-
coats ; such a ship as Nelson, when a boy, may have
made his voyage to the West Indies in. What the
devil is she doing out there ? " All this in his wife's ear.
Then to Mr. Dipp: "Look at that huge standing jib.
How can a bobstay guy such a steeve as that bowsprit's ?
How sweetly she rolls ! Within how many points of the
wind do you think she'd lie ? "

" She'd break oft' at nine," answered Mr. Dipp.

THE CONVICT SHIP 269

" A beam wind with us means a head wind with her
said Mostyn, laughing. " How in the name of blocks,
davits, and dead-eyes, of lee helms and square bows, of
wearing by sending the men into the fore-shrouds to
spread their coat-tails — how, Mr. Dipp, I ask you, did the
old chaps who manned such craft as that contrive to
wash about to their ports in safety, and return to end
their days in Stepney or Poplar, and smoke pipes on
more silver than is needed for bread and cheese ? "

The question was so difficult that the diver could
reply only by a fit of silence.

The Dealman floated down to the grotesque memorial
of the days of the pigtail, that lay without way with
shuddering canvas and wallowing sides, flashing sunfire
from her polished cannon, and when Mostyn backed his
main topsail, the following conversation ensued. But
first I must tell you that the figure who shouted answers
from the poop of the old ship was dressed as un-
romantically as Benson, when he sheathed his precious
ribs in the city and suburban attire. The man wore a
billycock hat wreathed by a muslin scarf, and his dress
was a brown linen jacket and blue cloth trousers held by
a belt. His companions — they were two — were similarly
prosaic in aspect. No hint of the Flying Dutchman in
them : no long grey beard divided by the breeze, no
vulture-beak of nose nor hawk's eyes under brindled
beetling brows, long curling Dutch pipe, and sea boots to
the knees. Just the other way, in fact ; you could see
that all the men in the forward part of the ship were
common-place fellows of the bully-in-our-alley type, men
of the dungaree breech, and a hint of the pierhead jump
in their shirts and head-gear.

" Ship ahoy ! " shouted Mostyn. " What ship is that ? "
"The Sir John Dean Paul from Sydney to London,
one hundred and seventy-two days out.11

270 OVERDUE

" Just so,1' mentally ejaculated Mostyn, whilst Dipp
delivered a laugh like the cheep of a sheeve on its pin.
"Is that ship as old as she looks?"

" She was a convict transport in 1800, and was built
in 1777."

"What did I tell you, Phyl?" exclaimed Mostyn,
who next shouted, " What's your object in navigating
her?"

"We're taking her home as a show," answered the
man.

" Now I understand," exclaimed Mostyn.

" I should very much like to go on board of her," said
Mr. Benson.

" Does she hang together pretty well in a sea-way ? "
bawled Mostyn.

" Ay ; with pumping four or five times a day, but the
leeway she makes is terrible. We've been blowed to this
part by a breeze, and should be thankful to know the
correct Greenwich time by your chronometers."

" You shall have it," and Mostyn bawled out the
longitude, which the other immediately made a note of.

" Have you any preserved vegetables to spare ? We
are clean run out of spuds."

" 111 send you some tins of spuds and carrots along
with the Greenwich time, and should be glad if youll
allow this lady and these gentlemen to pay you a visit."

" With the greatest of pleasure, and theyll see more
than theyll expect to find," was the reply, and the ships
were so close together that the companions of the spokes-
man could be heard laughing.

" But youll come, Charlie ?"

" I never leave my ship, Phyl. You're safe with Dipp,
and the sea's smooth enough for a Thames wherry."

Some red cases of preserved spuds or potatoes, and a
number of tins of preserved carrots, were broken out of th§

THE CONVICT SHIP 271

stores in the lazarette. The potatoes and carrots were
then stowed in the boat, a gangway ladder for Phyllis
dropped over the side, and five men pulled the party of
three aboard the marine relic.

Though but a few strokes of the oar were needed to
measure the distance between the two ships, yet the
moment the boat shoved off a sinking feeling of loneli-
ness possessed the young wife. It took her like one of
those shudders which make you say, some one is walking
over my grave. A world of sensations and emotions may
be packed into a minute of time. The girl-wife kissed
her hand to her husband, who, standing in the gangway,
kissed in return. The desolation of the mighty girdle
was hers, because the sea was between her and her husband,
and she was alone, despite two ships, one of them the
quaintest of floating arks, despite Dipp, yea, even despite
Benson. But, yet, in that brief oar-swept passage, the
Dealman graced the hall of her memory with a fresh and
beautiful picture. Of course she had never at any dis-
tance seen the ship from the outside. There lay the sea-
home, that had brought her thus far, lightly inclining her
tall heights as though in civil inquiry to the astonishing
figure to leeward : not less elegant aloft with backed top-
sail than had it been a full breast ; the topmost canvas
glowing like moons ; star-bright lustres trembling off the
violet shadow she rolled upon. She needed, indeed, the
life of the wind, the splendour of the bow-shattered sea ;
the hissing mill-race of wake dominating the yeasty ridge
to half-way the horizon. But as she lay in the halt of
her topsail she must be a memory, a clear and rich
embodiment of a fabric that down to now was known to
Phyllis only in stretches of deck and in protecting walls
of bulwark.

It was impossible for her to climb the short flight of
steps that was thrown over the side of the convict ship,

272 OVERDUE

Although the movement of the Dealman marked but a
very delicate and long-drawn pulse of swell, yet this
antique monster hove her tub-shaped sides into the water
as though she were a cask in a freshet. There was nothing
for it then but a chair and whip. So a block was made
fast to the main vard-arm, a line rove through the sheave-
hole, and an armchair secured to the end of the line. In
this way Phyllis soared like an angel without, perhaps, the
feelings of the blessed ; for it is no joke for a weak stomach
to be swaying like a boy on a swing half-way betwixt the
sea and a spar that now takes aim at the sun and now at
the brine which reflects his light. In fact, in the few
moments that compassed her boarding the ship, after all
had been made ready, she was horribly afraid, and thought
herself lost. But they lowered her handsomely, and she
descended like a goddess that bestows the light of her
beauty upon the very spirit of Eld.

Benson also gained the ship by the chair, as he said
his waistcoat was too tight for that short ladder; and
whilst they were being hoisted aboard the ship, Dipp
hung in the boat alongside, hugely admiring the gross
ungainly proportions of the craft, her swelling buttocks
which sent the water squelching each time the lift of bow
soused the counter, the seams into which you could have
put your little finger, the massive channels and rusty chain-
plates, and enormous dead-eyes with lanyards stout as
shrouds, setting-up shrouds as thick as tow-ropes ; and
then the tops, with their ancient furniture of sprawling
cat-harpings. It was not for the imagination of a Dipp,
but of a dreamer of dreams, to vitalize that platform
towering overhead with the figure of a sailor of the days
of Commodore Dance, his loose breeches trembling, the
back of his jacket supporting a tail of hair which, when he
reaches Wapping, Nan will carefully comb out for him,
the sharp of his hand against his brow whilst he eagerly

THE CONVICT SHIP 273

gazes at the apparition of the Dealmah, whose proportions
and rig, had they been set down on paper before him, he
would have declared impossible as a sea-going fabric.

Then Mr. Dipp scrambled into the great mizzen
channels, and clambered on to the poop. One of the three
who had been remarked walking up and down, soldier
fashion, was a short, square man, with his face full of little
veins, and eyes charged with tavern memories. This was
the man who had spoken the Dealman, and he is, therefore,
costumed. A second was a lanky fellow, of a type the
caricaturist makes us acquainted with when he depicts
the Yankee. Here was the long goatee hanging at the
chin of a long yellow face, and here legs like a radish.

The third man showed a round, veal-coloured figure-
head, adorned with a little imperial and moustaches.

" I am in command of this ship, maara, and my name
is Captain Peak, and it's truly a pleasure, it is, to see a
lady aboard after months of being out," said the man
with the muslin scarf, in the politest tone of the ocean, to
Phyllis. " What do you think of this vessel ? Did you
ever see anything more curious ? But before we make the
rounds of her will you let me offer you and these gentle-
men some refreshments ? "

"Not for me, thank you," answered Phyllis, staring
about her with eyes magical with light through wonder
and other emotions.

" Don't give yourself any trouble about refreshments,
capt'n," said Mr. Dipp. " If this ain't refreshment enough
there's no virtue in freak-shows.'"

" Good, sir ! ha, ha ! " laughed the man with the veal
face and moustaches. " I believe this will be one of the
most popular shows in England."

" When we get there," said Captain Peak.

" Towage all the way from Sydney too costly, I sup-
pose ? " said Mr. Dipp.

T

274 OVERDUE

"We should have been figuring in the London
Gazette before our arrival," answered the gentleman with
the moustache, whose name shall be Mr. Showman.

"She rolls very heavily," said Mr. Benson. "Will
you take my arm, Mrs. Mostyn ? "

"I can manage very well alone, thank you," she
answered ; and, indeed, her feet took the heave of the
old tub with a grace that made you think of a crystal
ball airily poised on the jet of a fountain.

They formed a procession and went the rounds of the
ship, Captain Peak leading with Phyllis, and explaining,
Dipp and the goateed man, Benson and Mr. Showman
following. They stopped abreast of the first brass
cannon, and Mr. Dipp said that he thought the Chinese
Government would offer a handsome sum for "them
arms."

"I suppose you are paid a handsome screw for this
work ? " said Mr. Benson, with the familiar, knowing air
of the shrewd man of business.

Captain Peak ran his gaze over the figure of the
chartered accountant, kept his right eye closed whilst
you might have counted three, and then went along the
deck with Phyllis.

" Who's that man, missus ? " said he, in a low voice.

" The representative of an insurance office."

"Looks as if he'd been reared on onions and black
lead," said Captain Peak. "This is the caboose."

He halted before a deck structure wearing the device
of a unicorn curiously carved on the side that fronted the
poop. The galley was divided into two compartments.
One had been for the use of the convicts, the other for
the officers, crew, and military guard. The convicts1
division was strangely embellished. Upon hooks and
other supports and shelves were suspended or arrayed
huge beer-cans for cocoa, baskets for biscuit, rows of tin

THE CONVICT SHIP 275

plates neatly overlapping one another, and numbers of
tin mugs slung on hooks. Here also were short lengths
of deal board for the cutting up of meat on the mess-
tables when the convicts went to meals, bags for knives,
tubs for " salt horse 11 or pork, and nets for potatoes.

Mrs. Mostyn, Benson, and Dipp peered about them,
Phyllis with profound interest, the others with emotions
I will leave you to figure. It was an illustration of the
black side of a life that is happily dead, pregnant to the
meanest intelligence with all significance of pathos and
tragedy. In a time before any of the visitors to this
convict ship was born she was sailing over the sea filled
with miserable felons, many of whom were under life
sentences ; and in those days they transported a man for
stealing a horse, or forging a signature (if they did not
hang him for this), or for crimes or blunders which, in
this age, are visited with a few weeks'* imprisonment ; so
that men of gentle blood, clergymen, attorneys, doctors,
members of the professions, along with the scum of the
provincial slum and the metropolitan alley, were cooped
up under the main hatch, watched by soldiers through
loopholed barricades, ready at a moment to fire should
the need arise. And then the voyage ! The interminable
days occupied by such a ship as this in measuring the
great oceans of the world ; the fierce seas, the torn sail
streaming in hair from the yard, the fabric leaking like
a basket as she fell roaring into the midnight hollow, the
hatches battened down on three hundred felons whose
names were written on their backs in figures, breathing an
atmosphere in which the flame of the lamp stank through
an unsanctified halo of miasmatic poison !

There were other things than the galley to look at
and to wonder at, and Mr. Showman critically watched
the faces of the visitors. Ex pede Herculem. He might
judge by the effect produced in them of the impressions

276 OVERDUE

upon anticipated thousands per day. So sanguine are
Showmen.

Dipp particularly inspected and admired all the for-
ward part of the ship, the curling head-boards, the well
into which the heel of the bowsprit sank, the old-fashioned
slide in the forecastle hatch, and the venerable capstan by
which the sailors wound the anchor to the bows.

" It is quite worth seeing, Mrs. Mostyn," said Benson.
"I hope you are enjoying the visit.1'

" I am, thank you."

They walked aft to the break of the poop, where the
old-fashioned wheel was fixed, and in front of it the
binnacle-stand — things that might have been dredged up
after eighty years of ooze, but still as good as the newest,
so faithful was the workman to his job in those days of
heavy sea-scantlings and walls like those you find in
Bloomsbury.

" Is this the original compass-card ? " inquired Mr.
Dipp.

" Only ask yerself the question ! No, sir, and I thank
you," answered Captain Peak. " Five points of lee-way
in an on considerable breeze on a bowline, and you expect
me to find my way home with the original card ! No, sir,
I thank you."

"No offence, capfn."

"Let me show you the cuddy, ma'am,'1 said Captain
Peak ; and he exchanged a glance with Mr. Showman,
whose expression hinted, backed as it was with the face
of the goateed man, that he held a trump card up his
sleeve.

The cuddy front resembled a little country cottage,
with its door and two windows on each side draped with
short scarlet curtains looped back. A table went down
the interior, and on either hand were cabins.

" Here the captain and mates slept)" said Mr.

THE CONVICT SHIP 277

•

Showman, a and the superintendent doctor and the officer
of the guard. Sentries were stationed at the foot of each
ladder outside. The barricade that shut the convicts off
from the quarter-deck will be erected on our arrival. It
is the original barricade.""

Captain Peak disappeared.

"What a wretched hole to live in during a long
voyage,"" said Phyllis.

"I reckon you're about right, ma'am," said the man
with the goatee. " You want your handkerchief hand-
somely tasselled to stand it. I was blamed sick of the
show before we was up with the Cape, and here we are oS
the west coast of South America."

" I could not have believed she'd have sailed so badly,"
said Mr. Showman, in a note of pacification.

" Is this your speculation ? " inquired Mr. Benson,
addressing Mr. Showman.

" Yes," was the answer.

" Is it going to pay, d'ye think ? " added Mr. Benson,
in a discomfiting tone and with a discomfiting look.

" I reckon on netting ten thou. — that's all ! " said Mr.
Showman, replying to Mr. Benson in a sneering way.

" Are you insured ? " asked the chartered accountant.

" Who'd take the risk ? " was the reply.

"Try the Hocean Alliance," exclaimed Dipp, with a
greasy chuckle.

Benson's eyebrows slightly changed their expression.

Just then Captain Peak stepped out of the coffee-
coloured den in which he had hidden himself, and said to
Phyllis—

" Would you like to see the 'tween decks, where the
convicts lived and slept ? "

"I should indeed."

" Get the man-hatch covers lifted," said the captain
to the man with the goatee. " This way, ma'am."

278 OVERDUE

A foot or two in front of the old -fashioned binnacle
was a small square man-hole known as the booby hatch.
The descent was difficult to Phyllis. The ladder was
perpendicular, and the captain went first to help her.
This he did with so much delicacy that, had he been the
first gentleman in Europe, he could not have made the
task more easy to the lady. She found herself in a space
of the ship that was bulkheaded off from the greater
portion of the 'tween decks. The light was dim, for the
square of hatch was almost eclipsed by the pent-house or
overhanging ledge of the poop.

" What are those holes for ? " asked Phyllis, pointing to
a row of six holes in the bulkhead, each just big enough to
admit of the passage and sighting of the barrel of a carbine.

Here Mr. Showman took up the tale.

" This part of the ship was called the barracks. The
soldiers who guarded the convicts lived and fed here.
Their accommodation has been dismantled for convenience1
sake ; it will be correctly restored on our arrival. Those
holes served two purposes : if an insurrection broke out
amongst the convicts they could be fired upon. They
were likewise useful to enable the guard to see what was
going on within without being observed. Do you think
the hatches are off, sir ? "

Captain Peak put his eye to one of the carbine holes.

" Right,1'' he exclaimed, and stepped back with an
odd smile which went twisting about his face in a very
wriggle of secret amusement.

Mr. Showman stepped to a low narrow door of massive
scantling, and studded, as was the rest of the bulkhead,
with arrow-headed nails, and drawing two bolts, threw it
open, and asked the lady and her companions to step in.

Scarcely had Phyllis advanced two or three paces when
she recoiled with a light shriek, which was accompanied
by a greasy " Ulloa ! What's "ere ? " from Mr. Dipp.

THE CONVICT SHIP 279

The 'tween decks were full of convicts, sitting, stand-
ing, lying, one at a table reposing his head on his elbow,
lost in thought, one standing with his hands clasped and
his head depressed, two seated together facing aft, their
wrists linked by handcuffs. There might have been fifty
or sixty, and the limited space they occupied, and the
light flowing through the hatch with its rolling waltz of
shadows, bulked that little population by deceit of the
vision into the proportions of a large crowd.

Phyllis stood rooted with astonishment and alarm.
Benson stared with enlarged nostrils. But how motion-
less were those felons ! Never a roll of the eye, nor a
turn of the head, nor the faintest gesture of arm. Dipp
broke the spell.

" Why, Lord, now," said he, bursting into a laugh,
" they're wax ! A floating Tooso's, and ain't that Glad-
stone, and ain't that old Goschen ? "

Wax figures all, and incredibly life-like ! Wax
effigies of men of distinction, in arms, the arts, science
and philosophy, clothed as felons !

" Upon my word, it almost took my breath away,"
exclaimed Mr. Benson, boldly walking up to the table at
which Mr. Gladstone was seated with his hands resting
upon his knees clothed in the grey striped stuff, stockings
with white rings, and shoes, and striped shirt of the
convict of an early date. The likeness was incomparably
to the life ; so too was that of Cardinal Manning ; of Lord
Salisbury, who was handcuffed to Mr. John Morley ; of
Herbert Spencer, who stood opposite the bench upon
which Mr. Joseph Chamberlain was seated ; whilst hard
by Sir Henry Irving seemed to be submitting a meta-
physical puzzle out of Hamlet to the Reverend Joseph
Parker, to whom he was chained by the leg.

All these figures, with others, such as Archdeacon
Farrar, Millais, General Gordon, Lord Penzance, Dr.

280 OVERDUE

Temple, Tennyson, and Michael Davitt, were adroitly
secured to the deck, whether sitting, standing or recum-
bent, by leather thongs or belts with buckles, and their
fixity was that of the ship's figure-head.

" Those gentlemen will thank you for making convicts
of them,''1 said Mr. Dipp, who kept on laughing as he
went the rounds, peering into one wax face after another
with every manifestation of provincial admiration.

" Plow do you like it, madam ? " said Mr. Showman.

" It frightens one at first," answered Phyllis. " You
expect them to get up and speak or walk about.1'

" Won't it lead to political riots in this ship ? " said
Mr. Benson. " Will the Liberals suffer Mr. Gladstone to
be made a show of as a convict ? "

" And what'll the other party say to Lord Salisbury ? w
exclaimed Dipp.

"A riot would prove the very advertisement I pray
for," answered Mr. Showman. "But our convicts will be
watched by armed warders dressed as the guard was, and
they'll knock any trouble on the head fast enough."

" I know how it will go," said Captain Peak. " The
Liberals, pointing to Salisbury, '11 say, ' That's how it ought
to be ; ' and the Tories, pointing to Morley, will declare,
* It's a sight too good for him.' "

" And then comes the shindy," said Mr. Dipp.

"Easily quelled," exclaimed Mr. Showman, laughing,
" and better than an advertisement on the dome of
St. Paul's."

" The captain will be expecting our return," said Mr.
Benson.

" What made ye choose this lot, mister ? " exclaimed
the diver, casting his eyes round the various figures,
which were so far ludicrous in that some of them were
graced with beards, moustaches, and long hair, which, I
believe, are not often to be seen on convicts, though their

THE CONVICT SHIP 281

life-like attitude and appearance continued to exercise a
subduing influence upon Phyllis and even Benson. It was,
in short, like walking in the crypt of a cathedral and
being stared at by embalmed shapes made awful by
mysterious writings on the wall.

"Take them 'eads you see in 'airdressers' shop
windows," continued Mr. Dipp, " wouldn't the likes of
them answer ? "

" This lot happened to fall in my way," answered Mr.

Showman, with a flourish of his hand round the scene.

" It wras a travelling show from England, and it went

stone broke in Melbourne. I went to Melbourne and

made an offer, meaning to carry on the show myself, but

I also got the notion of a convict ship as a show in my

head, and the ship was lying in Sydney to be sold for a

song, and so I combined the two undertakings " — and

then putting on a theatrical face, he fixed his eyes on the

diver, and declaimed in a note which should have proceeded

from the effigy of Sir Henry Irving —

" "Tis not in mortals to command success,
But we'll do more, Sempronius, we'll deserve it."

"And I sincerely trust you will meet with success,"
said Phyllis, and bowing to Mr. Showman and to Captain
Peak, she added, "I thank you for the treat you have

giv< le."

She was now to be got on deck, and this was contrived
with the same manly delicacy which had been the feature
of her descent. She lingered a moment or two at the
gangway to look aloft and around her, for the figures
below had imported a new element into this old-world
picture of a convict ship, and her mind was not in the
least degree confused in the real issues of her vivid
imagination and her capacity of realization by the cir-
cumstance of the convicts, who were sailing home, includ-
ing a prime minister and the founder of a city temple.

CHAPTER XV

IN HIS WATCH ON DECK

It must be admitted that Mrs. Mostyn was seeing life —
that is, the life of the rolling sea. It is a life of infinite
variety, and very little observed, as literature assures us.
On the other hand, Mrs. Mostyn was also seeing life of a
form which ashore has infinite variety also, and very much
observed indeed, as books, and especially novels, tell us.
I refer to that side of life of which, on board the
Dealman, Benson was the exponent; a microscopic or-
ganism in a mighty universe of waters, but, I regret to say,
representing hundreds and thousands of like organisms
scattered all over the globe.

To figure this thing in a straw or soft hat, alpaca
jacket, or city and suburban coat, possessed by a passion
that was devouring his character and transforming it by
the ordinary intellectual digestive processes into a con-
dition that, when society discovers it, is remorselessly
shunned, when the law discovers it, is piteously punished,
seems ludicrous. But the spectacle is funny to those only
who are not concerned. The boys found sport and the
frogs death in the stones. If I laugh at Montague
Benson, it is not because I entirely despise him, but
because I find in the stricken wretch a quality of tragic
pathos which comes very close to my sense of humour.

There can, indeed, be no darker luck for a man than
to be the victim of a diseased and hopeless passion.

The ship had not long felt the weight of the south-
east trade wind in her canvas, with the large swell

282

IN HIS WATCH ON DECK 283

and the cataractal roar of foam day and night at her
weather bow, and the wide white sheet of the lee spume
seething aft, by day in sun-touched glory, by night in star-
coloured faintness, when Phyllis grew sensible of a change
in Mr. Benson. He seemed to her to have shrunk into
himself as you close the tubes of a telescope, as the snail
withdraws into its shell. Heretofore he had proved him-
self a garrulous man, fluent on most subjects, chiefly on
those he did not understand, as witness his syllogism en
space. He had come aboard a lover of the monosyllable,
but had enlarged his vocabulary as the ship progressed,
employed words which astonished Dipp, and his voice, of
all at that cabin table, was the most often to be heard.

But suddenly a silence of reserve fell upon him ; it was
as though he had dreamt a tremendous dream, to which
his whole soul gave credence, but of which his common
sense and his dread of ridicule arrested the relation.

It is strange that God, who made man the stronger
mentally and physically, should suffer woman to subdue
his nature and spirit, by the inspiration of her beauty, to
the complexion of a character which neither the shape of
his head nor his early rearing and experiences in life's
struggles in manhood warrant. The very last man in our
judgment to be subject to impressions and influences
which all know are as fleeting as the life of the rose, as
the lively tints of the sunset, often proves the first to
succumb, and we detect his delinquency with astonishment.
Benson, you would have said, was one of these very last
men : level-headed ; strictly Bensonian ; a business man,
whose philosophy was utility ; a man of figures, who
never made two and two five ; perfectly well enough
acquainted with human nature to know that he was
making an ass of himself, and that he must be undone,
wrecked, defamed, obliterated from the social page if he
persevered.

284 OVERDUE

Of course Phyllis was the first to witness the change
in the man, and her penetration and sagacity, as the
woman that was wanted, enabled her quite easily to
assign that change to the right cause.

But she could not own to her husband a truth which
she hated to admit to herself; she could not have said to
him, "The reason of that man's change from talk into
reserve, from intrusion into retirement, is because his
hateful and disgusting love for me has wrought a trans-
formation in his nature." How could she say this even
to her husband ? Could she adduce any evidence that
Benson was dangerously in love with her ? Might not
such a confession alarm her husband's mind with a
suspicion of hysteria, since his own senses yielded him
absolutely no testimony to the truth of such an affirma-
tion ?

And how did this alteration in Benson manifest itself?
In fits, apparently, of morose meditation whilst he leaned
over the ship's side or sat at table turning the leaves of a
book which he did not read. In spells of silence at meal-
times. In absent-mindedness, so that, when addressed, he
would start and beg that the question might be repeated.
In studious withdrawals from the company of the husband
and wife. To which may be added a sullen indifference
and insensibility to Mr. Dipp's conversation.

Certainly love, whether holy or unholy, works variously
and often strangely in men. One it makes shy, another
bold, a third poetical. It forces the sloven to wash him-
self and put on a clean shirt, the sluggard to rise betimes ;
it affects the health, and through the physical structure
modifies the moral nature. It will slip a murderous heart,
inscribed with the word jealousy, into the gentle bosom
of the bland. It will make actors and actresses of men
and women, more especially of women, and I have seen a
romping, laughing girl suddenly rush to a chair and sit

IN HIS WATCH ON DECK 285

demure. Why ? Because the sweetheart, the man to be
married, has knocked at the hall door. The student will
not wish me to refer him to Burton's "Anatomy of Melan-
choly11 for many chapters of large statements on this
subject, nor is it a book that one would like to see one's
daughters reading;.

The ship was still in the full thunder of the south-east
trade wind, roaring towards her destination, when Mr.
Dipp, seeing the captain walking alone to and fro in the
port alley- way, joined him, and they strolled together.

" This is good work, sir. In three weeks I shall be
busy groping.11

" She does very well," answered Mostyn. " When I
saw her in dock I did not dream she had these heels.11

" But you don't spare her."

" I never spare a ship ; I carry on to cracking-point,
and I never make a foul wind. What's the good of
jamming a ship into a luff that backs half her upper
canvas and gives you three or four points leeway ? Full
and bye ! no matter though the wind be dead ahead of
the course. The long-leg points off, and the short-leg
points off, will, in a day's reckoning, put your ship in a
position which will leave the wind-jammer topsail down
astern, though both ships be equal in sailing qualities."

"Well, sir, I think a ship's like a 'orse. Every one
'as its own character. A coachman told me that if a
'orse once gets the bit 'twixt its teeth and bolts, it'll do
it again fust chance it gets. I'm not the sailor you are,
capt'n, but I'm not for letting the ship get the bit betwixt
her teeth by letting her go when a taut luff will keep her
close to her course."

" I never quarrel with a man for holding an opinion,"
said Mostyn. " Why shouldn't your opinion be as good
as mine ? Even if wrong it mav contain a grain of
truth, and is, therefore, valuable to that extent. Whereas,

2SG OVERDUE

if I closed your mouth or declined to hear you, I might
miss something that would be good for me to know.11

" If every man thought like you, sir, there'd be few
squabbles in this "'ere world of popes, parsons, lawyers, and
old women. Don't you think Mr. Benson's growing a bit
sick of this voyage ? "

" He seems to have fallen a little dull. He misses the
city ; he can't get Cornhill out of this," said Mostyn, with
a glance at the horizon.

" He don't seem to have any arguments left," said Mr.
Dipp, "and pays no attention when I speak to him. If
he were married, I would say he was pining for England,
'ome, and beauty."

"The very last man to pine for anything,11 said the
captain.

The diver darted an askant look at him. It was as
impressive in significance as one of Prince's glances at
Benson.

" No man," continued Mostyn, whose fatuity I should
lament in a landsman, though I smile at it as traditionally
consistent in a sailor, " is able to pine whose opinions are
those of Benson. His mind, as a piece of reading, is about
as lively as ' Fenn on the Funds.' I should say he is a
man to sit unmoved in a theatre when, to use the words
of the newspapers, strong men are weeping. He is not a
bad sort in his way. He was kind to allow my wife to
remain on board ; he has been very polite and obliging to
me, and uniformly courteous to Mrs. Mostyn. He is not
a sailor, and has little to talk about outside his vocation.
We have been long enough cooped up together to travel
over one another's minds, and if he finds nothing more to
say I don't wonder."

Mr. Dipp did not look as though he were much
interested in Mostyn's opinion of Benson. He wore the
face of a man who listens to something which he either

IN HIS WATCH ON DECK 2S7

differs from or does not understand. But a sight was
coming along that was to change the current of their
talk. It was a large, full-rigged ship on the lee bow,
topping the rim of the ocean with so bright a surface of
canvas that you Avould have thought the Dealman was
heaving a snow-covered mountain into sight. The con-
trast between that glittering frost-like heap and the
sapphire of the surge of the trade trending in plume-clad
procession north-west, and the azure of the sky up which
and down which the familiar cloud of the commercial wind
was sailing in the homeless way of driven vapour, provided
an ocean picture that was too good for Dipp and Mostyn
merely, even for Mr. Matthew Walker, who was mate of
the watch, and so Phyllis must be called.

Mostyn stepped into the cabin. Benson sat at the
table writing in a diary.

" Here's more colour for your notes, Mr. Benson, in a
ship that will be abeam soon. She takes me back to the
days of my youth."

"Which way is she going?" inquired Mr. Benson,
listlessly.

" Home to New York or Boston ; steering large, as
the ancient mariner used to say. Stunsails to the royal
yardarms, and a Yankee or Nova Scotiaman to the
very root of the fibre out of which her cotton has been
spun.11

He passed on to his wife's cabin, and Benson con-
tinued to write. There had been a time when he would
have been in a hurry to see, for the dulness of the sea-life
sits upon the spirits, and any break comes as a blessing
and a memory. But his was the dulness that is invincible
by the most royal of sea-shows, and he kept his seat and
table and went on writing.

Phyllis was lying in her bunk reading.

" What is it, Charlie ? "

283 OVERDUE

"There will be a big American ship passing U3
shortly."

" Oh, I must see her," she cried, and away went a
volume of Shakespeare, containing Romeo and Juliet, and
she took the deck from her bunk with the easy grace that
owes all to the discipline of the heaving plank ; a grace
denied to ladies and gentlemen who abhor salt water and
pay high prices for cabins in fleet steamers, which every
passage break their own record by minutes and sometimes
by hours.

It was the early summer of the south, but let the
thermometer stand as it will, when the breeze is a fresh
wind with anything of the east in it, it will be cool, and
presently uncomfortably cool, on deck, and so Phyllis put
on her jacket and crowned her pretty head of hair with a
sailor hat, which she secured by long pins ; no longer to
her husband's secret diversion, for he was now accustomed
to seeing a lady dress. When they went out of the berth
Benson was still writing in the cabin.

"Have you heard the news of an approaching ship,
Mr. Benson ? " said Phyllis.

" Yes," he ansAvered, " I shall hope to make one of
your party in a minute or two ; " and he bowed his black
head and tallowy brow and ebony whisker over his diary
and went on writing.

" Dipp and I have just been talking about him," said
Mostyn, as they passed through the cabin door ; " he's
evidently sick of the voyage, misses his club, his lunch
in the city, the congenial companionship of average
adjusters."

Phyllis made no answer, and they ascended the steps
to the deck-house top.

Dipp joined them.

"Ain't Mr. Benson willin1 to view this sight?" he
exclaimed, with a greasy chuckle and a glance at Phyllis

IN HIS WATCH ON DECK 289

which struck her as a dim revelation of the man's perception
of the truth as she knew it ; vague because, perhaps, the
transmission was dulled by rum, or by that sort of liquid
film with which the habit of rum overspreads the human eye.
Nevertheless, by that glance she intuitively grasped the
surprising fact that this plain, homely, illiterate, good-
humoured, and rather drunken diver was master of Mr.
Benson's secret.

She felt the blood in her cheek, and turned her head
away.

" Who," continued the diver, " is to explain the beauties
of this show, if it ain't the gentleman whose knowledge of
perlitical heconomy is able to make plain that what yer
can see don't exist ? "

He screwed his eye up at the heavens.

It was evidently not Mr. Benson's intention to serve
as showman. It is true he quitted the cabin, but went no
further than the lee bulwarks, over which he could be seen
taking a view of the passing ship.

A tall Yankee clipper rending with knife-sharp fore-
foot the brine that lifts its salt- white thunder to the round
ears of the hawse-pipes : urged by a power as Titanic as
steam, but beautiful, romantic, graceful, as steam is not,
by merit of snow-white canvas shouting in triumph with
the spirit of a force that is viewless though clamorous in
each strained, violet-shadowed, marble heart, whose clews
arch in pinions with the loveliness of the curve of the sea-
gull's wing to the yardarms ; a long, black shape of hull,
flinging to the foaming swirl alongside the wet glories it
catches from the stroke of the sun ; the whole with that
human look of yearning which a full-rigged ship will
somehow take when she is homeward bound, interpre table
in the impassioned tension, that seems like soaring, of the
three full-breasted heights which compel her, of the jibs
and the staysails and the studding sails from the swinging

u

290 OVERDUE

boom to the royal yardarm, with skysails floating
like moons under each golden ball of truck, as though
this sentient goddess of the sea, this noble and fault-
less miracle of man's handiwork, was for ever seeking to
catch a glimpse of the well-loved home that lies beyond
the sterile line ahead. I would ask you, lady, you, who in
spirit stand behind my heroine as she gazes, would you
admire such a picture as this ? Would it appeal to you
with the irresistible eloquence of a richly dressed draper's
window ? Would you see in it only a very little of what
it really means — centuries of thought, of calamity, of ex-
perience, of wisdom gained by high-hearted audacity ? Is
that ship sweeter than the last new thing in hats? Is
there aught in the sea-life that you, as an English woman,
with salt in the blood that blushes in your charming face,
would give a snap of your white thumb and forefinger for
in such a sea-piece as this ?

For whom, then, is this fragment of ill-coloured
canvas intended ? Is the sea interesting to boys only ?
and shall her wrath in tempest, and shall her splendours
in sunset, and shall her divine revelations in sunrise, and
shall her innumerable voice singing softly in the ripples of
the summer breeze, and shall that jewelled mantle which
the great unseen Hand draws over her by night to quicken
her tropic slumber into a life of dreams by the mirroring
of the planet or the spacious silver walk of the moon,
and shall the tireless procession of man's genius embodied
in timber and in steel, in canvas and in engine, — shall
these things, do these things, address themselves with the
appeal of their deep central spirit to boys only ?

The flag of the United States stood like a painted
board at her peak ; the red flag of Roast Beef floated at
the mizzen peak of the Dealman. Neither made her
number. The ship thundered past, and the full quarter-
ing gale of the south-east trade wind swept her, and the

IN HIS WATCH ON DECK 291

wash of her wake fell with the foam of a mountain
cataract from her counter.

" That's what I call a 'andsome vessel, Mr. Benson,"
shouted Dipp down to the alley-way.

Benson turned his head, looked up and nodded, and
then re-entered the cabin.

"The Yanks build well when they do build," said
Mostyn. "They've been always the first to try in ship-
building. It put us to our trumps to sweep their China
clippers off the sea ; they gave us the divided topsail.
Best of all, they gave us the sailors'' working song, the
windlass chanty, the sea ballad for the brace or bowline."

"D'ye mean to say," said Mr. Dipp, "that English
merchant sailors sang no songs when they got their
anchors or hoisted their topsails afore the Yankees
taught them how and what to sing ? "

" I do mean to say that most emphatically," answered
Mostyn. " There may be sea chanties of English birth
since the earliest of the American — not many, I guess — but
the best are Yankee, the most melodious are Yankee, and
you may read in sea-books in vain for a hint of a
working song in the British merchant service prior to the
growth of American shipping."

" Well, sir, you're a scholar, and of course know what
you're talking about."

" Why is that ship's canvas so much whiter than
ours ? " said Phyllis.

" Because it's made of cotton duck," answered the
diver, whilst Phyllis still strained a gaze of enthusiastic
admiration at the receding ship, which, as she diminished
her proportions, slowly brightened out to the sunbeam
until she glowed upon the sea like a burnished silver
ball. " I know something about that canvas," continued
Mr. Dipp. "Down to about heighteen thirty-six
American sail-cloth was made of Russian or Holland flax.

292 OVERDUE

Then they tried their 'ands at cotton, which answered so
nicely that every American ship took to it. Of course we
copied them, or tried to, but gave up the experiment,
and improved the quality of our flax canvas instead.""

" What merit has cotton beyond flax ? " asked Mostyn.

"Flax stretches, gets what they call limpsey^ though
it looks nice in the piece or when the sail's new. Cotton
don't expand ; it keeps its shape ; and I don't doubt
myself it's the best of all stuffs for sail-making, bar
paper, which may some day come in.11

Phyllis, who had turned her head to attend to Mr.
Dipp, suddenly uttered an exclamation whilst looking
aloft at the sails of the Dealman.

"Do you see that shadow round the sun, Charlie?11

Mostyn looked ; Dipp looked ; neither could see it,
nor when Phyllis again upturned her sweet eyes was
it visible to her. But the interposition of the corner of
sail that, when she saw the shadow, had screened the sun
from her eyes, again eclipsed him to her, an d the shadow
stole out, a vast visionary purple disc, dome-like in
aspect, in the midst of which the sun was hanging with
the look he wears when he flames upon the forehead of
the approaching storm.

"You must protect your eyes from the sun to see,11
said Phyllis ; and then her companions immediately
witnessed the phenomenon.

" It's not a storm ring, though it may portend storm,11
said Mostyn. " I never saw anything like it before.11

Its diameter was about twenty degrees, and it was
fringed with a very delicate light of rainbow, which
seemed to indicate that it was dew or moisture held in
suspension ; an isolated, immense atmosphere, saturated but
tearless till the night fell, going with the sun as he
moved, of a dimness not so dense but that you might see
the trade cloud flying through it.

IN HIS WATCH ON DECK 293

Mostyn put his head into the skylight. Mr. Benson
was not to be seen. The captain shouted his name, and
a faint hallo proceeded from Benson's berth. The
chartered accountant came out and stood under the
open skylight.

" Anything wrong ? " he cried, looking unusually ebony
by the projection of whisker and recession of brow as he
turned up his face.

"A sign has been hung up in the heavens that you
might like to see," said the captain ; " perhaps you may
be able to explain the meaning of it. My wife was the
first to see it."

He stepped from the skylight, and at Phyllis's side
gazed again at the phenomenon.

The sails of the ship interposed, and the whole circle
was not therefore to be compassed by the eye; but at
least two-thirds of the shadow was clearly defined when
the sight was shuttered from the sun, and it was easily
guessed that the whole mysterious shadowy surface with
its ring of rainbow would be apparent from aloft or from
some place where nothing intervened between it and the
beholder.

Mr. Benson arrived. He was taught how to look, and
of course he had an explanation.

"To judge by the light," said he, "I should say it
was a partial eclipse of the sun, and what you see is
a visual deception as space is to those who can't think."

" But don't you see the rainbow that defines the ring,
Mr. Benson ? " asked Phyllis.

" I see a circle of tints," he answered. " But why is it
that the shadow goes when you look at the sun ? "

" Why is it that you can't see the wood for the trees,
Mr. Benson ?" exclaimed Captain Mostyn, laughing at him.

"It's a hatmosphere of dampness hung up," said the
diver; "it'll fall in dew when the sun's gone."

£94 OVERDUE

"Why should everything manifest itself in circles ?"
asked Phyllis. " The horizon, the sun and the stars, the
flight of the world and of other worlds, the rainbow
which is part of a circle, and which I suppose would
show itself as a perfect circle if the rain were so shone
upon as to reflect it — the whole universe, indeed, seems
based on circles."

" Time's a circle," said the diver ; " look at the clock ! "

"You may carry your idea further, Phyl," said
Mostyn. " Human life is a circle. We begin bald and
end bald, and our march is through the seasons of our
growth. Vegetation is a circle, and the tree and the
flower, like human life, go the rounds.1'

"Mr. Dipp," said Mr. Benson, "you just now referred
to time ; may I venture to inform you that there is no
such thing as time.'"

He spoke in the old plausible self-gratulory, somewhat
condescending way. He was Benson himself again for
the moment, and the subject of metaphysics was strong
in as much as you could see of his face.

" Git out, Mr. Benson ! * exclaimed the diver. " You'd
know whether there was time or not if the dinner-hour
didn't come round."

" I can assure you, Mr. Dipp," continued Benson, avoid-
ing Mrs. Mostyn's gaze with that sort of neglect which
directly addresses the listener it shuns, so subtle are the
workings of human manners, " there is no such thing as
time. Arrest the revolutions of the sun, the moon, and
the earth, and time ceases. We employ the clock merely
to mark the passage of these celestial orbs. Time is no
condition of their revolutions. If the sun and earth
stopped it would be all day or all night with us, and
presuming human life to continue, there would be no
time for it to take account of. We should be born, grow,
decay, and die without a birthday, because the growth of

IN HIS WATCH ON DECK 295

our bodies does not depend upon time, but upon life,
which is quite another thing."

" I am wholly of your opinion," said Captain Mostyn.

" Well," said Mr. Dipp, looking puzzled, " I'm willing
to allow that the sun makes time."

" And if the sun stops, time stops," said Mostyn,
laughing.

" So, Mr. Benson, you extinguish eternity, which means
endless time, as you have extinguished space," exclaimed
Phyllis.

He slightly glanced at her, and with that glance he
bestowed upon her one of his smiles, then went away.

The gigantic circular shadow was still hung up high
in the heavens, and you could see it very plainly with
its margin of coloured lights if you protected your eyes
from the sun. There was something very solemn in its
apparently motionless stare when contrasted with the
giddv flight of the trade cloud, strenuously trailing north-
west like driven sheep.

" Til send a note of that to the Meteorological
Society," said Mostyn. " They'll work it up after the
manner of the scientific gentleman in ' Pickwick.' But
there it is," said he, steadfastly regarding it ; " and whether
it spells local or widespread, whether it means storm or
dew only, we must wait, Phyl, to find out."

So saying, he stepped into the cabin to look at the
barometer. A fall : to which significance would be im-
parted to the experienced eye by the concavity of the
surface of the mercury. Benson came out of his berth
whilst Mostyn was inspecting the glass.

" Do you find bad weather in that ring ? " he asked.

" There is a fall."

Benson looked at the mercury.

"Is any faith to be placed in readings of the baro-
meter ? " asked the City man.

296 OVERDUE

" I have met men able to smell weather coming along,
and see weather twenty-four hours ahead, and feel weather
when all has been as fine as a lady's yachting day. But I,
who have no talent of bone, or nose, or eye, stick to that
discovery," said Mostyn, with a jerk of his head at the
glass.

" How long do you give us now ? "
" Three weeks.'1

Benson silently computed, and said —
" That works out to Christmas Day.'"
" Just so, Mr. Benson ; and we have tinned plum
puddings on board.-"

" Well,11 said Mr. Benson, with a slight shrug, " it will
be cheaper than steam were it a year."
" You find the voyage tedious.1'

The other looked hard at him with those eyes of his,
which were ever on the alert to slide aside from the
object they reposed on, and answered, after a moment's
reflection —

" It would be unchivalrous to admit it."
" I told you at the start you would find little to
amuse you, but I think we've managed very well. I've
little fault to find with my crew, though if Staten Island
were a port I should be glad if some of them would run."
" We shall start diving at once, I presume ? "
" Without an hour's delay, unless it should be
Christmas Day, which will find an excuse," Mostyn said,
with an unconscious note of sarcasm in his voice as he
looked at Benson, " to offer thanks to God for watching
over us."

Which, as the reader will see, signified that Divine
service was not held on Sundays aboard the Dealman,
though Phyllis found an altar in her bunk, and her Bible
and prayer-book were on her chest of drawers.

" We are especially watched over, I suppose," said

IN HIS WATCH ON DECK 297

Benson, ironically, " that you should think it necessary
to return thanks ? "

" I believe in God,'1 said Mostyn ; " and I do not con-
sider myself superior to Nelson, and to crowds of great
sailors and soldiers and others, who never omitted to
entreat and then to thank."

" I shall be glad,"" said Mr. Benson, " when the gold's
in the hold, and we are sailing north."

" Pray for it,1' said Mostyn, lightly, and went into his
berth.

That niffht in the middle watch, which runs from

*o

midnight till four, it was blowing a strong wind, and
when the captain had left the deck at eleven o'clock the
ship was shooting through a high sea under single-reefed
topsails and main top-gallant sail. When at one o'clock
Mostyn turned out to take a view of the state of the
ship and the weather he concluded that things were as he
had left them, as the mate had received his instructions
to call him if a change happened. The ship was filled
with noise. Everything complained of the high sea in
its own voice. The lamps swung dimly in the cabin, and
when Mostyn stepped out of his berth he saw the figure
of a man seated on the coaming or piece of wood which
it is customary to affix in doorways or around hatches to
stop the inrush of water. The figure filled the little
doorway, and the captain did not need to peer hard to
discern that it was Mr. Mill the mate.

Sleeping in your watch is the most unpardonable of
offences at sea, and Mill was not only asleep but con-
temptuously asserting himself as a sleeper by a strong
gushing snore which was a distinct strain of sound in
the night's chaos of clamour.

The captain struck the man heavily on the shoulder.
He started to his feet in a plunging way, and a heavy lee
lurch flung him as though he had been hit over the head.

298 OVERDUE

Mostyn guessed he was drunk. Mill got up and picked
up his cap, and Mostyn saw he was not drunk.

"Are you in the habit of sleeping in your watch, sir?"
shouted the captain, letting himself go in a sudden tempest
of wrath, excited not more by the enormity of the crime
than by the uniformly sullen boorish deportment of the
man.

" I was not asleep," answered the mate.
" You're a liar. I heard you snoring. Do sailors of
your experience fall down when a ship rolls ?"

" I'm not here to be called liar,11 exclaimed Mill, in a
growling voice more dangerous perhaps than Mostyn's
impassioned note. " You don't call me liar twice."

" If you say you were not sleeping in your watch, 111
call you liar twenty thousand times over," roared Mostyn.
" You cuckoo ! "

His hands were clenched and he waited the onslaught,
well assured how it would fare with the other, whose
temper did not blind his foresight ; so Mill stood still, a
square shadow with a glimmering face swaying with the
heave.

" You're a precious specimen of an officer for men to
serve under," said Mostyn, taking a step or two forward,
and speeding his gaze over the hooting fabric on high, and
at the dim white fangs of the headlong crests storming
the ship a point before the beam.

"Tve got the rheumatics and sat down one minute,"
said the mate, in his surliest way.

" You were sleeping in your watch, sir, and if you
deny it again you are a liar."

The mate was silent. A few men catching the loud
voices of a quarrel came in shadow to the main hatch to
enjoy the row. I cannot imagine any sort of entertain-
ment more beloved by Jack Muck than a shindy and
strong words between captain and mate. He sucks in

IN HIS WATCH ON DECK 299

every syllable as though the oath was pure melody, and
the wilder the language the sweeter the tune.

Foam flings a light into the midnight wind, and the
captain saw these men, whose presence helped him to a
resolution. He walked right aft and posted himself
beside the man at the wheel, and after asking one or two
questions which he could not put to the mate as matters
stood, he watched his ship in silence. She had no more
sail than she could bear, but she wanted no more. She
was racing through it with the speed of steam, and many
an ocean screw tramp would have been dropped hopelessly
astern by her. She took the dark slants of the sea with
her weather bow and burst them, and you heard them
seething like a blowing safety-valve. It was still the
trade wind, though nearly half a gale. The flight of the
faint white clouds under the stars, which glowed clearly
and in several dyes, flung a new spirit of speed into this
rushing night scene, and at no moment in her various
postures did the ship report her eleven knots more
decisively than when, having spurned the weather surge
into an acre of yeast, she leaned to the lifting fold of
water alongside, bringing the soft, faint, rushing smother
within a hand's reach of the lee top-gallant rail, where you
saw the foam blown in snow-storms out of the heart of
the creaming yeast by the hollow guns and shrieking
squalls sweeping from the concavity of the mainsail under
its iron-taut curve.

A man, no matter what be his state of mind, will
often find his passing passion teased by a tune, or
threaded by a jingle of rhyme. Mostyn, without heeding
the words, mentally muttered —

** But we woggled on like a bale of hay,

And we Bet our teeth, and we pumped with groana :
And when we got to Boston Bay,
Our arms were stretched to our ankle bones.

300 OVERDUE

Hands were the size of Lincoln hams,
Eyes bulged out like the horns of rams,
We humped like monkeys bound for war,
And every man had a raw, red paw.

Ker-daw, Ker-day !
And we beached the tub — and then we saw-

The sweep of the wind was so full of wet you would
have said it rained. Glass, brass-work, all that reflected,
winked in dim sparkles with the rolling of the ship, and
the decks were dark with moisture. Was this in justifica-
tion of Mr. Dipp's theory of dew in relation to the great
circle of shadow that had been observed. It mattered
not. Mostyn had other fish to fry. A still small voice
inwardly sang a song whilst in a mood of wrath he
turned the question of the mate and the situation
generally over in his mind.

Saving Mostyn, Mill was the only navigator aboard
the ship. If Swanson had survived, poor as he was as a
creature, Mostyn, for such an offence as sleeping in his
watch, would have made nothing of breaking the mate and
sending him forward. But suppose the captain of the
ship fell ill, who was to navigate her? The dislike he
had long nursed towards the mate, which Mill had
exerted his talent of moroseness and let-me-a-loneness to
heighten and inflame, was now in a blaze, and he felt
that he could give his hand if Matthew Walker would
but step on deck charged with Node's Epitome from brow
to heel. He had noticed that the mate never said
" sir " once. Nor is it possible in cold type to express
the consumingly irritating manner and tone of the man
after he had got up.

But Phyllis was aboard and the ship was to be left as
safe as he could keep her.

He watched the ship until three in the morning,
giving orders in that time for the reef to be shaken out of

IN HIS WATCH ON DECK 301

the upper main-topsail, and when he went below he said
stormily to Mill —

" I would recommend you to keep awake, and you may
out reef in the fore-topsail, and set the fgallant sail, and
make sail if the weather moderates, and hand my orders
on to Mr. Walker."

At half-past eight that morning all the cabin people

were at breakfast. The weather had moderated into a

royal breeze, and the ship was streaming through it under

all plain sail. Mr. Mill's watch on deck had again come

round, for in the merchant service in sailing-ships it is

watch and watch with the mates, four hours off and four

hours on, and the lady who may be reading these lines

will exclaim, "And Captain Mostyn expected poor Mr.

Mill to keep awake ! " Yes, madam ; for supposing you

had been a passenger on board the Dealman, would you

have found solace amid that riot of sea, straining timber,

hooting canvas, and shattering surge, in the knowledge

that the officer in charge of the vessel was sound asleep in

the cabin door? "Why not then give the mates, who

should be three or four, eight hours off and four on ? "

It should be so; but the British shipowner, if mates

should ask him for an opportunity when at sea to obtain

the rest that is essential not only to lead, light, and lookout,

but to health, will answer that he can lay his hand upon

foreigners who would be glad to stop awake all night for

smaller wages than the Britishers ask, and so it stands.

The cabin wore a yacht-like colour with its white
damask table-cloth, breakfast crockery, the lights of the
morning and the nosegay presence of Phyllis, to whom the
sea had imparted its beauties ; to her eyes the liquid
lustre of its dark blue surface; to her cheek the delicate
faint pink of its early sunrise ; to her face the vivacity
of its frolicsome life; and to her smile and laugh the
spirit of its belted freedom.

302 OVERDUE

" A very unpleasant incident happened this morning,
Mr. Benson," said the captain, when breakfast was nearly
over, and Prince had gone forward.

" What was it ? " And Benson looked grave, as most
people at sea do when unpleasant incidents occur.

" I found Mr. Mill fast asleep in his watch, and it
was heavy weather."

" In the Navy," said Mr. Dipp, after a pause, " he'd
be court-martialed and dismissed his ship, and serve him
right. Asleep ! with men's lives and a ship's value in
his 'ands ! "

" What do you mean to do ? " asked Benson.

" I've officially logged him."

" You couldn't have done less," said Mr. Dipp.

" I like this man so little," said the captain, " that in
the interest of the insurers I should be glad to get rid of
him. What do you say, Mr. Benson, if we touch at the
Falkland Islands ? We might find a man there.1'

" I don't think deviation desirable," answered Mr.
Benson, " particularly as you might not find a man."

"But the law," exclaimed Mostyn, "does not hold us
seaworthy as we stand."

" How's that ? " inquired Benson.

" This ship is above one hundred tons, and she has
only one mate."

" What do you call Mr. Walker ? " asked Benson.

" He's not certificated," was the answer, " and by his
own admission he's utterly ignorant of navigation."

" The ship is safe enough with Mill as Only Mate,"
said Benson.

" But he's not an Only Mate," replied the captain,
exchanging a glance with Phyllis. Mr. Benson's advocacy
of Mill was surprising him.

" You have officially logged him," said Mr. Benson,
" and of course know that your official entry means that

IN HIS WATCH ON DECK 303

you Intend to prosecute him, or enforce a forfeiture, or
exact a fine, and as there is no court of law at Staten
Island, and no British Consul, he must be carried 1101116.'"

" But who's going to turn in comfortable with a mate
on duty that falls asleep ? " said Mr. Dipp. <

" It has not occurred before," said Benson.

" I don't know about that," whipped in Mostyn.

" But in any case," continued Mr. Benson, " we don't
want to delay the voyage by deviation when we have at
least two skilful navigators on board in you and the
mate."

"If disaster happens," said Mostyn, "will the insurers
hold this ship seaworthy with one mate on board only ? "

"Yes."

"I doubt it," said Dipp.

"I am perhaps better acquainted with the law than
you, sir," said Benson, with some expansion of manner,
and a large patronizing expression of face. " We are on
a voyage to Staten Island. We lose our second mate by
misadventure. It is impossible to replace him at our
destination, and deviation is undesirable as the occasion
cannot be shown as urgent. What is there in this to
vitiate a policy ? It has happened hundreds of times
over. Do you see my point, Mrs. Mostyn ? " he added,
unbending, and smiling at her.

" I see your point," she answered ; " but my husband
is a sailor who understands his business, and if he hasn't
confidence in his mate how can he trust him ? And if he
can't trust him, he must do his Avork as well as his own,
which is much too much for one man, and in that sense
your ship is unseaworthy."

It was Portia reasoning with Shy lock. Mr. Dipp
rolled out a few greasy chuckles. Mr. Benson modestly
bent his gaze upon the table-cloth. He was not the man
to trust himself to look at the young wife when admiration

<M OVERDUE

in him was impassioned beyond all power by suppression
in the eye whilst Captain Mostyn sat hard by.

" You reason cleverly," said he, " but I think you
strain the point. Have I your permission, captain, to speak
"seriously to Mr. Mill on the subject of his watch-keeping ? "

"You may say whatever you like to him,11 answered
Mostyn, with ill-disguised contempt and impatience.
" But if I choose to foresee trouble with that man as the
mate of my ship, then, if that trouble comes, may I take
it on your written assurance that my employers will hold
me irresponsible ? "

" So far as the conduct of the mate goes, certainly,
and if you will grant me three minutes you shall have the
written assurance you require, witnessed by Mr. Dipp.
Will you follow me ? " said he to the diver ; and they
both went into Benson's cabin.

" He pleads for Mill as if he liked him,11 said Phyllis.

" The fellow made me feel as mad as a soused cock,11
said Mostyn, " when I found him snorting on that coaming
there. We nearly came to blows.11

"He will hate you for putting him in the log-book,11
said Phyllis, with an anxious look in her face.

" Let him ! Oderint du?n metuant was Nero's saying.
Benson's quittance will be all I want.11

"I wish we were as near home as we are to Staten
Island,11 said Phyllis.

" It's all right, my honey-bird. Fll look after the ship.
Mill shan't catch me nodding.11

They sat in conversation until Benson and Dipp came
out, and Benson handed to Captain Mostyn a sheet of
writing attested by Dipp which ran thus: —

"December, 189 — Ship Dealman at sea.
" In consequence of the loss of the second mate
Mr. Swanson by death through misadventure, I, the

IN HIS WATCH ON DECK 305

undersigned, representing the interests of the Ocean
Alliance Insurance Company, hereby accept all responsi-
bility for prosecuting the voyage with Mr. James Mill,
chief mate, as only mate, holding that the interests of all
the parties concerned in the issue of this voyage will be
best promoted by the mate's retention and by the recogni-
tion of the impossibility of obtaining the services of an
uncertificated second mate without considei*able deviation,
which might jeopardize the object of this voyage.

" MoXTAGUE BEXSOX.

" Witness, Stephex Dipp."

Mostvn read this precious document in silence.
" I am satisfied," said he.

X

CHAPTER XVI

STATEN ISLAND

The people aboard the JDealman spent their Christmas
Day at sea, in spite of Captain MostyiVs expectations.
But disappointment was not to be greatly reckoned with,
since the skipper's computations promised that the bold,
iron-bound, snow-crested land of Staten should be reposing
in shadow next morning on the horizon ahead.

Christmas Day at sea, celebrated in the midsummer
day of the south ! Those who have stood shadowless
under the sun on Christmas Day have found turkey, roast
beef, and plum pudding conditions of festivities hard to
realize, harder perhaps to digest. But the Dealman had
penetrated far south, and the parallel under her forefoot
was nearly that of the Horn ; the weather was cool if not
cold, cool enough to render a tinned plum pudding and
brandied sauce seasonable. It was cool enough, also, to
improve the graces of Mrs. Mostyn, when on deck, by a
jacket trimmed with fur, and a fascinating turban hat
trimmed with fur to match. Never, during the outward
passage, had she looked so winning, had her eyes glowed
with a brighter spiritual light, had her cheek blushed with
a more perfect indication of health. Benson was irre-
coverably lost and damned. She was the most beautiful
woman in the world. Carefully and skilfully as he had
dissembled his passion from Mostyn, in whom a natural
jealousy would make scrutiny a dangerous weapon to Ben-
son, he had not, so far, triumphed in his masquerade of

306

STATEN ISLAND 307

impassive chartered accountant as to blind the captain's
eyes to the circumstance that the man's admiration for
Mrs. Mostyn was decidedly stronger than was proper.

At last ! and Phyllis had smiled when her Charlie had
one day said to her —

" Upon my word, Phyl, I believe you're right. Ben-
son's admiration is distinctly ahead of the average Grundy
sentiment. I believe he's as much in love with you as he
dare be. But what can I do ? What can you do ?
What can he do ? He can't help himself, and, like
poverty, helplessness is no crime. Let him stand well
clear of you so that he shall never empower you to report
something to me — which of course you would" — he
paused, viewing her with a strange gaze of command and
tenderness — " something," he went on, " that must oblige
me to take him by the nose."

She had answered, " Now that you have judged for
yourself, I am satisfied. His society is extremely disagree-
able to me. But he is to be endured, I suppose. I have
supported the animal's veiled attentions for nearly two
months, and must hope to survive another two or three
months of it."

This Christmas Day was made memorable, not by the
forecastle good cheer of canned meat and plum-duff, into
which the sailors drove their sheath knives, nor by the
conversation or behaviour of the people in the cabin —
indeed, Benson, at table, was unusually quiet, and Mostyn
was thinking too much about the entrance to Port Parry
to talk, and most of the conversation that passed was
between Phyllis and the diver ; I say this day would not
have been rememberable but for a little incident, but for
one of those mysterious etchings which the mariner some-
times falls in with as his ship's keel turns the pages of
that mighty folio, the ocean.

It was in the afternoon, and a pleasant afternoon ; the

308 OVERDUE

breeze was right aft, and the canvas breathed like a
sleeper's breast as the vessel bowed the swell. The eternal
sea girdle was flawless, save that here and there some
jutting peak of cloud relieved the eye from the stress and
strain of endless continuity.

Suddenly a man on the forecastle-head sang out —

" There's a raft, with something on it, close under the
starboard bow."

All rushed to the side to look, amongst them Phyllis.
It was a large raft, made up of a ship's spare booms, and
whatever else in the shape of battens, deals, and the like
which sailors, toiling for their lives in the terror and
hurry of some deadly disaster, would make compact, and
launch. And on it was — what ? The dead body of a
little baby — that and nothing more ! — secured by turn
upon turn of line.

The raft passed so close that the infant lineaments
were easily discernible, and Phyllis shrank. It might
have been washing about for a week. Unless the survivor
reaches home and tells the story, who shall solve the riddles
of the sea, be they tragic or comic, be they as that little
child or a stowaway monkey fallen from a vessel out of
sight and picked up chattering with rage ?

" Oh, how sad ! Vl exclaimed Phyllis, with the full heart
of a woman in her throat.

No need to ask if the child was dead. Death is a
cunning artist, if time be granted, and no man could miss
the meaning of that visage of infantile clay.

" I wonder the sea-birds have not devoured it,"11 ex-
claimed Mr. Benson, contemplating the receding sea-bier
over his folded arms, humped high on his shirt front.
Probably the sentiment he drew from the sight was
utility, and he might have been thinking of guano.

" It's a story easily read, I think," said Mostyn, some-
what pensively. " A captain, his wife, and their baby, and

STATEN ISLAND 309

a few men ; the boats have been stove or made off with.
One by one they are swept off the raft until one only is
left, and there it is."

" A manger's not a raft,11 said Mr. Dipp, " but this is
Christmas Day, and that little "un seems to fit it somehow."

He spoke reverently, for Dipp's was the simple faith
of ancient minds.

Next morning, December 26th, 189-, faithful to the
prognostications of Captain Charles Mostyn, Staten Island
hung in shadow right ahead. " Land ho ! " was the fore-
castle cry, and, from Phyllis in her cabin to the cook in
his galley, all was life, the pulse of excitement which the
presentment of even a shadow of land will put into the
blood of man whose natural element is earth, whether you
call him sailor or tinker, after weeks or months of the
horizon of the sea.

Captain Mostyn was on the deck-house top, scrutinizing
the shadow through a telescope, when Phyllis arrived.

" Is that cloud Staten Island ? " she asked.

" Yes.11

" Good gracious, what a wonderful navigator you must
be to have brought it into sight right on a line with the
bowsprit ! "

"That's a young lady's compliment,11 he answered
gravely, working away with the glass. "D'ye see that
white speck this side the shadow? It's a schooner, and I
dare say a sealer."

" Is the land clear in the telescope ? "

" No ; the haze of the morning is over it. It's about
thirty miles distant." He glanced at the passing water,
pulled out his watch, and added, " We ought to be close
in at two."

The ship was under all plain sail, and the gush of the
breeze had power enough to dart white feathers into the
heads of the little running seas. It was a very fine

310 OVERDUE

morning, spacious with high cloud, and Mostyn considered
himself extremely fortunate in making the land in such
weather. You could see the sailors on the forecastle
staring under the sharp of their hands at the shadow, for
the pink glory of the sunrise somewhat baffled the view if
you looked with unsheltered vision. There was gold in
that island ; they knew how much ; Dipp's men had told
them that long ago. Forty thousand pounds in the Con-
queror steamer, and the significance of opulence beyond
their humble dreams of avarice was in that distant shading
of the sky.

Dipp and Benson joined Mostyn and his wife.

" I beg to congratulate you on your skilful steering of
us,'" said Benson, addressing Mostyn with strenuous effort
of courtesy.

" I am much obliged to you, sir."

"Now my job's going to begin,1' said the diver; and
professional anxiety clouded his face as he looked at the
shadow. " Is that a sail this side of the island ? "

" Yes," answered Mostyn ; " probably a Yankee sealer.
The gains of that trade are growing very small this way.
It's the season of the year when the female seals come
ashore attended by their lords, and the fights are bloodier
than a bull-ring. The Christian fishers have almost ex-
tinguished the poor beggars. They come closer to human
nature than the monkey. Nothing that is animal loves
its young so passionately well as the female seal, and if
you fracture the skull of one you'll find an identical
indent on the skull of its offspring. Which shows a
sympathy that would be wonderful in human beings, and
makes the murder of the seal, to my mind, fiendish
sport."

" But the ladies must have sealskin cloaks and jackets,
captain," said Mr. Benson, who was suddenly resuming
his natural behaviour, though, once having met the

STATEN ISLAND 311

captain's eye after his own had been upon Mrs. Mostyn,
he carefully refrained from even glancing at her.

" That's the north side, of course,1-' said Dipp ; " and
Port Parry will be about amidships of it."

"Yes; I shall heave to and send you in a boat to
sound. It would be stupid to bring up right over the
wreck," said Mostyn.

"Rocks at the entrance are marked down on the
chart,'''' said Mr. Benson.

"Oh, I know, I know. Fm not afraid of them. I
want to moor the ship clear of the wreck in good holding
ground. The sealers warp in and secure theirs fast to
the rocks. If it is hard bottom we may have to do
something of that sort."

" How long is it going to take you, Mr. Dipp ? " said
Mr. Benson.

" Oh, my Gord, Mr. Benson," cried Dipp, in a groan-
ing note, "what a question to put to a man afore he
knows where he is ! Wait till I've found the wreck and
taken a view of her."

Phyllis gazed at him with admiration of the heroic
possibilities his speech conveyed.

People, unless they are gorging Germans, do not
commonly linger over a meal when land is in sight and
a crisis in the voyage has come. All four at breakfast
that morning were visibly excited. Captain Mostyn was
full of Port Parry and its anchorage, Dipp of his business
when his short iron ladder should be slung over the side,
and Phyllis wondered what Staten Island was like, if any
sort of strange flowers blew there, and marvelled at its
immense distance from Woolsborough.

Benson's mood was scarcely conjecturable. Was he
excited ? He represented the interests of the insurers of
the gold, and the proximity of that gold and the un-
certainty that must attend Mr. Dipp's labours should

312 OVERDUE

reasonably fill his mind and create that sort of tension of
nerve which produces the sensation called excitement.
Why is it that some people will unconsciously assert
themselves physiologically, with a distinctness so beyond
their natural front, that you view them, though familiar,
as something fresh ? Dye, by accentuation, might pro-
duce this effect; but dye is artificial. The presentment
I mean is that which a man submits, say, at your break-
fast table, and he shall not look exactly like the same
man who shook you by the hand last night.

This gift of facial assertiveness was Benson's, in whom
it acted unconsciously. He never looked so profoundly
Bensonian, as though a more decisively Benson mask had
been fitted to his countenance, as he did at breakfast this
morning. Phyllis thought so when, from the violet
heaven of her eyes, she plunged into him the lightning
glance of the abrupt storm of disgust and dislike which
swept her, spite of herself, every time she looked at him.

"I notice that Mr. Mill don't seem much helated by
the sight of land," said Dipp, in the course of the talk at
table.

" A surly dog ! On board a vessel like this,11 said
Mostyn, " when there is harmony aft, a captain unbends
and exchanges congratulations with his chief officer.
Would to God he were out of the shipj!11 The steward
was not in attendance when this was said. The captain
turned to his wife. " There'll be no theatres for you,
Phyl, not even a church or that old Joe Miller sign of
civilization, a gibbet. You must catch fish for breakfast
and dinner. I'll bait your hooks.11

" I would rather watch Mr. Dipp diving than hear the
best opera company in Europe,11 said Phyllis, sweetly
smiling at Mr. Dipp and bowing to him like a lily in the
breeze.

" It's mighty kind of you to talk like that,11 said the

STATEN ISLAND 313

diver, with an incommunicable grin of gratification. " I
only wish there was two divin' suits aboard, that I could
take you down and show you what being under water's
like.1' Mostyn laughed. " I'm paid," continued Mr.
Dipp, with some energy, "to find as much as I can of
forty thousand pounds in sovereigns in boxes. That's all.11
Mr. Benson gazed at him. "If,11 he continued, "I meet
with anything that shall be in the smallest way acceptable
to you it shall be yourn, ma'am ; 11 and the diver contorted
his figure into a bow that again made you think of him
as under water, fluctuating.

" What do you expect to find ? " said Mr. Benson.

" Ah ! say the captain had his wife with him and she
left a brooch. Til 'ave a Hint, anyway,11 said Mr. Dipp,
who was evidently incensed by Mr. Benson's question,
" and outside the gold anything that comes my way is my
perquisites.11

" I don't suppose your claim will be disputed,"' re-
marked Mr. Benson.

" I wish that schooner was heading for Port Parry,'"
said Mostyn. " She's bound more westerly than we ;
perhaps for Franklin Bay."

He left the table. His wife, who was clothed for the
deck, followed him. Dipp went into the waist and talked
to his men. Benson, lighting a cheroot, leaned over the
side and contemplated the island.

By noon the soft, pink-touched, violet vision of the
morning had sharpened into distinguishable lineaments,
and Phyllis amused herself with studying it through the
telescope which her husband fixed for her, and which she
was able to use by keeping the lid of her left eye closed
with her finger, as the surface she surveyed was large and
brimmed the object-glass with constancy, and the ship, as
she floated onwards, swayed slightly to the long-drawn
heave of the swell of the mighty Pacific. She saw

314 OVERDUE

mountains whose peaks sparkled like sugar. They were
clothed to their snow-line with vegetation of a deep rich
green. She witnessed amidst this growth many white
patches which she mistook for snow, but which afterwards
proved to be intersections of pure milk quartz as deli-
cate in light as the foam that crumbled at the cutwater.
She could discern ravines and gullies and open spaces
which might mark the mouths of creeks, and once there
slipped into the lens the toy-like shape of a little schooner,
wide-winged, heading for the westernmost extremity of
the island. When she removed her eye from the glass it
was but to watch the flight of some albatrosses which
were sailing round and astern of the ship. Those swans
of the sea touched into loveliness the wide scene of cloud-
domed air of island and of ocean. They swept on wings
which might have measured fifteen feet from tip to tip,
and their eyes sparkled gloriously. Their flight was a
revelation of poetry in motion, a suspension of an aerial
shape beautiful and noble in outline, which seemed to owe
nothing of its maintenance or progress to the tremorless
pinion.

Staten Island is about thirty-three miles long, and
nine miles broad. Though comparatively close to the
ice-girt coast of the Horn, it stands upon the waters,
when approached from the north, with an isolation that
could not be more complete if it were Tristan d'Acunha,
Amsterdam Island, or St. Helena. All the majesty of
ocean loneliness is in this little spot of land, lifting its
score of peaks, crowned with everlasting snow, whence the
eye sinks into valleys as bright in hue of flower and
tender in green of tree as any dreamer of Arabian gardens
could desire to witness in a vision. Along the base of
this solemn pile the swell of the Pacific bursts in thunder
and splendour, and when there is wrath in the gale, and
when the flood comes sweeping fierce through the

STATEN ISLAND 315

corridors of Tierra del Fuego, the sea is mountainous
and mighty, it smites the rock and leaps in gigantic
plumes or clouds of spume; the hollows are dangerous
with conflict of gale, surge, and current ; and ill fares the
sailing ship that in such weather as this finds Staten
Island a lee shore.

What most impressed Phyllis as the Dealman floated
nearer and nearer, revealing new tints, configurations, and
opening peaks at every length of her own keel that she
measured, was the silence which that mass of rock
suggested — the silence of immemorial loneliness ! for when
we speak of silence we do not think of the rusty cry
of the sea-bird, or the language of any denizen that is
not man, but the silence in which the human voice and
the psalms of the mills of human industry are engulfed as
by the sands which sealed the relics of Nineveh, as of the
South American waste which reposes like a tombstone
upon the memories of a prehistoric civilization.

Phyllis had that power of realization which makes
poets of its possessors. It was enough for her to be
told that the island at which she was gazing was as
tenantless of human life, save when now and again a
sealer looked in, as Selkirk found Juan Fernandez when
the buccaneers set him ashore, to read into its mystery of
glancing peak and iron terraces a meaning, and, therefore,
a fascination, which it could not have contained or exerted
had it been populated by a few fisherman, or such folks
as are, at long intervals, visited by one of His Majesty's
ships in the South Atlantic ocean.

"Look here, Phyl, see there," said Captain Mostyn,
breaking in upon her meditation ; and he pointed to the
water alongside.

It was a sort of wingless duck of a dull grey-brown,
bluff in the bows as an old " Geordie," and flat in
bottom for skimming — a butcher's tray in theory of form.

316 OVERDUE

It kept pace with the ship, though heading three points
off, and it smote the water with its broad webbed feet like
the paddles of a side-wheeled steamer.

" What name do they give it ! " the wife asked,
following the thing's foaming career with the interest she
took in all that was strange in beauty, or sudden in
disclosure of loveliness, or vital with a decipherable
spirit.

" I fancy it's a logger-headed duck. I've heard them
called racers or steamers. Will he eat sweet ? " said
Mostyn, looking at the bird. " There is always too
much oil in the flavour of sea-fowl. Its flesh is like
Dipp's voice when he's slightly on. I'm afraid, Phyl, we
shan't be able to talk of roast duck and green peas ;
even field-peas can find no soil on that island."

" Who troubles to think of eating whilst admiring ? "
said Phyllis. " You once pointed to the splendid colour-
ing of the feathers of some hen or other at AVools-
borough. Did you think of it as trussed and smoking
on the table ? " '

" I hope to find something to eat in that island,
anyhow," said Mostyn.

" Mind you don't poison yourself."

"If our detention is long you will find it dull,
Phyl."

" Certainly not, if the gold is recovered ; and even if it
is not recovered I shall make myself happy. We'll take
some rambles ashore. I should like to climb one of
those heights, and view the scene. I suppose I should
be the only girl whose foot ever printed the snow there."

" You'll not catch me climbing. I've had enough of
it," said the captain, pointing to the rigging. " You'll
plumb a precipice, or sit motionless with fright on an
edge of rock, where your skeleton will be found by some
Rip Van Winkle in after years, and that's the amount of

STATEN ISLAND 317

the glory of the sunrise, and the splendour of the sunset,
and the magnificent stage of earth covered with towns
which you are invited to destroy yourself in order to
see.'1

" All the same, Charlie, you and I will climb one of
those hills," said she, firmly ; for by this time she knew
her man by heart, and laughed at his little amorous
perversities of argument. " What's Mr. Mill so busy
about on the foVsle ? "

" Getting the ground gear ready for letting go the
anchor," was the answer.

" Have you observed that Mr. Benson is the only
man in the ship with whom the mate seems disposed to
exchange a syllable more than is necessary ? He has
nothing to say to Mr. Matthew Walker, or Mr. Dipp, or
to you. What, then, has he to say to Mr. Benson, who
is not a sailor, and has nothing to do with the navigation
of the vessel ? "

"I gave Benson leave to talk to him after I found
the beggar asleep. He's a man in search of command,
and might hope, as I hope, that Benson will prove useful
if carefully cultivated ."

"Falling asleep in your watch is not the way to
recommend you to Benson?"

" I don't know what they talk about, and don't care,"
said the captain, a little fretfully, rendered petulant by
the obtrusion upon him of a topic which had nothing to
do with the navigation of Port Parry. The marital
habit is soon acquired, the inattention to those lips whose
words were melody, whose movements were entrancing to
watch, the tendency to walk a little ahead instead of
compactly side by side as of yore, when the full moon
was never sweeter, when the river, and the flower, and the
meadow, and the surf upon the golden sands never held
deeper meanings. To be sure Mostyn was as much in

318 OVERDUE

love with his wife as when he married her — only, I say,
the marital habit begins soon.

Just then Mr. Benson slowly mounted the steps with
a cheroot drooping under his fall of moustache. Mr.
Dipp had once asked him why he did not insure himself
against fire, " For," said the diver, " no man with such a
moustache as yourn can light a cigar or pipe without the
chance of bursting into flames.''''

" How far off is the land, captain ?"

" About five miles.11

" When do you heave- to ? "

" A mile of offing will serve me,11 replied Mostyn.

" What are the soundings here ? "

These were perfectly reasonable questions in the mouth
of a man who represented the interests of the insurers.

" Fm not going to sound for no bottom,11 said Mostyn.
"It's steep-to till you enter the heads when you get
thirty fathoms, which is deep enough for this ship.11

" Have you been admiring those albatrosses, Mrs.
Mostyn ? " inquired Benson, slightly changing the key of
his voice, and looking at her with that insinuating smile
which she loathed, which the hair that showered from his
upper lip hid, which his eyes indicated by somehow or
other spreading the expression over his soap-coloured
brow.

" Yes, Mr. Benson.11

"Isn't their flight beautiful ?" said he, slightly drop-
ping his head to his shoulder in the plausible posture of
the man who says he admires. " Has not somebody
written a song about a man who shot an albatross with a
bow and arrow ?"

" You mean, perhaps, a comic song written by a person
called — let me see — oh, Coleridge,11 replied Phyllis.

" Possibly ; it's years since I heard it. How would
you like to be princess of that island ? "

STATEN ISLAND 319

" Mr. Mill ! " shouted the captain.
" Sir ! w was the foc'sle response.
" Send the men aft to trim sail.'"

The breeze had suddenly shifted three points, and Mr.
Benson must wait for an answer until the hullabaloo of
the braces had been coiled down. By which time he had
forgotten the question, but as something of the sort was
running in his head, and as the sailors were again busy
forward, he thought proper to continue in conversation
with Captain Mostyn's wife.

" What a miserable picture of desolation ! M said he,
viewing the island. " What would a man do if he were
cast ashore alone upon it ? "

"Go on board a sealer," answered Phyllis.
" Remove the sealer, and what then ? "
" Do as Crusoe did. Sleep in a tree for the first night,
and live in caves and behind barricades after."

It is worthy of notice here that, though Benson was
in conversation with Mrs. Mostyn, he looked at her as
seldom as possible, and never when not addressing her.

"Defoe was good to pile up a Spaniard soon after
Robinson s arrival, full of everything which that British
sailor could want," said Mostyn. "But for that wreck
he'd have been lining himself with limpets, or tucking into
lumps of raw sea-lion.1'

This conversation was interrupted by the arrival of
Mr. Dipp, who asked if the ship wasn't being set to the
westward.

"Yes," answered Mostyn, "I'm noting it, and shall
make a board north-east and heave-to on the starboard
tack before I send you ashore."

The diver picked up the telescope and critically
inspected the entrance to Port Parry. The land was
about three miles distant, and every feature determinable
by the naked vision. The colours combined into a picture

320 OVERDUE

of rugged and lonely magnificence, with clusters of growth
radiant with red berries, and little hills and plains covered
with green mounds like cushions, and flowers which after-
wards proved to be fuchsias, with sea-pinks on the dry
shore, contrasting their burning red lanterns with the
whiteness of the rolling foam that thundered at their feet,
the whole dominated by the soft purity of the virgin
snow on the mountain-tops. Rills of fresh water, with
many a laughing glance in their silver lines, could be seen
running down the hills into the sea. Vivid was the vege-
tation of the Antarctic beech, whose dark green leaves are
delicately underveined, whose boughs glow with bright
pink blossoms, whose trunk is girt with an orange-coloured
fungus ; vivid, too, the arbutus, an evergreen, whose sharp-
pointed leaf is enriched by small, white, cup-shaped flowers
and berries like white-heart cherries. And another noble
evergreen is there to mingle its dye with that rainbow of
an island, the holly-leaved barberry, encrusted with lichens
and mosses, and graced by sloe-like fruit hanging in
clusters.

All this with Cape Horn hard by ! all this profusion
of beauty, this magnificent canvas of colour, this rich,
large, and liberal banquet for the eye and the intellect —
for whom ? Who calls at Staten Island ? The mariner
of the sailing-ship gives it a wide berth and the gilded
gentleman on the bridge homeward-bound does not love it.

After an interval, " See all clear for stays ! " shouted
Mostyn, at the top of the deck-house, from which altitude
he meant to put his ship about.

The tacking of a full-rigged ship is as charming a
manoeuvre to witness from outside as the wheeling of the
albatross ere it drops to the meal it sees, unless, indeed,
the man who gives the orders puts his ship in irons.
There was wind enough for stays, and it had again headed
the ship, rendering the putting of her about imperative.

STATEN ISLAND 321

The helm was put down ; the canvas on the fore and
mizzen darkened with tremors of shadow as the yards were
swung, and presently rounded out into full breasts which,
in the Dealman, shone gloriously white in the northern
sun, and the reef-points gleamed in fringes like yellow
silk which made you think of the white throat of a woman
sparkling with a necklace ; whilst the forward canvas lay
hollowed into the mast, with the jibs unsightly with their
sheets to windward. Then, " Let go and haul ! " and the
brace-released yards of the fore were swung, and the shell-
like heart of the sail, beautiful with its shading of violet,
running from the parrel to the lee clew, drank in its full
measure of the salt-sweet gush of the breeze, and the jibs
yearned in pinions of grace and light from bowsprit to
flying jibboom.

Meanwhile, Dipp and his men, and others of the crew,
were engaged in making one of the quarter-boats ready for
lowering. They put a hand-lead and tallow into her, and
the hole in the end of the lead was liberally greased that
it might reveal what Mr. Dipp would not be able to see
until he went down. Dipp also took a rifle. Then, when
the place upon the sea, sought and desired by the eye of
Mostyn, had been reached by the sentient, gentle, queenly
thing he governed — not less noble in her isolation than
the lonely many-coloured land she kept aboard — the main
topsail was swung to the mast, the ship's way was arrested,
Dipp and five men sank in a boat from the davits, and
the real romance of the voyage began.

CHAPTER XVII

DIPP SOUNDS

It was a quarter-past three in the afternoon. The sun
was high, and would be long in setting. Captain Mostyn
and his flower-sweet wife stood together at the brass rail
on the deck-house top, watching the receding boat. Ben-
son paced the deck on the other side. His glance was
often directed at the girl whose back was upon him. One
might judge by the character of his tread that thought
in him was energetic. He was obviously much less
interested in the departure of the boat for the shore than
in the shapely form of Phyllis as she stood by her husband's
side.

Not far down the coast, past Port Parry to the west-
ward, is a bigger but shallower bay, called Port Hoppner,:
and in this yawn of water, with its rock and the gigantic
submarine growth, and the cavern and ledge, that by
compression of air, burst their floodings into roaring
foam, the freaks of the sea were giddy and glorious.

" Had the Conqueror made for that opening," said
Mostyn, " she'd have gone to pieces like a house of bricks."

" What's the story of her wreck ? " asked Phyllis.

"The account occupied five lines in a London morn-
ing newspaper. Had it been a railway collision, with the
precious loss of a member of Parliament, a retired butcher,
an undertaker, and a policeman handcuffed to a felon,
all killed, two columns in the same journal would not
have supplied space for the enthralling, exciting, ghastly,

322

DIPP SOUNDS 323

tragedy. But it was a shipwreck with the loss of fifty-
five lives, and its record was an illiterate epitaph of five
lines in a London newspaper. Ha, ha ! "

They both laughed.

" The Conqueror was a ship with eight saloon passengers
and some labourers in the steerage. At midnight, about
twenty miles to the norrard of where we are, she steamed
into a floating, lampless lump, bottom up, crushed in her
starboard bow, and began to sink. They cracked on all
the steam they knew, and under a whole moon fetched
yonder Port Parry, where down she went with a roar which
filled the island with a terror of scared fowl. The master
was a foreigner. He should have kept his head. He
should have swung out his boats. He waited for his ship
to sink, and she obeyed orders and left eight men of her
crowd living. These found refuge in sealers, and they
reported the loss."

" Fifty-five do you say ? " asked Phyllis.

"That was the number."

" Where are the bodies ? "

" Some locked up in the wreck, and some rotting round
about it."

"Mr. Dipp will see those corpses.""

" No doubt.11

" What horror ! Poor man ! It'll be the same to him
as digging up a cemetery.11

" Dipp under water has the sentiment of a seal. He
sounds for gold, not for human remains. But it will
be strange if he does not fetch up some curio, as he
promised.11

" It'll be an unearthly relic if I get it," said she.

" In he goes," exclaimed Mostyn, watching the boat as
she was swept betwixt the points that formed the natural
harbour's mouth. " It's now that a man misses steam. I
ring a bell — tinkle, tinkle — a pleasant sense of life enters

324 OVERDUE

the ship, and I head a straight course for that opening. Or
the tow rope would equally serve me. But there is no tug
to come out, no pilot to help me. I shall lie off and on all
night, and if the wind heads us it may take me days to
fetch that anchoi'age. Such is sail.11

" It'll be all right,11 said she.

" All right ! That's how pretty young girls talk when
they argue out of their wishes, and not out of their con-
victions, which should be truths.11

" If you don't take your ship in to-morrow,11 said she,
with some spirit, but with laughter in her face, " I
will.11

" And Benson shall steer you.11

" How long,'1 called out that gentleman from the other
side of the deck, "do you think Mr. Dipp will occupy in
sounding ? "

" Three or four hours. He'll want to be very
particular.11

Mr. Benson continued his walk in silence.

" I once,11 said Mostyn, " saw a book about an island
called Utopia. I tried to read it, but stuck fast in the
middle. It's an ideal land with ideal institutions and
things. It would be funny to turn Staten Island into a
Utopia. I'd shift for love of novelty, for how damnably
customs stale ashore.11

" You'd allow no strong language, I hope.11

" Tell you what, then, Phyl, the men should bow first,
and women take off their hats. I'm sick of the old
civilities.11

" How about the hatpins ? " she asked.

" They'd away too. The men should do the nursing
and the wives would have all night in. The women would
bank their husband's gains and make them an allowance.
Any woman styling herself a doctor and dealing with the un-
savoury, under the pretext of social reform, should be locked

DIPP SOUNDS 325

up in vindication of the purity of mind of the sex. Girls
should propose. How much easier that would make it all
round ! When a girl married, her mother would cease to
be a relation, and there would be no mothers-in-law in
Staten Island. I would not allow any woman of distinc-
tion to marry vulgarity for money, under pain of sinking
to the social state of a charwoman. Look ! just as the
sun is always in the north here, as it is always in the
south with us at home, so I would change the face of
custom, for I am sick of its obligations, which are like dolls
that bleed sawdust."

"All this because you think the wind is going to draw

ahead."

" Come below, and have a cup of tea.1''

It was about seven when Mr. Dipp came off. The sun
was large and red in the west, and bathed the island in
solemn, silent glory, in which it took on the aspect of some
magnificent cathedral, some sublime work of art, rich
with white marble and stained windows. The diver came
alongside and climbed into the ship, and the boat was
hoisted. They had brought with them some ducks, clams,
berries of the arbutus, " Which, ma'am," said the diver to
Mrs. Mostyn, " I 'ope the cook'll make into a nice tart for
you ; " some wild celery, and other growths of the shore.
They had looked for penguins' eggs, but could find
none. Yet, in some places, the birds were so many that
wherever there was a stone a bird was perched upon it.

Mr. Dipp wanted his supper, and Mostyn sat down
with him at table to receive his report, and at table too,
of course, were Mrs. Mostyn and Mr. Benson.

" Well," said Captain Mostyn, " what sort of a harbour

is it?"

" As pretty a little "arbour as you could wish to see,"
answered the diver, chewing salt beef and cabin biscuits
and pickles in the pause of question and answer.

32G OVERDUE

" What of the soundings ?"

The diver's reply was the production of a note-book,
in which he had made entries. These entries consisted
of depths of water, and the vaiious bearings of the
shore.

" There's no part shallower than ten fathom,'" said the
diver, " and that's where the wreck is.v>

" Are you sure ? " inquired Mostyn.

" As sure as the sensation of feeling can make a man,"
answered the diver.

" Is the water clear ? " asked Mr. Benson.

" Why, yes, but not so clear that you're going to see
down through sixty foot of it."

" How d'ye know the wreck is there by feeling ? "
demanded Mostyn.

" Because the lead fouled a line, which I reckon had
been Flemish coiled on the deck, and when we got hold of
the end of the line we hauled it taut. What then,"
said the diver, with a roll of his eyes over Captain Mostyn,
" should the end of that line be made fast to if it isn't
the wreck ? "

" Oh, that's conclusive," said Mostyn. " I wish you'd
buoyed that line."

" I did," answered Mr. Dipp.

" What with ? "

" With the stern-sheet bottom board."

" What sort of ground ? "

* Sand and shell. That's all I could get. There's a
spectacle in that 'arbour that'll please you, missus. It's
a water forest. Trees as big as the trunks of oaks, and
you can see them by looking over the boat's side."

The captain saw a question in his wife's face.

" Never mind about that sea forest now, Phyl," said
he. " I want to make sure of my anchorage. Where
should I let go, do you think, Mr. Dipp ? "

DIPP SOUNDS 327

" About 'alf a ship's length to the west'rd of the
buoyed line."

" Plenty of room to swing ? "

u You'd better get an anchor out over the stern, and
send down your top-gallant masts. Therell be sights
of shelter for that sort of moor if it blew as 'ard as a
dying whale."

" Will you dive from the ship or a boat ? " said the
captain.

"From the long-boat,11 answered the diver, "and if
the ship should swing to a flying moor or a single anchor
over the wreck when I'm down it would make the art of
diving a 'eart-breaking calling for me.11

It was quite consistent with the discipline of this
undertaking that the captain should consult with the
diver, and take careful heed of the notes he had made.
But where was Mr. Mill ? Why was not the mate invited
to share in this council ? Nothing could have more fully
illustrated the contempt in which Captain Mostyn held
the man, who remained as ignorant of the anchorage in
Port Parry as any common sailor of the crew. Relations
of this sort often exist between master and mate. The
master keeps his charts to himself, and the mate steers by
instructions, and guesses where he is. This tension, to use
a convenient word, is a direct menace to a ship's safety,
for certainly a mate should be as well acquainted with
the ship's navigation as the captain. But in Mill, Mostyn
had a man whom he could not trust, whom he deeply
disliked, whom he thirsted to get rid of, and he would
no more have thought of consulting with the surly rascal
than with the most ignorant ordinary seaman forward.

He fetched his chart of Staten Island, and whilst he
hung over it, comparing its statements with Mr. Dipp's
notes, Phyllis began to question the diver.

" Is the scenery pretty, Mr. Dipp ? "

328 OVERDUE

" Very pretty indeed, mum. Nice scarlet flowers, like
October creepers in England. There's a beach of white
sand that'll make you think of Broadstairs, if you was ever
there. And what do you think, Mr. Benson ? There's a
man's grave with a cross over it, and on the cross head is
carved the words : " — he extended his hand to take his
note-book — " Shellard's Jried-jish and chipped-potatoes
shop"

" Is that an epitaph over a dead body ? " inquired the
literal Mr. Benson.

" To make sure," answered Mr. Dipp, " we sounded
for the body, and found it, and covered it o'er again out
of sight of the lady when she landed."

" Shellard's fried-fish shop," exclaimed Phyllis, laugh-
ing. " What an epitaph to lie under ! "

" Perhaps the man kept a shop of that sort in his
day, and the fo'csle wags buried him with traditionary
honours," said Mostyn.

" You can't say," said Mr. Dipp, after swallowing
half a glass of rum and water, " that, with such a hepitaph
as that flourishing in it, Staten Island ain't 'ighly civilized.
'Ow many centuries of progress would it take to turn out
a Radcliff 'ighway, and that hepitaph to my mind answers
all the purpose of that sort of civilization."

" You're right," exclaimed Mostyn. " Could some
places of civilization be denoted by epitaphs only, Jack
would save money. That line of yours is on my mind,
Dipp. How did you hook it up with a lead?"

" The lead-line slipped ; the lead fell into the coil and
took a turn of a fake, and brought it up in a bight. The
fakes may have been kept in their place by something
fallen on 'em."

" I understand," answered Mostyn.

A true sailor will not let you off. He will examine
the mingled web of your yarn, and damn the whole

DIPP SOUNDS 329

because of a spurious thread. He will read a book like
"Robinson Crusoe," which is not seagoing, but a book
like " The Pilot," professedly seagoing, and crowded with
technical blunders he will pitch aside, and never ask to
,hear of it again. Mostyn now saw how it was possible
for a cone of lead, smooth-sided, attached to the end of a
line to bring up a rope from soundings of sixty feet.

All that night the Dealman stood off and on Staten
Island. The moon was in her third quarter, and her path
amongst the stars was almost cloudless ; she lent the fair-
ness of crystal to the milk-white quartz of the land, and
smote the surf into a long line of light, and she polished
the snow of the mountain-tops until they shone like herself.

If ever mystery is felt in solitude it is at night, in
moonlight, in the heart of a mighty sea, with the shadow
of an island blotting out the stars. Phyllis could scarcely
be induced to go to bed. Had Woolsborough ever offered
her such a sight as this ? Had she ever seen the like of
it set to music by a German band on the esplanades and
beaches of the two or three seaside towns her father had
taken her to ?

She was not a girl, as you know, to gaze idly, and to
see no more than what was visible. Her imagination
quickened that shadow with its moon-bright peaks and
crystal gleams of quartz into a romance of the sea, and
as sometimes by her husband's side, sometimes alone she
watched it, she read strange stories in its mysterious page ;
she saw the spectres of the drowned of the Conqueror
walking upon a shore as shadowy as that to which we all
are bound, mutely but in pathetic gestures lamenting their
bitter fate ; she read the story of a sailor who had been
left on the island by a whaler, and found some days after-
wards by the crew of a sealer, dead, with his throat cut,
but not by his own hand, since no knife lay near him.
Which was so great a mystery that the sealers searched

330 OVERDUE

the island for the assassin, and finding no sign of man
anywhere inland, were seized with superstitious terrors,
and for some years afterwards every whaler and sealer
that touched at that island was carefully sentinelled
throughout the night by an armed seaman, when but
for this extraordinary thing a careless or perhaps no
anchor watch would have been kept.

Is this of the several stories which the young wife
read in that romance of shadow upon the sea-line, and
which detained her, fascinated, from her bed, true ? If
Mr. Stanhope had invented it he had certainly never
related it to his daughter. The only fiction the universal
provider deals in may be found in the lies written upon
jam-pots, tins of meat, bottles of pickles, and other
dangerous recommendations of rogues. But Phyllis had
for years past taken great delight in dreaming dreams
on her own account, and the generous, the liberal, the
impassioned sentiment of her nature was one reason why
she was off Staten Island this night in a little ship
commanded by her husband, instead of being in a big
house, florid by day with plush, festive at night with the
sound of the hired fiddler, the voice of the paid singer,
the gleam of satin and diamond, the whole commanded
by a gentleman who may have dealt, inter alia, in savoury
tongues.

The wind shifted several times in the night, and kept
the watch on deck more melodious than they liked.
Boxing the yards about by starshine is vexatious to
sleepy men, who tumble over coils of rigging and answer
with a silent curse the mate's commands, " A small pull
of that lee top-gallant brace ! round in a little on your
■weather topsail braces ! ease off that inner jib sheet !
slacken away this weather vang ! clap the watch tackle on
to the main tack! wheel there! keep your luff!11 And
Staten Island, just now to starboard, is now to port.

DIPP SOUNDS 831

In the morning it was blowing a light leading wind,
which Mostyn immediately took advantage of, reducing
his canvas as the ship sailed shorewards, until the vessel
was under topsails only when she entered the heads, and
then the lower topsails were clewed up, and she floated
slowly onward to the place assigned her by Dipp.

On each side of this natural harbour were lofty ridges
broken by glens, and the foliage, and a water-course at
the bottom of the glens made the scene at the first glance
so much like a piece of England that you would have
thought yourself at home. Flocks of penguins were
straggling about ashore. They wore white breasts, and
carried their bills high, and when grouped in repose might
have passed for a crowd of castaway colonial bishops.

" Where's the submarine forest, Mr. Dipp ? " asked
Phyllis of the diver, who, alongside of her, was viewing
the proceedings on board.

" Yonder," said he, pointing to a space in the creek
some cables1 lengths beyond the buoyed line. " The
captain '11 take you in a boat, and you'll see a sight you'll
never forget."

" Let go the anchor ! " shouted the captain.

" Stand clear of the cable ! " bawled the mate.

The hammer struck the pin; the anchor shot to the
depths like a bolt from the sky • the cable roared in the
hawse-pipe — yet the business of the day had scarce begun.

The creek swept brim full into two miles of the island,
and the Conqueror lay sunk about a mile inside the heads,
and the Dealman would ride free from the faintest pulse of
the swell of the sea, so that the rest and repose of the land
were to be the ship's. The hardest weather down at Staten
Island in summer nearly always blows from south-west.
In the winter, the easterly gale, with the mightiest of
the surges of the seas, thunders at the island. Port
Parry faces almost due north ; at noon the sun streams

332 OVERDUE

his splendour into its waters ; once gained, the haven
offers the shelter of a dock, and is noble with the scenery
of the land.

When the anchor was let go, and the iron links of the
cable were hoarsely roaring in the hawse-pipe, Phyllis
was viewing the lovely sheet of water round about her, in
whose silver blue depths, ringed here and there by the
leap of a fish or the dip of a bird, the tall shores, clad in
their dark green and scarlet Fuegian livery, struck their
shadows. Abreast of the ship, on her starboard side as
she lay with her head pointing south, was a beach of sun-
bright sand, fringed with giant kelp, at back of which
was soil, rich as peat, sumptuous with growths of currant
bush, beech, barberry, and the large and elegant flower of
the rush. At the extremity of the sands two seals were
lying, half in and half out, and round about the gulls and
albatrosses wheeled ; whilst on the left of the ship, Mount
Buckland reared its diadem of snow, and enriched the scene
with the majesty of the mountain. Now and again a big
bird could be seen sailing — an eagle or a hawk, at sight
of which — for this country girl perfectly well knew what
a hawk was — Phyllis sincerely doubted whether she could,
even if she would, return with the glory of a humming-
bird in her hat.

It was all novel, and therefore delightful. It was
land, and green land, after endless leagues of salt ocean,
and it was one of those spots on this globe which the
young wife might be proud to boast of having visited,
because, saving a breed of half-savage fishers, no one,
even a millionaire, dreams of taking a holiday on Staten
Island. To few places can you go now in this civilized
earth of the wire and the foot-plate and the screw, but
that in the very heart of the loveliest and most romantic
of solitudes —

"Up pops some damned round English face,"

DIPP SOUNDS 333

as Thomas Moore sings. Staten Island would to Phyllis
make a memory all alone to herself like Crusoe in exile.
None in millions would be able to compare notes with
her ; to say, " Yes, I always laughed when I saw the
upright penguins in consultation, a synod of bishops, raw
in speech ; " and, " I also saw a number of thrushes and
linnets, but no humming-birds ; " and, " I used to make
nosegays of fuchsias, and the rush flower, and seapinks,
and ferns, and shape them into things of beauty by
lichens and mosses, green and scarlet."'1

Phyllis would have all this to herself. It was better
than going to Rome on a tourist's ticket. It was better
than doing anything which any man can do in the way of
travel for a few shillings, and the girl looked about her
a little proudly. She might guess that the eyes of but
few of her sex had ever reposed upon this lovely ocean
picture.

All day long the ship was full of business. The
canvas was stowed, and the top-gallant masts housed.
The long-boat was hoisted out, and a kedge anchor
carried astern shackled to a chain cable, which, when
roused taut, held the ship fixed in a line north and south.
The Dealman was not a man-of-war ; her ship's company
were comparatively few, consistently with the tradition of
the merchant service. The men's toil moved on the rolling
legs of leisure ; the mid-day meal was to be got, and the
pipe to be smoked, much raffle to be coiled clear ; and it
was half-past six in the second dog-watch before the ship
was in a state of rest ready for the diver to solve the
mystery of a sunken wreck. The long-boat lay alongside,
the lake-like surface of the harbour floated in the tender
grace of the lofty violet shadow of hill and mountain, and
the peace of the evening was upon the island. The men
were weary ; they had worked well, and when work was
knocked off', rum was served out to them. After the

334, OVERDUE

cabin supper was ready the ship was silent, the men were
lounging forward, the Southern Cross was glowing, and the
four of our little company sat down to table.

The meal this evening was varied by Staten produce
The cook's second arbutus-berry tart was a reasonable
success ; his soup of wild celery was not without relish.
Stems of the large tussacks supplied the place of asparagus,
and the duck was not so oily as had been feared. More-
over, the common cheer of the cabin was supplemented by
Benson's hospitality, which, this the first night of their
arrival, must be liberal. Champagne was on the table,
likewise little dishes of jellies, chicken and tongue, and
other things, reckoned dainties even ashore. He had
resumed throughout the day his earliest manner, and it
was noticeable throughout the feast that he looked at
Phyllis more freely than prudence had durst let him here-
tofore. He would easily find, and expect others to find,
an excuse for the smile, the look, the sentiment he
bestowed upon the young wife, in an animation of mind
consequent upon the completion of one part of the under-
taking.

When they had sat down, Mr. Dipp cast his eyes over
the table and exclaimed —

" After to-night, eating's done with for me."

" How's that ? " inquired Mostyn.

" Because I've got to dive."

" Mayn't you take a little of your favourite rum and
milk before you go ?" inquired Phyllis, smiling.

" No, mum. If I was thin I could. Thirteen or
fourteen stone of suet must sink warranted free from
liquor as they guarantee some music 'alls free from
vulgarity. But that don't mean I ain't going to enjoy
myself now ; " and the diver, in his homely comfortable
way, helped himself abundantly.
' " I've a toast to propose," said Mr. Benson, " It's a

DIPP SOUNDS 335

little soon, but no matter. Mrs. Mostyn, let me fill your
glass. Captain, brim a bumper. Mr. Dipp here's the
bottle.1'

He stood up. Phyllis was then sensible that some-
thing shadowy was lurking at the skylight listening.

" I rise," said Mr. Benson, in his amplest way, " to
propose the health of the gallant commander of this ship,
and I venture to bracket with his the name of his devoted
and most engaging young wife, Mrs. Mostyn. Repre-
senting as I do, the interests of the Ocean Alliance
Insurance Company, I have no hesitation in officially
declaring that the conduct of the captain has been every-
thing that could be expected of a skilled navigator and a
thorough gentleman. In the name of the directors and
in my own, I drink his health and that of Mrs. Mostyn."

He lifted his moustache and swung half a glass of
champagne down his throat.

"Missus, I looks towards you," said the diver, in a
voice of cold grease. " Your 'ealth, captain."

He nodded, raised the glass but did not drink. His
reception of the toast was in curious contrast with the
warmth with which it had been delivered.

" Fm much obliged to you, Mr. Benson," said Mostyn,
without rising. "I shall value your compliments more
highly when we get home safe with the gold."

Mr. Benson did not look as though he knew that his
speech had been interpreted by all three listeners as
humbug. How dared he manifest any inward mortifica-
tion when he believed and knew that his whole strategem
of the outward voyage had been to leave Mostyn incap-
able of challenging a syllable of language, a glance of eye,
whilst if he intuitively perceived that Phyllis knew he
was in love with her to the very degree of damnation,
his vanity would certainly acquit her of all suspicion of
the dislike, or rather of the loathing she had for him ?

336 OVERDUE

" Touching the gold," he said blandly, " have you
examined the safe lately, captain ? "

" I was in the lazarette yesterday," answered the
captain, " and all was right."

" Who keeps the key ? " asked Mr. Dipp.

" I do," replied Mr. Benson.

" Happily for me," exclaimed Mostyn. "That key heaps
the weight of forty thousand pounds upon your back."

" It's improper to impose too many obligations upon
a shipmaster," said Mr. Benson. " Is not the responsibility
of carrying the gold enough for one ? Its custody is a
mere detail of official routine."

" They talk as if the gold was aboard," said Mr. Dipp
to Phyllis. " Try some of Mr. Benson's 'am and chicken,
missus. It's meant for ladies who have teeth like yours."

She took a slice to please Dipp.

" I knew a naval man who was an officer aboard the
ship that brought the Koh-i-noor home from India," said
Mostyn. " The diamond was placed in a box and so
secreted that no man aboard the ship knew where it was
save the two military officers who were charged with its
safety, and each of these men had a key of the box.
This I know to be the fact of the transport of the Nation's
biggest gem, and I have always held that the plan
adopted was an insult to the officers of the ship, who by
implication were not to be trusted. I take it that the
honour of a naval officer stands as high as that of a
military officer, and why the captain and the commander
and lieutenants should not know what was known to
two soldiers and to nobody else is one of those conun-
drums which work out as insults to my way of thinking."

" No insult is intended by my holding the key," said
Mr. Benson.

"I would not accept the sole responsibility of safe-
guarding that gold "

DIPP SOUNDS 337

" "When found," put in Mr. Dipp.

" For half its value," exclaimed Mostyn, with some-
thing of haughtiness in his handsome face.

" You'll dive into a cemetery, Mr. Dipp," said Phyllis,
who was always glad to temporarily obliterate Benson by
enframing in talk with the diver.

" I've been a-thinking of that, mum."

" On consideration," said Mostyn, " I fancy the loss
was exaggerated. Fifty-five. The Conquerors passengers
would not balance the ship's company up to that number ;
and how many people would a ship of that sort carry ?
Fifteen in the engine-room including engineers, firemen,
trimmers, donkeyman, and store-keeper. I don't think
you'll find so many corpses, Mr. Dipp, as the newspapers
reported."

" Did you see any ashore ? " asked Mr. Benson.

" None," answered the diver. " Besides, you've been
a-looking all day, and what should I see that ain't in
sight to you ? "

" Mrs. Mostyn, pray let me give you some more
champagne," said Mr. Benson.

" No, thank you," she answered, just brushing his
foetid look as she glanced from him to her husband.

" I don't wonder," said Mr. Dipp, " from what I've
seen, that this island hasn't been settled. I'd rather be
locked up for the rest of my days in a hattic in White-
chapel and fed with saveloys through the winder than
live 'ere. It must be truly shockin' in winter. Who
first discovered the blamed 'ole ? "

"I can't tell you that," answered Mostyn. "But if
it's name is English I'll swear it's a theft. Without ex-
ception we are the most thieving nation in the world.
A surveying vessel falls in with a headland ; she sends a
boat ashore with a piece of parchment in a tin cannister
statins that this land was discovered by II. M.S. Proxchr,

338 OVERDUE

and taken possession of in the name of His Majesty King
George III., and afterwards it's down on the charts as
Point St. George. Whereas the Spanish or the Portu-
guese may have visited the same place two hundred years
earlier and left just such another scroll, taking possession
in the name of some other sacred Majesty. You've heard
of the South Shetlands, Dipp ?"

" Why, yes ; I've been off 'em.11

"In a whaler?"

"No; coming 'ome from Sydney in a clipper. The
captain started on the Great Circle lay and locked us up
in the ice close agin the Pole."

"Take the South Shetlands," continued Captain
Mostyn. "That coast was discovered in 1599 by Dirk
Gherritz, in a vessel called the Good News, one of five
Rotterdam ships which doubled the Horn. In the old
chart it was written Gherritz Land, till we coolly struck
it out and named it South Shetlands. This is one of
many reasons why foreigners, especially the Dutch, should
love us as a people and adore our maritime genius as
discoverers. Come along on deck, Phyl."

They had supped, and husband and wife rose. Phyllis
entered her cabin to warmly drape herself. Though not
chilly, the atmosphere was curiously humid. The young
wife emerged sparkling in the lamplight, as a girl will
sparkle whose eyes are a heavenly violet and whose auburn
hair contrasts its glory with the rich fur of the turban
hat. As she passed through the cabin, Mr. Benson, rising,
followed her with his eyes, and Dipp, seated, looked at
him with the expression you might imagine he Avould wear
if he met with something puzzlingly disgusting close
against the glass of his helmet under water.

The moon of yester night was in the north, and so
clear and bright was the air that you saw the "earth-
shine" upon the dark part of her, making her a globe.

DIPP SOUNDS 339

There was an element of ghastliness in the serenity of the
island, with its white silence of mountain-top, and the
land dumb save in the low thunder of the surf, whose
green growths glistened faintly. Mostyn lighted a pipe,
and, whilst he was sucking, his wife exclaimed —

" There's a vessel down there at anchor.1'

So there was. She was readily distinguishable as a
little schooner, that had sneaked in from some other creek
or from the south.

" A sealer," said Mostyn. " Perhaps the chap we lost
sight of round the point. This place at this hour makes
home seem far off, doesn't it, Plvyl ? "

« No."

"Six thousand miles."

"You should have been born north of the Tweed.
My home is here," said she, passing her arm through his,
"and it is not six thousand miles off, though you
wished it."

As this statement was pettish, and not worth con-
tradiction, he said —

" Benson's attentions to you this evening were a little
too marked to please me. He may have been a bit
sprung in a Bensonian way. A man of that sort will
pour a bucketful down his neck without showing it, except
in increased plausibility and blandness, as in Pecksniff
before he fell into the fireplace, or, if the stomach and
liver are implicated, in increased severity of stare and a
disposition to make himself offensive by blunt contradic-
tion. That speech of his was tommy-rot. Yet I say
again, what can he do ? How, too, can I go up to him
and say, ' You must not look at my wife. You must not
speak to her. You must not offer her any of the delicacies
you have laid in.' Impossible ! Only consider, we are
locked up for, perhaps, another three months."

" Whilst you see how things stand for yourself I am

340 OVERDUE

comfortable," she answered. "But he has spoilt the
honeymoon which would have been delicious.11

They stepped to the rail and looked at the water
in which the Conqueror slept.

The mystery of darkness will often deepen into terror
the mystery of death ; and the yokel who vaults the
tombstone in sunshine might lose his reason if he should
find himself locked up for the night in a cemetery. The
silence of the island was in that cold salt sepulchre, and
the night, with her lantern, the moon, pendant at her
visionary fingers, looked down upon it. Phyllis shuddered
as she gazed, but she was ignorant of the saloon full of
light, of the engines making strange music as they
intricately toil, and she could not realize fully what had
foundered with the Conqueror.

Her husband could have told her; though he was
without experience in steam he well understood that the
last and greatest terror of the foundered steamer must be
sought in the engine-room, where the boilers explode,
where the scarlet furnaces are extinguished in dense
volumes of steam, where the eyes of living men are boiled
out of their heads, and where their half-naked bodies are
flayed to the living skeleton, and where they die from
steam before water can strangle them, faithful below
doing their duty.

"What are you thinking of, Phyl?11 asked Mostyn.

" I was wondering what appearance the Conqueror
makes as she lies upon the ground,11 she answered.

" And I am hoping all the time that Dipp will recover
the forty thousand pounds, for we want the commission,
old girl ; well put it into chairs, tables, and looking-
glasses. If you don't go to sea with me next time where
would you like to live ? "

" As near to where your ship sails from as possible.11

"The precincts of the docks! — Poplar, Limehouse,

DIPP SOUNDS 341

Stepney. A very commodious accommodation for steve-
dores, skippers, mates, and crimps. I shall want to think
of my country bird as living and singing where trees are
when I am away, where new milk and new-laid eggs may
be had sure and sweet. The mere idea of the neighbour-
hood of the docks excites all the smells of the East End
of London, and I am now snuffing and spitting in the
West India Dock Road."

The scent of a cigar could be tasted in the air.
Phyllis turned her head and spied Mr. Benson standing
close behind.

" What is that vessel, Captain Mostyn ? " he asked,
with one whisker silvered by moonlight.

" A small schooner. A sealer, no doubt.""

Benson stared at her.

" What is she doing here, do you know ? "

" She's come a-fishing, I suppose."

" Is she the same sealer we sighted before we
entered ? "

" I think not."

" Then if you're going to accumulate your sealers in
this island, and their crews get wind that there's forty
thousand pounds to be got by burgling this ship in the
night when all hands are asleep, what'll be our look-
out?"

" I have not the slightest fear. Moreover, when even
the first of the boxes is aboard rest assured that all hands
will not be asleep in the night. You did not ship a chest
of small arms for that."

" How many go to a crew in one of those sealers ? "
asked Mr. Benson.

" Five or six I should say."

" Oh, well," said the chartered accountant, with a note
of relief. " If there's no more than that, and no more
than three or four vessels at a time, we shall be able to

342 OVERDUE

sleep in peace, Mrs. Mostyn. I am very interested in
sealing. I don't want to make this voyage for nothing,
and wish to enlarge my experiences. Ill visit that sealer
to-morrow. I want to know how they catch the creatures,
how they skin them, where they stow their spoils, where
and how her people live. It'll be something to talk
about."

"And something for you to do," said Captain Mostyn.
" For it'll be a devilish idle, tedious time whilst Mr. Dipp
is bobbing for gold."

"I feel cold," said Phyllis.

They paced the deck, husband and wife, arm in arm in
the alley-way. Benson, a lonely man, smoked out his
cigar in front of the deck-house. A riding-light glittered
like a star on the fore-stay, and shadows of men were in
motion on the fo'csle. The ship rested as though sleeping
soundly after a long and weary passage. The sense of the
desolation of the land was heightened by its lightlessness,
no ray, no beacon, no dim window gleam, nothing but
the stars shining over the silver height of the mountain
and along the broken skyline of the shore.

But though in any case an anchor watch would have
been kept, the presence of a stranger in the port deter-
mined Mostyn to provide a harbour watch of two every
two hours, and in the brief stern semi-contemptuous way
he was now used to address the mate, he told Mill to
turn out from time to time and take a look round, and
these instructions he gave to Mr. Walker, but in the
language of a genial captain. At ten o'clock Phyllis
went to bed, and at five bells the captain went to his
berth, leaving two sailors trudging the fo'csle deck.

CHAPTER XVIII

THE "PENGUIN"

Till four in the morning the night was quiet, and the
ship slept in peace watched by two fo'csle tramps, who
took care to be regularly relieved. Throughout the
night the captain was more on deck than below. The
figure of Mr. Mill, too, peering about for half an hour at
a stretch from the deck-house top was visible often
enough to satisfy Mostyn that the surly rascal was on the
alert.

But at the hour I have named it came on to blow a
breeze of wind, which freshened into half a gale from the
south-west by sunrise, and day discovered a hying heaven
of rags, tatters, and cobwebs ; the brooms of the wind were
sweeping the dirt off the floor of the sky, and it sped in
a swift low scud, piling itself into a thunder-coloured mess
north-east. Nevertheless, the water was so smooth in the
harbour that a saucer would have floated in it. You
heard the continuous booming of smiting seas whose
weight you guessed by seeing the reflected trouble or
springing brine snapping into foam beyond the heads.
Yet save for now and again a flaw of wind direct or in
back draught, with the spit of its mother in it as certain
reptiles when born hiss, fretting the water triflingly here
and there but not often, the breast of the harbour swept
as smooth as silk to its limits.

Indeed, the ship found a huge and lofty terrace in the
hills that soared in their deep green foliage to a height

343

344 OVERDUE

that made them mountainous. The water was alive with
penguins, whose heads in all directions came and went like
the flickering glance of a hen's head in the bars of a
hencoop. Many albatrosses and wild fowl of the sea
were seeking refuge here, and clothing the air with the
enchantments of their marvellous flights. A day laden
with anxiety had come, and Mostyn, whose expectations
were ardent, betrayed his mind by omitting to treat Mr.
Mill with the contemptuous neglect with which he
inwardly visited him saving in commands which were
stern and sharp. He saw the mate looking at the
schooner, and paused on his way to the top of the deck-
house to say —

" I hope Mr. Dipp will find the money.'"

The mate looked at him in a slow way and
answered —

" It's to be hoped he will, sir."

" It blows hard outside, but I think our kedge is good
even if a swell should roll in, which is not very likely, for
it has a long road to slide over, and the soundings won't
help it."

The mate made no answer, and this brief conversation
terminated.

It was about half-past seven in the morning now.
Mr. Dipp's three men had got up a three-cylinder air-
pump, and the diver was carefully examining the machine.
Indeed, that apparatus, with its brace of fly-wheels, iron
sling and piston-rods, gun-metal guides, and patent
gauge to tell the depth and pressure at which the
diver is working, was bread, meat, rent, taxes, gas and
coal, compressed into the single word " life " for Mr. Dipp
when under water. He knew this truth well, and was
extremely critical in his scrutiny. Now and again a flaw
set the rigging singing, but though the ship sat light in
ballast, as indeed throughout the passage, never did a

THE "PENGUIN" 345

hillside blow a gust to heel her to a fraction of a
degree.

She looked comely ; they had made a good show aloft ;
they had sent down the royal and top-gallant yards, and
housed the top-gallant masts. They had squared her by
lift and brace, as Mostyn abhorred all distortion in his
ship aloft or alow. All must be shipshape and Bristol
fashion with him, and the vessel rode under lines of
timber upon which snow seemed to have fallen. All gear
was hauled taut, the decks were fast purging themselves
of the hose and scrubbing-brushes, and opening into
large eyes of white plank, and low over the island swept
the scud and rag of cloud, and the head of the mountain
Buckland was buried in whirling vapour, with white clouds
writhing about it as though resisting the efforts of the
gale to detach them.

Mr. Benson arrived trimly blue with a shave. He
wore a soft felt hat and a light overcoat and spats.

" A brisk morning, captain," said he, looking up at the
sky and then round. " Lucky our wreck lies where it is."

" Lucky indeed," answered Mostyn.

" I see that Mr. Dipp is making ready. Dye know
when he starts ? "

" I hope it will be soon," said Mostyn. " There's
nothing to keep him waiting. The long-boat's alongside.
He's only got to lower that air-pump and his diving
dress into her, unless he dresses here, which possibly he'll
do," said Mostyn, inwardly reflecting that the art of
diving might be made a little embarrassing to Mr. Dipp
if he saw Mrs. Mostyn watching him shift into his helmet
and rubber small-clothes.

" Mr. Dipp," cried Benson, " when do you propose to

begin ?'

In about 'alf an hour," answered Dipp, without

turning his back.

346 OVERDUE

" After breakfast, perhaps ? " cried Benson.

Dipp was silent.

" You'll find him irritable, as most men are,"" said
Mostyn, " when they first start on business of moment.
And this business is of moment, for suppose he comes up
and tells us that the cases are hermetically sealed by the
wreck."

" Always take short views, captain. What time is it ? "
Mr. Benson looked at his watch. " I shall be glad of my
breakfast. Is not that a boat putting off from the
schooner ? "

Mostyn looked, and answered —

" They're going to pay us a visit. Are we to explain
the nature of our business here, or leave it to them to find
it out ? "

" Not a word for worlds ! " cried Mr. Benson, greatly
agitated.

" They'll see the cases coming up if they stop."

" They mayn't stop. They may sail to-day. Not a
word for worlds ! Think of them as cut-throats. They
come from that class.'"

" But if they stroll forward they'll get the news from
the men."

" They mustn't be allowed to stroll forward. See to
that, captain, I beg."

As there was no gold on board, Benson's alarm seemed
out of place, and Mostyn thought so. Moreover, sealers
are not pirates, nor even cut-throats, as represented by
Mr. Benson, and Mostyn judged that little was to be
feared at the hands of the men who visited this island to
hunt the seal.

The boat, flashed through the water by three oars,
came alongside. She was of a light whaling pattern, very
old even to craziness, and showed uncommonly like the end
of a long voyage. Her squalor was a blend of ribs and

THE "PENGUIN" 347

rags, for her oarsmen were as ill-clothed as she was, and
the man in the stern-sheets, who was now coming aboard,
looked as though three turns round the long-boat and a
pull at the slop-chest would make him feel a boy again.
Their jackets were greasy and patched, their trousers
would have made a good sign for a bagman, and all three
wore caps which might have come up with the anchor.

The fellow who had steered sprang over the rail and
stepped at once on to the deck-house top, where he saluted
Mr. Benson and Captain Mostyn by, strange to relate,
taking his cap off. He was a man of a somewhat dark
and sinister appearance, bowed in the back to the degree
of almost a hump, and his arms, which were too long for
him, hung up and down in the idle way of the sea. His
hair was black and extremely curly, and he wore a short
beard and moustache ; his nose was handsome and Avell
finished. But his eyes seemed gout-ridden ; that or drink-
ridden. They were defaced by little patches of scarlet,
and daylight made no spot of brightness in his mirrors.
He was roughly dressed in very old clothes, and presented
the aspect of a broken-down sailor tramping to a work-
house.

"Good morning, gents," said he, with a strong nasal
accent. " I read the name of your ship, and see you hail
from London. What might you be doing down here?"
and he ran his eyes aloft to judge if the vessel had put in
for repairs.

" What schooner are you ? " was Mostyn's answer to his
question.

" The Penguin, of Stornington. I'm her captain, and
my name's Morell."

"Are you a sealer?"

" Jest that."

" Are you the schooner we lost sight of rounding the
western extremity of this island ?"

348 OVERDUE

" No. I came round here last evening from Port
Basil Hall. The schooner you mean will be the Swan, I
reckon. And what might you be moored in this harbour
for?"

" A steamer called the Conqueror went down there,1'
answered Mostyn, pointing, " and we're to salve her cargo,
or as much of it as the diver there can help us to.'"

" Yes, I know, she went down drowning fifty-five
parties and sinking a couple of hundred thousand dollars.
She lies in ten or twelve fathom, and I've often thought
of her."

Mr. Benson looked at Captain Mostyn, and Captain
Mostyn looked at Captain Morell, whose expression of face,
when he was not speaking and the lineaments were in
repose, was anger. He was a man you instinctively knew,
if you did not agree with him, would quarrel, and hump
his back yet more, and fall a-snarling, jutting his face into
yours and snapping his eyes at you ; a type of fo'csle
hand who comes aft to the captain airily balancing a cube
of salt horse on his sheath knife, to ask if men made by
Gord, jess' as captVs and mates and better men are, are
expected to eat and work, and keep their bodies alive on
such muck as this : a question which, in certain kinds of
sailing-ships, particularly those hailing from Nova Scotia,
is usually answered by the mate or second mate with the
belay ing-pin.

" Of course the loss of the steamer would be known to
the sealers," said Captain Mostyn, stepping forward to
give his hand to his wife, who was ascending the short
ladder.

Captain Morell stared at the young beauty with
astonishment before pulling off his cap to her. He had
never seen anything like her in Staten Island before,
nothing half so good in Stornington, and he thought it
would take a deal of New York to beat it.

THE "PENGUIN" 349

"This lady is Mrs. Mostyn, my wife. This is the
captain of that sealer, Phyllis. If you want to know any-
thing about seals he'll talk to you like a book."

" What would you like to know, ma'am ? " asked
Captain Morell, still lost in admiration of Phyllis, who
instantly disliked him on the merits of his looks, and felt
that he was not a man in whose relations of perils, fishing,
and other experiences she could take interest.

" I am told," said she, coldly, " that seal-hunting is
almost as bad as human murder."

" Who's put that in your head, ma'am ? "

" You said so, Charlie."

" I guess," said Captain Mostyn, not much heeding the
current of talk, " that you don't find many seals down
here nowadays."

" Not enough, after expenses have been paid and you're
ashore, to buy a couple of red herrings for a meal for four.
But why have you caused this young lady to believe that
the trade's as bad as human murder?"

" I have it on the written authority of sealers," replied
Mostyn, in an off-hand way. "I know that the seal has
but a single young one at a time, which the poor
hunted creature suckles with infinite care and affection for
several months, and if you steal her baby she sheds tears,
and moans like a human being. Is that so ? "

" Why, perhaps it is," answered Captain Morell, whose
face Phyllis found more forbidding the more she looked
at him. " But slaughtering them animals to keep
beautiful young females, like your lady, warm in winter
isn't to be called human murder without my entering a
protest as master of a sealer."

" What'll you drink ? " said Mostyn.

" If you've got such a thing as a drop of whisky
aboard it'll slide down nicely, I think."

" You shall have it straight from Leith : something

350 OVERDUE

that your country never yet has produced," said Mostyn.
" Steward ! "

Prince, who was hanging over the bulwarks in con-
versation with a man in the boat alongside, dropped on to
his feet erect, and came aft in the soldierly walk that the
heave of the plank had not yet swung out of him.
" Get a glass of whisky for this gentleman."
" Here ! " cried Mr. Benson, running to the head of the
ladder. The steward, looking surprised, ascended a step
or two.

" Who's that you're talking to ? " said Benson, in a
dark mysterious manner.

" A man named Powell, sir."
" A friend of yours ? "

"We belong to the same place, and his brother
married my cousin."

" Not a word about the ship being here to pick up
gold," said Mr. Benson.

" It's known to the crew, sir. But if it's known in the
boat it'll not be through me."

"Get a glass of Scotch whisky for Captain Morell,"
said Mr. Benson, in a loud voice.

The scud was still speeding, and the thunder of wind
on high found an echo in the calm betwixt the hills. It
was noticeable that Benson scarcely heeded Phyllis. He
had eyes for none but Morell. In his furtive way he
studied him whilst the man drank to the success of the
dollar-fishing. And before he quitted the ship, Benson
went up to him, and said —

"I'm much interested in your industry. I'd like to
pay your schooner a visit."

" You're welcome," answered Morell, looking up and
down the man with a keen biting eye, and the expression
that is anger in the human face.
" How long do you stay ? "

THE "PENGUIN" 351

" Depends on the catch."

" Are you likely to remain a month ? "

" Oh, why, yes, all that, and perhaps more."

" How long in this harbour ? "

"Till there's nothin' to catch."

This conversation passed out of hearing of the others,
and Captain Morell, after remaining about twenty minutes,
went away. Ten minutes later, the cabin-breakfast was
ready. It was strange to find Mr. Dipp's seat untenanted.
No one was ever more regular at meals than the diver.
Blow high, blow low, his was the loaded plate and the
pale red draught ; and the more roasting it was the
more fat he would ask for, and the higher the seas
ran the keener his delight in the under-done chop from
the last stuck porker. In the middle of the meal he
came out of his cabin in his diving costume, holding his
helmet.

" 'Ope you're making a good breakfast, Mr. Benson,"
said he.

Phyllis half rose from her seat.

" Are you going to dive at once ? " she exclaimed,
flushed with excitement at the sight of the helmet and
rubber toggery.

" It won't be long, ma'am," he answered, smiling at
her. "But there'll be plenty of time for you to finish
your breakfast."

She made such haste after Dipp had gone that her
husband laughed at her.

" Why, Phyl," he exclaimed, " one would suppose that
a diver is more exciting than an execution or a royal
procession."

" I never saw a man dive, Charlie," she answered, with
a pout.

" There is nothing to see after he is under," said Mr.
Benson, without looking at her.

352 OVERDUE

" That's what I like, for the imagination is let go, and
you can dream what you please.1'

The look her husband fixed upon her was filled with
pride and admiration. He never thought her fairer than
this morning.

i " Go and put on your jacket, and we'll watch the pro-
ceedings. You shall dream whilst I expect. For if the
gold is buried, then — good night."

I When the young wife gained the deck the long-boat
was being hauled alongside. Phyllis walked straight to
the diving apparatus to inspect it before it was lowered.

"Air is made, then, by revolving those wheels?" she
inquired.

" Pumped into this 'elmet," said Mr. Dipp.

"Why doesn't it burst it ?"

" Because I can let it off by this valve."

*' I should like to see the tube that feeds you with
air," said Phyllis, whose charming face and spirited ex-
pression were eyed with a half-smiling but respectful
admiration by not only the diver's men but a number of
the crew who had clustered near.

) One of Mr. Dipp's people held up a bight of air-pipe,
composed of layers of solid sheet indiarubber and pre-
pared canvas, and armour-clad internally with spiral
metallic wire ; the couplings, like Mr. Dipp's boots, were
of gun metal.

" What pressure is allowed for this pipe ? " asked
Captain Mostyn, who had sauntered to the little crowd.

" It's tested to a pressure of two 'undred pound to the
square inch."

" You'll see best on top of the deck-house, Phyl," said
the captain, as they ascended to the familiar surface, made
then, as commonly, extremely objectionable by the presence
of Mr. Benson.

The apparatus was lowered into the boat, the ladder

THE « PENGUIN" 353

by which the diver descends from the boat's side followed.
Dipp then entered, and three men rowed him and his little
company to the place where the Conqueror was believed
to be lying. The gale was easing down, but you could
judge of the weight of the sea by the distant flash and
toss of the surge beyond the heads, and the thunder of
the surf was a prolonged roar. Mostyn called to Prince
for his binocular glass, and Phyllis then brought Mr. Dipp
to within half a ship's length of her. Mr. Benson stood
behind at a little distance, black, silent, obviously ex-
pectant. Anxiety was showing in MostyiVs face. It was
the very core and crisis of the adventure.

A wild romantic scene ; a ship dismantled to her top-
sail yards, a long-boat in a central calm, high over which
a strong wind was blowing ; no sunshine to touch the
scarlet lichen into flame, to fire the clusters of the red berry,
to glorify the foreshore with the splendour of the sea-
pink. Albatrosses and other birds flew wildly about over
Mr. Dipp's head. They were certainly not tame, and
therefore not shocking to him. The men in the boat had
dropped the anchor, and were now equipping Dipp for
immersion. They put on his helmet and complicated him
with pipes and lines, and slung the steps over the side.

" Oh, Charlie, he's going ! " cried Phyl, whose excite-
ment was provincial to the life.

She saw the diver, in a heavy and massive way, labour
one leg over the boat's gunwale, then with equal toil
labour the other leg over, and when he was on the ladder
he paused at least a minute in manifest intention that the
young wife should see as much of the show as he could
submit, as was proved by the faces of the men, which were
turned to the ship. He then slowly sank out of sight,
and two men revolved the fly-wheels, whilst a third took
charge of the signal line.

When Dipp had gained the bottom, he signalled by

il A

354 OVERDUE

preconcerted arrangement, and the signal linesman shouted
to the ship, " Touched bottom, sir ! "

" Now we have nothing to do but to wait, and every-
thing comes to those who don't expect anything,1' said
Mostyn, taking the glass from his wife.

The diver remained under water one hour. The whole
term of the outward passage might have been compressed
into those sixty minutes of expectancy. At the expiration
of this time his helmet showed above the gunwale, and he
rose out of the sea and got into the boat. The men
relieved him of his dead weight of helmet, and he seated
himself without attempting to communicate with the
ship. Expectation was wrought into torment. For what
was the information that lay sepulchred in that stout
rubbered figure ? From the captain to the boy, which
means the youngest ordinary seaman, all hands lining
the ship's side were in a state of excitement, more or
less acute. At last Bipp lifted his hand and signalled
for attention, and every ear was strained.

"The wreck's there right enough, broken in 'alves.
Many dead bodies. I 'ope the road's not difficult to the
cases."

A cheer broke from the ship's side. Phyllis flourished
her handkerchief, and Benson and Mostyn their caps.

" The Conquerors there, for sure," said Mr. Benson ;
" and she being the antecedent, the consequent, of course,
is the gold."

" I wish he would sail away in that schooner in search
of seals and get drowned," thought Phyllis, with a curl
of disgust in her lip as she shot a glance at him.

After sitting in the boat for some two hours, and
smoking a pipe, Mr. Dipp was again made an ancient
knight of about the head, and if his rubber had been
mail, a spear or lance would have completed him. This
time he remained down about three-quarters of an hour.

THE "PENGUIN" 355

When he emerged he was rowed aboard, and went into
his cabin to shift.

Mr. Benson did not appear to understand Mr. Dipp's
conduct. He thought he should have remained two or
three hours under water at the very least in the first day,
and afterwards six or eight hours. He had as much
knowledge of diving as might be expected in a chartered
accountant. He conceived that Dipp was evading his
duty, and not earning his money ; and with some degree
of agitation in his manner, he said to Mostyn —

" Has Dipp dived for the day ? "

" He's in his cabin ; ask him," replied the captain.

Benson immediately entered the deck-house and
knocked on Dipp's door. The familiar voice of the diver
sounded in a greasy —

" 'Ulloa ! Who's there ? "

" Mr. Benson."

" What d'ye want ? "

" To know if our diving operations have ceased for
the day. It's early in the afternoon."

Silence followed this inquiry. The door of the berth
was then violently flung open, and the figure of Mr.
Dipp appeared, dressed in the cap, guernsey, and drawers
which he wore in his diving dress. His face Avas em-
purpled by anger. Had Phyllis seen him she would
have wondered that so kindly a man could have looked so
terrible.

" Whafs that you're wanting to know ? " he asked.

" There's no occasion to lose your temper, Mr. Dipp.
I put the question in all politeness, as the representative
of the office."

" Damn the office," shouted Dipp " D'ye expect me
to keep under water all day ? "

"No, but "

"I'd chuck the damned job this minute if it wasn't

356 OVERDUE

for Captain Mostyn and his wife," shouted the enraged
diver. "Don't you think I know my business?"

At this moment Phyllis came out of the cabin, where-
upon Dipp vanished with lightning rapidity.

Benson stood aside to let her pass. Otherwise
apparently he took no notice of her. He was a mean
and an exacting man, in whose hands the debtor, the half-
pay officer, the poor widow, the young man blown with
wine and insolence would fare but ill. He would have
made an ideal money-lender. Nevertheless he was a good
deal discomfited by Dipp's reception of his inquiry, and
went on deck to talk to Captain Mostyn about the
diver.

" Dipp's a man of spirit," said Mostyn, much irritated
by Benson's impolitic conduct; "and if you ill-treat him
or trouble him, he'll chuck the job as he threatens, and
then where are you ? "

" He's handsomely paid," said Benson, " and we don't
want to linger longer here than is necessary."

" Just so ; but then Dipp's first day's work in my
opinion is splendid. We have to receive his report.
Why vex the worthy fellow, Mr. Benson ? His work is
hard and dangerous, and he has gone without food all
day."

Mr. Benson, whose eyes were fixed on the schooner
astern, sank for a few minutes in thought.

" I will apologize to him," he then said. " On reflec-
tion I may have expected too much from Mr. Dipp on
the first day."

The captain, profoundly disgusted, turned on his heel,
and walked to the cabin to await the diver. Phyllis
rushed after him.

" May I be with you when Mr. Dipp tells his story ? "
she asked.

" Of course you may.1'

THE "PENGUIN" 357

They seated themselves at the table. A few minutes
later Mr. Benson joined them, and shortly afterwards
Mr. Dipp emerged, clothed in his usual attire, but looking
hot and angry. Mr. Benson stood up.

" Mr. Dipp," said he, with much expansion of shirt-front
and waistcoat, and plausible suavity of expression, " I
desire to apologize to you for the question I just now
asked. I agree with Captain Mostyn that your mere
reporting the discovery of the wreck makes your first day's
record splendid."

Dipp gave him a nod and sat down.

" Captain Mostyn," said he, studiously addressing
himself to the skipper, "she lies in 'alves, like this."
He placed his hands on the table and hollowed them at
a little distance apart. " There's a tidy scramble of raffle
in her and about her, and some corpses ; but having said
so much of tJicm, I wish to be allowed to keep my
observations to myself."

" You are wise and kind in so doing," said the
captain.

" I expect it will take me about four days," continued
Mr. Dipp, " at three hours under water every day, to get
into the lazarette where the cases are. There's a lot of
cargo in the road, and it 'ud have 'elped me had we
brought some blasting stuff to bust it out of the way."

" If you can get at the gold in four days," said
Captain Mostyn, with his face triumphant with the colour
of delight, " the feat, I should say, would stand among the
highest in the annals of diving."

" It shall be done if trying can do it," said Mr. Dipp,
relaxing a little ; and then, turning to Phyllis with his
homelv, kindly smile, he said —

" Would you like to ask me about what I've seen,
missus, all saving the bodies ? "

" Is it very dark down there ? " she asked, bestowing

358 OVERDUE

one of her sweetest smiles upon him, whilst Benson sat
silent, a discomfited listener.

" Sort of greenish glimmer. Suppose you was to put
on a pair of green spectacles and bury your face in a
large basinful of water. The light down below 'ud be
like that."

" I wonder you're able to see.""

"It's as much as I can five times out of six. It's more
gropin' than looking.''1

" Why don't they connect the electric light with your
helmet ? " said Mostyn.

" We've a breast lamp working on a ball and socket
joint, but it wouldn't be of use down there," answered Mr.
Dipp. " The wreck makes a shadow in the water like a
storm in the sky, and this ain't a good day for divin\
The light's sad."

" What is the nature of the cargo ? " inquired Mr.
Benson.

" Bale and case goods," answered the diver, surlily.

" We are an empty ship," continued Mr. Benson,
addressing Mostyn, " and I'm sure your wife would not
object to the gift of a handsome diamond bracelet as
part of the profits of salving some of that cargo."

Captain Mostyn stared at Dipp. Dipp took no notice of
the observation, but looked a bit squally about the eyes,
as though another suggestion from Mr. Benson must
bring him on to blow hard.

" I was a-thinking of you, mam," said the diver, " and
'eartily wished you was by my side when I saw not far
from the wreck all sorts of trees a-growing jes' like what
you'll see when you go ashore. 'Ave you ever seen a
boa constrictor ? "

"No."

Dipp was at a loss. Parallels are often hard to find.

'* You've never seen, perhaps, a halligator?"

THE "PENGUIN" 359

She shook her head, smiling.

" You mean," said she, " that that wood under water
is like a grove of alligators and boa constrictors."

" Yes ; and had you ever seen them animals you'd
puffictly understand the nature of the sight below."

" You must be careful not to lose yourself in that
wood, Mr. Dipp," said Phyllis.

"hain't in the road. Besides, it's not green slimy
things that's dangerous. It's ribs, and angle irons, and
pieces of wreck forking up, which a man, seeing badly,
fouls with his air-pipe."

w What would happen ? " asked the young wife.

" The same as 'ud 'appen to your 'usband if you laid
'old of 'is windpipe and kept on squeezing it."

"Mr. Dipp," said Phyllis, "you'll think me extremely
simple for what I'm going to say, for the life is common-
place to you, and familiarity breeds contempt ; but I
declare, if I was to be asked to name the most heroical
figure I could imagine, I should name a diver toiling alone
deep down in the sea, not on smooth sands, but amidst
piles of rugged wreckage, threatening death to him at
every turn, and offering pictures of horror which he must
have the heart of a lion to witness, to remain conscious
of them as his attendants, and yet to go on with his
invisible work."

Dipp's eyes were rivetted to her with admiration and
delight.

" Very handsomely said, Mrs. Mostyn," cried Benson.
" What effect such a speech would produce in a crowded
theatre if delivered by a beautiful young actress ! "

" She would not mean it ; I do," answered Phyllis,
without looking at the man.

" Tell yer what, Mrs. Mostyn ! " exclaimed the diver,
" will you forgive me if I say that I shall be bloomed
glad when the supper hour comes round ?"

360 OVERDUE

" We'll make it two bells, if you like," said Mostyn,
judging that Dipp was extremely hungry.

" Will that give time ? " exclaimed the diver, looking
at the clock. " What's agoin' ? "

Prince was just outside. Mostyn called to him.

" What's for supper ? " he asked.

" Cold salt beef and pork, sir. A sea-pie, a duck I
caught " He paused in effort to remember.

" Steward," said Mr. Benson, " add tins of chicken
and tongue, brawn, and put some bottles of champagne
on the table."

" Not for me," said the diver, with a cold flourish of
his hand.

" You'll leave yourself no champagne for the homeward
passage, Mr. Benson," said Captain Mostyn.

Benson smiled as though the suggestion delighted him.

" Get supper as soon after two bells as possible," said
Mostyn to the steward ; and they all went on deck.

The strong wind of the morning had almost entirely
failed ; the albatross and the sea-mew were few, and their
flight was the holiday circle over prey penetrable only by
the marvellous eyes of the sea-fowl ; the wink of the foam
in the sers beyond the heads had died in the large swell,
which yet left the water of this harbour as serene as a
sheet of ice — you might know that by watching the ship.
Sunshine was now clothing the air, and silvering the snow,
and colouring into brilliance and beauty the tinctures of
the shore.

"I shall pay that schooner a visit to-morrow," said
Mr. Benson. " I am unable to dive, but it is within my
power to enlarge my mind above water."

" When are you going to take me ashore, Charlie ? "
said Phyllis.

" To-morrow, if fine. But you'll see no more there
than here."

THE "PENGUIN" 361

"I shall feel dry land under me, which will be a new
sensation."

" I'll take a pencil and sketch-book and draw. Every
skipper ought to add something to the general marine
knowledge. I may be able to make the old chart of this
island a sight more accurate than was represented by the
Chanticleer s people."

The husband and wife walked right aft to the taffrail
to admire the harbour and island in this gay mood of
the day.

"Benson seems very anxious to visit that schooner,"
said Phyllis.

" I agree with you."

"As to his enlarging his mind," she continued, with
the disgust of her heart for him in her face, " a fat lot he
cares about seals. Besides, I suppose he has seen a seal
in London."

" Not hunted and killed."

"Will he see that there?" she exclaimed. "I doubt
it. He can't be eager to visit that schooner out of love
for her skippers face. I don't think I ever saw a more
repulsive man. Pm not more repelled by Mr. Mill."

" Like most of your sex, Phyl, you're suspicious. How
would a woman manage without suspicions ? She'd be
barren of grievances. She'd have no story of her
husband's insolence to relate to the greedy ear of her
dear sister "

"Now, don't go on, Charlie," interrupted Phyl.
" There is no greedy ear for me. I am yours ; but, apart
from you, I am utterly alone in this world ; and as I know
that men hate mothers-in-law and their wives' relations,
this reflection ought to keep you smiling in your dreams."

He looked at her tenderly, and then a little pensively.
Maybe some thought of her father came into his head.
He had abstracted her, and if he died she was indeed

362 OVERDUE

truly alone, and the thought found accentuation in the
scene of majestic solitude round about, in that lofty
mountain, solitary as the Great Spirit, lifting its eternal
snow and its belt of troubled vapour. But his heart was
a young mans, and a few minutes later found him hum-
ming " Yankee Doodle," with his eye critically exploring
the schooner, which was rigged with square topsail, top-
gallant sail, and royal, and, to judge by the height of the
fore yardarm above the rail, capable of expanding a con-
siderable area of square sail.

By a quarter-past five supper was got ready, and Mr.
Dipp was much pleased. He told Phyllis that he meant
to make up for lost time, and astonished her by quoting,
in an oily note, the following couplet : —

" Sure, 'tis better repenting a sin
Than regretting the loss of a pleasure,"

which he sang rather than recited. But it was to be
observed that he gave a wide berth to Mr. Benson's good
things, and even to Mr. Benson himself, whose questions
he answered so sulkily that the chartered accountant sank
into silence from him, and referred himself in behaviour
and speech wholly to the others.

This conduct in Dipp made Mostyn very uneasy, and
in his gizzard he cursed Benson, in the terminology of
the foVsle, for menacing the destruction of the adventure
by gross want of tact and real ignorance of such human
nature as Dipp submitted. Phyllis caught the thought
in his face, and, with the sagacity and sympathy of a
clever wife, she went to work to help him in smoothing
matters by showing Mr. Dipp marked attention. She
passed this and she passed that.

"Do try some of this jam, Mr. Dipp.""

"My dear lady, jam's death to a man who's run
to fat."

THE "PENGUIN" 363

She passed the cheese, she passed the biscuits, she
relieved Prince of his duties so far as Dipp was concerned,
and I will not say that the fascinating address of this
charming girl failed in its influence upon the worthy good
fellow ; he smiled, he made an immense meal, and, after
his third glass of rum, grew talkative, and said to Phyllis,
" that as life aboard a ship lying stripped and moored off
Staten Island must be uncommonly wearious to a young
lady fresh from theatres and parties and picnics, he'd be
glad to amuse her by singing some songs."

Of course, she was delighted. Charlie was looking more
composed ; and this chapter closes on Mr. Dipp beginning
to sing, and conducting his orchestra of working face and
falsetto tone by flourishing the baton of a long pipe.

CHAPTER XIX

bensox's visit

" Captain Mostyn," said Mr. Benson, whilst they sat next
morning at breakfast, " will you kindly order a boat to be
got ready for me by ten o'clock to row me on board the
sealer, that I may thoroughly overhaul her and have a
o-ood long talk with her skipper before she sails, as I am
resolved to learn all I can about everything outside the
din and roar of that huge city in which I have been pent
for years.11

" Certainly you shall have a boat,11 said Captain
Mostyn, meeting his wife's swift glance without visible
recognition of her meaning. " When does your sealer
sail ? "

" How should I know ? w

" But you said before she sails.1'

" Quite so ; and she may sail at any hour for all I can
tell. Steward ! "

"Yes, sir,11 responded Prince, stepping out of his
pantry.

" See that you place a box of cheroots and a case of
champagne in the boat which will be in readiness at ten."

" It shall be attended to, sir."

"What time are we to go ashore, Charlie?11

" Is Dipp in his long-boat yet ? Steward, look."

" No, sir ; he's still on the main deck seeing to his
windmill."

Mostyn mused.

364

BENSON'S VISIT 365

" He said that he was likely to be under for three or
four hours to-day. I don't much love the idea of quitting
the ship whilst Dipp is groping. Suppose he met with an
accident.-"

" Your stopping wouldn't avert it,11 said Phyllis.

" To be sure we shall go no distance inshore — to-day,
anyhow. I shall carefully keep the ship in sight, and leave
certain instructions with Mr. Mill that I may come off at
once if necessary. Suppose we say eleven o'clock, Phyl."

She smiled, looking highly pleased.

" You must put on your Sunday best," said he, " and
make yourself as killing as you can.'"

" For whom ? "

" For the natives."

" Who are the natives ? "

" White-waistcoated penguins, who sit upright on
immense feet, look wiser than any human judge ashore,
and will pass remarks upon you as you go by."

" They'll bolt," said Phyllis, with a laugh.

Mr. Benson's gallantry was in his face, but he would
not express himself. Something more than the token of
that ballroom quality was also in his face, but plenty of
black hair, a half-buried nose, little furtive eyes, and a
small scope of soapy forehead, garnished with a twist of
eyebrow like the curl of a moustache, should as effectually
seal a man from observation if he holds his tongue as
though he were in pitch blackness or twenty miles off.

"I'll take my gun," said the captain. "I'm a dead
hand at a miss."

" We must get a humming-bird, if possible. We must
be consistent with our traditions."

" Humming-birds have been flying about in your mind
ever since you left Woolsborough."

" Charlie, I'll not allow you to shoot one. I won't be
decorated at the price of suffering and beauty."

366 OVERDUE

"They may have a humming-bird on board the sealer,"
said Mr. Benson. " If so I will purchase it, and feel
honoured by your acceptance of it.11

" Thanks ; but pray give yourself no trouble," said the
young wife.

" Sealers don't come down here to chase humming-
birds," said Mostyn, laughing.

" They may have picked one up or knocked one down,
in which case it is at Mrs. Mostyn's service," answered
Benson, who, immediately after uttering the words, rose
and entered his berth ; for at sea there is no ceremony,
no waiting for ladies and the like. When you are ready
you begin, and when you have done you go.

At half-past nine Mr. Dipp was under water, and Mr.
Mill had received instructions, sternly and coldly delivered,
as usual, by Mostyn, to hoist the ensign for his recall if
needful, and to get a boat ready for Mr. Benson by ten,
for himself by eleven. Repellent as was Mostyn's de-
meanour by contempt and dislike of the man, I am bound
to say that Mr. Mill this morning discovered some faint
sympathy with the discipline of shipboard by acquiescence
as little acid as he could produce it. But no sailor, no
old hand who knew the ropes and was free to spit to
windward, but would have intuitively known, by looking
at the two men when they spoke, that their livers lay in
black eclipse towards each other.

At ten o'clock a boat was brought alongside, and
three sailors entered her. The stewai'd handed down the
gifts as ordered. Mr. Benson, in a monkey-jacket and a
billy-cock hat and rather flowing blue trousers, was so far
nautical in his appearance as to have passed perhaps, but
not without suspicion, as a barge owner. He got into the
boat, and was rowed away.

It was again a fine morning. Here and there the
placid surface trembled to a cat's-paw, the long shining

BENSON'S VISIT 367

breast mirrored the vivid Fuegian green and scarlet and
yellow of the foreshore, and the abrupt height was ringed
into ripples by the play of penguins, and a score of racers
or logger-headed duck could be counted stemming with
full breasts of foam.

" His thirst for information is curious," said Mostyn,
surveying with his wife at the top of the deck-house the
receding boat.

"Do you think he is scheming some private enter-
prise ? Seeing, I mean, if he can add to the profits of the
voyage by a purchase of sealskins.'"

" I don't know what to think," answered Mostyn.
" Enough that his meaning can't concern this adventure.
But I am beginning to view him with your eyes, Phyl,
and if I catch him in anything scenting of rascality, which
God knows so respectable a man as Montague Benson
seems incapable of, it would give me great pleasure to
clap him in irons out of your road for the rest of the
voyage."

Whilst she listened to her husband, Phyllis silently
compared the moral natures of the man in yonder boat
and the man, buoyed by the long-boat, "who was view-
lessly exploring the glimmering green depths, witnessing
wonders and horrors all alone, and once again she declared
to herself that she regarded the figure of a diver in deep
•waters as infinitely more heroic than anything that can be
manufactured by the art of war, whether in the field or
afloat.

At eleven o'clock the starboard quarter-boat was at
the gangway ready for the captain and his wife. She was
flushed and beautiful, and her eyes were as brilliant as
the sunshine in the sea in the happy girlish prospects of
her visit. The captain took a gun with him, and he was
also careful to secrete in a side pocket a six-chambered
revolver. " Shove off," and oil' they went to the impulse

368 OVERDUE

of four oars, and the captain at the yoke-lines kept her
steady. They passed close to the place where Mr. Dipp
was trying to find the commission of four hundred pounds
for them, and when her husband called Phyllis's attention
to this she leant over the gunwale and sought to pierce
the sea.

In the long-boat the men were revolving the fly-wheels,
and a man was standing at strict attention at the signal
line. The pipes curved over like snakes.

" If they should cease to pump," said Phyllis, " what
would happen ? "

"A corpse. Nothing else. One more to the many
down there."

" Strange that any man should be found to repose his
life entirely in the hands of others — so utterly and
entirely ! " exclaimed Phyllis, whilst the oarsmen swung
their blades with often a glance askant of mutinous
admiration, defiant of the husband, who perfectly knew
that the men could not help themselves, that a handsome
woman is created for the admiration of men, and that
" not to admire " is to violate a noble and exalted canon
of Nature.

"The diver doesn't stand alone, Phyl. Pull gently,
my lads. I want to come across a forest of seaweed. We
trust our lives to the engine-driver, to the captain of the
ship, to the man who tends the line in whose bowline
we're slung. It's give and take all round, and men were
created so as not to be able to do without one another,
and that's what leads to war."

The grins of the men expressed appreciation of the
captain's views.

" Oars ! " he exclaimed. "Johnson, peer over the bow
and see if the forest is in sight."

The man made a duck of himself. The boat lay still
upon the water, all hands strained their vision, in vain.

BENSON'S VISIT 369

" Where can Mr. Dipp have seen this phenomenal
growth ? " exclaimed the captain to his wife.

" It lies about there, sir, by the bearings of the long-
boat," said a man who had formed one of Dipp's company.

They made for the spot, and there stole out in the
green dissolving gloom huge leaning and yearning shapes,
as of mighty oaks in the throes of the fall ; vast green
ropes and cables ; so like the mighty sea-snake that had
they stirred Phyllis must have shrieked. All under water,
but rising to within a few feet of the surface, and spring-
ing from depths of three hundred feet, the plants of
the sea in this part of the world are gigantic in form and
sublime in might. Their mother is the hurricane; she
sweeps them with crash of surge and shrieks which fill the
skies, and, clothed in the blinding raiment of the snow-
fall, she seeks to uproot them, and they sway and swing
in the terrible sweat of her wrath.

" What dye think of it ? " said Captain Mostyn.

"It'll live in my dreams until I die,'1 she answered.
" Can you wonder that sailors should invent inhabitants
for huge woods and groves of that sort ? "

" I don't wonder at anything a sailor does,-11 answered
Captain Mostyn ; at which, as he expected, his men
laughed.

"Why should not the mermaid be deep down there
out of sight, in the pavilion lighted by sea lamps in
which she is said to live ? " said Phyllis.

" I wish she'd show herself," said Mostyn. " All that
is worth seeing as ghosts and mermaids keeps out of sight.
If I were to fish for a mermaid,'" he continued, being in
no hurry whilst his wife continued to gaze into the green
grandeur, serene in water, ° what bait should I use ? A
mans heart ? " The sailors laughed. " A piece of sailor's
beef? I might try her with a bracelet or brooch. She'd
go for that. If she's a woman to the waist then there's

2 B

370 OVERDUE

woman enough to grasp a jewel, and I'd fish for her as
the Fuegians fish with limpets ; they secure the limpet to
the end of the line, the fish bolts it, can't release it, and
is brought up, and taken by the hand."

He ordered the men to continue rowing. They made
for a natural landing-place in the sandy beach. Even
the sailors, rude and ragged harriers of the deep, were
impressed by the grandeur of the titanic kelp that slept
in the still embrace of the water, wooing semblance of
vitality from the motions of fish, some of which were large
and richly coloured.

" Land ho ! " shouted Mostyn, as Phyllis sprang off
the boat, holding his hand. " Give me that gun. Where's
my note-book ? I have it. Men, if you wander, do not
go far from the boat, as I may want to go aboard at a
moment's call. One of you tend the boat."

" Ay, ay, sir."

" I shall keep ship and boat in sight."

" I can't believe I am on the earth," said Phyllis.
" And it's not so long, after all. What must it have
been to Captain Cook ? Oh, what a splendid bird ! "

A large mountain hawk, sailing in state over her
head, had caught her eye. They strolled slowly up the
sand towards the background of scurvy-grass, and trees
of red berries, and large currant bushes, and fuchsias side
by side with ferns and lichen and scarlet and green
mosses. The picture was made enchanting by the view
beyond. You could not see far, yet what you saw was
soft and sweet, though this is the stormiest region on the
face of the globe. The mountain rose from hillocks of ten
feet to the snow-crowned monarch of three thousand
feet; each hill was peaked and tenderly clothed almost
to its summit, and the springing rills running into the
sea glanced the gaiety of a fountain into the picture.

Mostyn loaded his gun, and took aim. Bang ! the

BENSON'S VISIT 371

hawk sailed away, and several other birds were greatly
agitated, amongst them being gulls and albatrosses,
thrushes and linnets. Mostyn watched the bird to see
if it meant to fall until it had fainted into a speck.

" How base is English taste ! " said Phyllis, who was
laughing at him. "The first thing a Briton attempts
when he gets ashore on a sweet island is to murder
something that helps to make the island beautiful."

" Don't you pick any flowers, then," said he.

"What's that cross there, Charlie?"

They walked right up to it. It was on the margin
of the sand where the soil began ; a grave and a Avooden
cross, as reported by Dipp, and on the cross was chiselled
in bold characters, " ShellarcTs J):cd-Jish and chipped-
potatoes shop.'1''

" A disgusting idea, and very profane," said Phyllis,
with a look of loathing in her face.

" He might have been the son of a cook, and this is
an epitaph for crabs," said Mostyn, and burst out —

u ' When news comes home, but waited ships do not,
Of liners, schooners, tramps, or roaming whalers,
There, mid the uncounted graves in the ooze beneath the waves
Lie more than men — they also ranked as sailors.'"

They passed on. Mostyn looked about him for prey,
Phyllis for flowers. Presently they paused on top of a
little hill like a cushion, vividly green, and admired the
scene. Now they could see the Dealman sleeping in a
line betwixt the chains that held her ; the shadows of her
masts flickered in the water under her. The air-pump
was still going on board the long-boat, and they thought
of Mr. Dipp deeper down in the sea than they were high
on land. Captain Mostyn dropped his gun, sat down,
and began to sketch. His wife wandered about in search
of a bouquet, which she presently collected. She went to
the dry shore for the sea-pink, and the Fuegian flowers

372 OVERDUE

she culled, whose stems she bound, whose dyes she enriched
by a mixture of coloured mosses, lent their grace to her
beauty, and her eyes shone over the ocean petals when
she showed them to her husband.

They remained ashore for about an hour and a half.
Mostyn well understood that he might be here for a
long stretch, and that his visits to the island would be
frequent, and he did not desire to prolong his stay from
the ship on this, his first day of leaving her.

As they were returning Mr. Dipp's helmet showed
upon the rungs of the ladder, and in a few minutes the
diver was inside, helmet off, resting. Mostyn's boat went
alongside.

" I don't want to bore you with questions, Mr. Dipp,11
said the captain. " I hope that nothing Mr. Benson can
say will induce you to remain under water one minute
longer than you think proper.1''

" Bet your boots,11 said Mr. Dipp, with a cold, pale
smile, for this man, rubicund in the cabin, was pale after
his sentence of heavy pressure and anxious groping. And
diving makes a man feel cold too, in spite of the warm
underclothing he goes down in.

"I have picked these for you,11 said Phyllis, holding
up her bouquet.

He motioned as though kissing his hand to her, but
was silent. He was weary. The boat regained the ship,
and they went aboard.

" Has Mr. Benson returned ? " said Captain Mostyn,
to Mr. Mill, who stood in the gangway to receive the
boat.

" No, sir.11

He had left at ten ; it was now hard upon one o'clock.
" Certainly he must be deeply interested in seals and their
butchery,11 thought Phyllis.

Mostyn swept the land with his telescope, fancying

BENSON'S VISIT 373

that Benson might have gone ashore with a party of the
schooner's people a-sealing. Nobody was to be seen on
ridge, in cleft, on mound. It was lifeless all till the hand
brought the glass to the schooner; but even then it did
not reveal Mr. Benson. It displayed the figures of some
men smoking and idling in the bows, but the quarter-
deck was barren. The Dealmans boat lay alongside the
schooner. Her crew possibly formed some of the little
mob in the schooner's bows. Jack loves the casual
meeting, and the foc's'le yarn, and the piece read aloud
from the newspaper. It used to be so. In this age of
steam this hoarse coarse sentiment has been scalded out.

Husband and wife sat down to dinner alone for the
first time of their taking their honeymoon in that ship.
Prince waited with strenuous assiduity ; but Mostyn, who
did not choose to talk in his presence, dismissed him
when they were in a position to help themselves.

" How heavenly if it had always been like this ! " said
Phyllis.

" I don't mind Dipp ; old Dipp is never in the road,"
answered her husband.

" And I like Mr. Matthew Walker," said the young
wife. " He looks an honest fellow ; but how on earth,
Charlie, you could ever have shipped such a mate as Mr.
Mill "

" It'll be the worst voyage he's made in his life," said
Mostyn, looking darkly. " But what's Benson doing in
that schooner? It is impossible to suppose that a
mere City man of the Benson pattern could take any
interest in the sealing talk of a sailor with a hangman's
face."

"I promise you he's not on board that schooner to
pick up information about seals," said Phyllis.

" It's easy to say that. I wish you wouldn't, Phyl.
Those suggestions are girlish and negative, and make me

374. OVERDUE

impatient with anxiety. Tell me what he has, not what
he has not gone for."

" Charlie,11 she exclaimed, colouring, " you know that
I told have you all through that this unsavoury animal is in
love with me, and that half the pleasure has been wrung
out of the voyage by his disgusting presence. Suppose
we found our judgment on this, transform ourselves into
Benson, and think out of his own mind. We might
come near to some plan that's running in the wretch's
head."

He viewed her thoughtfully, and said —

" You speak too positively. You convict him of a dark
scheme on suspicion only. His trip to the schooner may
have no reference to anything we could imagine if we took
a year in thinking out of his nut. I have answered you
all through by this question, What can he do? He's
bound to go home anyhow. He's not going to stay in
this island or on board that schooner nor ship as a seals-
man. A large sum of gold will be in his custody, and he's
much too careful of Benson to neglect the duty he owes
to Benson."

She shook her head.

" Do you want me to think, Phyl," he continued,
talking strongly with the irritation of worry, " that
Benson is plotting to kidnap you ? "

" That has not entered my head," she answered. " But
I think he is capable of it."

" Good God, my love ! " he cried, with a stamp of his
foot. " Of what use are you to him on board that
schooner ?" and the hot blood of his heart dyed his hand-
some features as he looked at her sitting in her beauty
before him, the sacred treasure of his life. A short silence
fell between the two.

"You must know, Phyl, that schemes cannot be
generated on the instant. That schooner's man came

BENSON'S VISIT 375

aboard yesterday. Benson had as little to say to him as
I. Can you suppose that so shrewd and artful a man of
business as Benson would put himself into the power
of a common sailor who by refusing would yet leave him
at his mercy, and blackmail him for the term of his
natural life?"

She would have liked to answer that she understood
enough of the world to know that the passions of even
shrewd and artful men may be too consuming to be
controlled by the will, even if the will were not a
subsidiary agent, as must be the case in such affairs ;
for you cannot act on mental stimulants, impulses,
passions, emotions, sensations without complications of
the functions of the understanding. The passions may
begin it and lead off, but if the will follow it assents, and
to speak of a man's will, therefore, in such a connection as
this, is to invert your figures and make 10 01. But
though she was his wife, how could she brin"; herself to
reason with him in this strain ? Would such decided
views about men in a young bride improve her in her
Charlie's opinion ? It was for her to think and to feel
and to fear, but not to speak, at least in the way she
thought.

"Anyway," said Captain Mostyn, rising and taking
short steps on the plank, " he's not likely to scheme
until he knows that the gold is there or on board this
ship."

" That depends upon the nature of his scheme. The
gold may form no part of it."

" We may go on vexing each other till Doomsday
with conjectures; I see no good in 'em. You hate the
man, so do I, but I can't conceive that he can prove a
source of danger to us or to the ship, taking him strictly
as the chartered accountant Montague Benson, the repre-
sentative of the Ocean Alliance Company."

376 OVERDUE

She did not answer, and presently they went on deck.

It was not until three o'clock that Mr. Benson arrived
from the schooner. They saw him emerging from the
speck he made in the stern-sheets into a surface of dark
pilot jacket and black whiskers. He speedily gained the
deck, and immediately approached Captain and Mrs.
Mostyn, who stood together on top of the deck-house.

" My visit has been delightful, I assure you ! ,1 he
exclaimed. " The only thing I regret, Mrs. Mostyn, is
that I was unable to procure a humming-bird."

" Never mind about that, if you are satisfied with the
information you have picked up."

She spoke with a meaning that was not to be found
in her words, and Benson looked at her for a second or
two only. He put his hand in the pocket of his jacket,
pulled out a note-book, and was about to open it, when
he started, and, glancing towai'ds the long-boat, ex-
claimed—

" What of Dipp ? Has he been aboard ? '

" No," answered Mostyn.

" I can't distinguish him amongst those figures," said
Benson. " Is he in the boat ? "

" He's under water."

" I have some facts here," said Mr. Benson, " which
I think will interest you, Mrs. Mostyn. Besides the seal,
the otter, the rat, and the mouse abound in this island.
The seal is sought for its soft downy fur which forms
beneath the long fur, and they are divided into two
species, the male, which has a curly fur on the head,
being called a wig. The males of the hair-seals are termed
sea-lions ; they have long shaggy manes, and resemble
the beasts they are named after. I hope I am not
boring you."

" You'd find all this in any encyclopedia," said Mrs.
Mostyn.

BENSON'S VISIT 377

" You'll find a description of a ship," he answered
blandly, " in any encyclopedia, but the knowledge of the
ship can only be acquired by experience on board the
ship/1

" But what has the trip to the sealer taught you about
seal-hunting, Mr. Benson?" said Captain Mostyn.

"They have told me all about it. I have seen the
instruments with which they butcher their prey. They
have given me their experiences under conditions which
lent them the brilliant colours of reality, and whilst I
listened I hunted with them."

Phvllis laughed.

" It will interest you, Mrs. Mostyn, to know that the
lady seals are called clapmatches," Benson went on, look-
ing at his note-book, " because of their lightning-like
motions, resembling the flash of a gun on pulling the
trigger. The word was applied by a generation who used
matches for their guns."

" Has that sealer got any skins?" asked Mostyn, who
was listening with contempt to this penny-instructor
information.

" No. She has been at the island a week."

"Then her stay will be some time."

" Not in Port Parry, I fancy. There's nothing to be
got here. This ship and that long-boat will keep every
seal sulking in secrecy, with a sentinel on the look-out."

"Two were on the beach a day or two ago," said
Phyllis.

" They are not there now," said Benson, smiling. " I
am astonished by the tactics which the creatures employ,
now that, after very many years, they have learnt what a
sealsman is. They encamp in rookeries," continued the
chartered accountant, pointing to the hills, "and sentinels
keep a look-out whilst the rest sleep. The instant a boat
heaves into sight the alarm is given, and a rush made for

378 OVERDUE

the sea. A few females," said Benson, softening his voice,
" if they have pups or young ones will nobly stay to fight
and die with them. If hard pressed, the mother takes the
baby in her teeth and dives into the surf, but holds the
head of the little creature above water to prevent suffoca-
tion. It is touching, it is pitiful — quite human, indeed."

Mr. Benson pocketed his note-book and smiled at
Phyllis, who instantly averted her head. It was a cheap
performance. Benson was no actor. He lived behind a
natural mask which rescued him from self-betrayal. Here
was this man talking nursery drivel about seals to Captain
Mostyn and his wife, who both felt that he cared as much
about seals as about whelks, and clearly perceived that his
visit to the schooner, though ostensibly explained by his
note-book, an explanation charged with a teasing quality
of indirectness, was from a motive clean outside the
possibility of gauging.

" I hope you enjoyed your trip ashore, Mrs. Mostyn ?"
said Benson.

" Very much."

" That is a lovely nosegay on the skylight.1'

" I picked it for Mr. Dipp."

" When will he arrive with his report ? " asked Benson.

The binocular glass was near the nosegay. Mostyn
looked at the long-boat. As he did so he saw the planished
helmet starry in sunshine at the gunwale.

" There he is," said Mostyn.

" How long has he been down ? " Benson wanted to
know.

"About two hours."

" I hope he has something good to tell us," said the
chartered accountant, who then left the deck-house top.

It was four o'clock before the diver came aboard. He
went straight to his cabin as before, and Benson and
Mostyn likewise as before awaited him at table, whilst

BENSON'S VISIT 379

Phyllis sat next her husband with her nosegay in her
hand. The diver emerged.

" 'Ow's trade in sealing ? " was his first remark, as he
seated himself and looked at Benson.

"My dear Mr. Dipp, pray let us have your news,"
replied the other.

Mr. Dipp put his hand in his pocket and produced a
bangle, which he laid upon the table. It was of gold, and
heavy, and looked as a gold bangle would after it has lain
for a considerable time at the bottom of the sea. He
pleasantly ogled Phyllis, whilst his fingers flirted with the
toy.

" What can this be, I wonder ? " he said, with the
harmless irony of a good-natured man. He weighed it.
"It seems gold. It's savages as wears these things,
missus, ain't it ? "

"They're worn by many women, Mr. Dipp. I am
one, and I hope I'm not a savage."

" Did you take it off a dead wrist ? " asked Mr. Benson,
in expectation of disgusting Phyllis with Dipp's spoils for
her.

" Why don't you ask me if I found it in the belly of
a seal ? " answered Mr. Dipp, who saw into the man's
intention, and fumed inwardly over the conjecture because
it happened to be accurate.
Mostyn took up the bangle.

" It's pure gold, and very handsome," said he.™ " When
polished it will shine like your helmet. What does it
matter where you found it ? "

" Jess so," said Mr. Dipp. " And I'll ask you, Mrs.
Mostyn, to do me the great favour to accept it, and when
it's rubbed up into its proper brightness, to wear it in
memory of this voyage and Mr. Dipp the diver, who'll
bring you up more if he finds more."

"Thank you, Mr. Dipp," answered Phyllis, receiving

380 OVERDUE

the bangle from her husband, " and I thank you not more
for this ornament than for thinking of me whilst sur-
rounded by perils under water. Will you accept this
Fuegian bouquet?"

" Yes, ma'am, yes ; and them flowers will be a real
curiosity when they dries up," answered the diver, putting
his nose into the bouquet.

"What's your report, Mr. Dipp?" exclaimed Mr.
Benson, a little sharply.

Dipp replied by addressing Mostyn.

"I've cleared a good passage. I 'ope to be able to
enter the wreck the day after to-morrow."

" Bravo ! " cried Mostyn.

" And how much longer will it be before you're able
to get at the cases ? " inquired Benson.

" You're always asking a man riddles, Mr. Benson,"
said Dipp. " Suppose the worm 'as bored through the
wood, and let the sovereigns leak out, which 'as 'appened
over and over again ; and supposin' these 'ere sovereigns,
or the most of them, 'ave leaked in a true course through
a gap in the 'ull on to the sands which sucks 'em up?
These are my riddles, sir. Will you answer 'em ? "

"D'ye think that's possible, Mr. Dipp?" asked
Mostyn, anxiously.

" I'll try 'ard to make it impossible," said Dipp, smiling
at Phyllis. " But worms is the natural enemy of sailors.
They bores into ship's bottoms, into sailors' biscuits, into
sailors themselves, who are made to feel as worms " — he
was addressing Benson — " when they're talked to as worms,
which is mostly."

" I have not the slightest doubt myself that the cases
are intact," said Benson.

" I 'ope they are," answered the driver. " And I'm
quite ready for my supper," he added, laughing, and
looking at Mrs. Mostyn.

BENSON'S VISIT 3S1

After supper, when husband and wife were alone,
Phyllis said to her captain —

" Did that bangle, do you think, come off a dead arm ? "

" How should I know ? "

" I don't like the idea."

" ' Oh, damn all sentiment ! ' said Sir Peter to Joseph
Surface. AVould you wear a bracelet that your dead grand-
mother has worn ? Would you chew with teeth out of a
dead man's skull ? Would you enrich the glories of your
hair by wreathing thicknesses cut from German women,
the cause of whose death no one who wears their hair dares
conjecture ?'"

He was overwhelming, and silenced her, and indeed her
objection was sentimental and illogical : because she might
easily have reasoned that, suppose one morning she walked
along the seashore and picked up a beautiful diamond
bracelet, would she wear it because in its time it might
have been worn by a woman who went down in a notable
wreck that happened yonder ?

" I want to have a quiet confab with Dipp,r> continued
Mostyn. " What will you do ? "

" I'll go into my cabin and read."

" You can't do better. Benson won't trouble you
there."

Mr. Dipp, having supped, and supped well, was smoking
a large pipe on the quarter-deck. Captain Mostyn joined
him.

"D'ye find," said he "that your diving leaves any
sense of weariness behind it ?"

" None, sir. If it's weariness it comes along of manual
labour, 'eaving hobstacles out of the road. But it ain't
more tiring than a watch on deck in busy weather."

"Your secrets are yours," said Captain Mostyn,
admiring the man. " I know the surface of the sea only.
Are there any case-goods amongst the cargo ? "

382 OVERDUE

'* Yes," answered Dipp, letting out a large blue
cloud.

" Are they perforated with the worm ? "
" Ne'er a one. I only said it to frighten Benson. If
that there man goes on a talking to me as 'e do I may
take upon myself the responsibility of plugging 'im in
the heye." After which utterance he drew and expelled
a larger blue aromatic cloud than any his lips had
discharged in that walk.

"I want to consult with you about this gentleman,"
said Mostyn. " I don't understand his motives in visiting
the sealer."

Dipp sucked his pipe.

" He's not interested in seals, you know, Mr. Dipp. If
he liked the talk of sailors he would have gone forward
and found plenty of informing conversation in our fo'c'sle.
He left at ten and was back at three. That's a long spell
for a visit."

Mr. Dipp, obstinately silent, sucked his pipe.

" Have you any opinion to give me on this subject?"
inquired Mostyn.

After a pause Dipp answered " Yes," like dropping a
stone.

" What is it ? "

" I'd rather stand by and look on," said the diver.
" In fact, I've been adoing that some time ; but 'e don't
know it."

Mostyn flushed.

" Do you refer to my wife, Mr. Dipp ? "

"You ask me," said Mr. Dipp, with a melancholy
shake of his head, "and I answer yes. He's dead gorn
on her. 'E was dead gorn as soon as 'e saw 'er in the
Channel. Harn't ye eyes to see for yourself, capt'n ? "

" My wife is a handsome girl," answered Mostyn,
irritably, "and it's impossible for me to stop men from

BENSON'S VISIT 383

admiring her. They may do that, but let them stop at
that," he added, with a darkening face. "This man has
never once insulted my wife to my knowledge. She has
never complained of any lack of courtesy to her in him.
Her grievance is the admiration with which he pursues her,
but which he controls, and as a man I am not £roin<r to
punish him for admiring the woman I myself fell in love
with. I cannot forget that she is here by his consent.'11

At this, Dipp, who was pulling hard whilst the other
talked, looked askant at his companion as though he
wondered at him.

" I wish," cried Mostyn, in a sudden temper, " that the
fellow would be tempted into doing something I could
deal with as master of the ship. I'd risk a court of
inquiry. I'd risk my professional character," he continued,
with a glowing face. "Let my wife come to me, which
as yet she has never once done, and tell me that Benson
has said something or done something which has offended
her, and the road is clear."

" He's too hartful. When that there Benson buttons
up his waistcoat he buttons up a man that's uncommonly
careful of 'imself, and's not likely to give 'imself away in
a 'urry.11

" I've asked my wife over and over again, ' What can
he do ? ' " said Mostyn, almost shouting as he finished the
sentence.

" Well, ye see, Captain Mostyn, if he's prepared to
take the risk he'd be able to do anything.1'

" What thing ? Would you imply that he is scheming
to carry off my wife ? "

Mr. Dipp drew hard at his pipe before he answered.
He then deliberately said, looking the captain full in the
face —

" I don't think he's scheming to carry off* your wife,
but that he's scheming to carry off' you.'1

384 OVERDUE

Captain Mostyn laughed contemptuously.

" He's not going to Portland for me," said he. " Carry
me off ! " Again he laughed. " If that's all, who in bally
Jordan's to take the ship home ? How is he to account
for my absence ? Pshaw ! don't talk nonsense, Mr. Dipp.
There is a ship-load of witnesses. What can he do ?
Your suggestion relieves my mind. The absurdity of the
fallacy makes it as buoyant as a lifebuoy. Carry me off! "
He looked round him proudly and threateningly. "Oh
dear, no. That's not his object in visiting the sealer."

"I've 'ad my say," said Mr. Dipp, a little sulkily,
" and I'd rather not express another opinion."

CHAPTER XX

THE GOLD

I pass over three days. In those three clays the Penguin
sealer lay at anchor about three-quarters of a mile astern
of the Dealman on her weather quarter, and her people
could easily be seen by the naked eye passing to and fro
between the shore and the schooner in their boat. What
they exactly did Mostyn endeavoured to find out, but
failed. They certainly did not hunt seals. When thev
were on the rocks he watched their motions through the
telescope, which brought them as near to him as if thev
were pacing his own fcTcsle, and saw they were peering
about and picking up things ; and once, whilst he watched,
a man holding a gun turned swiftly, pointed the piece
skywards, and flashed a red scar upon the glass of the
telescope. All this was, perhaps, consistent with the
tradition of the sealsmen. They needed food, and they
found it in ducks, clams, berries, and the like, and large
fish were to be hooked with the bait of the limpet in the
gigantic tangle of the seaweed on the shore.

Every morning a party of men were sent in a boat, in
charge of Mr. Matthew Walker, to shoot, fish, and hunt
the land for the ship's larder. As the vessel had left
London in ballast many of her tanks, which were numerous,
as they served as ballast, were still full of London water.
But no man, after tasting the cold, sweet, bright falls
which sprang from the hillsides, could endure the boiled-
cabbage flavour of the liquid in the tanks under deck.

3«5 2 c

386 OVERDUE

Now, how were they to fill up with fresh water ? You
may raft casks, but iron tanks will sink if you float and
fill them. It would have needed a hose longer than the
distance from the ball on the summit of St. Paul's to the
end of the Strand about Charing Cross to have fetched
water from the heights into the ship's tanks. Here were
no conveniences of civilization : the freshwater boat to
wait upon you, the coalman to coal you, the bumboat to
feed you. Here were no inland towns or villages to which
you could dispatch messengers on horseback for sheep,
milk, poultry, cheese, and so on.

But there was time for the work, and men enough to
,spare, and Mostyn made his plans. He got up four
empty rum-casks, and having chemically, out of the
medicine chest, provided that the rum-soaked staves
should not taint the sweet water of the hills, he ordered
them to be rafted, and they were towed ashore by the
boat. The party carried buckets and funnels, and, when
the casks were filled, they were towed aboard and hoisted,
and their contents pumped into the cleaned empty re-
ceptacles which, in the outward passage, had smelled of
London water. This process was repeated again and
again ; it found occupation for the men ; it did them
good ; it was good, too, for the ship's health that as many
tanks as possible should be filled with the sweet water of
the hills ; and day after day, with far more patience than
ever Job exhibited, despite his three irritating consolers,
the work went on, and several tanks were filled.

Mr. Dipp continued to dive, on the third day making
a record of six hours under water. He was then, he
reported, so close to the part of the wreck in which the
cases of gold were stowed that he hoped by next morning
to have cleared away the remaining obstacles and get a
sight of the cases, and even to send some up. This was
his report before supper on the third day, and you will

THE GOLD 387

suppose that the excitement of Dipp"s listeners was
profound.

" How frightfully tantalizing ! " groaned Benson.

" 'Ow d'yer mean ? " said Dipp.

"The cases are within a short trudge, and you're not
able to report them as in existence."

"Nor would you, working in my 'elmet and loaded
with gun-metal,1' answered Dipp, with a sullen look at
him.

" He has done marvels,11 said Mostyn, enthusiastically.
"Only think of one man, toiling alone under water,
achieving what Mr. Dipp has in three days.11

" I recognize his splendid qualities as a diver,11 said
Montague Benson ; " but the situation at this moment is
tantalizing all the same.11

The fourth morning was fair. The mountain yielded
its cone of snow in splendour of silver to the day when
the sun sent his first flash. In many ways did the island
look visionary in beauty ; it was softened out, and the
tones were kept tender everywhere by the little cushion-
like hills, and the flame of the sea-flower, and the heavy
glories of the loaded bushes. The water was dotted with
penguins and racers, which evidently were not to be
frightened out of the port by the gun of the sportsman.
The schooner lay with her canvas loose to dry ; it did not
appear that she meant to sail. She had now been nearly
a week in Port Parry ; bad trade, you say, for her skipper
and company, if their gains were to be limited to the
limpet and the penguin.

On this, the crucial morning of the voyage as it proved
to be, Mr. Dipp was laboriously slow in equipping himself.
It was his custom to come from his berth clad in his
rubber diving-suit and heavy metal weights and shoes,
and he would then descend into the long-boat, which
would row him to the place of the wreck that he had

388 OVERDUE

now buoyed by a small green cone of wood and length of
line, and dead weight at bottom to hold it still. When
the long-boat had taken up her position Mr. Dipp's men
put on his helmet and screwed his tubing to him, and saw
to all that was necessary to his preservation whilst below ;
he then would place his metal sole on the rung of the
ladder and slowly disappear.

But this morning he was slow and leisurely. In fact,
he had made no haste to go to the boat. It was, indeed,
ten o'clock before he went over the side. Mr. Benson
marked this with much torment of expectation. Perhaps
the diver intended that his behaviour should produce
some such effect in the chartered accountant, who, after
watching Mr. Dipp in the long-boat for about ten minutes
and observing that he remained seated, smoking a pipe,
without making any movement of a business-like character,
rushed across to Mostyn, who was talking to his wife, and
cried —

" When's that man going to begin ? "

" He may have reasons known to himself for lingering,"
answered Mostyn. " He has been diving for some days.
He's stout in throat and sluggish in blood, and may
require to feel himself by sitting smoking, whilst he climbs
about his sensations inside before descending. I'm glad ;
he's wise to be careful. A pleasant look-out if he went
down and was drawn up dead in a fit ! "

" Well, he may be right," said Mr. Benson, casting his
eyes in the direction of the schooner. " May I ask if you
suspect that vessel is going to sail ? "

" How should I know her skipper's intentions ? "
answered Mostyn, who, ever since his conversation with
Mr. Dipp, had felt, in some subtle, troubled manner, that
the man who was now questioning him was his assassin in
wish, and potentially his murderer.

" She has loosed her canvas," said Benson, " to dry, I

THE GOLD 389

expect. 1 hope she is not going to sail at once," he con-
tinued. " I promised to pay her another visit. I offered
them a sum of money to collect a number of curiosities
for me, and I hope that one of them will be a humming-
bird," and he glanced at Phyllis, who stood with her back
turned upon him, looking at the long-boat.

Mostyn, making no answer, stepped to his wife's side,
and five minutes later they saw the men equip Dipp, who
shortly afterwards sank out of sight.

"Oh, Charlie!" exclaimed Phyllis, in a thrilling
whisper. " What is it to be ? "

"The cases, certainly. He is too confident to leave me
doubtful. He may have caught sight of them."

" What a dear old thing he is ! " she exclaimed. " I
heartily believe he is working more for us than himself,
and would drop the business if Benson were alone in it.
What does that man mean by saying he intends to go on
board the schooner again ? "

"Let him go and be damned," was the husband's
gloomy and profane response.

" Couldn't you manage to leave him behind you here ? "
she asked most artlessly, and the quality of ingenuous-
ness was beyond the reach of many because of the eyes
that backed and poured their violet light into her husband's.

" How would you go to work ? " he asked, laughing in
a moody way.

" When the ship was ready to sail I should send him
ashore with a gun and provisions for a fortnight. A sealer
would ultimately rescue him."

" You want me to maroon him, with the whole of this
ship's company as witnesses to testify against me if ever
he arrived in London and laid an information."

"What could they do to you when you swore you
expelled him because you were afraid of him ? "

" I don't like that word afraid, Phyl," he answered,

390 OVERDUE

with a hard face. " You may suspect a man without
being afraid of him. Ill answer your question by saying
that my sentence, if I marooned Benson without further
provocation than I am in a position to show, would be a
long term of penal servitude.'"

" Horrible ! " she cried. " Then you won't think of it ?
But isn't the creature to be got rid of in some legitimate
way ? "

" No."

" Wouldn't that sealer take a bribe to sail away with
him ? "

He was amused by her innocent earnestness.

" Do you know, Phyl," said he, " that you are schem-
ing against the man more cunningly than ever I can
conceive his scheming against our interests."

He burst out laughing when he said this, for a
ridiculous image had presented itself to his mind. It was
that of a Cheapside Robinson Crusoe, dressed in a silk hat,
frock coat, white waistcoat, varnished boots, standing in
a melancholy posture on yonder shore, watched and much
studied, and much canvassed, by a huge committee of
penguins.

Time wore on slowly. It throbbed with expectancy
in the husband and wife, and Benson and Mr. Mill, stand-
ing at the rail, held their eyes rooted in the long-boat,
whilst an occasional comment passed between them.
There was nothing in this or in the previous conduct of
Benson and Mill when together to challenge suspicion.
Mill was rarely on deck when Benson was. He did not
eat at the cabin table until the captain had ended his
meal, and then Benson had finished and risen. Nothing
could be more natural or reasonable than that the repre-
sentative of the insurers should chat with the chief mate
of the salvage ship about the recovery of the gold in this
critical and expectant hour.

THE GOLD 391

Phyllis and her husband kept watch on top of the
deck-house. The atmosphere was marvellously transparent,
and the white summit of Mount Buckland looked close.
It was, indeed, as though you saw all things through a
square of English plate-glass, which is the only glass I am
acquainted with which, when the window is shut and the
telescope placed at the eye inside, will submit the scene of
land or sea exactly as though you surveyed it in the
open.

It was seven bells, half-past eleven, when some men
shouted from the long-boat.

" What are they holding up ? " exclaimed Phyllis.

" The first case of gold, as I am a living man ! " cried
Mostyn, with his eyes at the binocular glass. " If he has
got to the gold, we should have it all stowed aboard in
two or three days and heading for home."

" Will you kindly hail the long-boat," exclaimed Ben-
son, below at the rail, in a voice like catgut with the
sensations of the moment, " and ask her people what they
are holding up ? "

" Long-boat ahoy ! " bawled Mostyn. " What is that
in your hands ? "

" Gold," was the reply, and the two men who held the
case put it down.

For although I have never attempted to lift a thousand
pounds, I should say roughly, without calculating the
weight of the sovereign, that this amount in specie would
be about as much as a man could carry.

When the reply reached the ship from the long-boat,
a number of the seamen scattered about the deck in
various odd jobs rushed to the side and cheered en-
thusiastically. Not because the poor beggars were going
to benefit from Mr. Dipp's discovery; each man had
signed for so much a month, and no man would receive a
penny more ; it was the knowledge that the lifting of this

392 OVERDUE

treasure signified the words " homeward bound,'" and they
cheered and cheered for that and nothing more.

"The case is green with weed," said Mostyn to his
wife. " It's oblong, and, I suppose, heavily secured by
metal fastenings. It may be bigger than it looked, but
it seemed to me small enough to pass through a cabin
window."

Mr. Benson broke away from Mr. Mill, and with a
cheroot in his mouth walked the alley-way with the air
of a hunted man. Never in that voyage had his legs
carried him more swiftly over the planks. Mr. Dipp
remained under water another half-hour. At the end
of this time his helmet showed and he got into the boat.
He had sent but one case up. The men removed his
helmet, lifted their anchor, and the boat came aboard.
The case of gold was immediately whipped over the side
and carried into the cabin, and l3ipp followed to shift in
his berth for the day.

There, now before them — the captain, his wife, Benson,
and Mill, and Matthew Walker — lay one of the cases
which they had sought this island to wring as a secret
from the heart of the sea. It was coated with marine
growth and shells, and looked as though it had been in
the water since the days of Magellan.

" I should like this case opened," said Mr. Benson.
" Mr. Walker, will you open it ? "

The acting second mate spun forward for the tools
he wanted. Whilst he was absent Benson said —

" 111 keep this case in my cabin."

" In your cabin ! " echoed Mostyn, in the clear ring
of the astonished mind. " Why, I thought all the cases
were to be stored in the safe constructed by order of the
directors."

" This is the first case — the memorial case," said
Benson, blandly, " and it shall repose in my cabin."

THE GOLD 393

" You'll be accepting a serious risk in sleeping with
a thousand sovereigns in your cabin on board a ship the
morals of whose crew may be the morals of highwaymen,"
exclaimed Mostyn, looking very suspiciously at the
man.

Mr. Benson put on a cold, hard manner.

" I leave you to take charge of the ship, and I beg
that you'll allow me to take charge of the gold. I am
here for that purpose, as you are here for the other."

Just then Mr. Walker came in with a bag of tools.
Husband and wife stepped back a pace when Walker, kneel-
ing, fell to hammering the sodden mass, whose value would
have set him up for life as a bargeowner, or fried-fish
and chipped-potatoes shopkeeper. Into what boundless
wealth may not soar the man who, knowing how to spend
money, commands a thousand pounds ?

Whilst Walker filled the cabin with the quarrel of
the hammer and the chisel, Dipp came out of his cabin ;
the expression of his face was like a warning to keep off
the grass. Spring-guns and man-traps were in every
furrow of his countenance.

"D'yer hope, Mr. Dipp, to send up any more cases
to-day ? " shouted Benson, through the noise of the
hammer.

" No ; I'm done fer to-day."

" Done ! " yelled Benson, whipping out his watch.
" Why, there's the whole of the afternoon "

" I'm done, I tell yer," shouted Dipp, turning blue
with passion, " and by Gord Almighty, Mr. Benson, if
yer says another word to rile me, I'll hammer yer buddy
nut in!"

Benson snapped his finger and thumb in a sudden
ecstasy of agitation.

"Captain Mostyn," continued the diver, "yerlady'll
pardon my language. I'm not 'ere to be nagged and

39i OVERDUE

worried. The floor of the cabin, full of goods and
furniture, has fallen in on the cases, and it'll take me all
a week, and p'raps ten days, to get at 'em again."

A general groan uprose.

" What a horrible nuisance ! " cried Mostyn, with every
extravagance of disappointment in the workings of his
handsome features. Benson asked no questions. Matthew
Walker, with his hammer suspended in the air, gazed
with a countenance of deep discomposure at Mr. Dipp.

" I hope you weren't hurt ? " said Phyllis to the
diver.

" Kind of you to think of that part of it, missus," he
answered in a dolorous tone. " Thank Gord I ain't ; but
if I'd made another step I should be lying there now."

The shudder of a sympathetic heart ran through
Phyllis ; but Mostyn and Walker were sailors : Dipp had
come off with his life, and so it was just the same as
though it had never been risked. Had he come up with
his arm torn off, or risen with a foot less than he had
carried down, Mostyn would have found something
tangible to rest pity on; but nothing had happened
except a chance, a risk, and every man incurs a chance or
a risk of his life every hour of the day, whether ashore or
afloat.

Matthew Walker again flogged the chisel, and the
deck-house howled.

" Will it take you a full week, do you think ? " asked
Mostyn.

" All a week. Some of the stuff seems like bales of
wool. Where it came tumbling from Gord knows."

The lid of the case was opened and the sovereigns dis-
closed, packed in rouleaux. It was a pleasant show of
money. Benson pulled out a clasp-knife, opened a blade,
and picked out a coin, examined, flung, and rang it. Oh
yes, it was a good English sovereign, of a young and

THE GOLD 395

yellow gold, and the date was 1888. The chartered
accountant replaced the coin, and sent his right two fore-
fingers on a duck's walk over the line of packed pieces,
counting them. He quickly ascertained, by making a
short computation in his note-book, that the case con-
tained one thousand pounds sterling.

" Will you replace the cover, Mr. Walker, if you
please ? M he said.

Again the man fell to hammering. Mostyn took
Dipp by the sleeve of his coat and walked him through
the cabin door on to the deck, Phyllis in chase, and
said —

" Benson intends that that gold shall be stowed in his
cabin.'1

" So much the better," answered Dipp.

" But the thing is contrary to the instructions of the
directors, as explained by the strong room below,""
answered Mostyn.

" I don't care a dump about that," answered Mr. Dipp.
" Let him keep them suverins in his cabin, and one night
it may please the Lord to send a fo'csle hand to cut his
throat."

" If we could only make sure of it ! " answered Mostyn,
laughing in spite of depressing suspicions and dis-
appointments.

" I'll tell my men," said Mr. Dipp. " It'll bloomin'
soon leak out."

The suggestion in its way was scarcely a joke, and
both men knew it. They stood in conversation some time
over the diving, and Dipp said he meant to start to-
morrow morning at ten o'clock, but " his narves had been
a bit shook, and when he couldn't place confidence in Mr.
Dipp aboard ship, he wisely refused to rely upon Mr.
Dipp under water." For a diver, no matter how seasoned,
is but a man, and though you equip him so that he sinks

396 OVERDUE

in knightly costume to his dominions, he carries with him
the sensations and moods and passions of a man into a
condition of life — if you call that life where nothing but
fish can live — which gives frightful import to the passing
feeling that may seem trivial on dry land.

Benson had his way, and the case of sovereigns, slime,
shell, and all, were stowed under his bunk : " as the
memorial case, you see, Mrs. Mostyn," he pleaded.

" But the whole sum will be memorial," she answered.

" In its way, when recovered. But this first chest, so
to speak, is a sample, and it pleases me to have it under
observation."

"I would not sleep with a thousand pounds in my
cabin, unless I wanted to die, to save my soul,-" said the
young wife, looking at the blue, fat throat of the man.

" I am like Nelson," answered the black, whiskered
hero. " Fear has never come near me."" And he smiled
upon her with one of those smiles which never failed to
dismiss her to the cabin or the deck with disgust and
loathing.

A hearty good dinner put Dipp into better spirits,
and a still heartier supper completed the conquest of his
nervous juices. In the first watch they were flowing
healthily, and he was talking to Captain Mostyn about
the recovery of the rest of the cases, with as keen a note
of anxiety as had ever threaded the language of the other.
In fact, the sight of the gold was realization, ample,
convincing, profound, as to the quality of the remaining
cases. Thirty-nine were down there ; if he sent up
twenty he would have done wonderfully well.

At breakfast next day Benson asked for a boat. He
went away, leaving the thousand sovereigns locked up in
his cabin. It was not evidently for the purpose of
sailing that the schooner had dropped her canvas.
Matthew Walker was preparing a boat for a shooting

THE GOLD 397

and hunting party for the ship's larder. The captain
stopped him, as he wanted to go ashore with his wife,
and there was plenty to eat on board. He desired to see
more of this island, and he must have a boat to himself to
command at a moment's notice.

At about eleven o'clock Phyllis and he landed.
Mostyn was armed. The morning was as warm as May
in England, and the water shook under a little breeze.
The young wife felt like a girl when her feet were on the
shore. She raced and romped, and her spirits were in her
cheeks and eyes. This time they ascended a considerable hill,
but the view of the island was constantly interrupted by
mountains. Mostyn pulled out his note-book and made a
number of entries, whilst Phyllis picked up anything she
could find that was good as a curiosity. Presently looking
towards the schooner, Mostyn exclaimed —

" Benson is making for us."

The Dealmans boat was coming along, and in about
twenty minutes Benson got out of her, with a man behind
him, and walked up the hill to meet the husband and wife
who were descending.

" I guessed you were here, captain, by that boat,'" said
he, in an easy, affable manner. " I have brought you some
curiosities from the schooner, Mrs. Mostyn. Would you
like to see them ? "

Somehow her being ashore rendered conversation
with him easier than when on board.

"Yes, I should like to see them very much indeed," she
answered.

" Spread that handkerchief," said he to the seaman.

The fellow exposed a commonplace store of shells,
brilliant of hue, specimens of the quartz and other coloured
surfaces of the island. There were more things than
these not worth enumerating, but some curiosities of a
rather piquant sort were comprised in the little lot : a

398 OVERDUE

couple of shark's teeth, eggs of the albatross, penguin and
other birds of the place, a couple of whale's teeth, and
carefully reposing on top lay the minute body of a
humming-bird.

" You didn't make a long stay this time,"' said
Mostyn.

" No. In one visit I learnt all I wanted. What do
you think of this show, Mrs. Mostyn ? "

" If they are intended for me, I am obliged to you for
the trouble you have taken, but," she said, stopping to
pick up the humming-bird, " if this beautiful little
creature was destroyed for my pleasure, I assure you I
shall find none in its possession."

"Collect those things and take them down to the
boat," said Benson, " and go on board and put the
curiosities on the cabin table. I will remain with
the captain."

The man picked up his little load and trudged down
the sandy beach.

" A wonderfully fine climate," said Benson. " How
lonsr does this enchanting weather last here ? "

" During our winter months," answered Mostyn.

" Are you strolling ? " asked Benson, in the manner of
a man who meets a friend in the street, to whom he
proposes a turn round St. Paul's or a visit to the Abbey.

" We've been wandering," answered Mostyn. " Are
you tired, Phyl?"

" No," she answered doubtfully.

She was not tired. But Benson was so very obliging
this morning, his face so empty of all those looks which
used to affect her to sickness, his behaviour so genial that
if he was giving a dinner-party he couldn't look more
beaming, that she was willing to shrink her suspicious
disgust into its shell of soul, call a truce, and talk as
though she had met him for the first time.

THE GOLD 399

" Your schooner, I see, is getting under way," said the
captain.

" Is she ? " cried the other, starting, and shading his
eyes to view the vessel.

They watched in silence. The little vessel's head sails
floated her towards the points, and she slowly streamed
outwards.

"There's no game here for them, I suppose," said
Mostyn, secretly relieved by her departure.

" The captain did not talk to me about his business,"
said Mr. Benson. " I called this morning for what he
had promised."

" You're very kind," said Phyllis, in whom the old
tradition of the voyage was recurring : that this man was
a power, and though she never could doubt her own
intuition, though she was as convinced now as before that
his heart was as black as his whiskers, yet his present
call upon her courtesy this morning subdued her to a
certain degree, and she was not unwilling to be gracious.
A long homeward voyage stretched before them, and her
husband had again and again asked, " What can he do ? "

" Who stuffed the humming-bird ? " asked Mostyn.

" The mate of the schooner," answered Benson.

"It'll be offal for the penguins in a day or two,
Phyllis," said Mostyn, laughing. " How the deuce can a
man undertake to stuff a bird and guarantee it free from
putrefaction in the space of time occupied by the mate
of that schooner? Anyhow, you now know that there
are such things as humming-birds in Staten Island. You
wouldn't believe me in Woolsborough."

She was admiring the picture of the goose-winged
schooner that was slowly blowing outwards and nearing
the head. The vessel gave life, and even civilization, to
what else had been supreme desolation to the eye. Her
white shadow went with her as the ripple rolled from her

400 OVERDUE

stem, and beyond, betwixt the points, Phyllis could see the
ffleamine blue of the vast ocean in which this island rested.

" I don't know why the mate of the schooner shouldn't
know how to stuff a bird,'11 said Benson.

" I wonder where she's travelling to ? " and the captain
dropped his chin at the schooner.

Mr. Benson watched the flight of an albatross as
though he would by magnetic fascination attract Phyllis's
eyes to the same object of beauty that their gaze might
meet in it.

" She's not going home," continued Mostyn. " Not
with a clean hold. I don't suppose she's taken a seal
since she's been in Port Parry."

" There are more interesting things to talk about,"
said Mr. Benson.

They moved slowly down a hill, at the foot of which
lay the grave of the man of the fried-fish shop. Mostyn
carried his gun under his arm. Phyllis walked between
them.

"One interesting thing more there certainly is, Mr.
Benson," said Mostyn. " And that's the gold in your
bedroom. How can you repose such confidence in a
merchantman's rough company of sailors as to sleep for
two or three months with a thousand pounds under
your bed ? "

" I utterly fail to take you," responded Benson ; " as
a matter of fact, it was suggested to me by Sir William
Steele, one of our directors, that all the gold should be
placed in my cabin, under my immediate and personal
supervision."

" Why was the strong room built ?" asked Mostyn.

" For my convenience," answered Mr. Benson. " The
directors knew that the cabins were very small, and forty
cases, if all are recovered, would pretty well crowd me
out."

THE GOLD 401

Mostyn perfectly understood that this man was telling
lies, and grew more and more puzzled as with the swiftness
of thought and the velocity of the eye he sent a look at
the Dealman, the dwindling schooner, the long-boat, and
then at Benson, who proceeded thus —

" I cannot understand, captain, what risk I accept by
taking charge of this gold. It is a heavily clamped case.
The same burglarious resolution that would force a man
or men into my cabin would force them into the strong
room. Why not ? It must be mutiny, then. Piracy and
bloodshed. You don't anticipate that, I hope ? "

" There is much more danger of the money being
stolen out of your cabin, and secreted in coin throughout
the ship, than if the strong room contained it."

" I cannot agree with you. You would have the whole
crew in the conspiracy. How can a few secrete the
sovereigns without the whole ship's company knowing ? "

" You're not a sailor, Mr. Benson, and don't know the
ways of a sailor or his arts. I tell you plainly that if you
insist on keeping that money in your cabin throughout
the homeward passage I wash my hands of all responsi-
bility for your life."

" My life ? " echoed Benson.

" Your life," re-echoed Mostyn. " They'd strangle
you in your sleep. But you will do as you please."

He turned half off in a motion of disgust and
irritation, and his wife instantly deflected from the path
that Benson was taking, and the city man was left alone.
He followed them.

" Captain," he called, " I should like to try my hand
at shooting. What's that up there ? I have little
knowledge of birds. Will you lend me your gun ?"

The captain came to a dead stand with his wife. His
gun ! Would he lend Captain Murder his gun ? The
iierce fear of assassination was in the wrath of his

2 D

402 OVERDUE

heart when he answered, forcing a smile that was

ghastly —

" No ; my gun may prove another Winkle. If you
want to shoot, wait till we're gone."

" I shall go on boaroV said Mr. Benson, suddenly.
" Are you coming ? "

" Have you had enough of it, Phyl ? "

" Oh yes, dear."

She was pale, and there had been something in her
husband's tone and something in her husband's face that
instantly made her put the true interpretation on his
refusal to lend Benson the gun. She was almost sick in
a horror-stricken way ; she could easily understand how
this man, whilst fumbling with a gun, might, could, and
would shoot her husband through the heart, feign an
ecstasy of grief and penitence, and widow her in a single coup.
A frightful fancy, and yet on the very eve, it might be,
of accomplishment ! for all she or her husband could tell
of the meanings which honey-combed the black processes of
the blackguard's mind.

They walked down to the boat, and were rowed past
honest Mr. Dipp, whom they did not see, as he was under
water. Husband and wife were too deeply moved by
their reflections to talk about the diver as they went by,
and gaining the Dealmans side, the party went aboard.

CHAPTER XXI

THE CASTAWAY

Mrs. Mostyn entered the cabin. Dinner had been
postponed till two, and Prince was engaged in laying the
cloth.

" Did you find some shells, and a stuffed bird, and so
forth, on this table, Prince ? " she said, in the sweet
manner with which she was always accustomed to address
this man who had once helped her.

" Yes, lady. I was told they was for you, and I put
them in your berth.1'

" Oh ! " she cried, with a sneer of disgust. " Fetch and
throw them anywhere but there."

The young fellow, with as staid a face as a cat's
contemplating a fire, obeyed, and removed Mr. Benson's
sealsman's precious sweepings to the pantry ; and the
young wife went into her berth.

In a few moments she was joined by her husband.
He caught her by both hands, and exclaimed quietly —

" The instant that man asked me to lend him my gun
I felt as if I was shot through the heart."

" I saw it in your face."

" I am absolutely persuaded that the dog meant to
murder me. The boat was some distance away. The
people were talking and smoking, and not noticing us.
The ship was too far off for the men to follow our
motions critically, and no man would have time for that.

403

W4> OVERDUE

An accident happens in a second. The gun explodes in
his clumsy hands. I fall dead at your feet "

" Oh, Charlie, Charlie ! " she cried, wringing her hands.
" But it hasn't happened.""

"The explosion attracts attention. The men come
rushing from the boat. Who in the ship's company
would believe you if you charged the fellow with my
murder ? "

He looked a little wild, somewhat pale, his eyes
burned — indeed, any one hearing him and seeing him
would have been excused for thinking, " That man will
go and shoot Montague Benson through the head yet.11

" How are we to be on our guard against him ? " said
Phyllis, who was being tuned up to the right humming-
key by her husband, and would have shot Benson with
pleasure had Charlie told her to do so.

" His position on board makes the situation very
difficult,11 said Mostyn. " He's not over me indeed, but
he is on the same platform, and the men know it. There
is nothing that he has done that I could keep him in
confinement for. Whatever may be my suspicions, I can
prove nothing. His argument about the gold is plausible,
and might be held as reasonable on the safe delivery of
the money, although inside his reasoning may lurk a
scheme as deadly to the interests of this ship, and to my
fortunes, as a puff-adder in a man's bed.11

" But if your suspicions are so serious, Charlie, why
don't you call a council of Mr. Dipp and Mr. Walker,
and combine to put this man out of the way of doing
harm ? "

" Because he would sue me on our arrival in London,
and sell the bed from under me.11

" What a disgusting position ! 11 she exclaimed, pouting,
and working her fingers, and rolling her eyes over the
cabin as though for help to think.

THE CASTAWAY 405

" It is a positive fact," the captain exclaimed, with
violence, " though now I know that he is a black-hearted
scoundrel, and a murderous menace to you and me, and
the interests of this adventure, that I am absolutely unable
to lay a finger upon him. Never was a man in my position
so placed."

Possibly not, and less likely still the chances of a man
carrying so sweet a wife to sea with him as Phyllis ; and
so sensual, prudent, passion-complicated an associate as
Benson. In fact, the conditions of the voyage were so
uncommon as, I think, to render Captain Mostyn's situation
even extraordinary.

In the various art of managing the face and con-
versation, there can be none, surely, so difficult as convers-
ing in an off-hand way with a man whom you are
convinced wants to murder you, and to whom you must
betray no suspicion. Yet this was the art our young
couple had to practise, and it was the harder because its
operation came immediately atop of the conviction that
Benson had meant to take Mostyn's life. That is to say,
whilst husband and wife were talking with heat, and all
conflict of emotion, over this lurid passage of mere intui-
tion, as penetrating nevertheless as though Mr. Benson's
heart could have been seen beating, the dinner-bell was rung,
and our young couple had to go to table to meet him.

The conversation was neither brilliant nor swift ; it
seriously lacked those lifts and falls which make music of
speech when people are in harmony ; indeed, nothing
could be more strained than the relations of those three
at table, with Prince waiting. It is impossible to suppose
that Benson's penetration was equal to the interpretation
of the minds of the young husband and wife ; but it is
certain that in the course of the meal he expressed regret
that Mostyn had not allowed him to try to knock a bird
over.

406 OVERDUE

"I was in the Volunteers for two years," he said, "and
on the whole was considered a good shot.1'

"So many accidents happen with guns, Mr. Benson,"
said Phyllis; "and I am sure you do not want to please
your relations by shooting yourself.1'

" My relations, Mrs. Mostyn, metaphorically speaking,
are up in a balloon above the clouds ; and, as a bachelor,
I am the head of my family."

" An old family, no doubt," said Mostyn.

" The Bensons," answered Mr. Benson, in his amplest
way, " were originally French, and settled in Canterbury
in consequence of the persecutions of the Protestants in
France. If you turn the word into French you will
observe that it reads bon sens — good sense.'1''

Neither of the others was willing to pursue the
subject ; the conversation languished, and the dinner
ended.

And now for a week what happened ? Nothing. No
incident to yield two lines. They went on watering the
ship, and hunting for lining for the daily larder. A few
of the crew at a time were allowed to go ashore, but
Mostyn knew well there was no temptation here to ease
off and show a heel — no grog shop, no crimp, no black-
eyed Susan. They went ashore sober, and came back
sober, as it was impossible to get drunk on the mountain
springs, and rum did not naturally flow in the valleys,
nor brandy, nor gin either.

Mostyn frequently went ashore, and filled his book
with sketches. But Phyllis did not often accompany
him : twice in one week. The island had lost its attrac-
tion ; it lifted its head in insipidity of face, colour, and
shadow. The penguin that was once wonderful was a
rotten old bird irritating to watch. The albatross that
swung like spokes of the sun when the clouds are
flying, was now only a tedious albatross, as old as the

THE CASTAWAY 407

creation, and never up to date. She prayed for nothing
but the hour when the anchors would be lifted fore and
aft. Then, though Benson might be on board, she could
not conceive any more treachery in the fellow homewards
than she perceived outwards. It was here, whilst lying
at anchor in this island, that he might work mischief,
such mischief as the accidental killing of her husband,
such mischief as might, whilst leaving him alive, destroy
their poor young hopes in the issue of this voyage.
Benson's mind was a page which Phyllis had long read,
and read aloud to her husband for some time without
succeeding in making him understand it. She knew that
the man was recklessly in love with her, and that he
would sell his soul to the devil to possess her, and that
there was nothing in all Benson, as chartered accountant,
to dominate the distempered passions of Benson as the
lover.

But to say that her husband stood in the way was to
say what ? They sometimes talked over this as coolly as
you are reading.

" Suppose he buried me in that island ?" he once put it
to his wife in the week I am dealing with. " You remain
on board the ship ; he is with you. He ; but Dipp is with
you too, and Matthew Walker, and the whole ship's com-
pany, many of whom are men, and there is Prince. What
is he going to do with you ? It's one thing to kidnap a
married woman. It's another thins; to know what to do
when you've got her. Benson is on board ship. It is no
case of a man in a mask galloping in thunder along a
moon-lit road with a fortune in a swoon behind him. This
ship must sail for England when the cases of gold are
recovered, if ever they are recovered. If another course
should be proposed the sailors, like the Cornishmen, will
want to know the reason why. When the ship is arrived
in England, what is Benson going to do with you ?"

408 OVERDUE

" Yes, but I must arrive in England with vou."

" I'm putting the scheme as regards Benson ; how do
you come out of it ? You're a widow. He will persecute
you. You may have every reason for knowing why you
are a widow, and on the merits of this knowledge alone
Benson would be as filth in a ditch to you. I confess,
looking all round the show," said he, " I don't understand
Mr. Benson's game, nor can I imagine his plans if he
has formed any. But he'll have to turn pirate if he means
business, and it's impossible to think of that fellow in a
round jacket and drill breeches in that character."

"I wish he would take to bathing," said Phyllis, "and
a shark seize him."

" There are no sharks down here. We might feign that
he was sinking, and send lumps of timber at his head in
the hope that he would go under, that is if he swam
about the ship," said Mostyn, beginning to laugh at his
ridiculous fancies.

At the end of the week husband and wife had got no
" forrader " with Benson ; but E»ipp had laboriously, day by
day, been doing his work, rolling soaked bales off the cases,
toppling over square, iron-rimmed chests, keen enough at
edge to cut his pipe open and kill him, and eight days
after he had come up and said that the gold had been
blocked, he was sending the precious stuff to the
surface.

The bullion reached the long-boat in one case at a
time, and the intervals were often tedious. This was
owing, Dipp explained, to the darkness where the money
was, and to the scoundrel trick of bales, casks, or cases
already moved by him suddenly shifting into the road.

When the second case was sent up the ship was
prepared for sea. Masts and yards were sent aloft, rigging
set up, sails bent, and the masts painted wherever the
paint-pot was asked for. They painted her with a will

THE CASTAWAY 409

too, inside and out, and she would be bound away to London
river as dandy a ship and as dandy a crew as had sailed
thence some weeks previous. They were homeward bound,
and the sound of the holystone groaned in the hollow
plank, and wherever was brass flashed soft effulgence to
the sun, and in whatever was glass the daybeam kindled
beacons, and the Dealman lay upon her shadow a clever
little ship.

Three days after the gold had begun to appear above
the sea the figure of a man was seen to come down from
a hill, and walk along the bright stretch of sand to its
margin, where he stood signalling by flourishing with his
cap.

Mostyn, who was walking up and down with his wife,
exclaimed —

" Who can that fellow be ? "

" He's come for Benson, I hope," answered Phyllis.
The captain brought his glass to bear, and saw the man
was a young sailor in worn clothes, with no jacket to his
back, and now that he was set close to into the telescope
his demonstrations of limb were so plainly weak, the whole
figure of the man so clearly exhausted, that Mostyn was
rightly assured that he was perishing not so much with
hunger, as from exposure, loneliness, and the daily home-
less march along the coast.

" Send a boat for that man, Mr. Mill."

A boat was lowered and rowed away to the sand.
Matthew Walker and three men went in her. Matthew
Walker stood up, and said, after looking at the man —

" Where do you come from ? "

" I belong to a sealer," answered the man, " that
foundered in Blossom Bay. She was called the Jiianna.
All hands was lost but me, who drifted ashore on a sky-
light."

He looked pale and hungry, of a ginger complexion,

410 OVERDUE

and dusted with freckles, and in the rags and broken boots
that garnished him, he was a very proper figure indeed to
submit himself as a survivor.

" Did your vessel go down in a breeze ? *

" It blew a hurricane, sir.-"

Mr. Walker recollected that it had blown with great
violence off that portion of the island where Blossom Bay
was situated.

" What's your name ? "

" Whitmore."

" American, or what ? "

" I 'ails from Cardiff."

" I don't know," said Mr. Walker, looking at him, and
then rounding his head to look at the ship, " whether the
captain will be able to find room for you. Don't you
think if we left you some provisions, a sealer 'ud be coming
along soon, glad to pick up a likely man who knows his
bit?"

The fellow, who had styled himself Whitmore,
though he often grinned congenitally, drew a most miser-
able face, and spoke in a most miserable voice, as though
he was lamenting his sins with the tears in his eyes.

" A sealer may not put in here for six weeks or two
months or not at all this season," he exclaimed, in his
whine. "'Ow can I walk around the shores of this 'ere
island a-seeking for vessels when, insofur as I know, there's
not one on the coast from Cape St. John to this
place."

"'Ow do you know that?"

" I climbed a hill and looked round."

" Jump into the boat. Let me see what the capt'n 'as
to say."

And Whitmore was rowed aboard. He climbed over
the side, and stood before Captain Mostyn, and Phyllis
surveyed him with infinite compassion. At the moment

THE CASTAWAY 411

of the captain beginning to question him, Prince came out
of the cabin, and saw the man and started, but instantly
mastered his face and successfully carried to the galley a
trayful of glasses. But that he had been very suddenly
and very greatly astonished there could be no doubt.
The captain asked the man fewer questions than Walker
put. If he was a shipwrecked man, nay, if he had been
left alone on that island under any circumstances, humanity
imperiously demanded his rescue.

" If a sealer," said the captain, " should put in whilst
we're lying here, 111 send you to her."

Just then Benson, who had been in his cabin in
ignorance of what was proceeding above, arrived, and
cried, "Halloa! who have we here?" with a frown of
suspicion, and no man could frown more tragically in a
startling manner, arms folded, head back, than Mr. Benson
of the curly eyebrows.

" He's a survivor of the crew of the Juanna? answered
Mostyn, stiffly, for the rescue of a man at sea is the
captain's duty, and he's responsible for it, and here was
this chartered accountant thrusting in.

" Where was she lost ? " demanded Benson, in a note
of fiery curiosity.

" T'other side of the island," said the man, pointing,
with a stupid grin, " in a place called Blossom Bay."

" Isn't it strange that you alone should have survived ? "

" Strange ! no," exclaimed the man, waxing warm,
though he was scarce able to stand.

" What object can this man have in relating his
story ? " said Captain Mostyn. " The face of it is stamped
with truth. Where are his companions ? Why should
not a small sealer founder at her anchor ? "

" The sea rolled in frightful," said the man. " She
bowed it, nose under, till it swept her decks, and then she
filled and went down all of a sudden, like a stone. I

412 OVERDUE

heard one shriek in the wind. It was gettin' on

dark."

"How many went to your crew ? " demanded Benson,
gloomily surveying him.

"Six."

"So you've lost five. What was the master's name?1'

" Christian."

" And the mate's ? " whipped out Benson, in hopes of
catching him.

" We knew him as Boston Dick."

Benson seemed very dissatisfied. He looked at the
man, and then looked at the shore, and said —

" D'ye mean to say you climbed those hills to get
here ? "

" Never said anything of the sort,'1 answered the man,
with diminishing civility. " What I said was, I crossed
a neck of land 'twixt Blossom Bay and Shank Point and
then made my way to the westwards along shore trusting
to pick up with a vessel."

" Could I see your chart of the island ? " said Benson.

It lay handy on Mostyn's table. The captain fetched
it, and handed it to the City man, quite willing to help
him into working himself into some revelation of his
intention. For, as Samuel Johnson said truly enough,
fallibility must fail somewhere, and if you only give the
most artful dodger or schemer time, if you'll only allow
the most dexterous plotting rogue rope enough, you'll see
daylight in his armour, a rent in his mask, FalstafTs
beard in the petticoat.

" Mr. Mill, help me to stretch this," said Mr. Benson.

Their two noble countenances pored upon it.

" You can go forward," said the captain to the man.

" I have more questions to ask," cried Mr. Benson,
rounding from the chart.

" Go forward, I tell you. I am master of this ship,

THE CASTAWAY 41

a

not this gentleman,1' and Mostyn then looked as though
the revolver that ever lay close to his hand must be end-
ing the mystery of Benson along with Benson himself if
the fellow continued to anger him, filled as he was with
the darkest suspicions a young husband could possibly
nurse.

" Cook," shouted Mostyn, to the man who stood in the
galley door, " give that man a hot meal. Tramping
Staten Island isn't going a-blackberrying."

"His description's all right," said Mill to Benson,
pointing to the chart. "But it's a bloomin' long walk.
See these creeks. He's continually going out of his way,
which makes it miles and miles more. And then, when he
speaks of the foreshore, isn't it steep-to as here and there ?
If so he'd have found it a job to crawl round."

" The deuce of it is," said Mr. Benson, letting go his
end of the chart, which sprang in a roll to Mr. Mill's
hands, " I can't help fancying I've seen that man before."

"Replace that chart in my cabin," said the captain,
peremptorily ; and the mate went in. " You're in a
mighty trouble about this fellow, Mr. Benson. What's
got on to your mind about him ? "

" This is a treasure-ship," said Benson. Mostyn made
no answer. " And I don't like the idea of sole survivors
being on board," continued Benson. " He may prove but
a scout got up in masquerade to deceive the eye, with
twenty desperate fellows, armed to the teeth, intrenched
in the hills up there waiting for his signal to rush
down."

" What have they got to rush to ?" answered Mostyn,
speaking in a note of unaffected contempt. " Will they
come blustering down with a boat raised high amongst
them ? otherwise how are they to board us ? "

" Well, that view did not occur to me, I admit," said
Mr. Benson, who then walked some distance forward to

414 OVERDUE

catch another glimpse, if he could, of the man, whose face
he was solemnly convinced was not unknown to him.

The undissembled uneasiness exhibited by the chartered
accountant at the presence of a stranger who had arrived
on board from the island could not fail to complicate the
puzzle which Mostyn, his wife, Dipp, and Walker had
worked out in their several ways. Dipp, on his arrival
from the long-boat, when he heard of the man, and of Mr.
Benson's objections to his being received, said —

"It looks to me as if that there sealer the Penguin
was in this job, and Benson, who may recollect the face
of the crew, though not very well, on seeing this man,
thought to himself, that yarn of shipwreck is a lie, and if
he belongs to the Penguin I don't want him aboard."

" That's a shrewd view, certainly," answered Mostyn.
"But how the deuce should a little schooner like the
Penguin meddle with us ? Five or six men. Chaw ! Be-
sides, she has sailed."

" Don't for a moment suppose, Captain Mostyn," said
Dipp, with unusual gravity, " that Mr. Benson's game is
the gold. It's your wife he wants, and that's 'ow it
comes to be a little schooner may be 'andy."

" Yes," answered the captain, irritably, and flushing.
" And he won't give me a chance of going for him. Mrs.
Mostyn is safe in the ship. She'd be safe ashore for a few
hours' ramble. Only look. An area quite wide enough
to see people approaching, and I should be with her, armed,
and my boat's crew at hand to help me. But she shall
remain aboard during the rest of our stay. She has seen
enough of Staten Island to last her a dozen voyages."

" And so have I," answered Mr. Dipp. " I don't say
it ain't a sort of garden in its own durned uninhabited
way, but a more Gord-forsaken place I never was in ; not
a pub. for a pint and a pipe, not a little theatre to give
froth to the 'eavy draught of the day. I 'opes the next

THE CASTAWAY 415

ship that sinks with gold will go down off some place that
ain't castaway, if Fm to be sent there. And, talking of
the gold, I'm much afraid we shall have to leave fifteen
cases be'ind us."

" Can't be helped ; you'll have done nobly at twenty-
five."

" It's took me all I know, sir. If I 'ad another man
to 'elp me I could get p'r'aps at eight or ten of the cases,
but there is no single pair of arms that's going to prize
that crowd out of the road, nor should I recommend
dynamite, for you stand to blow the sovereigns out, and
when yer look yer find yer raffle left and the gold gone."

It was about the time when this conversation was held
that Benson went up to Matthew Walker, who was at
work at the carpenter's bench forward, and said to him —

" I have an idea. The chest containing the coin under
my bunk will need to be cleated like a sailor's chest, to
save it from running to leeward in heavy weather."

Walker, who was planing a length of deal, looked up,
and gave him a nod, as much as to say, " I'm listening,"
and went on with his work.

" Now, my idea is this," continued Mr. Benson. " In-
stead of cleats, I want you to construct a door hinged at
one extremity to the leg of the bunk, and closing at the
other extremity by padlock and key. This will prevent
the case from shifting, will it ? "

"Unless it barsts through the door," said Matthew
Walker, dropping his plane to talk.

"I'll take my chance of that. The case, anyway,
will be under lock and key. When can you set to work
upon this cupboard ? "

" Soon as you like," answered Walker.

" Will you go about it at once ? "

" No ; I'm damned if I do. A man can't keep all on,
you know, although you call him a sailor."

416 OVERDUE

" What time will you begin ? "

" Three o'clock."

" How long will it take ? "

The acting second mate cursed him with both eyes,
whilst he mentally computed. He then said —

" I can get it fixed up by to-morrow at noon."

" Thanks, Mr. Walker ; and, as this is apart from the
ship's work, here is a present for you ; " and Benson ex-
tended a sovereign with the smile of a man who gives
rarely.

Matthew Walker, muttering "Thank ye," dropped
the coin into the buttoned-up flap where a pocket was
supposed to be.

Mr. Benson made much of his bunk depository, and
showed it, with a great air of satisfaction, to Mrs.
Mostyn, her husband, Mr. Dipp, and Mr. Mill, who, of
the four, was the only person who seemed to find anything
ingenious in the idea of fitting a door to form a cupboard
in the lower part of a bunk.

"It'll make you no securer," said Mostyn, "if they
mean to plunder you."

" Look at them staples," exclaimed Dipp, in a greasy,
sneering voice. " Who's got a clasp-knife ? I could prize
'em out like digging up radishes."

"In its way this safe is as safe as the safe below,"
said Mr. Benson. " Look how it's hedged about : first by
the cabin, then by the people in the cabin, then by Prince,
who is always in and out, then by your humble servant,
who is in the habit of passing his nights, and sometimes
half his days, in that berth."

It was certain that this private safe entered into Benson's
scheme. But everything was so much above-board, that
who could hint a doubt or hesitate dislike ? Did he hope
to induce Phyllis to elope with him on the security of
one thousand pounds in sterling gold ? Certainly the

THE CASTAWAY 417

cases in the safe-room should liquidate all necessary
expenses such as a shift of course, the opinions of the
men, and so on.

The day before the ship was ready for sea — twenty-six,
and not twenty-five, thousand pounds having been splen-
didly wrested from a darker hall than the Valley of the
Shadow of Death by one modest, homely, but most heroic
spirit — the long-boat and a quarter-boat were despatched
to fill up with everything they could find that was good
to eat. Mostyn desired to finish a sketch, which, when
completed, would render his portfolio of drawings of the
island valuable.

" I hope you won't go out of sight of the ship. I shall
keep an eye on you from the top of this house,'" said his
wife.

" D'ye see the spur of that hill ? I'm bound to go
round it and disappear to get the view I want."

"I shall be very uneasy, Charlie, until I see you
again."

" Good God, Phyl ! why ? There's not a sealer on the

island ; and, if there were, why should he want to molest

me ? Could anything be more barren of human life than

those hills and little valleys between the cushion mounds ?

Besides, I have always this." He slapped his left jacket

pocket. "If Benson, or even Mill, were accompanying

me, then, indeed, you might wish me to keep in sight.

I shall be away about two hours. Tell Prince to delay

the dinner until I return — to three bells. If Benson or

Mill comes ashore, my men will report their arrival, and

I shall immediately take Mill by the throat and hurl him

over the bows of the boat, for the mate of a ship has no

right to be away without leave when the captain is ashore.

Make yourself happy, honey -bird, and give Benson a wide

berth."

The complexity of the position as regards Benson, and

2 K

418 OVERDUE

whatever was in his mind, was keenly accentuated by the
foregoing remarks ; for what captain of a merchantman,
after giving his chief officer certain instructions, and then
going ashore, would dream of thinking that, shortly after
he had gained the land, the first person he meets is the
mate of his ship ? Yet some such contingency was
evidently in Mostyn's contemplation, and I, who am
writing his story, avow that Captain Mostyn was deserv-
ing any fate that might befal him by leaving his ship to
complete a few paltry sketches valuable only to his conceit.
The ship wore an eager and an expectant look. It
was her last day at Staten Island, and she seemed to
know it. Every man had a manner of excitement about
him ; the leap was swift, the drag hearty, the response of
" Ay, ay, sir," cordial. The breeze was gusty with the
mountain squall, the foam of the breaker was large and
rich at the foot of each head of the port, the clouds were
skirmishing in several planes or currents of wind, and,
whilst one blew to the westward, another was heading off
south-east. The captain put off at about eleven. Four
men swept him to the shore. Every boat belonging to
the ship was now on the water. Phyllis, with the
binocular glass, watched her husband jump from the
gunwale of the boat on to the shore and trudge slowly
along in the direction of Shellard's grave. Three of his
men got out of the boat and began to hunt about, seeking
curios for the last time. The captain's figure could be
easily followed by Phyllis as he stepped through berry-
loaded openings of hillside growth until he emerged on
the clear green grass some distance high from a cone-
shaped hill. Here he paused and gazed earnestly around
him. He now drew out his note-book and began to
sketch, and then, walking fifty yards to another point of
view, he turned a spur which put him out of sight of the
ship and shore, and, seating himself, went on sketching.

THE CASTAWAY 419

When Phyllis lost sight of her husband, she left the
top of the deck-house, with the binocular, and walked aft
near the wheel, where she was joined by Mr. Dipp, who
dragged a chair after him. Scarcely were they seated,
Mrs. Mostyn on the chair, the diver on the grating abaft
the wheel, when Mr. Benson's figure was to be seen upon
the top of the cabin-house. He had armed himself with
a ship's telescope, and was manifestly intent, to judge
by his conduct at the glass, on getting all he could of
his last impressions of Staten Island without going
ashore. He directed the tubes at the brilliant heights
of Mount Buckland, and swept the scene slowly, pausing
often.

"You'd 'ave thought 'ed 'ad enough of it," said
Mr. Dipp to Mrs. Mostyn.

" I am sure we have all had enough of him."
"Well, and I dare say, ma'am, you'll be glad to get
home," said Dipp, in his kindest way. " Shipboard life
after this pattern ain't the life for young ladies. But
I'm so sorry for not being able to get at the rest of the
gold for yours and your husband's sake. I've been turning
of it over in my mind, and if he'd like to head this ship
for some South American port, where the services of a
diver could be 'ad, then we'd return, and the two of us

would make the job worth forty thousand pounds."

" I wish he was here," cried Phyllis, with eager eyes.

" He ought to hear you, so as to determine at once. Are

divers to be readily found ?"

" Oh, I should say you'd find 'em in the port we'd try

for," answered Mr. Dipp.

"You know," cried the young wife, "we get four

hundred pounds as commission on the whole sum, which

'11 be a perfect godsend. My husband has nothing but

his pay, and my father, who is a rich man, has expelled

me, and cut me off", for marrying him."

420 OVERDUE

"They does that very often,"" said the diver, "and
mostly them that's been guilty of it themselves."

"Four hundred pounds," continued Phyllis, "would
be quite a little fortune to start with. He might invest

the money in the next ship he commands " She was

at a loss after this, wanting Benson's City experience as
an investor.

"There's a deal to be done with four 'undred pound,"
said Dipp ; " and, as we are 'ere for no other purpose
than to get the money, there should be no deviation to
risk if this vessel's been hinsured for the purpose of getting
the money."

" I don't quite see what you mean, Mr. Dipp."

" In charter parties, ma'am, it's provided that ships are
not to deviate from their course except under particular
circumstances. Because, in going out of the way, the
masters may be risking their vessels, and the insurers
won't take the extra risk."

" Our calling at a South American port wouldn't be a
deviation, would it ? " inquired Phyllis, who was at least
keen, if she was not commercial. " We have arrived at
our destination. You have recovered all the gold you
can send up single-handed. A large sum remains, to
obtain which you seek help. Would not the insurers
commend you ? Is not the whole object of the voyage
contained in this policy ? "

" I don't want no persuading, missus," said Mr. Dipp,
with a smile of complacence. " You've put the truth as
it is. But it's for your 'usband to discuss the matter
with me and old black curly-wurly up there."

" I wish he would come off," she cried, sweeping the
district in which she had last seen her husband. " We've
been freely speculating about Benson's ends the last few
days, and I myself, Mr. Dipp, simply sum the man up
by calling him a black-hearted rascal."

THE CASTAWAY 421

The term was made much stronger than it reads by
the young wife's sweet face and music and management
of speech.

" I've long seen Vs not been playing the game," said
Mr. Dipp, gazing at the man, who, though close, was out
of hearing. " Benson's one of those men that are like
locomotive hengines : they're all right s'long as they keep
the metals ; but if they goes off the bust-up is awful, and
they very often drags 'eaps of others along with 'em.
But, whatever 'is game is going to be, I don't see what
'urt Vs going to do ye 'ere."

She felt that, if she put her case too strongly, it would
be immodest. She felt that, even if she put her case
moderately, she might be accepted as appealing for sym-
pathy. Hers was a woman's suspicion, based on apparently
untenable things, for she could give a name to nothing
ao-ainst Mr. Benson. Therefore she held her tongue.

"You see," continued the friendly diver alongside of
her, puffing at his curly pipe, " that, even if Mr. Benson's
a<nn you, every other man aboard the ship is for you ;
surely that's enough to keep up your 'eart, missus ? "

He looked at her with that sort of admiration with
which a man views a Persian kitten or a dove. It was
not the look which Mr. Benson was wont to fasten upon
her. The holiest father in all Christendom would have
been pleased to consecrate Mr. Dipp's gaze.

"You seems a little oneasy about yer 'usband,'' he
continued. "Why now, more than before, when 'e was
ashore ? "

" Perhaps because it is our last day here, and he ought
to remain with the ship."

"There's no call. As to last days, don't reckon on
anything as sartin at sea. I don't know how it may be,"
he continued, " for I don't carry a barometer in my eye ;
but," he continued, looking straight up, " in twenty-four

422 OVERDUE

hours all up there may be a raging scene of tormented
cloud, and we thankful to be lying snug and whole at our
anchors here."

As he spoke Mrs. Mostyn observed that Benson, who
had been plausibly surveying the island through his
telescope, but who in reality had been critically inspecting
one corner of it, though he often flung the tubes aside as
though in survey of other objects, dropped the glass, and,
turning his face her way, met her stare.

"Do you see anything of my husband?11 she called
to him.

"I saw something like the shape of a man moving
where I last saw Captain Mostyn ; but he's not been
gone long enough to complete his sketches, has he, Mrs.
Mostyn ?%1

She made no answer. Benson did not tell her that
he had been looking out, not for a man, but for a tree;
and that when, suddenly turning the lenses of his teles-
cope on to that same tree, and observing one branch
broken, with an almond whiteness of the wound, he had
dropped the glass and met the gaze of the young wife.

CHAPTER XXII

THE ABSENTEE

When half-past two was struck upon the ship's bell the
captain's boat was still ashore, and the captain himself
out of sight. It was then past the hour he had named
for dining, and, as a rule, he was a punctual man. Phyllis's
ceaseless strain of vision through the binocular glass from
the quarter-deck, groping, so to speak, all over the district
where her husband might suddenly emerge, had given her
a headache — because trouble makes a rule of never dealing
with you alone ; call it the gout : that's bad enough ;
why add dropsy ? Why add such distortion of limbs as
amounts to paralysis ? Why can't a poor girl stare at an
island in search of her husband without getting a violent
headache ? It is certain that we are more fearfully than
wonderfully made, and the more I consider the fearfulness
of our make the less I admire the wonderfulness.

She had noticed, also, some time previous to half-past
two, that one or two men had gone away from the boat
up the heights to look about them, but certainly on no
decisive errantry ; they seemed satisfied. They had re-
turned, and all seemed well. But, shortly after the notes
of the ship's bell had floated to the boat, the crew took
a resolution, and Phyllis's heart beat hard when she saw
the men walking swiftly in the direction of the spot
round which her captain had disappeared. One man
was left in the boat. The others vanished, and were a

423

424 OVERDUE

long time gone. Mr. Dipp came up to Phyllis, and
said —

"He can't be far off. 'E may have met with some
small accident. There never yet was a hexpedition with-
out some 'un breakin1 his ankle or puttin1 'is arm out.
There can be no trap. Only ask yourself. Every day
that has passed would have served as well as to-day, and
it's not at all likely they would have waited for the last
day, when the captain might not take it into his 'ed to go
ashore at all, to seize him."

" But who would seize him ? What do they want
with him ?" asked Phyllis, in trembling notes.

"Ask 'im," said Dipp, indicating Benson, who was
coming along dressed in shining black cloth and heavy
gold chain, as though he were going into the City.

" Mr. Benson," cried the young wife, rising, with a
sudden fling of her figure, on to her feet, " what have you
done with my husband ? "

The man made no motion of agitation in his face.

"You mean what has become of your husband?"

" I mean what I said," cried the girl, with fire in her
nostrils, and in her cheeks, and in her eyes. " Do you think
this ship will leave this harbour until he returns to me ?
There's not a member of my husband's crew that would
not help a young Englishwoman against the deadly plot laid
against her husband by a scoundrel."

She slapped this choice word full in his face, sweet
and clean through her white teeth, and the fellow merely
looked as though he were used to it. He hung up no
signal of remonstrance. A faint, sad smile worked out of
his eyes over his brow.

"I can assure you," he said, "you were never under
a grosser misconception in your life. Thus it is that
honourable men's characters are ruined. Ideas are formed,
every trifling circumstance helps to heighten the idea into

THE ABSENTEE 425

conviction, and thus the most innocent man in the world
may be kicked out of society or sent to the gallows."

" Oh no — oh no," said Mr. Dipp, with extreme
surliness. " That's your way of reasonin1 ; 'cause it suits
you, of course."

"Mr. Mill," shouted Mr. Benson, in a transport of
black cloth, hard hat, and spats to his boots, "as the
captain is delaying his return to the ship, would it not
be as well for the whole ship's company to go in search
of him in parties, particularly on the western side, where
he was last seen, though his steps may have carried him
to the south ? "

" I think it was about time a search was made, sir,"
answered Mr. Mill, "and that the men ashore came off
for their dinner. And perhaps the cabin dinner wouldn't
be amiss."

He spoke with all the resolution that an evil expres-
sion backed by hunger can give the expression of a mate
who loves punctuality in his meals as reliefs in his watch.

" Is dinner ready ? " he shouted to Prince.

" Yes, sir."

" Awaiting ? "

"All but two dishes, sir."

" Fetch 'em ! " shouted the mate, and dived into the
cabin.

"Mrs. Mostyn, I do entreat," began Benson, begin-
ning to operate the strange physiological way of his City
and suburban gear, trying to smile, reproving himself,
inclining his head a little in deep condolence, bristling
up into the ramrod spine of cheerful and hearty ex-
pectation.

She shrank from him. She knew what he wanted
to say.

" I ask you to give me back my husband, Mr. Benson.
I want nothing more."

42G OVERDUE

"You'll take a little food, and then well go in search
of him."

" I can't leave the deck to sit at table, and I couldn't
eat then. Where is he — where is he? Do you know?"
and the glasses, tingling hot in her eyes, moved again
and yet again over the area where her Charlie might
appear. But no man was now visible, save the fellow
that had charge of the boat on the shore.

Mr. Benson slipped into the cabin and told Prince to
prepare a tray, and supply it with ham sandwiches, and
he himself would provide champagne. As he came out of
the cabin bearing the tray, Benson said to Mill —

"Be quick, for the sake of appearances. The boutrh
is torn. The man is gone. Don't let the hunt be de-
layed ; and I want to miss the gold on my return.'"

He carried the tray to Phyllis, who waved it from her
and implored him to send search-parties without delay,
as her husband might be lying with a broken leg, with a
broken rib. She was sure he was to be found in that part
of the island — and her white hands swept the surface —
and the ship should not leave Staten Island till he came
to her.

Shortly after this Mr. Mill tumbled out of the cabin,
having drunk and eaten as much as he wanted, and beo-an
to shout about him, ordering boats to go ashore and seek
the captain, who was lost. There went a fairly numerous
company to the DealmarCs crew. A number remained
aboard, including Matthew Walker, to look after the
ship, and the rest went ashore, carrying with them the
dinner of the captain's crew. They formed gangs of five
and moved in fives.

As I have said, Staten Island is very hilly, beautiful
with cushion-like hills, and you get but very short views
unless you climb a great height. When you climb to the
place where Captain Mostyn was last seen you perceive

THE ABSENTEE 427

nothing but more hills, tall or short, one a little way to
the south-west, mountainous. The land trends along-
shore of Port Hoppner, which is ramparted from Port
Parry by many huge hills, one of them — Mount Fitton —
mounting to two thousand six hundred feet.

The search for a man is difficult anywhere if land be
broken, if the ravine be deep, if the overhanging edge
conceals the dangerous black ledge, sparkling with the
ceaseless cataractal drench of the mountain torrent, if
the rivers below be full and fleeting, and carry their
burdens swiftly seawards. This was the sort of country
the people who went in search of Captain Mostyn had to
explore.

Phyllis put herself with Prince and some seamen. No
man was more enthusiastic and energetic than Benson.
Before leaving the boat he pulled off his coat and flung it
into her with a sort of " now for business " air, and then
they held a council, which resulted in gangs of five going
south, south-west, and west. Twas idle to look east-
wards. The man had not gone that way. The boat's
crew had sworn that when they last saw him he was sitting,
at about one o'clock, on that green hump there, sketching
yonder mountain, and they pointed to the large blue pile
that was snow-crowned.

Dipp's conviction was that Mostyn had been kid-
napped. By whom ? By Captain Morell, of the Penguin
of Stornington, the American sealer which Benson had
twice visited. Dipp was no fool, and he very well knew
that a man like Morell was not going to execute another's
criminal mandate unless he was richly paid. This, perhaps,
might explain the placing of the case of gold in Mr.
Benson's cabin. But as nothing could be brought home,
nothing could be said, and threats, oaths, and high words
were idle. Dipp thought to himself, "They'll have run
him away down to a boat and sneaked him swift round the

*28 OVERDUE

creek where the schooner lies waiting. The job is to get
any command of view of the sea..'1'' And Dipp was right.
For the Dealman lay high up the port ; the westerly point
might have been two miles off. But there was an inner
creek accessible from the point which Mostyn commanded,
but not by a boat in Port Parry ; and it was from this
creek — Port Hoppner they call it on the chart — Dipp
was convinced that Mostyn had been spirited, first having
been ambuscaded, then rushed down the hill to the water
of the creek, then tumbled into the boat, which was
instantly swept out of sight.

It was the sea that Dipp desired to command, and
shouting his views to a few of the men, he began to toil
up the hill, but was blown before he was within a quarter
of a mile of where Captain Mostyn had been last seen.
He was a good diver, but an ill climber ; like Falstaff,
he had an alacrity at sinking, but discovered no buoyancy
in his upward motions. His people drew far ahead of him,
and then he arrived at Mostyn's cushion, which gave him
a sight of the sea, though it yielded a pretty view of a
green decline, almost an avenue of the arctic beech, and
this went sinking and rolling down its precipitous course to
a point which, if Dipp could have reached it, would have
enabled him to see just as much of the ocean as would have
been of no use to him.

The hunt began at half-past three. No man was more
brimful of energy than Benson. He could only pray that
Captain Mostyn had lain down and fallen asleep, and
would delight them by his apparition on the beach after
they had returned on board. This he said to Mrs.
Mostyn's party, whom he joined, and which she im-
mediately quitted, and sat down to rest herself beside
Mr. Dipp, pale, exhausted, weeping, a broken-hearted, half-
frenzied young woman.

'* You must really cheer up, mum,'1 said Mr. Dipp.

THE ABSENTEE 429

" Until you know it's come to the worst, there's no call to
fear the worst.1'

" I know my husband,"" she replied, in tones broken by
short breaths and emotion. " He is not the man to leave me
here alone — to leave me alone with Benson. Something
has happened to him, or he would be with us, and what
that is and what that may be,'" she cried, with a shudder-
ing look around, " I dare not trust myself to think.1'

" He can't 'ave come to grief through any one on the
island," said Mr. Dipp. " His own party was down on
the foreshore. And who occupied the island but him and
them when 'ejwent a-messing about with his drorings ?"

Here a man came ploughing up from one of the gang,
and said, pointing to a huge beech which overhung the
cliff—

" You see that tree, sir ? "

"With the bough 'alf off?"

" Yes, sir. I've been examining of it, and find it was
first sawed through after a rope's end had been made
fast to the end of the bough, the tail of which you can catch
hold of in the water below."

Phyllis stared, so did Dipp.

" Well, Jones, what d'ye make of it ?"

" What d1 I make of it ?" asked Jones. " I allow it's
a signal concerted between the ship and the shore. When
the man was got, the rope was to be dragged and the
bouah broken as fur as it was sawed through. It ''ud be
always a signal whether the watching eye saw it or not.
It 'ud be like a railway telegraph."

" Then, if it ain't a sign of collision, what is ? " inquired
Mr. Dipp, with a portentous frown on his expression.

One by one the others joined them. The gangs were
coming in. It was natural, perhaps, that on dry land they
should make their head-quarters the place occupied by the
captain's wife.

430 OVERDUE

" Do they want to pretend,11 cried the poor girl, " that
my husband has killed himself in some fashion by throw-
ing himself off that rope ? "

" ""Ere's Is pencil,11 said Jones, picking up a drawing
pencil that lay close beside Phyllis, and giving it to her.

It was like, after a man has gone under water, seeing
his hat afloat. The sight of the pencil made them gape,
and go about a little, and glare and stare, and look down
and look up, and bawl —

" Hello ! hello, I say ! What ho, Captain Mostyn,
ahoy ! Are ye within hail of us ? Sing out if you can't
speak.1'

This Irish enjoinment produced no effect.

" If I was you, missus,11 said Dipp, quietly to Phyllis,
by whose side he was sitting, " Fd say nothin1 to Benson,11
who was then coming along with Mill and a few other
men. " There's no good in keeping on calling of names.
What we've got fust to do is to prove, and then we've
got 'im and t1 other, who's just as bad," meaning the mate,
* Snick ! like this." He made a motion as though turning
a railway key.

" I'm under your protection," said the girl, " whilst
my husband continues away."

"Yes, ma'am," he answered proudly.

The fellow named Whitmore, who had been received
on board as a ship-wrecked man from a sealer, a sandy,
speckled yokel of a dull and sulky apprehension, followed
by a stupid smile, instantly corrigible by a start or,
" What the devil are you laughing at ? " this man, who
had made a most forlorn figure, as we remember, on the
sand, and was taken off by Captain Mostyn on the merit
of his being the only survivor, came sprawling up, and
was instantly accosted by Dipp.

" Will ye swear you were the only man left after your
wreck ? "

THE ABSENTEE 431

"The only man,1' answered the other, looking a bit
frightened, as though he was to be charged with the
captain's going a-missing.

" How d'ye know ? "

" Because they were all gone when I looked round."

" Looked round where ? "

"Ashore, arter I'd been washed up on the "en coop."

" You said it was a skylight," said Mr. Mill, who, with
Mr. Benson, now formed one of the group.

" Call it a skylight," said the other. " If the meaning
of these questions is, am I the only man out of that there
schooner now alive on this 'ere island, I says yes, by Gord ! "
He clenched his fist and swept round, and menaced Mill
with it in a manner so threatening you'd have thought he
was about to fall on him. He looked from Mill to Benson,
from Benson to Mill, with no fool's face now ; a sort of
new soul seemed to have been kindled in him. Mill gazed
at him with a scowl, Benson said —

" Did you make one of the crew of the Penguin ? "

" Has she gone down ? " shrieked the man, in an ecstasy
of passion. " You were aboard 'er last."

" It is evident that this fellow can give us no help,"
said Mr. Benson, manifestly discomposed by the fellow's
irresponsible utterance and wild looks in the crowd of
men, which had now grown. " Mr. Mill, we are under
your directions, sir. In the absence of Captain Mostyn,
what are your instructions ? "

The surly rogue after a pause said —

" It's not so long since the captain was seen sitting
here. Had it been this morning it would be different.
It was about an hour ago."

" Three hours ! " shrieked Phyllis.

" Quite close enough in time, ma'am," said he, appealing
to her, " to enable us to see anything of him if he made
away with himself, or tumbled into a hollow. But I'm

432 OVERDUE

certainly for continuing the search until the evening
shadows prevail."

" Oh, certainly, certainly," exclaimed Benson, with
great emphasis. " I'm ready to proceed at once. Which
way shall we go ? "

" Where was he sitting, d'ye say ? " asked Mr. Mill
of some of the men.

" Jess where 'is missus is,11 was the answer.

She was seated on a mound behind trees, bushes,
which were, with other thick Fuegian growths, impene-
trable enough to serve as an entrenchment for a Boer, let
alone a sealsman.

As we have heard, Dipp's conviction was that the
captain had been made away with in the old pirate
fashion, and the discovery of his pencil on the ground
gave colour to another secret conclusion in Dipp's mind :
that he had been grasped behind, let fall the pencil,
perhaps the book, which had been picked up as an
object which would not escape the eye as so small a thing
as a pencil, and rushed as hard as he could be run down
the knotty wind of beechen avenue, where, in the boat,
gagged and bound, he'd be as safe from observation, sneak-
ing close inshore, as if he were at the bottom of the sea.

This was Dipp's conclusion : the opinion of a sailor,
of a man who had lived with Benson and Mill, and knew
them both. He said nevertheless —

" Yes, I think you're right. Go on 'unting and
searching. 'E may be in a 'ole somewhere. Are you
tired, missus ? "

" I could hunt for him all night," she answered.

Mr. Benson received a look from Mr. Dipp, and
answered it by a glance at Mr. Dipp's shoes.

" Then suppose you and me and some of those men,"
said Dipp, addressing Mrs. Mostyn, "goes down this
avenue. It may bring us to a sight of something."

THE ABSENTEE 433

The girl sprang up and gave her hand to the diver.

"That there bough," said one of the men, pointing
to the beech, "proves it's been a put-up job. It can't
be meant for anything else but a signal. Right in sight
of the ship too. Jest one of them signals that a man
might see without taking particular notice of."

" Who's the guilty party aboard of us, sir ? " asked one
of Dipp's men.

"It'll come out," answered Dipp, "afore that ship
leaves Staten Island, if I send away a boat's crew for a
man-of-war."

Mill, who was walking hard by, overhearing this,
exclaimed —

" You'll send no boat without my consent, Mr. Dipp.
I'm master till the captain takes charge again."

" Kink your tongue a hard bight in your head," said
the diver, with an ugly scowl. " The gold's my finding, and
there's not a man aboard when he comes to learn the
storv of you two men, you and that there Benson, I mean,
but'll help me to a man to put it back just where I found
it. So," said he, with a savage nod, " keep you quiet, for
if you're the ship's mate, I'm damned if you're my
master ! "

These were tremendous tones in Dipp, who usually
spoke greasily or silkily, and with a homely and en-
couraging face. The young wife's hand was in his, and
the spirit of the devil was in him at that moment. Mill,
after looking at him an instant or two, marched on in
silence whilst Benson seemed intent on gazing on a figure
of a man stretched or running anywhere upon the area of
land within the observation of his curiously shaded eye.

The men of this north-west seeking gang, who were
perhaps twelve in all, stared at one another when they
heard Dipp speak. What was the diver charging the
mate and Mr. Benson with ? Some enormity that could

2 v

434 OVERDUE

not be mistaken by even the most ignorant of their
intelligences was imputed to Mill and the other. Had
they made away with the captain ? Were they going to
make away with the gold? They looked at the young
wife, and turned their heads to gaze again at the signal
gash in the bough, and they began to stare about them
eagerly and feverishly, and then to feel like men who
wanted to know the meaning of the matter that was in
motion.

And yet, though Benson supplied most of the tragedy,
he also supplied most of the comedy of that scene. He
toiled over rock and through bush, and all obstacles that
impeded him, in a white shirt, black cloth trousers, black
cloth waistcoat, a billy-cock hat at the back of his head,
and gold links at his cuff's which rattled as boys make
castanets of slates. He was the ideal of the heated figure
of the Briton, who, coat over arm, surveys the wonders of
the ramparts of Boulogne, or is driven drunk to his mid-
night boat by the police at Calais. No man ever toiled
more in looking than he ; he literally stared with all his
might ; sometimes he'd start and cry, " Hillo ! I really

thought — but no " and, with a face of concern,

stare on.

The party arrived at a point of the descent which
commanded a gleaming space of the waters of Port
Hoppner on the left. Away to the right they could see
the green land trending sharp north-west to its limit,
where the organ note of the ocean might be heard. Many
birds flew over the waters of this little bay ; the heights
between hid so much of the ocean that you could
scarce see more than the surface that spread along the
left-hand shore, and there was no boat and no schooner
there.

" Look into the gullies, look into the fissures, look into
the splits and hollows, men," shouted Mr. Benson. " It's

THE ABSENTEE 435

into those holes men fall and perish. I lost a valued
friend on Snowden in this way.11

Mr. Dipp took a firm and long look at the sea. He
still held Mrs. Mostyn by the hand, in fact, she would not
part with him.

" My opinion is," said he, " that any further 'unting
this way is no use. That he's passed this place to
somewheer else may be supposed by the findin1 of his
pencil. But, as I'm a livin1 man, I take it upon myself
to say that if he's passed down here at all he's not gone
alone.11

" Right ! " shouted several men, foremost amongst them
being Dipp's men and the Whitmore man.

" That gash in the bough shows collision,11 continued
Dipp ; "it was meant for a mark, for some one to witness
aboard, and the person who understood it is the person
who's in collision, and Fm not going to say, men, that he
lives forward of the galley.11

"There's no gory good in your looking at me whilst
you're talking," said the mate, in his ugliest manner.
" What do you mean by ' collision ' ? "

"He means collusion," exclaimed Benson, with a
patronizing laugh.

" You'll change that note afore I'm done with yer,"
said Dipp, with a side-face shake of the head at Benson.
" Come aboard, missus. We don't leave Port Parry till
your husband turns up."

He led her up the avenue. The mate dropped a
word or two heard only by Benson ; the men talked
amongst themselves as they followed, clambering and
sometimes cursing when they ground the bark off their
shins. But it was not until a quarter-past seven that
the whole ship's company were on board the Dealman.
The cone of Mount Buckland sparkled like a huge rasp-
berry, to compare small things with great. But the eye

436 OVERDUE

could follow the shadow as it ascended darkening the
tenderness of the herbage into deepness and paling the
star-cressetted front of the huge pile, and the shadow of
the evening moved upon the water of Port Parry.

Phyllis had borne up nobly well whilst she was ashore ;
but when she came on board and saw the old scenes, the
house-top, the alley-way, the places in which she and her
husband used to lounge in conversation, the reality of his
loss came to her like a blow from a poniard to her heart,
and breaking from Mr. Dipp, she rushed into her cabin
and locked herself up. But fortunately for me I have a
person of strong resolution to deal with in Phyllis Mostyn.
She was a person of intrepidity of spirit, and capable of
providing for difficult ends through reliance on her own
qualities. Perhaps no woman was ever confronted with
a more horrible trouble. She believed that her husband
had been murdered, and that she was alone, at the
wrong end of the world, in the unscrupulous charge of
Benson, who as a Power would deal with Dipp and
Matthew Walker and any other friends of hers on board,
as easily as he had dealt with Captain Mostyn. What,
then, was she to do ? A widow — fatherless — absolutely
friendless, save for one or two known to her husband, who,
if she fell a pensioner, would speedily grow sick of her.
Somebody knocked on her cabin door.

" Who's that ? "

" Won't you take anything to eat, lady ? " inquired the
voice of Prince.

" Presently, thank you."

" You've had nothing since breakfast, ma'am.'"

" I cannot eat now, Prince.11

" Cheer up, mum ! " he cried. " I know for certain it
will come right.11

On hearing this she went to the door and opened it ;
but the lock had doubled itself and gave her difficulty,

THE ABSENTEE 437

and when the door was opened the man had gone. She
again closed the door and stood by the side of her bunk,
with her eyes fastened upon that part of the island picture
which was spanned by the port-hole.

About this time Mr. Benson came out of his cabin.
Supper would be ready at eight. But it was not
apparently to sup that Benson stepped forth. His
manner was a little wild and extraordinary ; he breathed
short. He left his cabin door open when he quitted the
berth, and glanced behind him as he passed over the
coaming ; then, seeing Prince coming along, said —

" Where's Mr. Dipp ? "

" In the starboard alley- way, sir.'"

Mr. Benson went right over to him.

The diver stood alone, leaning with his back against
the rail, and his arms folded upon his breast, and looking
up at the rigging. Mill was close by ; Matthew Walker
talked to some men in the waist. Benson said, like
firing a volley into a man's face —

" Tve been robbed ! "

The diver turned his eyes upon him without speech or
change of posture.

" The thousand pounds in my cabin has been stolen
from me ! " shouted Benson.

" Well, I suppose you know where they are,11 answered
Mr. Dipp, with a greasy irritating laugh.

Mr. Benson's voice brought all within hearing running
to him, and a crowd was immediately assembled. Walker
said hotly —

"What's this about robbing the ship ?"

" The cupboard you made in my cabin has been
broken open," answered Benson, " and the case of a
thousand sovereigns abstracted.11

" D'ye mean stole ? "

"Stolen I11 shouted Benson.

438 OVERDUE

"When did you last see your money?11 inquired
Walker.

"I don't remember."

" Oh, but you've got to remember,"'1 shouted the man,
fiercely. " If you mean to say that it's been stolen whilst
Eve kept charge here with a few men when the rest were
ashore, youVe making a charge.11

" None of that ! " yelled the mate.

" None of that ! " shouted Dipp, rounding on the fellow.
" You're mate of this ship, aren't you ? Why isn't it you
who's asking Mr. Benson questions ? 11

" If you give me any of your d — d ! " began the

mate ; and his right hand slipped to his left-hand pocket.

But Dipp was a man used to emergencies. Before
Mill could handle his pistol, the diver had wipped out his
revolver and levelled it dead at the man's face. He
roared in no uncertain note, " Hands up ! " and up went
the rogue^ arms, and Dipp said to one of his men —

" Jackson, take away his pistol and give it to me.11

"When was this 'ere burgling job found out?11 asked
a voice.

" Ten minutes ago,11 answered Mr. Benson.

" How did you discover it ? " inquired Matthew
Walker.

" By the staples and lock lying upon the deck, leaving
the door a little open.1'

" Did you go into that cabin afore you went ashore ? "
asked Walker.

" No."

"Then you didn't take notice of them staples and
lock on the deck as you described," continued the man,
" afore you saw 'em ten minutes ago ? "

"No."

" Mr. Dipp," said Mr. Walker, in terms of rough
contempt, " there^ no convicting any of us men who was

THE ABSENTEE 439

left behind to look after the ship as having stolen this
money.11

" The money is gone, anyway," said Mr. Benson.

" Let's look at the berth,11 exclaimed the mate ; and
they all bulged in a shouldering body into the deck-
house.

The twilight was clear. You saw the two staples and
the padlock, also the open door, which Matthew Walker,
with a kick, swung backwards and disclosed vacant.

"Ifs a put-up job,11 growled a voice. "No one man
stole it.11

" The charge of thieves is a b y lie, and couldn't

be done unless several was in it.11

" And no one man's in it,11 shouted a voice, dangerous
in its accent of sensibility of temper, easily rendered
maniacal.

Phyllis, hearing the noise, opened her cabin door.

" What is the matter ? " she asked.

"Mr. Benson's thousand pound has been stole,11
answered Mr. Dipp. "Light the lamp, Prince."

The shouldering group were scarcely more than
visionary in that narrow space of cabin, and it was time
to light up.

" Do they want to pretend that my husband stole the
money ? " cried Mrs. Mostyn, standing in the doorway of
her berth ; and her sweetness, albeit her grief had a little
withered her, leapt with the flash of her eyes upon the
sight of those who saw her.

" Certainly not ! " shouted Benson, loud in indignant
protest. " How could a man carry a chest of sovereigns
ashore in daylight in the full eye of the ship^ company?11

"Then 'oo took it, damn yer, "oo took it?" shouted
a rough seaman. " If it was here when you left, and
gorn when you retarncd, then it went a-missin1 whilst
you was absent with the others, 1unting for the capfn."

440 OVERDUE

The deep breathing or snores of the men filled the
silence. All was as calm as the slumber of a star's light
in a lake, and the ship reposed motionless between her
anchors.

" Why don't yer answer, Mr. Benson ? " suddenly
roared Matthew Walker.

" My answer is," responded the man, cold, business-
like, hard as though he was addressing a public meeting,
" that a thousand pounds of the money we have been sent
out to salve has been stolen from this cabin this day,
from under lock and key, and it will remain for the chief
officer and myself to consider what steps are to be taken
to-morrow to rigidly inquire into the robbery."

Thus speaking, Benson withdrew to his cabin and
locked the door, as though, having summed up the account
for the day, he had ruled off.

The hint of the key was not lost on one of the men.

" Was it in the door when we went a-hunting for the
captain ? " was asked.

"See here, my lads," said Mr. Dipp, observing
Mr. Mill to stalk out on deck ; " Mr. Benson is not here
to answer you, and we shall have plenty of time to go
into matters to-morrow."

"There's foul play aboard somewhere, lady," said a
man, stopping at the table and looking into Phyllis's wan
but beautiful face. " Take my word for it," he said,
with an emphatic shake of the head, " it's not forrard."

" Oh, I know, I know but too well," she answered,
motioning towards Benson's door.

" Mr. Walker," said Dipp, " take it upon yourself to
go and ask Mr. Mill to give all hands a tot of grog. And
if he refuses to sarve it out at the ship's expense, they
shall have it at mine. Steward, put some grub on this
table. Don't spare your 'and ; I'm 'ungry."

This was a hint to the remaining sailors, who

THE ABSENTEE 441

proceeded to clear out ; but there was much talking as they
went. They were dissatisfied ; there had been a heavy
theft, their captain was mysteriously missing, the mystery
of a tragedy seemed to hang about the ship, and in some
of the voices were tones ominous to the experienced of
the mutiny at sea. A crowd of men forward, and no
commander, and rebellion and hatred aft, and many
thousands of sovereigns in gold in the lazarette ! This
was the human fable of the coming night entrenched by
those silent hills, some lifting in the might of mountains
to the stars, and if the ship lay at rest, many hearts
within her beat hard.

The steward put some food on the table, and Phyllis,
the mate, Dipp, Mr. Walker, and Benson sat down to
partake of it, a singular picnic, seeing the courteous
language in which some of them had addressed to the
others in the course of the day.

Mr. Benson was fearfully black, austere, and judicial.
Phyllis sat as far away from him as she could, next Dipp
on the diver's right. The mate hung his head over his
plate.

" You have no intention of leaving this island till my
husband is recovered ? " said Phyllis suddenly, to Benson.

" I'm in the hands of the mate,'1 answered Mr. Benson.

" Oh no, you're not," said Mr. Dipp, with a decisive
shake of the head. " You're in better hands than the
mate's, you lay."

The mate looked sideways at him.

"Be wary, Mr. Mill," said the diver, leaning towards
him. " I don't like your face, and I don't like the black
heart that is stamped in it, and as I've no doubt that
you're as villainous as you look, I'd as lief put a ball
through your head as stab this beef; " and seizing a knife
he buried it in a block of cold meat.

"There's no need for that strong language here,

442 OVERDUE

Mr. Dipp," said Mr. Benson. " You know, by the rules
of the sea, that, when the master's gone, the mate
commands.11

" There's nothin' about the rules of the sea you're
going to teach me," said Mr. Dipp, with an emphatic nod
of his head at the chartered accountant. "This ship
don't leave this 'ere port until Captain Mostyn is forth-
coming."

Phyllis broke into hysterical laughter.

" What's eoing to be the order for to-morrow ? "
said Mr. Walker to the mate, after a pause.

"We must talk it over," said Mill, suddenly. "I
recommend sending you and Mr. Walker and twenty men
with three days' provisions right across the island to
search the south shore, and see if you can pick up news
of him from any sealers lying there. We'll wait till we
get news of him," said he, turning to bestow a look of
homely comfort on Phyllis.

" Not a nook shall remain unsearched," she exclaimed.
" But would they seize him to leave him ? "
« " Ah, ah," said Mr. Benson, slowly wagging his head.

A fierce speech was on Dipp's lips, but he stayed it.
Conversation conducted in this spirit could lead to no
other result than bloodshed. They all seemed to feel
this, and made haste with their meal, and the first to
depart on deck were Benson and Mill, and then Matthew
Walker, leaving Dipp in earnest conversation with Phyllis
over the chart of Staten Island, which he had fetched
from the captain's cabin.

CHAPTER XXIII

A WITNESS

All night long Phyllis was up and down, to and fro, in
and out her cabin. No young captain feverishly anxious
about the weather, and inwardly convinced that the mate
of the watch was drunk, could have been more on the
alert than this poor young wife. Sometimes during the
black hours she would meet Dipp, who strove to cheer her
up, and Matthew Walker, who was never wanting in a
kindly word ; but she glided swiftly past Mill or Benson,
nor vouchsafed a reply to the latter if he addressed her.

Few women ever passed through a more cruelly dark,
heart-bruising trial. She saw the shimmer of the white
sand in the starlight, and strained her eyes at it ; the
luxuriant growths of Staten Island stood short, hard,
thick, as sentinels. The cold stars, made more frigid by
the snow, looked down at her over the mountain-tops.
She would bend her ear for the sound of a voice, but
unless it was the distant hoot of the mountain owl,
rendered more unreal in resemblance to the human note
by the distance, nothing came to her ears on the dark
and drooping pinions of the mountain's gust, than the
small breathings of wind blowing in flaws which put a life
into the dog vane only and scarcely hummed in the
tautest stay.

The Medusas brightly illuminated the water during
portions of this night. They flowed in folds of deep

443

444 OVERDUE

emerald green, and beautiful rose colour, and gold and
crimson, and blue and purple, and all these gorgeous
spaces or stages of tints came and went in rapid alternation,
making a sort of heaving fiery surface to the eye, though
'twas calm a-top as a dish of tea. She had examined with
her husband the wonderful little bell-shaped or mitred-
cone-like organism which in motion covered the water
with glory, and saw that, though it journeyed in in-
calculable millions and might cover miles of brine, the
longest was scarcely eight inches whilst the smallest was
hardly one, and her husband had also pointed out that
this night gem of the Southern Cross, this delicate jewel
of the Magellan clouds, was propelled by oars or little
wheels, and that when it stayed, though but for an instant,
its light died as a star goes out of the sea when the cloud
crosses its wake.

But the poor girl had no eye for these sea splendours
this night. Dawn broke at about five, and shortly after-
wards Phyllis came on deck, and found Matthew Walker
there, smoking a pipe. The steward came from forward,
and, respectfully saluting, asked if he should boil some
coffee for her.

" I should be glad of some, thank you, Prince. Is
there anything to be seen, Mr. Walker ?"

"You may as well get me a cup too," said Mr.
Walker. " No, mum, there's nothing observable our way
on the island."

It stole out grey, melancholy, the blacker verdure like
black splashes of paint, the lighter ashen like floating
pumice in certain lights ; then the topmost heights took
the fire of the sun, and the morn clothed in glory walked
down the hills, and bathed the valleys in light, and silvered
the coils of the running streams, and shook red radiance
into the berry and flower, and revealed the elegancies of
the tenderer plants, until the whole island, or as much of

A WITNESS 445

it as could be commanded from the ship was in full view,
the full view of a searching sunshine, which flashed up the
white sand into the dazzle of ivory, and set the very
colour of heaven in the face of the water of the port.

But the sight that was sought for was not to be seen,
and Phyllis silently wept as she gazed over the desolation
of the picture.

Before breakfast, that is eight o'clock, Mr. Benson and
the mate were to be seen walking up and down the
starboard alley-way engaged in earnest conversation.
The men were getting their breakfast, but most of them
were on deck eating their food. Mr. Dipp, Phyllis,
Walker, and the able seaman named Jones, who had
called attention to the gash in the bough, were talking
together in the gangway. On a sudden Mr. Benson broke
away from his companion, and approaching the lot in the
gangway, said —

" As the representative of the insurers, I have been
talking the situation over with Mr. Mill, who acts as
captain during the master's absence, and I am strongly
of opinion that as we have so large a sum on board, the
directors would wish their ship should leave this place at
once and proceed to England.vi

" Without my husband ? " shrieked Phyllis.

" Before you get the men to wind an inch of that
there cable up,'" said Matthew Walker, " they'll want to
know what's become of the thousand pounds that was in
your cabin yesterday.1'

" Oh, I am willing to accept that as a loss,11 cried
Benson, with an agitated motion of his hand as though
dashing that most unseasonable idea from his own and the
mind of Walker. " We don't want to increase that loss
by remaining here."'

" You're not going to add to your loss by remaining
here," said Mr. Walker. " It was promised last night by

446 OVERDUE

Mr. Mill, that twenty men should search the south shore
for the captain."

"But why should he be there?" remonstrated Mr.
Benson.

"The island must be searched!" screamed Phyllis,
looking at him as though in another second she would
plunge her finger-nails in his eyes ; and then it was that
even Benson saw that beauty in the spasm of wrath will
sometimes darken and scowl upon you in an aspect which,
if it be a single woman and you are courting it, might
give you occasion to reflect how it would stand between
you and her in the course of a year or two.

" I am willing to do anything I can to promote the
search for Captain Mostyn, whose loss I deplore," exclaimed
Mr. Benson, looking vaguely at the island.

" If the search-party comes off without him," said Mr.
Dipp, " and they're to be allowed two days, then we mean
to keep all fast with this ship, and send the long-boat to
the naval station for assistance, which is a short sail, and
this is the summer weather. And we shall be told exactly
what to do according to the law."

" You send no long-boat away from this ship without
my sanction," said the mate, who had come to a halt
close by.

" No, I agree ; it will not be for me to hact — it'll be
for the 'ole ship's company," shouted Mr. Dipp, with a
comprehensive look round.

"When do you mean to send the men ashore, sir?"
said Mr. Walker.

" They can start as soon as they're ready," was Mill's
answer, as gruff as the note of a chain in a hawse pipe.

The long-boat with three extra men to bring her back
sufficed; and at about half-past nine o'clock a crew of
twenty of the best men of the Deahnan, most of them
armed, were ready to enter the boat in charge of Mr.

A WITNESS 447

Matthew Walker, who carried with him the chart of the
island, a pocket-compass, a powerful ship's glass, and
provisions for two or three days. Dipp's instructions were
that Walker should board any sealer he found lying in a
south creek, and forcibly overhaul her if resisted, first
stating his reasons.

The creeks, harbours, and inlets south of Staten Island
are numerous. York Bay in the south almost faces Port
Parry in the north. Walker proposed to sail the long-boat
right up Port Parry, which in length extends nearly two-
thirds of the breadth of the island, then land, and send
the boat back. After trying York Bay he would work
his way if possible round Cape Webster, to as high as
Port Vancouver, and if nothing came of that search he'd
return and hunt in the Western Bays. The distance in
mileage was not great. The difficulties and even perils to
be encountered lay in the ravines and hills. Happily
there was plenty of fresh water.

At about a quarter to ten the long-boat stood away
from the ship under her lug, helped by three oars. She
was a big boat, and yet those twenty-three men filled her.
Saving the ship, she made the only picture of human
life to be found in the port, as her bright canvas trembled
its marble into the azure, and the toss of the oars threw
ropes of pearls to the sun. They watched her until she
had sailed a long distance up the port, and then she dis-
appeared behind a bend, at which hour it was a little
before noon when she would not be far off her landing
destination.

Benson and Mill had been walking the deck alone.
Neither man smoked ; neither man seemed very much at
his ease. Perhaps Benson was thinking of Burns1s lines, in
which he speaks of the best invented schemes of men and
mice going oft agley. It is probable that some conditions,
to use his favourite expression, had been interpolated by

448 OVERDUE

Mr. Dipp into a programme which had never been con-
templated, which could never have been conceived by
them, and which were instantly obnoxious to it. For
example, the idea that there was a station for British
men-of-war near Cape Horn was not in his mind when he
started on the foundations of his highly unscientific
structure. He had reckoned that the crew would accept
the fate of their captain with the submission to destiny
crews usually exhibit in such cases, and he was versed
enough in the life to know that when a captain dies at
sea he is replaced by his mate, with the implied consent
of all hands.

Unfortunately, in most sea affairs in the merchant
service on the ocean, when the business of the ship has to
be carried on, there is no Mr. Dipp to turn the current of
man's foul intention a little aside, and trouble him to the
very depth of his stained soul, by observing that the
stream does not pursue the course he intends.

"What'll you do,11 said Mr. Mill, suddenly, to the
man who was walking by his side, " if they find the
captain aboard the schooner and come across the island
with the news?'"

" The same as you'll do, I suppose," answered Benson.

" What'll that be ? " exclaimed Mr. Mill, with a queer
look, as he cornered his companion in his eyes.

'Til follow your example," answered Benson, with a
husky laugh.

" He's logged me officially," said Mill ; " and I know
that, kidnapped or not, I'm a broke man in his hands."
He looked forward, and then aft, and, muttering aloud,
"What blasted genius introduced chain instead of hemp
for cable ?" he went into the cabin, where, a moment later,
he might have been observed helping himself to a liberal
drink of brandy and water.

Whilst Phyllis and Mr. Dipp conversed abaft the

A WITNESS 449

gangway, gazing at the island, the young wife full of
moving questions, of inquiries dark with despair, of looks
that kindled into hope a moment under the influence of
the divers cheerful views — for he first of all begged her to
believe that her husband was not dead, which, being so,
they would come together eventually — some conversation
was going on near the galley, and the principal speaker
was Prince.

When Mr. Mill left Mr. Benson and went into the
cabin for a drink, Prince said to Whitmore, who, with
another, formed the group —

" Now for't ! Go, like a man, and tell him what you
know."

Whitmore smiled his farmyard smile. It is difficult
otherwise to convey the expression of haystack, waggon,
and a crowing cock, which that man's face suggested when
he smiled, sandy as he was, like hay seed, with just the
stare the yokel gives you when he lifts his head from the
turnip he is pulling to answer your question.

" Cut on," said the cook.

" But what am I to say ? " answered Whitmore.

" Say ! " shouted Prince. " What you've said to me ! "
Then, losing his patience, he seized the fellow by the arm,
and dragged him right up to Dipp and Phyllis.

"Beg pardon, sir," he said, "but this man, whose
name is Palmer, and belongs to my native place, can give
you the whole yarn of the kidnapping of the captain."

" You ! " cried Dipp ; and Mr. Benson, overhearing
Prince, came to a stand to listen.

Palmer smiled.

" By God ! " shouted Mr. Dipp, in a voice that made
the fellow solemn as a body-bearer, "you'll find this no
grinning matter. What's the information you're able to
give ?

The man,alarmed by Dipp's menacing looks, answered —

2 a

450 OVERDUE

" I was one of the crew of the Penguin, and ran and
hid myself till she sailed, "'cause I didn't want to be mixed
up with a job that might mean a life sentence."

Mr. Benson approached by a single step.

"So that's the truth, then," said Dipp, "and your
other yarn's a lie ? Now let the whole of it run out, or
I'll have ye in irons as a confederate."

" That's just what I ain't," said the man, whimpering
in his nose. "I left my clothes and wages to escape it.
That gent " — here he pointed to Benson — " came oft' and
agreed with the skipper to sail away with your capt'n for
a thousand pound. The money was to be lowered in a
case through the porthole into the schooner's boat, which
would come round past that point there out of a creek
lying aback of this. The signal that the man was took
was to be a slashed bough — you can see it," he cried,
levelling his forefinger. "All the men were willing but
me, and I hid till the schooner sailed, then came aboard
with a yarn about being shipwrecked."

" D'ye hear him ? " cried Dipp to Benson, who stood
listening, black as the brow of a thunder-storm, and as
silent.

" Have they taken him away from the island ? " cried
Phyllis to Palmer; and, whilst he ,'answered, "Dunno,
ma'am," Benson put his head into the skylight and
shouted —

« Mr. Mill ! "

The mate, who was drinking in the cabin, at once
came out.

" That fellow," said Mr. Benson, with remarkable self-
possession, motioning to Palmer, " charges me with having
gone on board the Penman and connived with her
captain to steal Captain Mostyn for the one thousand
pounds, hard cash, of which we were, in fact, robbed
yesterday."

A WITNESS 451

"Thought vou was a sole survivor?1' said the mate,
stepping ominously close to the man, who backed a pace.

" I was a sailor aboard the Penguin" answered
Palmer, getting behind Prince, "and don't mind telling
you to your face that you was in the scheme, and that
you was to have some share of the money for navigating
the ship so as to lose her.'1

Mill fell upon him with his whole weight, and bore
him with a crash to the deck, shouting for the irons. But
this example of ancient sea-discipline was short. In a leap
Dipp and Prince grasped the mate, and flung him to the
other side of the deck with a will which left him half-
stunned ; and then Prince, shouting, " Forward with you !
forward with you ! " drove Palmer into the foc'sle and bade
him skulk there.

" This is mutiny, rank, gross, bloody mutiny ! " ex-
claimed Mr. Benson, folding his arms; whilst the mate
slowly got up and looked about him, as though for an
iron belaying-pin, apparently unchecked by the attitude
of Mr. Dipp's hand, which was in the pocket in which he
kept his revolver.

"We'll see what name the law'll tarm it when it comes
to the law," said Mr. Dipp, who was blood-red with
temper. Then he suddenly shouted : " Lay aft, all
hands ! "

The few who were left flocked to the main deck.
They were about seven or eight men, including the divers\

" Did you 'ear what was said ? " asked Dipp, address-
ing the fellows collectively.

" No," answered the men, who thirsted for full in-
formation.

"Steward, bring that there pal of yourn out of the
foc'sle," shouted Dipp ; and in a moment Palmer stood in
the thick of the group, grinning and gaping in alter-
nations.

452 OVERDUE

" I suppose, my lads, you know," continued Mr. Dipp,
" that that there young chap who miscalls hisself a cast-
away man, but has really run to escape the penalties of
the law, has informed against that there Mr. Benson and
your chief mate, Mr. Mill : how Mr. Benson twice visited
the schooner to arrange for the seizure of the captain
when ashore ; how he was to be paid a thousand pounds
cash for the job, which was got by its being lowered
through Mr. Benson's cabin port-hole into the schooner's
boat, that sneaked through the night unbeknown and
came alongside ; and "W the object of that man who calls
hisself a gentleman V (few stage actors could have put on
the look with which Dipp surveyed Benson as he spoke
these words) " was to get possession of this lady ,1 — here
he motioned to Phyllis, who coloured vividly, and then
turned white, as in a swoon — "though o\v 'e was going
to manage with 'er when "e 'ad got 'old of 'er, law being
law everywhere, and society being society, you must take
a muck-rake and comb over the dunghill of his mind to
find out.1'

"Ill bring you to book yet for those words, you
insolent scoundrel ! " exclaimed Benson. " I am an innocent
man. This is a plot to ruin me. Who is his witness ?
A grinning idiot, whose unsupported statement would not
be received one instant in a court of law. Suffer me to
have a voice," he shouted, with expanding indigna-
tion, which exemplified itself rather in breadth of chest
than in volume of temper, for this he kept under
control. " Attend, you man, Palmer ; none of your grins
with me, sir. Did you hear me offer the captain one
thousand pounds to abduct the captain from this
ship ? "

" No,"' came the answer, after a little pause.

" What are your grounds, then, for making that state-
ment?"

A WITNESS 453

" Now then, speak up,11 said Mr. Dipp, " or I shall be
thinking you an accomplice."

" You have no right to frighten him in that strain,
sir," cried Mr. Benson. " No court of law would hear of
such a thing. What are the grounds on which you bring
these charges against me, sir ? " and here he looked with
all the terror and dignity which plenty of curly whiskers,
fine clothes, gold chain and the like, could help as an
impression to subdue the mind of a farmyard smiler.

"The capt'n called us aft, and told us what had
passed,*'1 at last answered Palmer.

" What did he say ? "

"He gave us the yarn I just now told Mr. Dipp
there."

" And you think that a shrewd American captain like
Morell," exclaimed Benson, drawing himself erect, and
speaking with real breadth of coarse contempt and
sarcasm, " would place his freedom, perhaps his life, in the
hands of a crew, not one of whom he might have reason
to trust?"

" What's become of the money ? " said a voice in the
little crowd. " That money us sailors, as was left aboard
yesterday, was supposed to 'ave stole."

" It's on board the schooner," answered Palmer.

" A lie ! " shouted the mate, who had so far stood listen-
ing, with his head lowered and his hands hanging up and
down, and his face working as if he had swallowed a bottle
of poison. " It's in this ship, and we'll have it yet;" and
he tossed his arm, with an immense clenched fist, in a
mighty flourish of triumph.

" What made you keep this secret till now ? " inquired
Benson of Palmer, when the grumble, stirred amongst the
men by the mate's words, had ceased.

" 'Cause I was afraid the mate and you would set me
ashore and leave me there," was the fellow's answer.

454 OVERDUE

"And that's why ye "elped in the "unt yesterday, I
suppose ? " said Dipp.

" I knew there was no good 'unting," answered
Palmer.

" I'm mate of this ship,11 suddenly shouted Mill, losing
his self-possession, with his face full of blood, " and am
master till the right man takes my place. That impudent
liar, who came aboard with a yarn of a shipwreck, has
charged me with concerting with others to navigate
this ship so as to cast her away. Fetch the irons, one of
you."

He put the roar of a bull into the words. No man
stirred.

" Nothing can or shall be done,11 said Mr. Dipp, " until
the return of the rest of the ship's company, with such
noose as they may bring along. Then a council of the
whole ship's crew shall be called, and it shall be for the
men to decide. Come into the cabin, Mrs. Mostyn.11

She was looking ill and faint. She said —

" May I ask Palmer a few questions, Mr. Dipp ? "

" Certainly,11 he replied. " Come you along with me
and the lady ; " and the three went into the cabin, whilst
Benson and Mill conversed together at the quarter-deck-
capstan, and the others went slowly forwards, talking
gruffly, and often sending backward sinister glances at
the mate and the chartered accountant.

Mr. Dipp mingled a little brandy and water for Mrs.
Mostyn, who was too impatient to question Palmer to
await the diver's act of attention.

" Do you think the schooner has sailed with my
husband ? " she inquired.

The dawn of the recognition of her meaning broke
into his usual farmyard smile, and he answered —

" Yes, miss ; I think so.11

" What keeps you grinning, you fool, when there's no

A WITNESS 455

call for laughter?-" said Dipp, handing a small glass of
brandy to Phyllis. " It's men like you who's always
putting a wrong meaning on things by your face, durn
you. You'd grin at a marriage ; you'd grin if some drunken
bearers let fall a coffin ; you'd grin if, as a witness, you
was to be asked, ' Did you say you'd seen 'is arm round
'er waist,' when you mean no, and your grin would ruin
your evidence. Hold your mug whilst the lady talks to
you."

But the thing was congenital, and it was as idle for Dipp
to ask Palmer to hold his mug, as he put it, when he was
spoken to, as it would have been for Palmer to request
Dipp to have reduced his fat in twelve hours.

" Have you any idea where the schooner is sailing to ? "
asked the young wife.

"I believe she means to stand off and on until this
'ere vessel leaves the island."

" What for ? " said Dipp.

" To land Captain Mostyn for another sealer to take
off."

"Are you sure of that?" cried Dipp, with fervid
eagerness.

" As sure as that the chest of gold is in the schooner."

" By thunder, Mrs. Mostyn ! Then, ma'am," exclaimed
the diver, in a low voice, looking through the door on to
the quarter-deck, where Benson and the mate were in deep
converse at the capstan, " if that be so, the sooner we get
under way the better, so as to entice the Penguin back
and then in two or three days' time we may safely tarn to
and fetch the captain off."

Palmer nodded, as though he greatly approved of this
scheme.

" If we leave the island," asked Mrs. Mostyn, feverish
with the new hopes and ideas kindled in her, "how shall
we find it again ? "

456 OVERDUE

" Well make Mill find it."

"He may refuse, as his object is to get rid of my
husband, or he may steer us on some false reckoning.'1

" Well not go so far away as all that," said Mr. Dipp,
smiling. " I can pick up longitude quick enough by dead
reckoning, and can't you take sights, missus ? n

" Yes," she answered, with her face lighting up. " I
can certainly find the latitude of the place in which the
ship is in."

" Then, if what this young man says is right," exclaimed
Dipp, who, checking himself fiercely, turned to Palmer, and
shouted, " Are you sure you're right ? "

" It was an onderstood thing, sir," yelped the young
fellow. " The skipper says, what does he want with a
British captain aboard his schooner ? How is he to
answer questions ? Where is he to land him ? Benson
himself onderstands this. He knows that, after this
vessel had sailed, the schooner will put back and land
Captain Mostyn."

" And Mr. Benson would leave him to starve," cried
Phyllis.

" Perhaps it will be for him to be left," answered Mr.
Dipp.

" Have you got any more questions to ask this young
man ? " he asked, as Prince entered the cabin to prepare
the dinner.

"If he has told me the truth I am happy," she
answered.

" You can go forward," said Dipp to Palmer ; and then,
conducting Mrs. Mostyn on to the quarter-deck and away
aft clear of the ears of the capstan, he said —

" I believe the young man's telling the truth, 'cause it's
much too natural a thing to enter his head for him to
make the captain of the Penguin ask what is he going
to do with a British skipper aboard his schooner. 'Ow is

A WITNESS 457

he going to account for him being there ? Beside, harn't
your husband got a tongue in his head ? You lay that
that young man's right. Benson was quite willing that
the schooner should return and land your 'usband. But
even then, where is 'e ? — I mean, where is Benson ? "

He paused. Phyllis looked at the island, lost in
thought.

"As I've all along said, if you're 'is game, Mrs. Mostyn,
what's 'e going to do when Vs got rid of your 'usband ? "
continued Mr. Dipp. "You'll forgive my plain speaking?"
She coloured, but made no answer. " We'll suppose that
he knows that if your 'usband should go a-missing, and
perhaps perish, you'd be pretty nigh friendless in the
world. Mostyn's a man to speak out, and he spoke freely
enough about his own affairs to Benson, — that I know.
Benson might consider that if he paid you great attention
during the voyage 'ome, or to the place where we was to be
wrecked " — here he delivered a greasy gurgle of a laugh —
"you'd say to yourself, 'After all, I am alone, it's true ' "

" I'll not hear you, Mr. Dipp. It's too ridiculous
cried the young wife, with vehemently sparkling eyes
" Your reasoning "

"It's 'is reasoning "

•n

" Is too shocking to enter into, when you think that
the object of the man has been to get rid of my beloved
husband for a purpose I would sooner stab him than
hear from him. He, the beast, the criminal cur, shielding
himself behind lies even now, perhaps working out some
new and abominable plan to further his ends, shapeless
and hopeless as they are, whilst we are still in ignorance
of the issue he has brought to pass through causing my
husband to be kidnapped ! "

" Well," said Mr. Dipp, releasing the subject with a
sort of groan in his " Well," " I've lived to see a good
many changes worked in men by different influences brought

453 OVERDUE

to bear, but never in all my going a-fishing have I known
so cute, shrewd, level-headed a man of business as Benson,
stowed to his fingers"' tips with arithmetic, and larned in
the exact calculations which are supposed to keep men
who understand them straight — never, I say, should I have
believed it of Montague Benson, not that he would have
turned out a swindler, a villain, and any other character
in the Ten Commandments, but that he should have made
such a damned fool of himself, and such a damned mess
of his job, for a woman, even though that woman be
you, marm."

This said, the subject came to an end — it was not
only too personal, it was vastly too complex even for the
mind of a diver, who has it in his power to see more than
any man on dry earth. It entered into metaphysics,
physiology, and sociology ; it belonged to that vast
family of human problems which submits the modification
of character under influences of passion, low or lofty, as
in the founder of the Jesuits, as in Joanna Southcote,
as in Montague Benson.

Nor, indeed, was there room for more talk, for it was
half-past one, and Prince rang the dinner-bell, but only
a solitary individual seated himself at that dinner-table,
and he was Dipp. Indeed, had the ship been on fire
forward, Dipp must have dined had there been time to
escape aft ; but it was impossible for the others to meet.
People who professedly thirst for one another's life cannot
lightly and easily chew food in one another's faces. Mrs.
Mostyn's dinner was taken to her berth by Prince, to
whom she said —

" It is most fortunate that that young man Palmer is
a friend of yours. He's too great a farmyard gawky, and
too nervous, not to have told us the truth, upon which we
must rely, both for our hopes and as a testimony against
the wretches who have tried to ruin my husband and me.""

A WITNESS 459

" I saw all along, lady, how it was working up," said
Prince, " but never hoped to fall in with that there
Palmer. Soon as I saw him I guessed he might be of
use ; but it was my questioning him as a pal that brought
out the truth, otherwise he'd have remained as dumb as
a broken drum."

" You served me once before," she exclaimed, smiling
at him. " I was always sure of a friend in you, Prince."

He gave her the military salute, and, feeling that no
more was expected of him, wheeled about, and walked
out.

Benson dined standing — luncheon-counter fashion ;
he picked up this, and he picked up that, poured out a
glass, and so got through with it. He often eyed Mr.
Dipp, who ate as though this was to be his last meal on
earth. He broke the silence once by saying —

" It's not possible that a sensible man like you, Mr.
Dipp, is going to accept the statement of that young
fellow Palmer without strong corroboration, as against
the oath of a man who is well known and universally
respected throughout the city of London."

" Wait till the rest of the ship's company comes
back," answered Dipp, with his mouth full, "and then
well decide what to do."

And this was about the extent of the conversation
that passed at that dinner-table.

Mr. Mill came in, and smelt round, took some rum
and water, and made a large biscuit sandwich of
preserved meat, which he carried out on deck to eat,
and so it stood ; and thus the afternoon rolled away,
and the sun sank low beyond the hills of the west,
empurpling the sky that way, and deepening the blue of
the east. But Dipp, and the others who searched, saw no
signs of the long-boat. She had gone away early — she
had about thirty miles to travel, there and back. When

460 OVERDUE

she had reached the round of the bight which formed the
end of the bay or creek, her company of twenty armed
men, in charge of Matthew Walker, would encounter
about three miles of hilly and difficult country to climb
before they reached the coast. Orders had been given to
Walker to send the long-boat back — by whom ? — by the
mate. Possibly Walker had thought better, and on his
arrival where the bay ended, kept the long-boat in readiness
for embarking if the need should arise. Nor had the
wind been much more all day than a faint crawl, or
travelling curl of dye upon the smooth waters ; shifty as
all air is bound to be in mountainous regions — the
cat's-paw south-east one minute, nor'-nor'-east next.
Moreover the boat might come alongside in the night.

But it was certain that when the hills of the west
lifted in indigo against the crimson of the sunset not
a hint of the boat was to be got by the glass ; the lenses
reached far, but not far enough ; and when the darkness
of the night came down upon the ship the long-boat was
still absent. A sparkling lantern was hoisted on the
forestay, and another hung over the stern, and there was
scarce need to tell the few hands of the ship to keep a
bright look-out. The darkness, coupled with the absence
of the long-boat, and two-thirds of the ship's company,
filled the ship with disquietude; some great outrage had
been perpetrated. Jack could not clearly distinguish ; all
he knew was his captain had been run away with, and
that a thousand pounds, which the diver had sent up, had
gone a-missing with him. These crimes were vaguely
associated with the mate and Benson, but with links of
reasoning which would not travel through the hawse
pipes of the sailors1 minds, and so here and there was a
jam in the mental gear, and the sailors were satisfied to
say, " Well, the sooner we get away from this bloody hole
the better. There is no man agoing to tell us that that

A WITNESS 4(51

thousand pounds has been stole in the ship, and hid in
the ship. Not if we know it." And as they accepted
Palmer as a complete country greenhorn, and as he had
sustained one good lie in the shape of a yarn about
having been shipwrecked, they did not, on reflection,
allow his statement to weigh greatly with them.
And so passed the night.

CHAPTER XXIV

\

OVERDUE

At eleven o'clock next morning the waters of Port Parry
were a splendid flash, thrilling to the breeze, and
dwindling in blue air, and its sides mirrored the giant
cones of verdant hills, and gleamed with lengths of
mammoth weed. The surface was lively with penguins,
and many sea-fowls swept over it, darting in lovely and
gallant curves to their prey, and the island itself was as
rich as a bouquet in the sun that had swung high in that
Antarctic sky. The whiteness of the snow-topped
mountains made a whiteness in the air round about, and
the whole block crept out into a suggestion of some vast
ocean ivory mass concealed by centuries of verdure, but
still lifting the glory of its primordial structure to the
stars.

Ever since daybreak all hands had been on the look-
out for the long-boat. It was now half-past eleven.
Phyllis, robed in straw hat and jacket, stood beside Mr.
Dipp on top of the deck-house, he with a telescope, she
with a binocular glass. She looked wan, thin, hollow under
the eyes. She had passed two bad, broken, miserable
nights. Beauty needs sleep, as complexion needs milk.
Venus grows haggish after a week or two of painful
vigils.

" It's certainly time the long-boat showed," said Mr,
Dipp.

462

OVERDUE 463

Down below them in the alley-way stood Benson and
Mill, also bending their gaze along the port. They had
talked much that morning. In fact, throughout the night
they had talked much. They had little left to say now,
one to the other. Mr. Benson was convinced that the
Penguin had made sail with Captain Mostyn, and would
not return and land him until the Dealman had sot
under way and was out of sight. Mill relied on this :
suppose the party fell in with the Penguin, and Captain
Morell gave up Captain Mostyn, unless Morell and the
Pejiguiri's crew appeared against them, who was to prove
them guilty as conspiring to kidnap Captain Mostyn ?
There was no witness on board the ship but the man Palmer.
In a court of law one man's word was as good as another's,
and here there were two to one, that is, Mill and Benson
against the statements of Palmer. Mill meant to face it
out, happen what might, and come what would, and the
hanging flaps of the bulldog were suggested by the
fellow's dogged mien, and round-armed repose, and level
look, and resting chin upon the bulwark-rail, as he stared
along the creek.

Suddenly, a man, who had been sent aloft into the
main-topmast cross-trees to do something, sung out, whilst
he pointed direct up the port —

" On deck there ! Ain't that white thing yonder a
boat's sail ? "

Dipp looked, Phyllis looked. In an instant Dipp
caught the glance of the gleam of the lug of the long-
boat. The lug was a fair pull, and a pull steady as the
arch of a gull's wing, and in ten minutes she had opened
out so that it could be seen she was full of people.

" As God is truth," cried Dipp, talking with great
excitement, his eyes at the glass, " she's a-bringing all the
ship's company with her ! Them that went armed, and
them that went to look after her. Is the captain one of

464 OVERDUE

them, I wonder?1' and he screwed and probed with his
telescope, whilst Phyllis, close beside him, shrieked —

" Oh, do find out ! Oh, do tell me ! Why aren t
these wretched glasses more powerful ? Can't you count
the men, Mr. Dipp ? "

" I'm a-trying to do so," groaned Dipp, in the heat of
emotion. " But whenever I harrives at height the whole
boilin' dissolves into mere faces again."

" How many ought there to be ? " she cried.

" Now, don't worrit, mum. She's a-coming along fast
enough. Yes ; she's full of men. She never would have
brought 'em off if she hadn't got the captain along
with 'em."

" Can you make out any signs of Captain Mostyn
being on board, Mr. Dipp?" said Benson, turning
upon the rail to look up whilst he addressed the diver.

" No, sir," replied the other, with his eye to the
glass.

"Will you oblige me with the use of that ship's
telescope, when you have quite done with it ? " said Mr.
Benson.

Dipp stooped and handed it down through the rail.
Benson looked, he looked long, hard, thirstily, he looked
whilst you could have counted one hundred, which is a
long time for the eye to remain glued to the lens. He
then spoke in a low voice to Mill, to whom he handed
the glass. The mate poised the lenses with a seaman's
accuracy, and instantly uttered an ejaculation which caught
the keen ear of Phyllis.

" What do you see ? " she almost screamed down to
him.

Without turning his head he answered, " Captain
Mostyn."

Benson snatched the glass from him.

" Oh, give me that glass ! " cried the frantic young

OVERDUE 465

wife. " Oh, Mr. Dipp, is it my husband ? Can you see
him through those glasses ? "

" It is your husband, Mrs. Mostyn," said Mr. Benson.
" He's standing up on one of the back seats and waving
his hat. I cordially congratulate you and all of us upon
his safety ; M and, perfectly self-collected, the chartered
accountant handed up the glass, which Dipp took and
immediately levelled.

" Oh yes ! There he is ! That's 'im right enough ! "
he greasily chuckled. " Lor, ow Vs a- waving ! Flourish
your 'ankerchief back, missus; Vll be able to see ye.
Lord bless my soul, what a yarn ! Kidnapped two nights
and a day, and a standin"1 there as if nothin' 'ad 'appened
— as if he was just come off with some more drorrings of

'ills."

" Balance the glass, steady it — my hand shakes so.
I hope I shan't faint. Oh yes ; I see him ! God bless
him ! What a time of anxiety he's caused me. Think
of his preferring to draw pictures of hills, to looking
after his ship and me ! There they come ! " and Mrs.
Mostyn, dabbing the telescope into Dipp's hands, rushed
to the deck-house steps, shot down them at the risk of
her neck, and was at the open gangway, waiting for her
husband, and flourishing her handkerchief to him, and
often crying, " Oh, Charlie ! Oh, Charlie ! " in the great
joy and marvelling enthusiasm of her heart, whilst the
boat was still coming.

In a few minutes the lug was lowered, the boat swept
alongside, and Mostyn was the first to spring on deck.
He certainly wore no appearance of having been kid-
napped. It was clear that in two days somebody had
lent him a razor. His looks were sparkling, his face was
never handsomer in pride of lineament and manly charm
of tint. His blue suit looked well brushed, and his brown
boots showed no signs of wear, of toil, or climb. His

2 H

4G6 OVERDUE

wife sprang upon him, and for some breathless moments
'twas one long embrace between them ; with here and
there a man looking away, and here and there a fellow
spitting a yellow sud, and here and there some round-
backed seaman wondering what sort of reception he was
going to get when he got home.

Mostyn released his wife, and perfectly understanding
that business was now to be business, she stood a little
aside from him, with panting breast and Avorshipping
eyes, and cheeks to whom the kiss of the husband had
returned the freshness and the glory of the beauty that
had waned somewhat in the night-watches she had kept
for him. A new face came upon the skipper ; he stepped
to the quarter-deck capstan, and then he saw Benson and
Mill lurking in the starboard gangway.

" Mr. Walker."

" Sir," answered the acting second mate, stepping
forward.

" Put the mate into irons, and confine him in his
berth."

" Ay, ay, sir ; " and in the silence that fell upon the
ship, though they were still busy over the side, in handing
up the contents of the long-boat, Mr. Walker went
forward for the iron bars that were to keep Mr. Mill's feet
as strictly yoked as a newly married pair.

Mr. Mill came forward a pace or two, and said,
" What am I to be put in irons for ? "

"I answer you in the full hearing of these men,"
replied Mostyn, at the top of his voice. " For conspiring
with Mr. Benson to kidnap me and get possession of this
ship, with a view to casting her away for purposes here-
after to be stated ; " for, hot as his heart was, it was im-
possible for him to mention his wife and the suspected
views of Benson in the presence of all those listeners,
which consisted nearly of the whole ship's company.

OVERDUE 467

" Who says I meant to conspire against you and
wreck this ship ? " inquired Mill, with a bitter scowl, and
a set of the lips that made you think of an adder's
mouth.

" I charge you with the intention," shouted Mostyn.
" I have testimony. The case of gold is on board the
schooner. It was not robbed by any of our people, as
Mr. Benson tried to represent.11

" You'll have to make good every word you say," cried
Mr. Benson from the alley-way.

" Mr. Walker,11 said Mostyn, as the second mate came
rapidly aft, dangling the irons, " take Mr. Mill into his
cabin, and clap the irons on him, and bring me the key of
his berth, and if you want help you shall have it."

" I don't want no 'elp," said Matthew Walker, who
was an immensely strong man, looking at Mill somewhat
pitifully. " Come along ! " and he laid his right hand
heavily on Mr. Mill's shoulder.

The Jacks expected to witness a fight : there was to
be at least a struggle, graced by some blood-letting, and
enriched by groans and execrations ; but Mill was an old
hand. He saw that he stood alone, he intuitively under-
stood that the sympathy of every sailor was against him,
and that resistance would merely signify considerable
corporal pain, and defeat ignoble and absolute. Direct-
ing one scowl at the captain, which did not seem to affect
the complexion of the weather, nor depress sensibly any
man's spirits in the ship, he passed from the cabin door
into his berth, followed by Walker.

"Mr. Benson."

"I beg your pardon," cried Benson, who was leaning
in a contemplative attitude over the rail, apparently lost
in the beauties of the island.

"You will immediately go to your cabin," said Mostyn,
"and consider yourself my prisoner, until I am in a

468 OVERDUE

position to hand you over to the authorities on our
arrival home/'

" Your prisoner ! " exclaimed Benson, waking up, and
standing up, and coming forward towards the captain by
a few paces. "What do you mean by holding such
language to me, sir ? I am the representative of the
people who employ you, and, as such, have a right to be
regarded by you even as though / employed you.""

" If you're not in your cabin in two minutes," said
Captain Mostyn, "a couple of seamen shall carry you
there."

You noticed a movement amongst the men who were
listening and waiting. Some keen spirits evidently there
were eager to have the man-handling of Mr. Benson.

"I am a passenger in this ship, sir," cried Benson,
who was of a ghastly yellow, painful to witness, about the
brow, "and you dare not place me under confinement
without stating my offence, and entering it in the official
log-book."

" Your offence," shouted the captain, for the edifica-
tion of all hands, " is, that you stole one thousand pounds
of the insurers-' gold to bribe the master and men of a
schooner called the Penguin, to abduct me for purposes
hereafter to be stated. Those purposes are well known

to you. Go to your cabin, you " He swallowed the

mouthful of bad language that rose in acrid bile of wrath
to his throat.

Just then Matthew Walker appeared, with the key of
the chief officer's cabin.

" Take that man to his berth, and lock him up,
Mr. Walker," said Mostyn, pointing to Benson. "We
must get out of this before sunset."

Then came some cries from the men.

" In you go ! "

" Don't stand snivelling there, whiskers ! *

OVERDUE 469

" Use your legs whilst we allows you."

"If the ship's to be wrecked, we'll manage that job
without you 'aving a 'and in it."

This sarcasm raised a groan, in the midst of which
Walker, probing Mr. Benson's shoulder-blades with an
unceremonious thump, drove him into the cabin, and the
couple vanished.

The captain mounted the second of the steps leading
to the deck-house top. The whole of the people were in
front of him, grouped about the decks, thirty to thirty-
five in all — I will not be sure of the number of this ship's
company — and every man looked aft as though a photo-
graph of the scene was to be taken.

"My lads," began the captain, "I want to haul out
of this port as soon as ever I can, but those of you who
have been good enough to tramp for me across country
have had a hard march, as I can vouch, though I only
went a little way, and my orders are that all hands should
get dinner, and that an extra glass of grog should be
served out to each man, and at three o'clock, six bells in
the afternoon, I shall get under way, and leave Port Parry
for Port London."

" Hurrah for the girls ! " shouted a voice ; then the
extra tot of grog inspired another voice to yell, " Three
cheers for the skipper ! " which was followed by three
cheers for his lady. But there is little sentiment at sea.
The men swung forward to await their dinner, and
Mostyn, catching his wife by her arm, walked her into
the cabin, after calling to Prince to put a meal upon the
table. Mr. Dipp followed, and Matthew Walker modestly
lurked in the gangway.

"The penguins will keep a look-out," called Mostyn,
cheerily, to him. "Step in, Walker," and in came the
worthy second mate, boatswain, carpenter, and sailmaker
rolled up into one.

470 OVERDUE

" What on earth made you go drawing hills instead
of stopping here with me ? " said Phyllis to her husband.

"This is the peremptory speech of the young wife,
Mr. Dipp," said Mostyn, laughing ; " had it been a year

ago-

I shouldn't have felt the same anxiety," interrupted
Phyllis.

But there is no talk more sickening than by-talk,
chaff-talk, coo-talk, and other matrimonial talks which I
have known endure for forty years of conjugal life, and
Mostyn and his wife had the good sense to drop further
reference to each other by the former giving Dipp his
attention.

" How came you to be sapperized, capt'n ? " said the

diver.

" It was done in a breath," answered Mostyn. " And
now you shall have the story. It's the queerest yarn out
of Yankee land. Scarce conceivable. I was doing my
bit of drawing — here it is" — he slapped down the note-
book out of his pocket — " when, before I could have said
Lord Jesus, a gag was tightened over my mouth till
I could scarce draw breath through the tension ; my
wrists were handcuffed. I sprang erect, and found myself
in the grasp of two men, one of whom I instantly recog-
nized as the master of the schooner Pejiguin, called
Morell. He said to me in a low voice, ' This is part of
the play-acting ; don't be alarmed. It has to be done.
Jump and tug that bough-rope, Bill.1 A third man ran
and disappeared. What the captain meant by this order
I don't know."

" It'll refer to a bough on a big beech, sawed half-way
through, for breaking short without falling," said Walker.
"The gap makes a whiteness which is as good as a
si^n, and you may see it plain from the deck."

"Go on," said Phyllis.

OVERDUE 471

" Whilst a third man had run to this mysterious rope,
the other two men, grasping me by the collar, were
galloping me, at no comfortable speed, down a sort of
natural lane or avenue, where the third man comes
thundering after us, and we all four kept on running,
though I thought I should expire, as the gag choked my
mouth, and I could scarce draw breath for my lungs
through my nostrils. Then we caught sight of water,
the gag was thrown off, and Captain Morell said to me,
Tm truly sorry, captain, to have put you, a British sailor,
to this inconvenience ; but I'm doing of it for your sake,
and for yours only, for if I didn't carry this through, as
it's now doing, you'd be never able to get at the man who
stole the money, and who'd steal your wife.'' I stared at
him with amazement. * You put me to all this incon-!
venience and anxiety,"1 I exclaimed, 'that I may get at
the man who's wronged me ? ' ' Wait till we're in the boat,
and can talk smooth and with free breathing,' answered
Captain Morell ; and then, laughing through his nose, he
said, as though to himself, 'I do allow that under the
Etarnal Eye never will be a man so bowsed as Benson,
when you step aboard.'

" We continued to walk swiftly till we arrived at the
edge of a creek, where lay a small boat. She was in care
of one man. We entered, and, rounding a point, found
the Penguin at anchor, lying close under the bluff con-
cealed by the tall cliffs and heavy verdure which came
down to the very sip of the salt water. The boat was got
aboard and the order immediately given to make sail.
I said to Captain Morell, ' Are you carrying me to sea ? '
' No, sir,' he answered. ' You stop, and you'll see what'll
happen.' I saw him go forward to the galley and give
some orders to the cook ; but I was too much occupied
by my extraordinary situation to trouble myself with
details. She was a small greasy old schooner with nothing

472 OVERDUE

noteworthy in her appearance. She was perhaps forty
years old ; she carried six men, including the captain, and
one fellow who I understood had run. It was near sun-
set when we tacked and headed in for the land, and at
about ten o'clock in the evening we brought up in York
Bay some cables to the westward of Seals Rookery, and in
all this time the captain had never offered to address me
or shown me any hospitality, but the moment the anchor
was let go he stepped up to me, and taking me by the
hand in as kindly a grip as a shipmate could ever wish to
receive, said, ' Captain, will you step below and partake of
such humble fare as a sealer is able to place upon his
table ? ' I thanked him, and followed him into a little den,
with shelves for bunks, like to those in smacks, and a
small table, with a few chairs. The cabin lamp was
burning. The table was dressed for a meal, and whilst it
was coming, the captain, going to one of the bunks, pulled
open the slide, and said, ' Dye see that ? ' It was the
case of sovereigns."

" The damned villain ! " broke in Dipp, glancing to-
wards Benson's berth ; " to think that I should have
dived for it.11

" I said nothing,1' continued Captain Mostyn. " Just
then a man came down with a tray of smoking dishes,
a pie, a duck, a what not — I forget now. The captain
asked me to sit down, and then another man came below
and sat on the left of the captain, who introduced him to
me as Bill, the mate of the schooner. I had thought
this Captain Morell very fit for the hangman, to
judge by his face, when he had introduced himself on
board this ship ; but, coming to look deeper into the
fellow's physiognomy, I seemed somehow to find some sort
of soul of kindness or of goodness, deep seated in his
dark forbidding eyes, and the whole mask of rascality
which his face wore, seemed to pass, when he talked to you

OVERDUE 473

as a man with the kindness of a man, and to leave behind
it nothing but the ordinary visage of a poor hard-worked
sea-dog, toiling in a dead-broke calling. He asked me
what Pd drink. I answered what he had. He said that
he had nothing but a drop of Hollands on board. I told
him I would rather drink sea-water than that stuff.
'Benson brought off a case of champagne,'' he said.
' Would you like a bottle ? ' I suppose I laughed, for he
laughed when I thanked him. ' We haven't opened the
case," said he. "Ne'er a man 'ud put his lips to it.
Pour a little into a saucer and try a dog, he'd turn tail
to it. You're welcome to the whole case if you can stand
up under it.1 He knocked the head off a bottle, and
tilled a pannikin foaming full — think, Phyl, of drinking
champagne out of a tin mug ! But he and Bill stuck to
Hollands. ' This is a truly extraordinary adventure,' said
the captain, ' and if I haven't bested one of the biggest
scoundrels on earth sail me to the man who has. He
comes aboard all smiles and inquiries about seals and their
ways, and then asks for a little private talk with me in
the cabin all alone — mind you, all alone ; there must be
no witnesses. And then he outs with his request in a
manner that simply astonishes me. I knew you was
sounding for gold, and that part of his yarn was all right.
But what strook me like a fire-rod was his coming to me,
a perfect stranger, and asking me to accept a thousand
pounds of other people's money to carry you off so that
he and the mate could get possession of the ship and your
wife, sir.

Phyllis winced, and bit her lip. Dipp and Walker had
the good taste not to heed her presence.

" ' I'm not a man,' said Morell, ' to show astonishment,
and I don't think Benson found it in me if he looked for
it. On the contrairy ; I asked him to sit whilst I walked
about and thought, and then it strook me what a good

'474 OVERDUE

thing it would be if me and my men could get hold of this
here one thousand pounds, and ruin him by carrying out
his plan by kidnappin1 you, but in part only, jess as we're
a now doing ; for, ye see, you couldn't bring a case against
him if you hadn't been kidnapped. And that you've
been, for here yer are, and my ondertaking with Mr.
Benson still holds good ; for I agreed with him to set you
ashore after the Dealman had sailed. Instead of which
I means to set you ashore to-morrow evening, and I have
my reasons for that, which you'll please not ask."

" And that's the yarn ; " said Mr. Dipp, drawing a deep
breath, whilst Matthew Walker exclaimed —

" He was bound to act as he did. What was he going
to do with you aboard ? As for the sovereigns, that
matter stands between him and the devil, beggin1 your
pardon, lady.'1

" He asked me what my pay was," continued Mostyn,
"and when I told him I was to receive one per cent,
commission on the salvage, he exclaimed, * Durned if you
lose a cent through me;'" and, going to the bunk where the
case of sovereigns lay, he picked out ten pounds. " There,"
says he, " there's your commission. It shan't be said that
an American sailor ever robbed a British shipmate in
distress."

Captain Mostyn pulled the money out of his pocket,
and the ten sovereigns glittered on the table.

" Will you keep the money ? " said Phyllis.

" I'll hand it over to the directors as part of my
commission to be received," he answered.

" Well, and what happened next, capt'n ? " inquired
Walker.

" That night I lay in his bunk and slept soundly, for
I felt safe. He kept me aboard all next day. He
frequently sat and talked with me, but would not hint
at his intentions, nor did I inquire them. He placed a

OVERDUE 475

box of cigars upon the skylight for my use — Benson's
cigars — and complained that they were manufactured in
Germany, and shipped to the West Indies for tranship-
ment for European consumption as Cuban tobacco. He
said that Benson was a bad man, an artful villain ; but,
day and night, what puzzled him was how a man so
knowing the ropes of life should place himself entirely
at the mercy of a stranger like himself. ' He guessed
the thousand pounds would seal your mouth,1 said I.
'But I might have sailed away without doing his job.'
'A man must have faith in those he deals with,' said I,
laughing."'1

" Ay,11 broke in Mr. Dipp, " but that there Captain
Morell was right, captain. Who'd trust a scoundrel
willing to undertake such an errand ? "

" He was not to be trusted, for here you are, Charlie,11
said Phyllis.

" MorelFs grievance,11 continued Mostyn, " was that
neither he nor his men could appear. I should be without
a witness when I charged the beggar.11

" There is a witness on board,11 exclaimed Dipp.

Mostyn arched his eyebrows. The case of Palmer who
represented himself as a shipwrecked man was explained.

" But why the dickens didn't he peach before ? "
shouted Mostyn.

"Ask him, and his grin will tell you,11 replied Phyllis.
" Aren't you very hungry ? "

" Yes. But I'll finish my yarn,11 said Mostyn, musing
a few moments over the consideration that there was a
witness for his case aboard.

" When the evening came, about half-past seven, the
boat was launched, smack-fashion, through the gangway,
and the captain, coming up to me, said, ' I'm going to
send you ashore. D'ye know the road ? ' Not I. He
took me to the compass and gave me the bearings with

476 OVERDUE

the sharp of his hand. * It's a bit of a scramble,'' said he,
* to the creek ; keep that there mountain to the right,
and when you come to the creek walk round it, and do a
bit of climbing, until you come in sight of Port Parry,
and your ship, and then you'll know what to do ! ' Half
an hour afterwards I was alone ashore. He never explained
why he put me ashore alone to meet the night, when I
might have regained the ship by travelling in the day,
but I was much too thankful to be let off as I had been
to ask questions. 1 watched the schooner hoist in her
boat, and make sail, and I continued standing and watch-
ing, thinking what I should do, until the schooner was a
mere thread of leaning silver in the distance, bound west.
It was dark last night, as you remember, and the growths
and verdure which are a dark green in the day became
black as sooty oil with a gleam in it, and I made up my
mind not to advance for fear of falling. An ankle is
easily sprained ; a leg is easily broken ; when it comes to
the neck, then 'tis a good thing over ; I had no mind to
fall down forty feet and be found in after years a bleached
skeleton. So I looked about me for a soft plank, as they
say at sea, and chose the foot of a tree, and slept, and
woke, and walked, and slept again, refreshing myself with
the two bottles of champagne, and some cold duck and
biscuit, which the skipper had sent with me. It was
desperately lonesome, Phyl. All the stars of God seemed
to look down on me with one eye. Then there is a surf
on that part of the shore, and it sounded as though some
great master was sitting down to this island, as if it was an
organ, and accompanying a chorus too deep for living ears.-"

" A man's mind will run away with him in such a
situation," exclaimed Mr. Walker.

" I wonder you haven't caught your death of cold ! "
said Phyllis.

" Well, to cut this part," continued Mostyn, " when

OVERDUE 477

day broke I set out, keeping the mountain on the right,
and knowing the bearings well by the trend of the shore.
But I do not think I had been walking an hour, when
I heard a sound of halloing in the distance and saw
Walker's party waving their caps. They had made a
long roundabout course, and were worn out, and were
making for the long-boat, as you had had enough of the
coast, I think, Mr. Walker."

" Well, sir," answered the acting second mate, " you
see I thought it might come to my having to coast it in
sarch of yer, in which case the long-boat would have been
handier than our legs, and so I kept her down in the
bight ready, and I was the better pleased Fd done so
when, in the evening, I caught sight of the schooner, which
no doubt was the Penguin, standing to the westward
across the low evening li^ht."

" It's time to be off," cried Mostyn, jumping up.
" Where's Prince ? Oh, there you are ! Bear a hand with
this meal. We can't stop to be particular. This island
must be astern of us by four."

He looked at the clock, and to make way for Prince
they passed on to the quarter-deck and stood in earnest
talk about Benson, the mate, the discipline of the ship,
and the like. Although fourteen thousand pounds lay
at hand, recoverable by help of another diver, they deter-
mined, under the circumstances, to sail straight home and
report the full story to the directors, who would of course
give further instructions as to the remainder of the
submerged treasure. Walker, though no navigator, would
act as chief mate ; Dipp cheerfully consented to serve as
second mate, and the captain said that, even if he was
struck down during the passage, the art his wife had
acquired, backed by Dipp's and Walker's practical and
general information would enable them to keep a true
course until Mostyn should get well again.

478 OVERDUE

So there was nothing more to be done than dine —
which in the cabin they did, and in a hurry ; and then,
going on deck, where all hands were assembled in readiness,
for 'twas " Homeward bound ! " with that ship, Mostyn
ascended the deck-house top and gave orders to unmoor
ship by getting in the stern anchor. This command was
received with a cheer and a rush of men, and when
presently the Dealman was riding to a single chain the
sailors on the foc'sle broke into that rattling sea chanty,
called, " For we are homeward bound," which seemed to
fetch an echo from the loftiest mountain-top as the throat-
swelling volume poured away, timed by the castanets of the
windlass pawls. Then " Up jib ! " " Loose fore-topsail ! "
" Anchor away, sir ! " The Dealman s head paid round ;
a soft air was blowing a soldiers1 wind from the north.
It swelled the topsails as they were loosed and hoisted, it
set the staysails and jibs yearning as they were cheerily
run aloft hand over hand. The shore slowly glided by.
Foot by foot canvas was made until the royals of the
Dealman crowned her spires, and her waterways were
shadowed by her tacks. Then once more was to be heard
the melody of the bow sea, as it arched from the metal
stem and shook its feathers in rainbow to the sun ; then
was to be witnessed the old heave and fall of the sea-line
ahead under the fore course, and again was to be felt all
the weight of the huge ocean in the mere cradling of her
hand that this afternoon dallied with the ship in southern
holiday sport.

Husband and wife stood looking at the receding
island.

" It's been bitterly full of trouble to us, Charlie," said
Phyllis, running her eyes up the lordly region of snow
whose virgin whiteness her feet were not to tread.

" I'd go through it again to-morrow," answered Mostyn.
" I hope they'll send me out to recover the rest of the

OVERDUE 479

money — Dipp,'another, and me. Not you next time, Phyl,
and no Bensons."

" What's to become of that unhappy man ? " she
exclaimed.

" He be damned ! " was the sailor's answer. " What
was to become of me ? "

She sucked in her pretty lips with a great sigh at the
desperate thought.

" But," said he, " I want to see that chap Palmer
aft, and to log Mill and Benson officially, and I'll do the
dirty work now."

Mostyn went to his cabin and sent for Palmer, whom
he closely examined. He found the yokel of a deeper
farmyard dye than he had been led to expect, for the
profundity of the youth's grin was in proportion to his fears,
and the captain was no mean source of terror. However,
Mostyn got all he wanted from him, and then, having
made a full record of his own experience in the log-book,
he carried it, accompanied by Palmer and Prince and Mr.
Dipp, to Mr. Mill's cabin.

He opened the door; he flung it open impetuously,
Mill was seated in his bunk with the irons on his leers.
He made no sign by movement, but the flush of wrath
was followed by that cold pallor of hate which Coleridge
speaks of, and with stooping head, over arms locked upon
his breast, he fastened his eyes upon the captain. Mostyn
put the book down on the little table and seated himself
to write, the other three standing. He read over Palmer's
deposition. Not a syllable escaped the mate.

" You do not deny this young man's statement ? " said
the captain.

A sudden convulsion blackened the face of Mr. Mill,
who vehemently spat at the captain.

" That's your answer," he said ; " and now go to hell
for further information ! "

480 OVERDUE

It was, in fact, like dealing with a wild beast.

" You will sign these entries in this man's presence,"
said the captain, rising, and the witnesses signed, and then
quitted the presence of Mr. Mill, the captain locking the
door behind him.

All four next went to Mr. Benson's cabin. There was
no good in knocking. Mostjn had the key. He opened
the door and looked in and what he saw rendered only
one log entry necessary. In fact, if the Dealman was not
to be posted as missing it was certain that in shipping
circles Mr. Benson was to be overdue. He sat in a chair
in front of his washstand, on which was a mirror, and he
had done his ghastly work neatly. That livid throat,
which was Phyllis's abhorrence, was cut to the death ; the
basin was half full of blood, and the black head of the
wretched man hung over it.

" Come ! " cried Mostyn, with a sick shudder, " before
my wife sees it ! " and they all came out, pale as ghosts, and
Mostyn locked the door.

Mr. Dipp, breathing hard, looked aghast at Mostyn,
and exclaimed —

" 'Twas the last thing I should have thought he had
the 'eart to do.,,

But then, Benson had proved himself a human problem
unintelligible by the application of ordinary human inter-
pretations, and some, guessing how high this man had
staked, and how senselessly, for that fatal prize of beauty
which he had lost, would have affirmed of him that this
was just the ending they would have guessed he would
make.

THE END

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