Rose Island; the strange story of a love adventure at sea

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.

COPYRIGHT 1899, BY
HERBERT S. STONE & CO

CONTENTS

XV.

XVI.
XVII.

kviii.

XIX.
XX.

the captain begins .

the floating girl

the frenchman

the frenchueh leave .

the plague ship

a quarrel .

Nassau's passion

THE picaroon's BOAT . -
sailors' PLEASURE
THE "ELEUTHERA"

cochrane's DREAU .
a missive from the sky
the death of the skipper
captain cutvard .
the new skipper

THE lovers' DILEMMA .
THE SLEEPWALKER
THE lovers' TACTICS .
NASSAU'S CAV .
NASSAU GOES .

89
106
115

163

3 18
336
aS4
370
387
305
335
341

Rose Island.

CHAPTER I.

THE CAPTAIN BEGINS.

With a slight lean to starboard, crushing through the
long keen-edged seas of the North Atlantic, driven in
thunder, and in trumpeting of divided canvas, now as
moonrise with the starlight that shone upon it, sailed a
noble modem ship, but a sailing-ship. She would be
called a clipper. You saw her in the faint light of
evening, and what was white was ghastly. The line
betwixt her painted ports trembled through the flash
of the sea like the little moons you sometimes observe
hanging in wind-swept summer trees, and the foam
about her bows was not the less splendid because of the
dimness out of which it would leap in rushes with the
beautiful gleam of spume.

The ship was a steel vessel. She still carried a few
passengers. She was a great favourite as a vehicle
for commodities. She brought 1840 before you sooner
than 1890, but the swelling heights of canvas were
wanting. Where was the milky breast of topsail upon
which the fringes of the reef-points tapped with

2 ROSE ISLAND.

caressing fingers? Where was the long fore-topmast
sttin'sail valiantly helping to drag its noble burden
over the gleams and the sheen, the leaping lights and
dark rolling hollows tinder the stun'sail boom? Upon
the short poop of this vessel, in the starlight after
dinner, stood several people. A few were ladies, a
few gentlemen. With them you tallied the passen-
gers. A tall figure stood near the wheel to windward
smoking a curled pipe. You could judge by the faint
light of the night that he was a handsome, well-built
man. He was Captain Tomson Poster, of the Aus-
tralian clipper Suez^ and his dignity of loneliness, spite
of the adjacency of the passengers, was unimpaired.
Presently a lady crossed to him. Another followed,
and a group was formed. The lady said to the captain :

*I have been reading **The Green Hand" by George
Cupples. Do you know that book?'

•I read it many years ago,' he answered.

•It is a beautiful book,' she said. *It has descrip-
tions of the sea which I cannot remember the like of
in any other sea-book with which I am acquainted. '

•Have you a literary turn?'

'A good book is as precious to my mind as one of
those stars,' she answered, pointing up.

*Yes,' said Captain Foster, •Cupples wrote imcom-
monly well, although he was not a sailor, and his page
teems with absurd situations and impossibilities of the
sea. Let me see. Does not he make the captain of a
ship tell a long yam that occupies a voyage? It is all
about a naval lieutenant who followed a young beauty
to Bombay. She had charmed him wisely and well.
The story is very good. All about Napoleon and St.
Helena excellent. '

THE CAPTAIN BEGINS. 3

•Well, now, Captain Poster, * said the lady, who was
to be seen smiling, *this is the very thing I mean to
speak to you about. We know that your mind is richly
stored in sea-story. The voyage before us is long.
Have not you some incident — some tale, I should
rather say — with which you could entertain us of an
evening as the captain of the Indiaman amused his
passengers?'

Captain Foster was a Quaker. He was a Quaker by
his father.^ His mother, though she remained a
Churchwoman, frequently attended the meeting-house
hard by their home at Peckham. Poster, consistently
with his breed and type, was somewhat slow in trim-
ming his moods and statements. He seemed to
deliberate whilst he looked to windward at the wheel-
ing surge chasing the flying ship with the foam hounds
of the sea, and then said with a shake of his head:

*I am no story-teller.'

Captain Thompson of the Flying Scud^' exclaimed
another passenger, * assured me that you had the finest
qualities of the sea-story-teller of any man, whether
before or abaft the mast, in this fleet. '

*It would be so delightful to listen to a story night
after night — something t9 look forward to. So fear-
fully dull, you know. Captain!' exclaimed somebody.

Captain Poster took a turn on the plank, and said:

'Most of my stories are short.'

*You know one,' said the lady who had first
addressed him on the subject. * It is a very romantic
story of the sea. It is a love story; I have heard it
spoken of. Best of all, it is true;' and she added: *I
believe, somehow, you were concerned in it. '

*No,' he said quickly, *I know the story you mean.

4 " ROSE ISLAND.

I was scarce beyond petticoats in those times, but can
tell it you as though I had lived with the people. The
breeze freshens,* he added, looking aloft. * There is
too much noise for the opening of any story I might
have to tell you in the deepening pouring of that bow
sea. We will choose a quieter night.*

*But you promise,' said the lady who had suggested
the idea, *that you will tell the story?'

*I will tell it, and it will give me pleasure to do so,»
he answered; and the tall figure walked forjvard a little
way, and stood alone as though scanning the weather,
probably in secret rehearsal of the subject he J^ad
pledged himself to.

Certainly there could have been no story-telling on
deck. Before two bells of the first watch the famous
and capricious gale of the North Atlantic had lifted its
organ chime of pipes into a deep and aggrieved howl.
The foam shrieked as it fled from the quarters. All
effects of speech, of intonation, of the colouring of the
voice, would have been lost on deck, and there was no
idea of allowing the Captain to tell his story in the
saloon, which is always haunted by the flavour of
meals to come and meals despatched.

The third day, however, in the evening, when they
had assembled on deck after dinner, the bx-eeze blew a
moderate wind. The dark curves ran in patient lines.
It was a moonless night, but the stars trembled large,
plentiful and glorious. It was the domain of the
flying-fish, and of the skulking shape of the shark.
The passengers had been liberally fed. All was con-
tentment. Chairs were brought, and the Captain,
sometimes walking, sometimes standing, began his
story thus:

THE CAPTAIN BEGINS. s

*It is many years ago that the domain of waters
north of the Antilles presented a striking scene. It
was evening, or, rather, it was late in the afternoon;
but midnight seemed to be coming down like a dome
upon the ocean circle, a dark, lowering, sullen after-
noon, with a tail end of wind trickling through the
atmosphere, and barely shaking a ripple into the stag-
nant and heavy waters. What was air seemed to be
smoke. Presently the moon rose, a dull face that was
not light. She lifted with a circle, and to the right of
the faint tremble of radiance which she shook into the
sea under her a squall was blowing slowly along — a
wet squall lanced by lightning, full of wind, for you
could hear the noise of it, and the moon looked down
upon it through its sinister frame.

*Two ships were in sight, two vessels only in this
wide command of water. One was a small handsome
West Indiaman, and about a mile to the northward of
her lay a schooner. They both slowly flapped forward
to the airs of wind that gasped in a dying way, in true
form and colour with the loathsome haze of night and
storm that was gathering round about them. The
ship was the Eleuthera^ a vessel commanded by the
son of a man who had been my father's friend;
Bahama Sha* lin was his name. He was a hard little
man, and all the West Indies came to you out of his
bronzed face with its swift black eyes and his large
sombrero.

*The dinner-bell was not yet rung. Nearly all the
passengers, of which there was a goodly number, were
moving about the quarter-deck. The discourse chiefly
concerned the weather.

Is it to be a storm, Captain Shanklin?" inquired a

i »i

t it
« »l

6 ROSE ISLAND.

West Indian planter, much respected by Shanklin for
his valuable stock-in-trade, and for his sterling qualities
as host ashore.

I don't see why not, sir," answered Shanklin.
But what do you mean by a storm?"

Wind," said the planter sententiously.
' "Well, at sea," exclaimed Captain Shanklin, "storm
is best understood by the terms thunder and lightning.
If you believe we are to have wind "

* "That's what I want to know," said the planter,
whilst the chief mate laughed.

* "Well, I guarantee that you shall have wind enough
to last you a month before midnight," said Shanklin.

* "Does that prediction of yours," asked a lady,
"come out of that sickly circle up there?"

* "It is the birth of a hundred experiences,"
answered Shanklin, drawing himself erect.

* "There's no man knows these waters better than
Shanklin!" exclaimed one of a couple of passengers,
pausing in his stroll to say the words.

* "And this you may take, I reckon, to be the finest
craft of her size- in or out of any West Indian port,"
said a little man with a large hooked nose and a white
cap-cover.

* "She is the finest ship of her size and kind afloat,"
answered Captain Shanklin, with an emphatic stamp of
his foot.

* "She would make a mockery," said a lady, who
had been listening to this conversation, "of the
angriest of the storms which swing in that mysterious,
dangerous-looking circle up there."

* "Circles don't always precede storms," said the
little man in the white cap-cover.

THE CAPTAIN BEGINS. 7

' ''They are the frankest and surest monitions of the
sky," said a tall gentleman, with a bravado flourish of
his hand aloft.

• **Git out, Jones!" said the little man. **How many
circles d'ye think I've seen in my time, with ne'er a
drop of wet or wind before or astern of them, but blue
weather and charming breezes?"

'Captain Shanklin, foreseeing an argument, walked
off, and about that time the first dinner-bell rang.

'The deck was speedily deserted by the passengers.
It fell swiftly into the solemn scene of a ship with her
loftiest canvas bronzed in frequent glances by the
lightning past the moon. There was now very little
wind, and the sound of the ripple over the side was
faint, and often the canvas came into the mast with
the sound of a thump on a big drum. The squall was
dying, and its voice was silent in the distance, and the
moon was growing into the aspect of a rush light
smouldering in a fog.

'It needs a poet's eye, ladies and gentlemen, to
interpret all the meaning of a ship, whether she be of
sail or of steam. In steam the power is hidden, and
'tis but grace of mast and shape that you admire, but
the whole beauty of the ocean, the deep significance of
the breathing calm or the hurling hurricane, enters
into the sailing ship, where everything that seems a
ship, that by all human merit and tradition remains a
ship, is visible.

'At the wheel of the Eleuthera stood a dark figure,
tinctured by the soft flame of the binnacle lamp, which
cast a tinge of yellow round about it and abaft. The
mates paced the deck in quiet speech; they had a
separate mess. Forward in the deepening gloom of

8 ROSE ISLAND.

the forecastle^ moved a few smudges, and sometimes a
glare of light leaped from the galley-door, and threw
the figure of a seaman into colour and shape. It was
commonly accompanied by much hoarse talk and pro-
fane language from the cook; for dinner on board the
Eleuthera was a solemn festival, and if they did not
give you as many dishes as they do to-day, what they
gave you was quite as good as what you now sit down
to; whilst the wines, especially the light sparkling
wines, were very fine and elegant, and fit for the lips
of angels.

*In short, the Eleuthera^ taking her all rotmd, was a
well-found ship. The ladies and gentlemen withdrew
to their cabins to make the necessary preparations for
dining. The cabins ran fore and aft the saloon, and
there was a steerage containing a number of cabins of
small size. In one of these deck cabins a young lady
stood alone at the wide open port. She had twenty
minutes to dress in, and found plenty of time apparently
for musing. She seemed struck, fascinated by the
appearance of the sea as it sheeted off from the ship's
side into the thickness that brought the horizon near.
The sea- window through which she gazed was almost
as big as a window ashore. Its sides exposed the
great thickness of the ship's walls. It was wide open.
The girl seemed to see many objects. They were
visionary indeed: pinions of darkness, apparently
motionless, yet gliding; outlines of titanic shapes
intent upon the ship, with dusky outstretched arms
reeling off into blackness. The phosphorus fell away
cloudily a little distance under the sea from the ship's
side, and seemed to boil into queer shapes of men and
vegetables. This girl had no sick eye, was not

THE CAPTAIN BEGINS. 9

despondent, was happy though an orphan and almost
friendless — ^if you can talk of a girl worth two hundred
a year being friendless. Yet she stared into the gloom
as though she were a visionary, and seemed to see as
deep into it beyond, far beyond, the remote recesses of
wall-like blackness, as if she had the angel's gift of
sight. Certainly, ladies and gentlemen, all tradition
affirms that this girl, whose name I may tell you at once
was Rose Island, had beautiful and penetrating eyes.
*Her moving gaze was suddenly arrested by some-
thing substantial. No fever-like figure of that brood-
ing night-scowling storm, but the substantial form of a
small vessel, magnified into some degree of closeness
by the peculiar character of the atmosphere. She lay
upon the Eleuthera*s starboard quarter, and was diffi-
cult to catch a full view of by merely leaning from that
thick port. The girl's bunk ran under this port. She
got into it, and gained by hand and knee the com-
paratively broad embrasure of the port-hole. She
must have been fearless, reckless, or wantonly
thoughtless, for on hands and knees she stretched her
neck through the port-hole, merely to catch a sight of
that little vessel on the quarter, and in a breath, and
without a shriek', she went head first overboard.
There were open cabin-ports to the right of hers and
to left ; they were open, and people were dressing in
the cabins. But nobody heard that dew-soft fall of a
girl's figure in the scarcely rippling water. The
helmsman did not hear her, though he stood alone and
his ears might easily be bent for anything of that sort.
The two mates pacing the deck in talk did not hear
her, though they stumped the side on which she fell.
She fell from no great height, it is true. The

lo ROSE ISLAND.

E lent her a was a small ship, and her port-holes were
not high above the water. Without a shriek or strug-
gle to quicken the life of light in that black tranquillity
of ripples, she seems to have slided off as one who is
dead when she floats, and no man on board the ship
knew that the most significant of all the tragedies of
the deep which can happen on shipboard had found its
record. There was something curious, however, in
this circumstance : that a man standing on the fore-
castle and noticing a peculiar hoUowness in the sound
of a flap of canvas aloft, exclaimed to a mate gruffly,
** Bio wed if it didn't sound like the fall of a woman
overboard," and this he must have said at the instant
when the girl's body smote the water, as soft as a
sponge, and as silently.

*On the port-quarter of the Eleuthera a little
schooner was delicately nibblingtinto the ebony ripple,
scarce turning a transparency of gleam at her bow,
and following in darkness and in the expectation of
tempest. She, too, like the Eleuthera^ had taken all
care to prepare for the coming combat which had risen
in that bleared and wicked circle of moon. The ship
was under topsails, with all light canvas handed and
the main-sail furled. The schooner had clewed up her
royal, taken in gaff-topsail and other light canvas, and
was now tying a reef in her topsail, leaving the boom-
foresail set. Presently the mate of this schooner,
whose thick-set person adorned the forecastle, and who
had been casting the penetrating gaze of the born
sailor round and round the sea and the horizon, hailed
the quarter-deck in the tone of a negro :

* **There*s something floating just off our port bow.
I believe it'§ a man swimming for his life, "

THE CAPTAIN BEGINS. n

'There was a run of figures to the side.

* **Jump,'* shouted a man, **for a boat-hook, and
catch him as he passes! Lower away the jolly-boat.
He may be a living man fresh from yonder ship."

*In a few moments a man, cleverly leaning in the
main-chains, had hindered the further drifting of the
body by the long boat-hook he had seized, and with a
sailor's dexterity handled. The little boat was
lowered, and two men dragged the body out of the
water.

* "It's a woman, sir,'* said one of them, looking up
at the schooner's rail, which was overhung by the

figure of the Captain. '.

* **Is she alive?" inquired the Captain, in the notes :
of a man superior to his position. j

* They could not tell; they handed her up and fol-
lowed, and the jolly-boat again swung at its davits. If <
she was not doubly dead and drowned, she truly

seemed so. They laid her softly upon the deck, and a

young fellow named Cochrane, the son of the Captain,

knelt and pillowed her head. A sailor brought a Ian- !

tern and held it to the pale face; and one of them, who

was the mate, named Julius Nassau, said, in the thick

coarse voice of Africa:

* "Damned if she ain't dead! Only good for the fish
this bout. ' '

'This fellow by the lantern-light looked an ugly
devil, with his swarthy face, negro-like lineaments,
earrings glimmering in his ears, and a short strong
body, slightly bowed by the sailor's stoop over legs fit
for a giant to roll upon. His eyes flashed. He fitted
the night. It was then that a stroke of lightning in
the north smote the whole of the heavens into the

12 ROSE ISLAND.

efiEulgence of noontide, as though the son had leapt
and gone again. A single crash of thunder, which ran
away on the calm like the noise of cannon-balls flying
over a wooden stage, almost instantly followed. The
scant air fell; the ripples ceased to flow; all was
oppressive blackness, and silence, and waiting.

* *' Arthur, take this girl below, and see what you
and the steward can do," said Captain Cochrane.
*'Try brandy, and artificial breathing if you under-
stand it There's a chance for every floating body."

'A second flash of lightning! The bolt itself fell
from the heavens, and rushed in a blinding line of fire
to the sea close to the Eleuthera^ whose whole figure it
lighted up, and the sea again was sun-bright for one
thrilling instant: then, whilst Cochrane, assisted by a
sailor, was carrying the girl to the companion hatch,
there proceeded out of the moody and desperate
silence of the north the voice of the liberated storm.
It had been manacled in the circle of the moon; it had
chafed and sullenly groaned in wrathful thunder that
was to be heard by the mariner at a greater distance
than where the Eleuthera floated.

* •* Stand by!" shouted Captain Cochrane. "Here it
comes, my lads! Put your helm a-port. Let go the
foretop-sail halliards, and hands by the fore and main
halliards. ' *

* "D'ye hear it?" said one of the seamen.

*They could hear it; they could see it. They heard
it in a distant wild crackling noise like that of the
burning of a forest ; they saw it in a ghastly streak of
white light extending right across the horizon. The
lightning brought the clouds close to the mast-heads,
and exhibited them in vast bodies of vapour, enriched

THE CAPTAIN BEGINS. 13

with the gilt of the stroke, but hideous in form and
menace. They were too stately to break up and rush
in streaming and shorn shreds before the first of the
tempest. It smote the Eleuthera^ and by the blaze
that lighted the skies at the time they saw her lean
down to her wash-streak as a tree bends to a hurricane.
In an instant she disappeared in the vapour, the flying
uproar had smothered her out, and in a minute or two
it was upon the Charmer. This was a little ship that
had been made for bad weather. She had cost the
value of a handsome yacht, and had been built at
Liverpool entirely for the slave-trade, which in those
days gave a good many bad men prosperity. She
had a lifting bow, well poised to smite the sea, and
break its weight of thunder into white recoil. She had
plenty of beam, and sat stiff in a gale, and she ran aft
in curves and lines of beauty. I saw her at Grimsby
when she had long been converted into a coalman, but
the original frame and fine design of her builder were
not to be concealed. When Cochrane bought her, she
had been for some years sold out by her original own-
ers, and although she had done good business, for
some reason I am unable to give you, she was never
again to be heard of in the slave-trade. It was her
turn, and she took the blow as any sailor knew she
would. The wild white fury of the tempest leapt
upon her in a dense flying cloud torn up from the sea,
deepened by the rain, made terrific by the frequent
lancing of the lightning stroke. It was a hurricane
well north of the West Indies, but it had the true ring
and howl of the storms of those fragrant islands where
ships are carried a mile in-shore by the force of the
wind, where negro villages on a hillside are set in

14 ROSE ISLAND,

motion, and dart amid the frantic shrieks of their
miserable populations to the bosom of the abyss, and
where the earthquake completes with horrible certainty
what the other forces of nature have left undone. The
Charmer lay without motion to her gunwale, and the
whipped and shrilling white water poured inboards
over her lee-raiL Would she founder? The force of
the wind was terrific. Never had Captain Cochrane
remembered such an immediate outfly, unheralded by
squalls and other monitions of the coming gale.
They stood by the weather-rigging with axes. You
saw through the shroud of wet, through the frequent
glares, the figures of men along the rail, steady, watch-
ful, waiting for the word of command. The helm was
hard up, but she lay like a drowned vessel, her decks
slanting like the roof of a house, sheeting and boiling
with foam, whilst between the masts blew with
incredible velocity the white lines of this tempest.
The lightning, like red rags, flickered and crackled
amongst them. Would she pay oflf? Grood Grod! with
such lines as hers, she was not the ship to founder.
But for four minutes, which was four months of sus-
pense to all hands, the brave little raft lay smothered
and idle with her lee deck awash. Then, in a Grod-sent
lull, which was like a black yawn in the mouth of the
storm, the schooner, slightly lifting her slanting masts,
slowly rounded her bows, and in a few moments
was before the wind, which with hellish clamour
had closed about her again. And now the sea had
begun to run.

'The weight of the gale had flattened the ocean; but
the wind began to pick it up, and run it in steady
processions — in wheels of foam, arching, diving.

i

/

THE CAPTAIN BEGINS. 15

crashing, rising higher and higher to the wild lashing
of those thongs of madness till they threatened to roll,
to use Crusoe's expression, ** mountain-high." On a
sudden, whilst Captain Cochrane was in the act of yell-
ing to his men to bring the schooner to the wind, the
Eleuthera leapt right out of the wet, howling, torn,
indescribable murkiness, and vanished across the
Charmer's bows. Every man in that schooner held his
breath, and what a picture was that ! It was no longer
the blackness of the first of the storm ; there was the
rush of the sea-flash to send high aloft the pale and
wondrous shimmer of its own illumination. The
whole fabric of the ship, as she swept and went, had
been as visible as though the moist light of a dim
moon was cast upon her. She arched to the seas as
she ran, steeping her bows till the fo'c's'le was out of
sight in foam, then lifting her forward part in the
posture of an agony of entreaty, her ropes blown into
hoops, pale fragments of rent canvas fluttering at
her yards; and the seas roared as they raced with her
and passed her, lifting her as easily as you would
throw that buoy over the side. A tremor of lights was
visible as she went past, and one might have wondered
if the people were still at dinner and enjojdng it For
how long would Captain Bahama Shanklin continue to
run his ship before heaving her to?

'Cochrane lost no time. No sooner had the West
Indiaman been swallowed up in that dissolving, enrag-
ing surface than Cochrane gave his orders to heave to.
He was a fine seaman, and knew his ship; his crew
were all good men, and this was a time of life or
death. The familiar orders rang along the deck. In
the first desperate plunge the determined little craft

i6 ROSE ISLAND.

buried herself half way to the waist She rose with
yelling shrouds and foaming decks, then, sweeping
her nose at the next sea, took it in a wild, long leap.
Out of the next seething valley she soared all aslant to
the tempest, and under the merest shred of canvas,
and with her weather bow leaping and shouldering the
huge bed of cream that rushed at her, the schooner lay
hove to, scarcely less safe than if in harbour/

CHAPTER II.

THE FLOATING GIRL.

*When Captain Cochrane,' continued Captain Tomson
Foster, 'had snugged his ship, and watched the uproar
for some time, suspecting that he was in a cyclone,
and not knowing but that the fateful centre of it might
be close at hand, he thought he would go below for a
little shelter and a little supper and a glass of grog. It
is impossible to describe the terrific scene of strife he
was quitting. The seas, now of giant form, were
blowing in rushes of smoke into and through each
other. The noise of the tempest was horrible. Its
most dreadful note was in the heavens, through which
it rushed with ever deepening thunderclad tones. It
was the song of the Storm Fiend, and he was singing
it with the demon's temper that night. The water
about some parts of the deck was washing waist-high.
Captain Cochrane gave certain instructions in the note
of a speaking-trumpet to Julius Nassau, whose face, as
it came within the glance of the binnacle lamp, showed
for beauty like a toad's, and then, watching his
chance, made a bolt for the little companion hatchway,
which he simply opened and shut behind him, and
descended a few steps into the cabin. A smart brass
lamp hung at a beam ; its tumblification- and that of
the swing tray pleasantly illustrated the height, nim-
bleness, the daring springs, of the dance on deck.

17

i8 ROSE ISLAND.

The lamp shed a bright light, and the whole interior
was submitted to the eye, accustomed to the blinding
opacity of the night, with startling clarity. It was a
cosy little sea-parlour, just the sort of den in which
brutal slaving men, divided by a plank or two from
five hundred or a thousand miserable, sweating, dying
or dead wretches, would lift up their voices in the loud
rejoicings of the rum-cask. In such an interior they
would fall drunk, and tumble with touching execra-
tions under the table; for no man of his day, if it were
not a bnmboat woman (pardon the Paddjdsm), swore
with the execrable capacity and needlessness of the
downright Liverpool or London slaver. The pirate
was a gentleman compared to him, and in my opinion
the pirate led the more honest life.

'Captain Cochrane stood at the companion steps
looking around him a minute. He had something to
see; he had forgotten it; the storm had blown it out
of his head. He was a man of middle stature, of a
kindly, rugged countenance; he had followed the sea
for many years, and looked his calling. There was
something refined both in his aspect and speech —
superior, I mean, to that of the herd of them who
were at sea in those days, and he was not without
social pretensions. Could a Cochrane fail to be a
connection of the Dundonalds? It was generally
accepted that Cochrane was a relation of the famous
Earl, and, as the pretensions were never examined,
he passed through life in the enjoyment of a visionary
dignity.

*0n the couch, or locker to leeward, sat a girl of
about eighteen years of age. She sat upright. Her
skin was white, and she carried all those airs of dis-

THE FLOATING GIRL. 19

order which the sea will fling as a mantle upon those
who, ignorant of its nature, meddle with it either
through ignorance or stupidity. Beside her stood a
rather tall young man. The ladies would at once call
him an extremely good-looking young man. How am
I to paint in words the portrait of a good-looking young
man? Dickens, by a turn of his pen, can give you the
whole being he wishes to submit ; but when he deals
with the eyes, nose, and mouth, describes the colour
of the hair and how it was worn, the real man sinks
behind the pigments, and what you see is something
else than what Dickens believes you are looking at. I
have no turns of speech — would I had ! I would not
be the skipper of a ship, I would be the most popular
author in the world, greatly ffited in America, the
beloved friend of every Englishman, and as immortal
as a painter of human manners as Jove is as a god.
The young man standing beside the girl was Arthur
Cochrane. He was the only son of his father, and was
a sailor. He was not only a sailor by profession, but
in his looks he inherited the splendid gift of old ocean :
the easy style, the frank address, the cordial laugh,
the inimitable hearty manner. They attempt this
thing on the stage by men who have gone for a twelve-
month as a passenger, or served for a few months as
an apprentice, and the result is that the stage never
has submitted, and never will, to the public the true
representation of a merchant sailor's life, his fore-
castle troubles, the quarrels with the captain, the bad
food, and the rest of it.

The cabin roared with storm, and was like the car
of a balloon that touches and drives madly over the
raging sea. Captain Cochrane at the foot of the steps

20 ROSE ISLAND.

halted, and stared hard at the girl. He struggled with
memory, so potent had been the forces of the storm to
sweep all things before it, then remembered that she
was the most marvellously saved woman in the world,
for say what you will, the girl wa^ scarcely in the
schooner before the whiteness of the tempest was
shrieking through the night.

*The lamp burned finely; he could examine her with
ease, and saw before him a girl of about eighteen
seated and leaning with her back against a locker.
She was stripped to her bodice, but the water still
drained from the heels of her stockings. Her hair
reposed in coils, and the fingers of the sea seemed to
have done them no mischief; in fact, she had not been
long overboard. I have always heard her described as
a very striking young woman. Did you ever read
* * Elsie Venner " ? There was a suggestion of Holmes's
serpentine beauty about her at the first look. But this
wore oflf when you got to see how truly English her
blood was. She had an angel's eyes for searching and
smiling upon you and expressing the language of the
heart to you. She was very white, for she was fresh
from death, and now sat in a thunderous interior whose
hideous uproar of groaning bulkheads and timbers,
seeking to rend plank from plank, would have appalled
a stouter-hearted person than a poor half -drowned girl.
Her nose had a peculiar curve suggestive of the
Jewess, but how remote! yet the curve seemed to
combine with the serpentine character of her face and
figure. It corresponded with her eyes, and was full of
talent, which cannot be said of most noses. She had
very little feet. She had charmingly shaped legs.
Her naked arms gleamed like the flash of ice in the

THE FLOATING GIRL. 21

careering rushes of the lamp. Captain Cochrane
stared at her with gaining admiration, then went
swaying like a wind-swept bough up to her.

* *'D*ye feel any worse for your dive?** said he, in a
blufif, sailorly way, but with the well-bred note that
characterized his intonation.

' '*I hardly know where I am," she answered in a
whisper that was barely audible.

* **She is none the worse, father, I'll wager ye that,"
said Arthur Cochrane. **What sort of weather are we
making? By heavens, what a leap!"

'The crash of the fall that followed was deafening.
The whole ship seemed to be let go of and dropped in
all her dead weight. A roar of thunder rushed along
her as the immense sea that was to heave her on high
swept her decks with its flittering peaks blazing with
the beautiful night-stars of those seas.

* '*You may guess what weather she makes by that,**
answered Captain Cochrane. ** Nothing to be afraid
of, lady. This is a hooker, built not only for the
calms of the sun, but for the heights of the North and
the fury of the Horn. Nothing to fear, indeed," he
continued, rolling his eyes about him in search of
something to eat. A glass of fine Jamaica rum, a slice
of ship's beef, and a crisp sea-biscuit make a meal fit
to set before a king. The sailors say no, but I say yes,
though I agree with the forecastle that it is good only,
and supportable, when of the best. Captain Cochrane
sat eating. The girl stared with amazement fading
out of her eyes and the light of realization quickening
and beautifying them. She looked at Captain Coch-
rane, who was flashed up in a thousand twinkles of
wet and spray, as he shaggily sat munching. Arthur,

33 ROSE ISLAND.

on his knees, was chafing and squeezing the water out
of her feet.

* "It's a pity," says he, ''we have no clothes for this
young lady. We must get her dress dried smartly. "

* •'Dried, dried!" echoed the Captain with contempt
**Who wants drying in this climate? She'll dry as she
goes. How came ye swimming in the sea, missy?"

' **I was looking through a port and I fell, " answered
the girl.
• ''Whose port?"

* "The West Indiaman, Eleuthera^ in which I was
making the voyage to Kingstown."

' "Ho, to Kingstown!" cries the Captain. "We are
bound on that journey; you will find the Eleuthera
there, with all your clothes on board, which will be a
nice thing."

' "It will," she answered with a faint smile, glanc-
ing at Arthur Cochrane.

' "You have brought her to grandly," said Captain
Cochrane to his son. "No ship was ever brought to
as that girl. It is a splendid stroke of seamanship to
save a human life. Could you eat or drink, do you
think, missy?" said the old chap, with his face full of
kindness.

'The young man put a glass of brandy-and- water
into her hand, with a biscuit; and she looked at him
gratefully and with growing approval as the reality of
things deepened in her gaze.

* "Pray, what might your name be?" asked the
Captain.

' "Rose Island," she answered.
' "Are you related to Mr. and Mrs. Island of Kings-
town?"

THE FLOATING GIRL. 23

I at

They are my uncle and aunt, and I was proceed-
ing to join them when I fell overboard."

* **I know Tom Island very well; I am glad to have
saved his niece," said Captain Cochrane heartily.
"You come to us as a friend, but though this world is
big, miss, the horizon of life is small, and you are con-
stantly falling against people you know or ought to
know."

* "I can't help thinking I know you," said Miss
Island, who made that wild and storm-tossed cabin
look like a picture in a fairy-tale, with her half -clad
form, and coloured bodice and striped petticoat
When Rose said that she could not help thinking that
she knew Captain Cochrane, the sailor stared at her
and so did the son, and then the son burst out:

* **Did you ever take a voyage in a ship called the
Swatiy commanded by my father?"

Yes; to Philadelphia," she answered.
Then," said he, **we are old shipmates, and
played together!"

* **I perfectly remember you, and I perfectly remem-
ber Captain Cochrane," she exclaimed, with a pretty
tint entering her face, for she was certainly delighted
with this meeting. She felt herself among old friends,
and the knowledge rallied her, so that she smiled and
spoke with vivacity, and flashed sweet looks about her,
and exhibited no horror at the tremendous commotion
without, and the hideous leaping within, being
spirited by this meeting.

' **How are your father and mother?" asked Captain
Cochrane.

' "They are dead," she answered. "They lived
for a long time in Philadelphia, and then returned

C iil

24 ROSE ISLAND.

to the old conntry and died within a year of each
other."

'A silence of speech fell, then Captain Cochrane
asked Arthur to step on deck and take a look round.
The girl's dress lay upon a locker. She asked Captain
Cochrane's leave to put it on. The Captain replied
that it was as wet as a swab just fished up from over
the side, and so was she. They would make up a bed
for her in one of those cabins, and her clothes would
be dry when there was anything to dry them at

'Whilst they awaited the return of Arthur Cochrane,
the girl spoke of him. She said he was a fine, hand-
some man ; and, with a look of profound gratitude that
rose to the height and beauty of passion, she exclaimed
that she owed her life to him. This was not quite
true, however; others had brought her into the vessel,
and she was in little more than a swoon when young
Cochrane and the man who helped him prepared her
for rubbing, and for squeezing the water out of her
and the life into her.

* "He's a handsome young man," she said. ** Think
of his being the Arthur Cochrane I used to play with
on board the old Swan\ Is he a sailor?"

' **From his hair to his heels," answered the Captain
proudly. **No smarter sailor sails the ocean. He was
on the look-out for a job, but not finding one quickly
enough, he agreed to make this voyage with me, acting
as second mate, but in reality as an all-round man.
The second mate is the Only Mate, an ugly rascal
called Julius Nassau. He stands watch and watch
with me, and 'tis Arthur's privilege to relieve his old
father;" and the Captain gave the girl a cordial smile
and bow.

THE FLOATING GIRL. 25

'Young Cochrane descended and described the night.
The wind was of hurricane force, the seas running
enormously high ; but the • schooner, save that she
occasionally smothered herself forward, was making
magnificent weather of it. The hands were assembled
aft for shelter.

* **Sing out for Cabbage," said the Captain.

'Cabbage was the name of a man who occasionally
officiated in the cabin.

' "You and he'll get that little starboard berth there
rigg^<i tip for the reception of this young lady.
There's a mattress and there are blankets in my bed.
Take another glass of grog," said he, clasping her
hand, and looking at her with kindly eyes, *'and
turn in as fast as ever the ship will let you.
Dream securely, for if this little vessel were the dome
of St. Paul's she couldn't be safer in this wild
weather."

So saying, Captain Cochrane put on his fur cap,
buttoned up his glistening coat, and vanished in the
screaming blackness of the companion-way. Ladies
and gentlemen, he is no sailor who does not delight in
being of use to the ladies, attending them with manly
solicitude during their hours of trial at sea. Cochrane
and the seaman went to work with a will, and a will
they needed, for had they possessed sea-legs as old as
Noah's, they stood to be dashed to pieces and their
limbs and necks broken upon that barbarous dance of
deck. They found the bed-apparel they wanted,
Arthur Cochrane contributing. The berth in such a
little ship as this was a small one, you will sup-
pose. It was a monkey's cage; it was a hole in a
wooden wall, but it gave you planks for a bed, and

26 ROSE ISLAND.

when you fell asleep the greatest and most sumptuous
cabin in the world could not have housed you with
more comfort for yourself than this recess in the
Charmer's bulkhead.

•The demon of the storm howled through its black
jaws, wide as the night outside; the schooner was
sometimes thrown up twenty feet, and her correspond-
ing souse into the hissing and becalmed valley sent a
shriek of dissolution through the beaten and helpless
vessel. At such moments the slope of the deck was
like climbing a wall. How, then, was Miss Island to
go to bed when she could not stir to save her life from
the locker on which she was glued by the diabolic
heaves? In shipwreck no impropriety is felt or per-
haps thought of. If the lady was to be got to bed, she
was to be seen to bed, and the two sailors went to her.
They each seized her by an arm ; they watched their
chances; they yawed and heaved on their legs as
though in a swing furiously swung. But a sailor,
ladies and gentlemen, is very seldom dashed to pieces
at sea; he takes little heed of perpendicular decks, and
his legs are telescopic in their power of balancing his
frame. In a few minutes the two men got the girl to
her berth. The cabin lamp made light enough. In
twenty minutes she was dry and comfortable, wrapped
in blankets, in a little bunk with a porthole over it of
the diameter of a saucer. They wished her good-
night, and she thanked them with sobs. It was reality
to her now, but all between was what? She fell over-
board, and was insensible. She was picked up, and
scarce knew who she was or why she was here, and
horror shook her frame as she thought of herself as
out alone, floating dead or alive upon the raging sea

THE FLOATING GIRL. 21

that was thundering in shocks of earthquake from the
side of her little berth.

'The men put her clothes in a heap ready to dry,
replaced the lamp, closed the door, and left her.
Young Cochrane gave Cabbage, as he was nicknamed,
a glass of grog.

* **A fine young woman," said Cabbage, who, like
most sailors, grew loquacious when anything to drink
was put into his hands. **Her eyes glowed like a
ship's side-lights over the blanket "

* ** Strange to find her floating and alive," said
Arthur, swallowing his own second mate's nip.

•But the other said:

* *'We once picked up a man about five mile oflE the
Lizard. He was a smacksman, had been knocked
overboard, fell on his back and lay, and was alive and
'earty, and able to sit up and eat a meal of bread and
pork soon after his clothes had been brought to him."

How long was he overboard?"
Eight hours, as God is truth, ' ' answered the man,
with great emphasis.

* Young Cochrane made no answer; he looked for a
moment around him, then drove his way up the steps,
through the closed companion-door, on to the deck.
The seas were running in large pale masses. They
rushed through the gloom in mighty processions ; fire
flamed in them ; they were beautiful and terrible to see
in their visionary bulk, each rolling onward with a
sotmd of the thunder of heaven. There was no light-
ning. You almost thought you saw the horizon
working upon its leaping circle. Aft, the schooner
was dry; forward, in frightful rushes, she would bury
herself, and all seemed boiling whiteness there, with

< <c

< C(

38 ROSE ISLAND.

the bowsprit and the jibboom forking out. The music
aloft was a dance of the witches. Every rope had a
note of its own ; all gave voice to it at its shrillest,
and the concert at each sheering heave to windward
was a sound beyond imagination or description.

*The men were assembled aft for shelter. There
were five sailors, including a boy named Wilkinson,
who bore the nickname of Dr. Johnson, because of his
curious knowledge of Boswell's life of that great man.
They crouched under the bulwarks. The captain and
Julius Nassau stood together at the little wheel, which
was lashed hard a-lee. Just when Arthur Cochrane
came on deck his father said to Nassau, in the notes of
a speaking-trumpet — ^you might not whisper in that
Satanic ballroom:

* **No good in keeping the men on deck. As lief
founder below, if that's to be it."

* **0h, she rides like a circus girl!" exclaimed
Nassau.

* "Whose watch is it?" said the Captain.

***It*s mine. I'll keep the look-out," answered
young Cochrane.

'On this the Captain shouted aloud, and all the men
went into the cabin, the Captain following, leaving his
son to keep a look-out, under the protection of a small
square of canvas that was seized in the main-rigging.
The cabin looked strange and something savage with
those wild seamen sitting about it. Its atmosphere,
too, was the colour of the storm, the muffled thunder
of seas smiting forward, those desperate falls from
foaming peak to black and boiling base. The seamen
were a rough lot — ^men for adventures, you would have
said. Wilkinson, nicknamed Dr. Johnson, had beeo

THE FLOATING GIRL. 29

turned out of the cabin for reasons I forget. Cabbage
bad taken his place, and did some of his work; a sour,
burly man, with a nose like a horseshoe and two eyes
stained with drink sunk deep in their crimson webs.
There were also Ben Black, and a man who passed as
Old Stormy, and another called Jacob Overalls; these
and the Captain and Nassau and Arthur made the
crew, and the schooner was well equipped. The wet
streamed from the men who sat about, and as the
occasion was extraordinary the Captain ordered rum
to be served. They also smoked; there was not the
discipline in this little ship that you would expect to
find in an East Indiaman ; yet the Captain was held in
respect; the men admired his fine seamanlike qualities,
and were subdued and satisfied by those qualities of
the gentleman that they found in him.

The Captain ordered Cabbage to bring some supper
for the men out of his private larder, a little hole at
the fore-end, where the stuff lifted from the lazarette
was stowed. A conspicuous figure at this feast was
Julius Nassau, the only mate. Even eyes to whom
he was familiar would dwell upon him for a minute
whilst talk went on. He was repulsive by virtue of his
negro face, which wanted all the elements of bland-
ness you meet with in most of the races of South
Africa, where the eye is large, pleading, and hand-
some, with an intelligence which is not human, which
is not animal, which is of itself, which is like the skin
it is set in. His dress was a little grotesque: his pilot-
coat was belted; he wore earrings; his negro curls
glistened in the rushing sparkles of the lamp; his
white trousers, very much soiled, were stuffed into
that sort of boots which are called half -Wellingtons ;

- - .,• ^ J.-

30 ROSE ISLAND.

his dusky eyes charged the encounter of your gaze with
red rays. He was such a figure as Sir Walter would
have loved to depict. They talked, and ate, and
drank. The schooner rushed and soared. At any
moment might come the thunder-shock of dissolution,
the blow of some overwhelming black sea, which
should drown the little fabric out of hand. But the
sailors ate and drank and smoked, and did not seem to
heed the weather, tmless by an occasional interjection
wrested from them by some extraordinary leap of the
little ship.

' **What was the name of that ship in this storm?"
asked Nassau.

* ''The Eleuthera^** answered the Captain, who sat
at the head of the little table with a pipe in his mouth
and one hand steadjring a pannikin of grog.

' **She will have foimdered," said Nassau. **I saw
her on her beam-ends; her tops were level with the
sea. Then I found something else to do than to watch
her."

* "Well, 'tis sink or swim with every ship afloat,"
said old Stormy. "What would sailors do if there
wasn't shipwrecks? The old vessels would go on last-
ing for ever, patched and botched, and there would be
no room for the Jacks as would swarm."

* "That was a fine girl that was brought on board,"
said Nassau. "Is she comfortable and tumed-in?"

' "She has been looked after," exclaimed the Captain
briefly. "She proves to be a connection of an old
friend of mine. "

* "An imcommonly fine girl, I should say," con-
tinued Nassau, "when properly dressed and standing
up. I'm a single man, Cap'n, and ain't giv'n to wives

THE FLOATING GIRL. 31

unless they're other men's." Here he tweaked the
coarse ends of horse-hair which grew under his nose.
"But, by my mother's soul, I'd marry the girl we
brought aboard, if it was only for the sake of her
eyes. ' '

•The Captain frowned. A great laugh rose amongst
the men.

* "Wilkinson," called out the half-caste, with a wild,
savage, merry look in his singular deep-simk eyes,
"what do that old Dr. Johnson of yours — him you're
always a-quoting — say of marriage?*'

* "Why," answered the boy, who was in reality a
young man of about four- or five-and-twenty, "he said
that if the Lord Chancellor had the choosing of people
for marriage, people would be a darned sight happier
than they are now. ' *

* "You mean," says Ben Black, "that we're not to
choose for ourselves?"

That's what Dr. Johnson says."

That old Johnson of youm is a hass!" said old
Stormy. "Every time you quote him makes me think
so. Captain, what sort of a wind is this we've got
into?"

* "A wind with a hole in it," answered the Captain.

* **What does that mean?" exclaimed old Stormy.

* "There's a hole," said the Captain, "somewhere
about, and when you're in it you may hear the storm
hissing and yelling round you; whilst in that hole you
may catch butterflies and beautiful birds like parrots,
and birds of paradise have been seen flying about in
that hole."

*The man thought they were laughing at him. The
fact is, in those days, ladies and gentlemen, very little

i til

32 ROSE ISLAND.

about the true theories of winds was understood. I
don't know whether Piddington had written, or Reid,
but the theory that all wind is circular was not to be
accepted for many a year by the hard-mouthed old
soakers who, in tall hats and square-toed boots, sailed
the ships of trade ; and my friend Captain Cochrane,
you'll perceive, was something before his time. For-
tunately for him — ^for he was without the true knowl-
edge of the thing — ^he had hove his schooner to on the
right tack, and the vast mass of whirlwind, with its
terrible seas washing the rush of soot above the mast-
heads, was slowly passing away, carrying its deadly
centre with it, and the Captain could talk of holes with
impunity. The crew remained below all night. One
or another kept watch for short periods. Some lay
down and slept and snored in sounds superior to the
noises of the schooner and the sea. A sailor must go
in deadly peril to keep awake when he can't stretch his
limbs and sleep. Very hard indeed did it blow all that
night ; and a long, black night it was, interminable to
those who waited for the dawn, and the spirit of death
seemed to blacken the atmosphere, under which the
dim froth in heaps like hills stretched, defining their
own limit by the wild and ghastly light they made.
But when the dawn came the gale had broken, the
weight of it was passing, and over the swollen sea,
white, snorting, and raging with conflict, a visible
sky could be seen breaking up into huge masses of
vapour, flying with the gale and closing into the aspect
of a wall of thunder against that part of the circle
of the sea towards which they were swept. The most
melancholy picture under the heaven of God is dawn
at sea, whether the ocean be broken, rent, hurled by

THE FLOATING GIRL. 33

the power of the hurricane, or whether it sleeps from
its confines in the west, awaiting the jewelled flash
that is to convert its melancholy into magnificence.

' **The schooner has done well," said Nassau to Cap-
tain Cochrane. **See them seas to windward? . By my
mother, who was the handsomest woman that ever
stepped the streets of Kingstown, they are but half the
size of the waters which ran in the middle watch, and
yet see 'em!"

*He let drop his jaw, and struck an attitude that
made him look like a buccaneer in the act of leaping
on board an enemy. Most of the men were on deck.
Arthur Cochrane, after keeping some black look-outs,
had gone below for an hour's rest. As the dismal
dawn, washed by the hard seas off whose heads the
gale was still blowing the spindrift in hair-like brine,
sifted its stormy hue into the sky, every eye, as may
be supposed, was directed round the sea in search of
some sign of the Eleuthera, Nothing in that way was
visible: no sullen flashing keel of capsized boat; no
length of mast lifting, snake-like, its rigging, and
hissing amidst the hollow.

' **But, I say," shouted Nassau suddenly, "what is
that on the lee-bow? Look, all hands! As I am a
white man when stripped, it is a ship!"

*The Captain rushed to the little companion for the
old ship's glass that usually lay in brackets there. He
directed it. The object was a ship, sure enough, but
she was not the Eleutkera, She was small, and had
apparently been a barque, but was entirely dismasted
of all but her mizzen-mast and mizzen-peak, half-way
up which blew a flag whose nationality could not be
distinguished. The carrying rolls of the sea were so

34 ROSE ISLAND.

great, and the gale so troubled with spray, that it was
almost impossible to fix her, whether with the eye or
the glass.

* ''There's nothing to be done yet," said Cochrane.
"But we'll have a look at her. She's not abandoned. "
And then he turned his attention to his own schooner.
The brave little craft had come through it nobly. Her
caboose had been washed away from its moorings, but
it was a stout little sea-kitchen, and lay solid in the scup-
pers. It was speedily picked up and set on end in its
own place ; for the galley fire had to be lighted, and the
men were hungering for their breakfast of hot coffee
and salt beef. Aloft, she was unharmed, save that her
fore-topmast had been sprung. . She had also carried
away her jibboom. They sounded the pumps, and
before breakfast was ready had pumped her out.
Meanwhile they let the vessel lie hove-to, keeping a
steady eye on the ship to leeward (whose colour was a
resistless appeal to them), for they could do nothing for
her in this weather, and so they waited.

CHAPTER III.

THE FRENCHMAN.

*It is a soft warm breeze this evening,' said Captain
Tomson Foster to the attentive company that had gath-
ered round him, *and the ship sails fast. At this rate
we shall soon have the jewels of the south dangling in
our rigging, and the Suez will be heading off for the
Cape of Good Hope. What a noble sunset has just
disappeared — ^the red ruin of the stateliest pyre in the
world!'

He stood looking to seaward, lost in thought. A
passenger coughed. He started, and, returning from
the rail, began to slowly fill his pipe whilst he said:

*But now for the yam. The dance of the schooner
was hard and savage upon the sea, and tons of water
were flashed over her bows; but she was now com-
paratively a dry ship, and shortly after the caboose had
been secured to the deck, its chimney was pouring out
smoke, and a brisk relish of ham was to be tasted in
the gale. About this time, when it still blew too hard
to attempt to approach the distant vessel, Arthur
Cochrane came out of his bit of a berth, and as he was
making his way to the ladder, he was arrested by the
sight of Miss Rose Island standing in her door holding
on with all her might, fully dressed, yea, even to a
small hat, for in that hat she had floated, and in that

35

3« ROSE ISLAND.

hat she had been brought on board. She bowed and
coloured; he bowed and smiled. Their bows were
the attitudes of contortionists on that still frantic
deck.

' "Have I to thank you," said she, "for placing all
my clothes in my cabin?"

' "Oh, I just dried them," he answered, "by hang-
ing them up. This is a close atmosphere, with the
companion hatchway shut,"

* "Yon are extremely thoughtful!" she exclaimed.
"One must shriek to be heard. What a terrible noise
of straining timbers ! Does it always blow in this way
in these seas?"

'And then she wanted to know if the schooner was
safe, and if the Eleuthera was in sight Cochrane
caught her by the hand, and brought her to the table
and seated her, and then she was safe. There was a
little daylight in this cabin, quite enough to see by.
Perhaps it softened what it could not sweeten, but
sweetness was not lacking in this resounding hole.
Cochrane was again struck by the serpentine character
of the girl's beauty and figure. Her fascination was
that of a poem which is full of mystery and the loveli-
ness of words which are not the gift of most poets.
But any fancies bred by her figure, and the contour of
her face, must have been dispelled by the beauty of
her eyes — of her large, rich, star-like eyes — ^which
gazed with a light of their own from under her beauti-
ful brow, and idealized her to a very Shakespearian
conception of womanhood. Arthur Cochrane stared at
her intently, whilst he paused at the table to exchange
a few words with her. More original beauty in the
female he had never witnessed, though many might

THE FRENCHMAN. 37

have been repelled by it through its somewhat Jewish
character.

* **It is extraordinary," she said, "that you should
be the little boy I played with on board the Swan.
How happy to find one's self overboard, and then
picked up by such an old friend as you, and by your
father, who is the friend of my people ! I love God
for this generous salvation of my poor body. I have
no recollection of falling in the water. Everything
has the blankness of the closed eyelid down to the
moment when I awoke and found you bending over
me."

* **Did you sleep well?"

* **I fell out four or five times. It is a little cot,"
she saidy with a smile that lighted up her face like a
play of sheet-lightning, **but it is fine and handsome
enough to keep me from drowning," she added, with a
kiss of her hand towards her little resting-place.

•Their talk was not long. Cochrane was due on
deck; yet they found time to say a good deal. He
asked ber if she would like to come on deck, as she
would be as safe there as below. Just then, as the
girl, with her hand on Arthur Cochrane's arm, was
essaying to rise, down the companion-steps, with a
great swagger of dirty white breeches and belted bulk
of form, came Julius Nassau. He started on seeing
Miss Island, and with grotesque courtesy, as much in
keeping with his appearance as the mirth of a monkey
with its face, pulled off his wet hat and gave her a low
bow, to which she responded by a slight inclination of
the head. He certainly looked an ugly villain. His
face was a sort of yellow, not easily described, black-
ened by his bristles of hair, and by the negro wool that

%.

38 ROSE ISLAND.

framed it Arthur thought he would have the grace to
pass on.

' ** Good-morning!" he said, in a strong familiar
voice, and a throaty note full of admiration. *^I hope
you slept well. * '

• •'Very well, thank you," she answered.

* '*Mr. Cochrane should take you on deck, miss.
There is a sight to be seen, and I dare say there are
lives to be saved. We are still hove-to, and very
properly, for it yet blows half a gale, miss, and the
seas are scaling and dangerous; but after breakfast I
guess we shall be heading off for the dismasted little
barque that is in sight."

' "Will you come on deck and look at her?" said
Cochrane ; and she eagerly consented.

*He hauled her up the steps, and when on deck the
sad light of the streaming day was all about them.
Captain Cochrane grasped her by the hand, and placed
her under the hurricane house, with the turn of a rope
round her body, so that she could not fall away and
break her neck to leeward. The men were at break-
fast forward, out of sight in their forecastle. It still
blew very hard : you could not look to windward very
long. The seas came rolling in leaden heaps to the
schooner, which glanced to their summit with yelling
spars, and airily took the trough where the howl of the
gale was silent, and where on the low elevation of that
deck you heard nothing but the steam-like hiss of lash-
ing spray. The distant ship was difficult to make out
by the naked eye. Captain Cochrane was of opinion
that she was a Frenchman. She was painted green,
sat low, rolled heavily, and seemed to be sinking; but
there was nothing to be done until the sea abated.

THE FRENCHMAN, 39

Overhead great masses of cloud sailed slow and
solemn ; you would not have guessed they were driven
by this wind, but under them flew the scud of the gale
like the yellow froth that is blown off the breaker on
the sandy shore. Were there people on board? Rose
Island wanted to know. The colour under the peak
answered the question, was the Captain's reply, tmless,
indeed, she had been abandoned, and left that colour
flying.

'Soon after this the cabin breakfast came along, m
the shape of Cabbage staggering aft out of the
caboose, with a long pot of coffee and a big pot of tea.
With these he sank into the cabin, to reappear in a
minute, and he then returned with two or three tin
plates of broiled ham, which he hugged to his heart,
whilst he danced in measure to the music of those
waving spars overhead. The Captain's stores pro-
vided the rest. On the whole, for a small* schooner in
the tail of a gale, with a sea running which kept her
hove-to, it was not a bad breakfast. Arthur Cochrane
kept the watch on deck, and Julius Nassau formed one
of the group below. This man showed some reserve
in the presence of his Captain. He constantly glanced
at the girl with his deep-sunk eyes, ardent with admira-
tion, but had little to say, because the conversation
mainly referred to the friends of Miss Island, and
Nassau was therefore silent. I have said that he was
an Only Mate, in which term he combined the two
grades, so that in rank he stood next to the Captain ;
but there was little of rank or standing in a schooner
of the size of the Charmer^ and Nassau commonly was
very free with his tongue. This morning, however,
whether wearied by the night, or influenced by the

40 ROSE ISLAND.

presence of the girl, he held his peace. One remark
he made. He said, when they were talking about the
dismasted vessel on the port bow:

* '*When I was coming aft, old Overalls says to Cab-
bage, pointing to the wreck, 'D'ye know,' says he,
*what Dr. Johnson, 'cording to Wilkinson, says of the
likes of her? He says, says he, that no man 'ud go to
sea who could manage to get into gaol, and that being
in a ship was worse than being in a prison, for you
had not only the hardships, but you stood to be
drowned.* Old Johnson knew what's what," con-
tinued Nassau, after bestowing a wide grin on Miss
Island. **The sailor gets better fare when he's cast
into gaol than he ate in the ship which locked him up
for mutinying on account of bad food. I've been a
common sailor myself, and would rather pick oakum
in a prison than turn a spunyarn winch on a ship's
fo'c's'le."

'Just as he said this a flash of dazzling brightness
struck the dingy little skylight over the cabin. It
glorified the darksome interior; stars of the day
danced in Rose Island's eyes. Nassau looked horribly
swarthy, and the Captain, starting up, exclaimed:

* "The gale's broken! We must help those people.
I will send my son to eat some breakfast with you,
Miss Rose;" and so saying, he stepped on deck, and
Nassau, after making the bow of a baboon to the lady,
followed Captain Cochrane.

'There is not a more glorious sight in the world, as
you ladies and gentlemen must often have observed,
than the flash of a sunbeam revolving with a cloud,
past whose edge it smites the waters, lighting up
leagues of dark-green seas, which roll in long tunnels

THE FRENCHMAN. .41

of brine, and make the heavens white with the white-
ness they pour.

* '*Gro below," said the Captain to his son, **and get
some breakfast. I shall make for that ship. ' '

*In a moment he howled out the necessary orders.
He did so at a great risk. The sea ran very high, and
the schooner would be in dire peril as her head paid
oflf. They set the stay-foresail and the boom-foresail
with a double reef in it, and the helm was put up,
with the high seas curling about the quarters and
bows, for the Frenchman far to leeward. Then when
they had got the vessel in position, they set the square
topsail, and the small top-gallant sail, the spar having
been fished, and she foamed along the seas in beauty
and comfort, lifting lofty spars clothed in white, and
raising her counter dryly out of the whirlpool of foam
that raved about her and went away in a wake. It
was soon seen by the naked eye that the vessel was in
dire distress, and it was clear from the sluggish
motions of her rolling and pitching that she was half-
full of water and sinking. The dark-green seas broke
over her in waterfalls which blew in plumes of foam
over her naked decks.

* There are many melancholy objects to be observed
in this world. A stork on one leg on a gleam of sandy
tract, half veiled by drizzling rain, is a cheerless
object. Melancholy, too, is the old windmill whose
sides are long since green with decay, and whose
wooden fabric trembles and shudders and groans
throughout the long wet midnight, with its dull gusts
giving a fresh voice to the whispers of invisible run-
ning waters. But saddest of all the melancholy sights
is a dismasted ship, far out at sea, wrecked, helpless,

42 ROSE ISLAND.

with human beings grouped at her stem, frequently
with frantic gestures extending their arms. Captain
Cochrane counted ten men and one woman. He
gazed at the vessel long and steadfastly. His face was
full of speculation. He looked a fine example of an
English seaman as he stood at the rail, firmly gripping
a backstay with the intensity of thought and resolu-
tion, bent upon a most extraordinary hazardous and
adventurous piece of seamanship. Just at this time
Arthur Cochrane came on deck, helping Rose Island.
Now that the vessel was sailing with the wind upon the
quarter, there was little difficulty in using one's legs,
but often, in spite of the helmsman's skill, a huge sea
would come running along the bends, showing its
white teeth all along the bulwark rails, often slapping
a bruising weight of water over the deck, and seas of
this sort made the slope of the planks dangerous. Our
handsome friend Arthur stepped with Rose to the
main rigging, and secured her to it. Nassau, who
stood near the wheel, watched these proceedings with
a greedy grin of peculiarly white fangs, whilst the red
rays of his deep-sunk eyes, red with drink, villainy,
and nature, were as noticeable as his prickly mous-
tache, dirty with flying cloud as the atmosphere was in
spite of the flash of the sun.

•'•Oh, there's the ship!" cried Rose. ''Oh, my
heavenly God, I do hope that if there are people on
board we shall be in time!"

• '*Time! Aye, that is very well," answered young
Cochrane thoughtfully, looking at the vessel. *'But no
boat is going to live in this sea. Rose," — she was an
old playmate, and had told him to call her Rose just
the same as when they were children on board the old

THE FRENCHMAN. 43

Swan; "it still blows hard, and the sea is not going to
moderate whilst the wind lasts."

' "If there are people on board, they must be
saved," said Rose.

' "They ought to be saved, certainly," replied
Arthur. "And she's a sinking ship beyond doubt.
She is drunk with salt water. She has taken in a
great many drops too much,"

'Captain Cochrane, looking round, saw them and
approached.

' "Are there living people on board?" asked Rose.

" 'I count ten men in the glass, and a woman,"
answered the Captain. "D'ye observe that dark line
along the taffrail?"

'She strained her beautiful eyes, protecting her sight
from the edge of the wind by her hand, and, after
peering and staring, she cried:

' "Yes."

' "They are human beings," said Captain Cochrane,
"and they must be saved."

' "She is foundering," said Arthur, wearing his
puzzled look as he gazed at the still distant wreck.

' "She'll keep afloat long enough to serve our turn,"
said the Captain, cheerfully.

'Arthur looked at him, and said something. The
Captain answered, Arthur replied, and they conferred
together, Arthur with a face made up of doubt, admi-
ration, and zeal. Rose could not understand them, and
watched the wreck, that was growing rapidly upon the
horizon to the keen keel of the schooner, which now
hoisted her mainsail with two reefe in it, and her
standing jib. The young fellow Wilkinson was to
leeward, looking at the vessel they were approaching.

44 ROSE ISLAND.

i it

Jump below for my speaking-trumpet," said the
Captain; and in a few minutes this obsolete instru-
ment, which in my time no captain ever went to sea
without, was in Cochrane's hands. He walked aft to
the wheel, and looked deliberately at the man who
was steering. He was Ben Black. He stared at him
fixedly, considered, looked around him, and then
said, **You are the best helmsman in the ship. I can
trust you. You will do. Lives are to be saved, and
their rescue from death will depend upon you. Black."

* And he then told him what he intended to do.
' ** It'll be ticklish work, sir," said the sailor.

* **There are ten men and a woman," was Captain
Cochrane's answer.

*He went a little way forward, and stationed himself
on the bulwark-rail, with his hand grasping a backstay.
The sea yawned hollowly under the schooner. A
number of seabirds were noticed; they had white
plumage and black bills, and were distinguishable
chiefly by their bills from the freckles of foam that
raced up the liquid steeps. The wreck was now close
to, and the schooner was steering a course that should
carry her under her stern. Details of incredible
interest with magic swiftness leaped forth as the eye
shot over the forlorn ship. You saw the shrouds in
the sea creeping up the vessel's side to her wearied,
battered, staggering rolls; they looked like serpents
trying in vain to get on board. As the ship leaned,
you had a clear view of her decks. The companion
was a sheaf of splinters; the wheel, binnacle, and deck-
house were gone; the water upon her decks rushed in
foam as she reeled, and the ropes' ends looked like
gigantic eels making for the sea. Right aft upon the

THE FRENCHMAN. 45

tafifrail stood the ten men and the woman, who wore a
bonnet and was wrapped in a shawl. The men were
mostly habited in blue dungaree, which trembled in
the wind, and added an accentuation to their foreign
appealing gestures — ^hands outstretched, hands to their
faces, wringing of hands, appealing to God by a lifting
of arms, and so forth. The immensely fat man
seemed the captain. He wore a cap and a great stream-
ing and rushing dungaree coat, and immensely wide
pantaloons, and one somehow gathered — perhaps by
their keeping together — ^that he was the husband of
the woman. The Charmer now reduced canvas. The
crew's hearts were in this business, and they leaped
about with magical alertness. The topgallant-sail was
furled and the square topsail clewed up. Other canvas
was taken in, and the schooner drove in hollow valleys
and over swelling peaks slowly close astern of the
Frenchman. Raising his trumpet to his lips, Coch-
rane roared :

* "Keep up your hearts, my lads! We'll stand by
you! Lower away that mizzen-gaflE on deck out of
the road."

*The speaker was clearly understood, and the obtru-
sive spar came rattling to the deck.

* ** Stand by to jump aboard of us, as we forge down
again under your stem. Do you understand?"

*This was followed by a number of cries and gesticu-
lations. But the time for further parleying had
passed; and now, having gone half-a-mile clear of the
Frenchman, the schooner wore, and under all the can-
vas she dared show came thrashing to windward, and
the unhappy crowd of Frenchmen roared to her as she
passed by.

46 ROSE ISLAND.

*The sight of that English vessel, straining every
tree-nail and timber in her to preserve those people —
burying herself in foam to the gangways, leaping in
staggers to the liquid acclivities, and rushing down
them with the flutter of a meteor — ^was a noble, was a
thrilling picture, and the sun at intervals shone forth,
and encompassed the heroism of the little Charmer
with the full-bosomed majesty of the dark blue deep,
shadowed by islands of clouds and a scene of splendid
freedom, with the pendulum roll of its noble surge,
timed by the deepening melodies of the sinking gale.
Many will wonder that Cochrane did not wait for gale
and sea to abate, and keep his little ship hove-to to
windward of the wreck. Then, as the weather grew
fine, the work of rescue might prove more or less
easy. But the fact is, ladies and gentlemen. Captain
Cochrane saw, as all saw, that the Frenchman was
sinking, and that at any minute she might take a
header and vanish. Therefore the attempt must be
made at a tremendous risk; and after a desperate
struggle with those fierce head seas, the schooner was
wore, and under very small canvas headed directly for
the Frenchman's counter. The eyes of the helpless
men had been glued to her. They saw her coming.
Then in a minute they began to tear oflf their clothes,
and awaited the tremendous approach half naked.
Cochrane went to the wheel and conned the schooner.
He found Black's precision, and his art of ''meeting
her, * ' exquisite, and he had nothing to say but to wait
and watch with the rest. He stood with his speaking-
trumpet. The sensations of the moment held the
stoutest breathless. Now, lifted on the summit of a
seething surge that rushed like steam into its hoi-

THE FRENCHMAN. 47

low, the schooner was tinder the counter of the
Frenchman.

***Jump!" was the yell. **Now*s your chance.
Jump!"

•And five men, hurling themselves oflf the tafifrail,
gained the deck in the waist, and stood safe, and gasp-
ing and sobbing like women.

* ''We will come back!" roared Captain Cochrane.
'It seemed as though the unhappy people, being too

timid to jump, were now under the impression that
they were to be abandoned. They threw themselves
into every posture of distress and pleading. One
seized his trousers, which he had torn ofiE, and flour-
ished them with the air of a madman. It was a ter-
rible time. The wreck was undoubtedly sinking.
The seas broke over her as if she had been a half -tide
rock, and went away with the gale in cataractal
upheavals of brine thick as a London fog. The
immensely fat Frenchman, who was imdoubtedly the
captain, was seen to address the woman, and by a
thousand antics and convulsions to prove to her that
there was no danger in the leap. She shrank and
tossed her hands, and her demonstrations of distress
were piteous. Just then JiUius Nassau came along the
deck, past Rose, who stood at the main-rigging,
secured by Arthur's girdle of rope. She had followed
the proceedings so far with a countenance beautiful
with the animation of glowing eyes, parted lips, cheeks
flushing and paling, and with all the other signs of a
mind in a very anguish of sympathy with what it
beheld. She said to Nassau:

• **Why does not that poor woman take off her dress
and petticoats, so that her leap may be sure!"

48 ROSE ISLAND.

< (i

She is a Frenchwoman and a fool," was the ugly
devil's answer. **Was it you, miss," he added, with
a look of unpleasant familiarity, **your wonderful fine
English spirit would have brought you aboard us at

once."

'She did not like the expression in his eyes, nor his
smile — ^such a smile as something wild that starts at
you between parted boughs in a forest, might bestow
— and remained silent. But Nassau was wanted.
The vessel was again brought to the wind, and began
afresh her plucky, tremendous eflEort to windward.

* "By God!" cried Captain Cochrane, breaking out
to Arthur in the extremity of his anxiety, **if they do
not jump this bout, she will sink under them."

*As they approached, they saw the fat Frenchman
struggling with the woman. He was encouraging her.
He pointed to the sea under the counter, then to the
thunderous white lifts of water over the sodden hull.
But her shrinking and terror were exquisitely
expressed by her withdrawals, attitudes, and uplifting
of arms to God for mercy; and by this time the
schooner was under the counter, marvellously steered,
close in that instant of ocean movement as ships
alongside each other in dock.

* **Jump!" went up a universal shriek from her
decks.

•And the jump was made. Four of the men
alighted easily; the fifth, who was the fat man, with a
shriek to the woman, threw himself into the air, and
came down upon the edge of the schooner's uplifting
rail like a feather-bed. He was snatched from his
dangerous position, and the schooner forged ahead,
leaving the woman standing alone on the tafErail

« 41,

THE FRENCHMAN. 49

shrieking to be saved, whilst the fat man, having
recovered his breath, was shouting in a frenzy:

* **She is my wife! For Grod's sake save her!"
'Some of the Frenchmen were bawling, and some

were praying.

* **You are not going to leave her to drown?"
screamed Rose from the main-rigging to Arthur
Cochrane.

'Arthur rushed up to his father.

' "She must be rescued!" he exclaimed.

* "The ship will be under water before we can shift
our helm for another ratch, ' ' answered the Captain.

Oh, but the woman is alive, and must be saved!"
But how is it to be done?" said Captain Cochrane,
looking gloomily at his son, then at the sinking wreck.

'Arthur replied vehemently, and his father listened
attentively.

' "But who will risk his life to do this thing?" said
Captain Cochrane.

' "I will," answered Arthur.

'His father looked at him; his eyes moistened. He
grasped him by the hand, and exclaimed, in a broken
voice :

' "Be it as you say."

'The orders were promptly given. Again the
schooner was wore at a distance of about half a mile
from the wreck, which was. dangerously dipping her
bows. The woman stood alone upon the taflfrail, a
piteous, appealing object. The Frenchmen, guess-
ing what was to be attempted, shouted: "Long live
the English!" and the fat captain rushed up to Cap-
tain Cochrane with his arms extended as though he
would kiss him. Again was the noble little craft

50 ROSE ISLAND.

headed against the still high sea that was running,
leaning down lee gunwale under, blowing whole acres
of foam oflE her weather-bow, snapping, bruising, dis-
appearing, emerging in foam, her lofty spars flogging
like fishing-rods. Whilst this was doing, her men
were busy aboard of her. They got up the deep-sea
lead-line, the hand-lead, spare log-lines, unrove signal-
halliards, and bent the whole into a line of great
length, with fresh stuflE at hand ready to bend on in
case the first gave out, Arthur had run to his cabin,
and reappeared clad in a light cork- jacket which some
friendly lady had given him, but which, truly, had
never been a part of his equipment as a sailor. It was
to prove invaluable now. He stood in the gangway
dressed in his jacket, and the end of the line was girt
to him. The sun was coming and going in splendour
amidst the lagoons of blue, and the clouds were sailing
in great cream-coloured masses, and the scud of the
gale still fled down the wind with the flight of the
white birds of the deep. Never had the day shone
upon a more pathetic and heroic marine piece than
this. Captain Cochrane went to the helmsman, and
said to him :

* **My son will leap on board that wreck to save that
woman if there be time. He is my only son. In the
name of God, Black, my man, use now your utmost
skill!"

* '*He shall not come to harm through my steering,
sir," answered the man, with something like a touch
of emotion in his coarse voice.

*They then went to work to reduce the schooner to
bare poles after wearing her, leaving a piece of jib
hoisted to secure steerage-way. The little vessel rolled

THE FRENCHMAN.

51

with solemn dignity on the mighty pulse of the sea
down towards the wreck, whose counter was often
awash when a sea hove her head up. Arthur sprang
upon the rail and waited. Rose watched with a white
face ; her eyes were on fire ; her lips were tightly set.
He was an Englishman and a sailor, and, desperate as
was the act, she would not have had it otherwise.
The Captain stood dumbly near the wheel, conning his
craft. There had been a silence in the schooner until
young Cochrane jumped upon the bulwarks, and then
all the people, clearly seeing his meaning, broke into a
roar of enthusiastic excitement. But no man offered
to take his place — ^not even Nassau. The schooner was
steered marvellously close, and under the wreck's
counter she was thrown up by a heavy rush of sea,
which at the same instant hove up the Frenchman's
stem. The woman was screaming to be saved, and
her husband was shouting to tier from the schooner's
deck. Where was young Cochrane? He had disap-
peared. Had he gone overboard? No, by Heaven!
he was clinging to an end of rope mercifully belayed
to a pin in the ship's taflErail, and in a few minutes he
had gained the deck.

* "Pay out line! pay out line!" roared Captain
Cochrane. *'Mind that the weight of the bight in the
hollow does not drag him overboard!"

*The young fellow, on scrambling on deck, had
whipped out his knife, and severed the seizings of a large
lifebuoy that was secured to the grating. The woman
clung to him, and, evidently half mad with terror, was
impeding his motions, whilst she yelled to him to save
her. He took the lifebuoy and jammed it securely
over the woman's head, and scarcely had he done so

52 ROSE ISLAND.

when the ship pitched heavily forwards, then sank in
her whole length, leaving a roar and maze of boiling
waters, through which Cochrane and the nnforttinate
woman were slowly dragged. The schooner had come
to a stand as close under the lee of the spot in which
the Frenchman had vanished as her dexterous steers-
man could manage to place her. *

.1

CHAPTER IV.

THE FRENCHMEN LEAVE.

Captain Tomson Foster, who had been relating his
story with great enjoyment and keen appreciation of
the act of heroism as a memory, was interrupted by a
squall of wet wind, which drove the ladies into the
cabin, and brought the topgallant yards on to the caps.
When he again resumed his yarn he proceeded thus :

*No sooner had the French ship disappeared than the
wind went out. The heaven of clouds hung white,
mute, and motionless, like a painted piece. The seas
lost their heads of foam, but they still ran fast and
with weight, savage in the mood of recollection.
Young Cochrane and his companion emerged out of
the vast bed of lifting and falling froth caused by the
Frenchman's sinking, and by the leap of the seas over
her vanishing frame. It was a wonderful picture.
There is nothing that puts so much significance into a
scene of life as a sinking ship, and people struggling
near her. This French ship had sunk with neither
bow nor stem uplifted. She had gone down like some-
thing sentient, wearied, beaten, going to her account
in dumb apathy and scorn of her gods. Now, though
Cochrane and the French woman were buoyed, and
attached to a line that communicated with the schooner,
they were in great danger of being drowned from the

53

54 ROSE ISLAND.

frequent leaps of the sea over them. The bight of the
line, too, was hammered out afar by those remorseless
liquid blows, and then there was the constant send of
the schooner. It required exquisite judgment and
Captain Cochrane's noble skill to bring those two
people in safety to the schooner's side. Bowlines on
the bight were then lowered, and in a few minutes they
were standing safe upon the deck of the Charmer,
The immensely fat Frenchman with a shrill scream of
**Is it possible?" rushed up to his wife and clasped her
saturated form to his orbicular breast, whereupon she
fainted.

' "She is dead!" he yelled.

'Rose rushed up to Arthur, and, grasping both his
dripping hands, cried, whilst she looked with stream-
ing eyes into his face :

' '* This is the noblest act in the world! A human life
saved^— a poor woman — oh, Arthur, how I envy you!"

*The Frenchmen pressed around. They were
extraordinarily enthuSiastia There was no country
like the English! No people in the world comparable
to the British sailor! Several hugged him, and two or
three kissed him. It was French fashion, and he
smiled at his own men, who stood looking on with but
little emotion of any sort expressed in their faces, and
endured the adoration of the Frenchmen until the
Captain arrived with a glass of brandy.

* **Will you take that poor woman to your cabin?"
said Captain Cochrane to Miss Island. '*We will dry
her clothes after you have undressed her." Then,
starting, he exclaimed: **She is not dead, I hope!"

•The fat Frenchman, with his eyes bubbling with
tears, cried:

THE FRENCHMEN LEAVE. 55

* •*! do not know; she is very heavy. It is a faint, I
hope. A little restorative "

* *'Take her into the cabin," repeated the Captain.
**Yon will find brandy there."

*And the fat Frenchman, assisted by one of his crew,
and accompanied by Rose, carried his wife into the
cabin.

* *• Arthur, go and shift yourself," said the Captain.
**Make sail, my lads! 'Tis fine weather at last, and
plenty of it, I hope."

*And in a few minutes the cheerful song or the
hoarse brawling note which the British seaman will
raise when he pulls a rope, if he can, sounded about
the decks, and soon the pretty little schooner was
clothed from gaflE-topsail to outer jib, the dark lines of
her loose reef points showing like the working fingers
of a human being as the marble-white sails swelled in
and out to the glory on high. And just there, or there
she went down — there it may be, in the heart of that
flashing space of sunshine, where the billows softening
in thin roll to the magic wand of peace which has been
stretched across the sky, made the splendour of the
French ship's tomb more radiant even than the
sparkles of the sunbeam by their reverberation of the
magnificence of the wide and spacious day of beauty
and solemn restful cloud, and horizon imdulating
softly.

*I have recounted this anecdote at large, because it
is one of those occurrences, very frequent at sea, which
landsmen somehow never get to hear of. If a train
runs off an embankment, and the guard covers himself
with glory by dragging an old woman with a broken
leg from the d^bris^ much is made of the event by the

56 ROSE ISLAND.

man of the daily papers; possibly a column is devoted
to the accident, and sometimes they print leading
articles. So of a honse on fire. A fireman rescues
two children from the blaze. Next day the papers are
full of this man and the fire. But magnificent
examples of British heroism at sea are never heard of.
Perhaps in a corner of your page you may read in five
lines how the mate of the ship London saved six
people by passing along a line to the wreck, or a noble
action is trimmed into a small paragraph in which the
writer, after a most bald and naked recital of the deed,
says that the Board of Trade presented the captain
with a telescope — ^no column of large type, no leading
article: it happened at sea; and although we are sup-
posed to be a maritime i)eople, the things which
happen at sea we take no note of, unless, indeed, a
great ocean liner founders. Then we trouble our-
selves, for most of the people drowned, rescued, or
otherwise concerned, are landsmen. Ladies and
gentlemen, you will pardon my warmth. I have long
used the sea, and know the merchant sailor, and I say
that his splendid manhood and bravery, when his
qualities as a seaman and a man are called upon, are
not done justice to.

•Captain Cochrane would not have very much
relished the cost and discomfort of the carrying of the
eleven people he had saved to Kingston, to which port
he was bound, as you know. They were nearly naked,
they were woe-begone wretches, yet most insuflEerably
grateful to their rescuers, repeatedly offering to shake
hands, striving often to kiss the rugged seamen, and so
forth. The woman's gratitude was pathetic. When
her clothes were dried and she was dressed, she made

THE FRENCHMEN LEAVE. 57

a respectable figure, in a bonnet and shawl — and the
bonnet did not seem the worse for having been hauled
through the sea. Late in the afternoon at the table,
she talked to Rose Island, related particulars of the
voyage, and how the ship came to be wrecked, which
happened because it was an old ship, and an over-
loaded ship — a ship that had no right to do business in
any waters deeper than her keel could rest on the
bottom of. The gale started her butts; the seamen
with frantic energy pumped and plied the buckets; the
foremast went over the side, and carried the rotten
mainmast with it ; and so she lay a miserable wreck,
defying the exhausted seamen by slowly filling her
hold with water. They hoisted a rag of French bunt-
ing and left the rest to Grod, seeing that two of their
boats Tiad been staved, and that if they had been
equipped with the boats of a man-of-war they durst not
have lowered them in that sea. Whilst she told her
story to Rose, who listened with grave sympathy and
fine eyes full of intelligence, Arthur Cochrane came
down the companion-steps. He bowed and was pass-
ing, when the French woman stopped him. She asked
him eagerly if he understood French. He answered :

* **Yes, a little. I can understand you if I cannot
speak well."

*She gazed at him with an adoring look of gratitude
and was silent a moment or two. Rose marked that
look, and saw how the eloquence of the soul can trans-
form the homeliest features into a countenance of
beauty — of beauty that might be compared to that
light which never was on land or sea. She then said:
• * "I owe you my life, and I have thanked you,
monsieur. But my thanks were not equal to the

S8 ROSE ISLAND.

ambition of my heart, which loves you with a sister's
love for your incomparable devotion. Monsieur, I am
a Catholic; I know not your faith: pure it must
be, and good, to rank such as you amongst its
believers."

'She put her hand in her bosom and produced a little
gold crucifix attached to a thin gold chain. "This,"
she said, **was given to me by my son, a mariner, who
perished at sea six years ago. He gave me this on
the eve of the last voyage, in which he lost his life.
He was my only child." She paused. "Will you,
monsieur," she said, approaching him by a step,
"accept this as the only memorial I am able to oflfer of
your beautiful devotion — the devotion, monsieur, that
He who rests upon that cross looks down upon with
love, and blesses?"

*He hesitated for an instant. The taking of that
cross was to his momentary impulse and reflection like
the spoliation of a grave, but the instincts of the
gentleman helped him, and, as it seemed to his hearers
without a pause, he said in such French as he could
muster:

* "I did but my duty, but I accept with pleasure and
with gratitude."

*0n this the poor woman, whose eyes were full of
tears, clasped the chain round Arthur's neck, and after
muttering some words with her eyes intent upon the
figure of the Saviour, she hid the little crucifix down
the neck of the seaman, kissing him first on one cheek,
then on the other, as though he had been her son or
brother.

* "I shall ever cherish this," said Arthur, tapping
his breast, "and remember with aflEection the good

THE FRENCHMEN LEAVE. 59

woman who parted with so valued an object for a mere
act of duty.'*

*It was, in its way, an aflEecting scene, and Rose
wept quietly.

* **I was saved by this schooner, and by him
chiefly," she said, pointing to Arthur, **who brought
me to life, and I have no giit to make — no such gift as
that," and she looked with some colour at young
Cochrane.

• ** Madam," said the Frenchwoman, **you have made
him the sweetest and finest gift in the world — the gift
of 'your life. It is a jewel, and happy will he be who
wears it."

'This made Cochrane smile, and perhaps more
civilities and kindnesses would have been exchanged,
for Rose spoke French with a very good accent, and
Arthur had scraped all he found necessary out of the
several French ports he had visited; but they were
interrupted by tlie entrance into the cabin of Mr.
Julius Nassau, who bowed with familiarity to both
ladies, and asked Cochrane, with the thick utterance of
the negro, whilst his eyes remained fixed on Rose, if
he had such a thing as a pipe of tobacco on him.

'Fortunately for the shipwrecked people, and more
fortunately for Captain Cochrane, on the morning of
the second day of the rescue a sail right ahead was
made out. It was a beautiful tropical morning. The
schooner had a yacht-like look, with her sparkling
decks and lofty canvas. The flying-fish swept in
winged bodkins of silver and pearl from the delicate
curl of brine at the Charmer's cutwater. Astern
glistened a short scope of wake, which shone in purples
and blues and greens like oil in the day beam. Far

6o ROSE ISLAND.

away on the lee-quarter was the star of some small
vessel bound northwards ; she gleamed as pale in the
mist of light upon the horizon as the moon reflected in
water. A tropical morning in those parallels through
which the Charmer was sailing on her way to Kings-
ton, Jamaica, is one of the glories, the delights, the
happinesses, of nature. The sea of a deep blue,
spread smooth to its limits; gentle undulations kindled
the flash of the sun as they passed through the water;
a delicate breeze had deepened the oceanic dye, and
every ripple ran with a mirthful song of its own. The
sky was delicately shredded into a marvellous fine
vapour; thin, wan, motionless, creating a ceiling for
the heavens which gave them the height the eye seeks
in vain in pure cloudless ether. The black, wet,
sparkling shape of some monster of the deep moved
leisurely a mile or two distant. As yet the heat was
not great. The sweetness and the freshness of the
night are still in such mornings, and if you are
on board a sailing ship you glide through the calm pro-
found almost imperceptibly; the sweet wind hushes
the sails; you look over, say from the margin of a
quarter boat, and see down past the ship*s glossy
sides, the reflection of those white cloths trembling
like streaming and draining pearl, as though the vessel
was set in a bed of light of her own making.

'On such a morning as this did the Charmer fall in
with a stranger, who, to the great satisfaction of Cap-
tain Cochrane, hoisted French colours. She was an
old-fashioned barque with painted ports and stump
top-gallant masts, and now and then she would give
herself a lazy swing as she came along, as though to
keep the fellows who were lounging over the windlass

THE FRENCHMEN LEAVE. 6i

ends awake. The Charmer hove to with a signal
signifying she desired to speak. The Frenchman
proved to be the Havre de Grace ^ from San Domingo
to Havre. Would she receive ten compatriots and a
lady? and here Cochrane, discovering that the skipper
spoke English, roared out briefly the story of the
rescue. The French captain lifted his arm in a gesture
of salutation and^ acquiescence, and then followed a
moving scene. Two of the schooner's boats were
lowered to take the men, and before the Frenchmen
entered them they must needs take a farewell of the
Charmer's ship's company. This they did with the
most extravagant motions and behaviour of gratitude.
T)iey offered to kiss Captain Cochrane, but he was too
salt to stand that sort of thing, and backed clear ^^nth
pleasant laughter. The Frenchmen on board the
barque clearly witnessed this leave-taking, and under-
stood all the meaning of it, and they fell to flourishing
their caps and shouting, and crowded about the gang-
way to receive the shipwrecked men and woman.
Captain Cochrane went up to Rose Island, who stood
near Arthur on the quarter-deck watching what was
going forward, and asked her if she would like to
return to Europe in that vessel, which he was sure
would gladly receive her and treat her handsomely.
She coloured, bit her lip, her eyes glowed. She
glanced at young Cochrane, and then said to the
Captain :

You know I am going to Kingston."
Yes, we all know that,** answered the Captain.
But that ship's going straight for France, and you
could make your way to England, which I thought
you might prefer to "

C C(

« <<

C4

6a ROSE ISLAND.

* **Unless you throw me overboard," she inter-
rupted, with some vehemence, **just as I accidentally
fell overboard, I will remain in this schooner. I am
perfectly happy and perfectly comfortable. You will
gain nothing by sending me on board that ship, for I
would jump into the water and swim after you. You
know at least that I can float."

* At this Captain Cochrane and his son laughed, and
a look was exchanged beween Arthur and Miss Island
which was not lost upon Captain Cochrane. Whilst
the French people were being transhipped, Julius
Nassau leaned against the bulwark rail in the waist
watching them, with an end of black cigar in his
mouth, the glowing tip of which was in excellent cor-
respondence with the man's eyes. Next him, likewise
leaning, was the man called Old Stormy. He acted as
boatswain on board the schooner, but his rating was
not entered, and his pay therefore was not that of a
boatswain, at which he was in the habit of grumbling,
for Old Stormy was a man of grievances. He was
exactly like the rough sailors described by Marryat
and depicted with much extravagance by the pencil of
Cruikshank. His walk was a roll. He had the stage
trick of hitching up his breeches. He wore his cap,
as Jack says, on nine hairs. His breast was much
exposed, and his muscular arms, thick as the trunk of
a young tree, were wild with devices. Discipline was
greatly relaxed on board the Charmer^ as I have said,
and Old Stormy was the man to consider himself quite
as good as, and a sight better than, a bloody nigger.
So he conversed with Julius Nassau.

* **I guess," said he, * 'they'll be making a fuss over
this here rescue when that ship arrives at Havre."

THE FRENCHMEN LEAVE. 63

< ti/

The rescue," answered Nassau, with an ugly
look at his whiskered companion, '*is entirely owing
to one man — s'elp me God, I say it! — ^and his name's
Ben Black."

• **Yes," answered Old Stormy; ''that was a bit of
steering worth talking about. Power times oflE the
slant into the yawn, then making her square her whole
length with that dipping counter. Bloom me if it 'ud
be believed."

* *'The Captain *ull get all the credit," said Nassau,
whom by this single observation one might know for a
scoundrel, because no officer who is not a scoundrel
ever dreams of talking against his Captain to the men.
** They'll say he conceived the job and carried it out,
and Lloyd's 'uU present him with a piece of plate, and
the French Government with a magnificent binocular
glass, and perhaps the Stock Exchange may take a
fancy to the business, and if they do, they'll have him
down to view him and cheer him, and he'll walk away
with a hatful of gold ; whilst you and me and others
of the ship's company, who stood to be smashed and
sent to the bottom, if it 'ud been Cabbage instead of
Black, don't even get a thank you, not a nod, by the
heart of my mother!"

* **What do that old owl of youm say about 'eroes?"
exclaimed Old Stormy, turning suddenly upon the
young man Wilkinson, who stood near listening.

• ** Don't know about heroes," answered the young
man with wonderful promptitude; **but I know he
says this, that so far from it being true that men are
by natar equal, no two people can't be found half an
hour together but one shall be found superior to the
other."

64 ROSE ISLAND.

*He smiled at Nassau, who frowned back at him
with hideous face and snarling lips.

• **Of course they'll make young Cochrane the hero
of this job," said Julius. ** Would he have done it
hadn't a pretty girl been on board to see him go
through one of the cheapest and safest performances
that's to be met with at sea? What was it? Plenty
of life-line, body well buoyed, the distance as wide as
a biscuit, and he leaps and catches hold of the woman
and buoys her — 'tis a farce, but they'll make a high
tragedy of it ashore."

• **You stood by and looked on," said Old Stormy;
••whether it was a wide leap or whether it wam't, ye
looked on."

• *'I was nearly jumping — ^just had the spirit of the
resolution in my toes and hands," answered the negro
mate, **when I saw him standing all ready, with that
fine girl he's talking to looking on. Do you think, you
scoundrel," he shouted, suddenly and fiercely turning
upon the young man Wilkinson, ''f or all your cursed
Johnsons, that I wouldn't have jumped?"

*The young man slunk forward. He did not like
this nigger mate, and was afraid of him.

• **Well, what's the odds how he's rewarded if we're
to be out of it?" grumbled Old Stormy.

• **I would rather that any man but him should get
the honour and the rewards," blazed out the mate, but
in a subdued voice. ** Someone called him handsome;
a curse upon such beauty as his! Do you see," he
cried eagerly, ''a handsomer man in that lady's hero
than in Overalls or Ben Black? Both are manly-look-
ing sailors. That chap might be a grocer's assistant"

•This was carrying the conversation into a matter

THE FRENCHMEN LEAVE. 65

that Old Stormy did not understand or wish to pursue.
He said :

* "The best-looking man I know is Tom Shadwell,
who keeps the Waterloo public-house in the Waterloo
Road. I am very fond of that man. He's a friend of
mine. He's got but one eye, but 1*11 tell yer what,
with t'other he'll draw ye fair measure, and the best at
that. Give him a trial if you stTould be that way."

'Nassau looked a little haughtily, and the red in his
eyes glittered as he cast his deep-set orbs upon his
companion. He was mate, and the other did not seem
to know it. His mood changed, and he said:

* ** What's the general opinion of the Captain
amongst you?"

* "We ain't got no opinion," answered Old Stormy.
"If we had, it shouldn't get aft."

'Nassau smiled.

' "Well," said he, with a note of carelessness in his
speech as he made to go, "Captain Cochrane and his
son may be very nice gents for a ladies' tea-party, but,
s' help me, by my mother's memory I never knew any
two men say tauter things of his ship's company than
Captain Cochrane and his handsome son"

' "Let them say what they like, and be damned!"
said Old Stormy, with an air of real indifference. "I
shall leave ye at Kingston. Had enough of small
hookers, I have. Don't like the ship's bread. Don't
like the hole they call the fo'c's'le, and I don't like
being called bo's'n when I don't fill the orfice and
don't get the pay of it."

* "You'll not leave the schooner at Kingston, I hope!"
exclaimed the mate, looking with intense earnestness
at him for a moment; and he then lounged right aft,

66 ROSE ISLAND.

and stood with folded arms in Napoleonic posture
close against the man at the wheel, with his fiery little
eyes fixed upon Miss Rose Island, who, the boats not
having yet returned from the Frenchman, stood in
eager conversation with Arthur, her gaze full of light,
her smiles full of pleasure. Once the helmsman
looked round, wondering what that noise could be. It
was Nassau grinding his teeth.

'Incidents, ladies and gentlemen, are rare upon the
deep. You shall make a long voyage and find nothing
worth relating on your return. Trifles, therefore,
become important, and the meeting of two ships and
their speaking each other, whether by flags, or whether
by heaving to and hailing in the old-fashioned style, is
an event which will be the talk of the passengers for a
week. Cochrane had no passengers, but still his meet-
ing that Frenchman was of interest to him. It will
hardly be thought that the sturdy old sea-captain had
the strong poetic instinct, and that he saw beauties
with a silent eye, but with a quick heart.

'The two boats had left the Frenchman, and the
schooner's men were hoisting them to the davits. Sail
was then trimmed aboard both vessels, and the ripple
broke from the schooner's bow. A large fish leapt a
hundred fathoms distant, and great coils of brine went
flashing from the place of its disappearance to the
steady stroke of the sun. The Frenchman dipped his
farewell, and the British ensign was run up and down
thrice at the gaflE-end of the schooner in courteous
return. This is how they say ** Good-bye" at sea; but
the Frenchman went beyond the muteness of bunting:
all his people, reinforced by the ten men saved, and by
the poor woman, who stood beside her fat husband,

THE FRENCHMEN LEAVE. 67

gathered upon the short poop, and sang at the top of
their voices **God save the Queen!" Their voices
came finely over the waters ; they kept time, and sang
with taste, introducing harmonizing notes. The Eng-
lish ensign was kept half-masted, just as you take ofiE
your hat when you hear the anthem. Cochrane, his
son, and Rose, stood together watching the Frenchman
receding, and listening to the singing.

Her stem is as broad as a house,'' said Rose.
She wants the right number of sails, and those she
has are not very white, and she floats with the clumsi-
ness of a cask. What makes her beautiful?" added the
girl musingly.

* ** Distance, colour, light," exclaimed Captain
Cochrane. **She is made a gem of by the setting of
the sea. The spirit of all that is beautiful in this beau-
tiful day is in her as it is in us if we were viewed at a
distance. Look how white is the sunshine upon her
sails! how those dirty old windows in her counter or in
her stern drop flakes of light into the water, and
sparkle as though they were diamonds ! The sea-line
runs in a blue hair past her, and because it encom-
passes her. Miss Rose, she is beautiful."

* **I never heard you so eloquent before, father,"
laughed Arthur. ** Could you believe, Rose, that he
has a sight that sees more than his most powerful
telescope tells him?"

* **How can I match such fine language, and how can
I see poetry where all is matter-of-fact?" said the girl.
**See how her sails shudder as she slightly rolls, and
so she goes trembling into a toy, and one on board of
her will never forget you, Arthur, or cease to ask God
in her prayers to bless you. Such acts as yours are the

68 ROSE ISLAND.

poetry of the deep. What do you say, Captain Coch-
rane?"

* **Too much has been made of it/' answered the
Captain, in a true deep-sea growl, but with a look,
nevertheless, of real pride at his handsome son.

* **I agree with father," said Arthur. ** The story
has gone away in that barque, and we want no more of
it here."

'Captain Cochrane, after speaking, had gone towards
the companion, through which he sank. Julius
Nassau came from beside the wheel to the couple, and
asked Arthur if he would keep his look-out.

* **Yes," answered Arthur briefly; and Julius, after
an impassioned look at the girl, which wasvastonishing
for its audacity, smiled at her, touched his cap, and
walked away.

* There is an ugliness in man that is a sickness to
women. I cannot persuade myself that Jack Wilkes'
beauty lagged in his speech, as he boasted, half an
hour behind his face, neither can I believe that
Desdemona was ever seriously in love with Othello.
Rose involuntarily shuddered as Julius Nassau walked
away from her, and said to Arthur:

* **What an extraordinary looking man this mate of
yours is!"

* **Don't you admire his attire?" Arthur answered,
laughing. **I envy his white breeches tucked into his
half -boots, and the yellow girdle round the waist of his
monkey-jacket. He reckons himself a beauty, and is
fond of striking attitudes. I have watched him, when
he has thought himself unobserved, writhing in pre-
posterous postures."

* **He would like to be an actor," said Rose, **and 1

THE FRENCHMEN LEAVE. 69

believe he would just hit the taste of certain audi-
ences."

' ''He would like to be an actor," said Arthur, ''of
piratic and slaving parts. But not on the stage, not
within the scent of the orange-girl. In my humble
opinion the fellow is a scoundrel, with antecedents as
red as a pirate flag; and, comparatively young as he
is, he might be able to lift the hair upon our heads by
personal narratives of exploits, both as a slaver and a
pirate. I disliked him when I saw him. I have hated
him ever since, with his cursed familiar airs, and his
way of [talking to the sailors, so that, by some black
art known to himself, he seems to possess an influence
over them. They have no respect for him, and call
him a nigger to his face."

' "'What made your father take such a man as the
mate of his schooner?" asked Rose.

* ** Partly a whim, partly a necessity. He told me
those half-bloods made first-class sailors, and certainly
this fellow is no exception to the rule. ' *

' **I should have refused to sail under him had I
been you," said Rose, looking at him with that expres-
sion of admiration which was seldom absent from her
eyes when her gaze rested upon him.

* '* There was some bother," said Arthur, "about the
mate we had shipped. He left the vessel without a
note, and my father took this man instead. I have had
little to do with him throughout the voyage. He hates
me — perhaps because lam white," he added, laugh-
ing. **I joined to please my father; moreover, I was
disappointed in two berths, one of which I was sure of.
I am not on the articles, but sail as a sort of passen-
ger; but, whenever necessary, I act as second mate."

70 ROSE ISLAND.

*The wind was very light. The schooner moved
soundlessly and softly through the sea. The French-
man was a square of white, like a butterfly, upon the
waters. The heat was dry and pleasant, and the
draught of air fanned the cheek, and there was the
shadow of the short awning for shelter. The men
about the deck were at several jobs. The discipline
was very scanty, as I have explained, and they talked,
and laughed, and squirted tobacco-juice over the rail.
Right in the **eyes** was a fellow washing himself.
He was draped for decency in dungaree breeches.
The blue brine, brimming to the rim, rose in the
bucket he soused himself with, and the sound was
refreshing, and the sight was a sea-piece — a little
comer of canvas full of colour and the truth, with the
man's black hair slabbed like paint down his face, and
his yellow body curving as he drew up his bucket.

* **It is as pleasant as yachting, if it was not for that
monkey Nassau," said Rose; and she drew her com-
panion aft to the shadow of the awning, and talked to
him about the time when they played together as chil-
dren on the deck of the old Swan in their memorable
voyage to Philadelphia.

CHAPTER V.

THE PLAGUE SHIP.

*The night was fine and calm. The moon shone in
glory, and she cast a wake that sank in a shaft of
splendour to the very bottom of the sea. Rich stars
trembled over the mast-heads of the schooner, which
slipped through the water like a shape of marble, save
for the dark rails and patches of the shadow of her
sails that defined her. A man was at the wheel, and
each time he looked towards the moon his whiskers
were silvered. Full in the moonlight, a little forward
of the main-mast, was Julius Nassau, whose watch on
deck it was. He was conversing with two or three
men, and seemed scarcely to heed that. he had the
look-out. He was telling yarns. They were yams
which did not concern glory or heroism at sea, but
yams of the slaver, and hardly darker yet, yams of the
pirate. One would not say, however, that he related
these stories merely to amuse. He praised the life of
the pirate, and said that it was the easiest and safest
life to follow that the sea provides, and to prove this he
would give instances, and the men would murmur as
he talked.

'They seemed to like these yams. They certainly
had heard some of them before, and it was pretty sure
that they also listened to Nassau's advocacy of marine

71

72 ROSE ISLAND.

scoundrelism. He seemed to have got the history
of the pirates by heart, and was unquestionably
acquainted with the slaving districts on the West Coast
of Africa — the slavers' methods of doing business, the
value of a slave, man, woman, or child.

* "You see,'* he said, ** these black people are wanted
by the planters of South America and the West Indies,
and if one don't fetch 'em another will, and let the
navy ships do their best, they'll never hinder the
traffic."

'Meanwhile, aft in the little cabin sat three persons
engaged in eating their supper. Needless to say, they
were Captain Cochrane, his son, and Miss Rose Island.
Rose looked curiously pretty. Many who might have
merely glanced at some average type of pretty woman
would have found themselves staring at her. She had
a serpentine, enfolding way with her, and the man who
came within the embrace of what, by extravagant
image, I must describe as her coils, would, you might
say, find it hard to shift clear of them. All her
postures had a something serpentine about them — the
enwreathing of her arms, the turns of her head, the
movements of her body, and then her face heightened
the suggestion. It was romantic with its delicate
curves, fascinating with its full orb of sight, and her
mouth was small, and her teeth were small. The
lamp shone full upon her, and whenever she spoke it
was with vivacity. Captain Cochrane often looked at
her, but not so often as his son.

'And so they sat in that little cabin making their
supper, whilst Nassau forward talked the language of
the dreams of Newgate,

I never should have thought," said Captain Coch-

i it

THE PLAGUE SHIP. 73

rane, **that the little girl who used to play on board
the old Swan along with my son there could have
grown into so fine a young woman. "

• **I should have known your son," she answered,
with a blush and a gratified smile.

* ** Behind all this sunburn?** said he, laughing;
**and, mind you, it's fifteen or sixteen years ago."

* "Some girls have good memories. I have an
excellent one," she answered.

• **But to think, too, of our saving your life," said
Captain Cochrane. ** After all, it's astonishing you
should have floated. You fell out of a port, and must
have sunk. Up you come again on your back in a
swoon ; and so we find you with never a shark to take
notice, nor one of your wet petticoats to drag ye
down."

*The interior of that cabin was one of those old,
pleasant marine pieces which are seldom to be found
in these days, though I'm aware wherever you fall in
with the English collier and with certain timber-built
ships of foreign States there you will meet with cosy
little holes for the skipper and his mate to live in.
This cabin was a sort of gfray, and it took the light of
the lamp well. The flash of the burning wicks was
stronger than moonlight down there, and the cabin
looked always bright.

'Against the bulkhead, past which Arthur Cochrane
was in the habit of disappearing when he went to bed,
was a small stand of arms, and some old-fashioned
pistols were hung up near it. The muskets were of
various patterns, and looked like the remains of goods
with which the slavers were in the habit of trucking.
But nothing of the kind. These were all respectable

74 ROSE ISLAND.

weapons, honestly laid in, for I am now talking to you
about a long time ago, when the black flag and the
flag of the slaver were still afloat, and when even the
master of so small a schooner as the Charmer did not
think fit to put to sea without being able to show a few
teeth if he should be annoyed. There was also plenty
of ammunition in the hole in which the younger
Cochrane slept. Nothing else, perhaps, beyond the
general aspect of the place, to retain the eye. The
companion steps fell in a short flight from the naked
deck ; the lockers were good and ample. The cabin
was equipped with certain conveniences in the shape of
swing trays, and a long, old-fashioned barometer — but
very Gospel in its declarations — was nailed against the
mainmast, which came through the upper deck and
vanished through the lower. Rose looked about her a
little in the silence that followed the reference to her
falling overboard. She then said: '

* **How long do you expect it will take you to get to
Kingston?"

* ** About ten days or a fortnight," answered the
Captain, pulling out his pipe. **We are not steam.
Miss Rose, and we depend upon the airs of heaven."

* **Do you return to England direct from Kings-
ton?"

' **No," answered the Captain. ** Having dis-
charged, we shall seek a cargo coast-wise. Failing
that, I intend to go away to Australia."

* **A good round voyage," laughed Arthur, whose
eyes constantly sought Rose's face; and the girl
seemed to know it, and to talk as though all she felt
and said had direct reference behind it to her hand-
some young friend.

THE PLAGUE SHIP. 75

#

* **But you will stop long enough at Kingston to
enable me to see a great deal of both of you? Two
dear old friends who have saved me from drowning,
and to lose sight of them soon!"

•And here she looked at Arthur, and Arthur, with a
heightened light in his eye, smiled at her; and the
skipper smoked his pipe.

* ** After discharging," said the old salt, dropping
his words betwixt puffs at the pipe he lighted in the
old-fashioned style with a flint and steel, **we may sail
next day, or hang about the place for weeks whilst I
find out if we can get anything to carry."

* ** Suppose we go to Australia," said Arthur,
looking a little eagerly at. the girl. "Why do you
want to leave the little hooker? I will see that your
berth is made a boudoir of" — Captain Cochrane
rounded his eyes at his son — **and we will promise
you a long, delicious yachting tour."

'At that moment they heard the cry of "Sail ho!"
sounding in the music of a bass voice from the bows of
the schooner.

* "Where away?" was the answering cry of Julius
Nassau.

*This man had left the others, and was now in his
proper place on the quarterdeck. His figure shone like
faint brass in the moonlight, and his shadow on the
white plank seemed as deeply scored as though a
marvellously-finished piece of black wood had been let
in; but the ugly coarse figure of the whole man pre-
vailed, and there was nothing the moonbeam could
idealize in the shadow it threw for him. Captain
Cochrane rose from the cabin table, and, followed by
the others, went on deck. The moment Rose Island

76 ROSE ISLAND.

appeared in the companion, Julius Nassau, who stood
close, said:

' ''There's the ship, miss. See how beautiful she
looks in the moon."

*This was a piece of infernal impudence on the part
of this black mate. The Captain took no notice, and
stepped to the rail, and looked over to sight the ship.
Arthur was hot, and stared at the man, who continued
to observe Rose as if he thought she would answer
him. She stepped to the side of the Captain in
silence, and Nassau walked right aft. It was bad
discipline — it was gross impudence — to address the
lady in the Captain's presence. Some might have
imagined an element of alarm, of something to quicken
doubt into apprehension, by the fellow's beastly cool-
ness. I believe Captain Cochrane accepted him as
he submitted himself, as a coloured rascal, without
knowledge or manners. He was a simple-hearted
man, was poor Cochrane, possessed of that sort of
heart which goes to the making of the Tom Bowlings
and the Tom Toughs of the ocean. He loved a good
sailor, and certainly Nassau was that if nothing else.
The vessel was clear in the moonlight. She floated on
the deep almost ahead, a little on the starboard or
right-hand bow. What is there on land to parallel the
mystery and the beauty of a ship under sail, glazed by
the moonlight, resting solitary under the stars — a
wraith, a phantom, clothed with that silence of the sea
which passeth all tmderstanding? The darkness yields
her and absorbs her. Nothing beautiful in the shape
of mystery crosses your midnight heath on shore. It
is a shock; it is something to bring the sweat upon
the brow; you step swiftly from it, clutching your stick

, THE PLAGUE SHIP. 77

and turning fearful glances. But a ship under sail, on
such a placid night as this, woos the eye. She may be
full of people, but the silence of death is there. The
black circle winds round her, and presses like some-
thing .material all its significance of majestic and
eternal solitude into her.

* ** Which way is she heading?" said Captain Coch-
rane.

'Arthur gave him the glass, which Nassau had laid
upon the skylight. They say you cannot see through
a telescope at night upon the ocean with the distinct-
ness the binocular gives you. I beg to differ. Cap-
tain Cochrane levelled the tubes and resolved the
vessel, which shone in the moonbeams, into a small
ship. She was not apparently under government.
Her yards were not all braced the same way. She was
not, therefore, moving. She rested like something at
anchor, and was instantly an appeal to the nautical
eye.

* **What do you think of her, Arthur?" said the
skipper, after his son had taken a long look.

* **She seems to be abandoned," answered the young
man.

* **That may be so, unless all her people are lying
drunk below," said Captain Cochrane.

Mutiny, may be, and desertion," said Arthur.
Good gracious!" murmured Rose; **how full of
shocking romances the sea is!"

* "But you don't hear a particle of them," said Cap-
tain Cochrane, with a short laugh. **The man who is
washed ashore with a knife in his heart is a mystery.
Could he speak, he could tell much that would make
the blood rim cold. Hundreds have not been washed

C C(

78 ROSE ISLAND.

ashore. They have gone to their account as privily as
a dog hides himself to die. When the Last Day
comes, I should not like to be some of the sailors who
stand up to the general muster,"

'It was about nine o'clock in the evening. The sea
lay smooth, and trembled to the light breeze. The
Charmer, slipped onward towards the motionless craft.
When within an easy stroke of the oar of her, the
schooner hove-to. It might be guessed, by the glisten-
ing of the moonshine in her sides, that she was painted
green. She had a white rail around her poop, and she
looked a stout, well-built and well-found little ship.
The yards were not braced, as though to bring the
vessel to a stand; they lay in that sort of fashion
which they might take when men sick or weary had
feebly essayed to haul upon the braces and dropped
the ropes. It was thought that she was not abandoned,
although no sign of human being was visible, because
they saw a light shining in a cabin window, just abaft
the mizzen-rigging. Captain Cochrane hailed her.
He did not need a speaking-trumpet. He could sling
his voice like a piece of iron, and the vessels lay near
to each other.

* ''Ship ahoy!** shouted the skipper.

'There was no answer, save the cat-like purring of
the wind in the rigging of the schooner, whilst a faint
echo of "ahoy" could be heard in the sails of the silent
ship. Thrice did Captain Cochrane hail the vessel.
All the men in the schooner were on deck, and every
man was dodging and ducking to catch a sight of any-
thing alive in the ship. There could be no doubt,
then, that she was deserted: but as Captain Cochrane 's
curiosity was excited by a very uncommon spectacle —

THE PLAGUE SHIP. 79

for the burning light proved the ship had been freshly-
quitted — ^he ordered his son to lower a boat and go
aboard, and make his report.

* **Oh, Arthur, I wish I could go with you!"
exclaimed Rose.

* **Perhaps you wouldn't presently," he answered,
with a laugh.

*A boat was lowered and brought to the gangway,
and three men, with Arthur in the stem sheets, put
oflf. They approached the ship cautiously, the rowers
often looking behind them. When they were within a
ship's length of her, they paused and examined her
earnestly. The light evidently proceeded from a lamp
in the cabin beyond, and, through the door being
opened, was visible in the port-hole.

' **I never seed anything more abandoned in all my
time," said Ben Black.

"* Let's all hullo together," said Cabbage. '*That
may waken 'em."

*They shouted at the top of their voices and listened.
They were answered by the sob of the dark water
washing along the bends, and by the dull flap of some
square canvas aloft.

' *• We'll make for the main-chains. Give way, my
lads," said Arthur.

*In a minute or two they were alongside, and young
Cochrane, springing into the bows of the boat, was the
first to gain the ship's deck. He looked around him.
The moonlight lay as white as frost upon the planks.
The moon was on the other side, and the shadow she
made of the rigging and masts streamed like lines of
ink upon the bulwarks abreast. Young Cochrane's
eye was immediately attracted by the figure of a man

8o ROSE ISLAND.

seated in a squatting posture on the edge of the main
hatch. His arms were folded, and his head was sunk
as though in deep thought, or deeper sleep. Arthur
and the sailor Black went up to him, shook him by the
shoulder, called to him, stooped and examined his face
by the clear light

* "Why," says young Cochrane, "this man is
dead!"

*He was dressed in the costume of the forecastle
sailor, and wore a jacket over his coloured shirt which
suggested, as the night was exceedingly warm, that he
had died suddenly whilst keeping watch.

* "There are three more yonder!" exclaimed Cab-
bage, and they trudged away to abreast of the fore-
mast, where they beheld three men in as many
postures. They were all dead. There could be no
doubt of that. Their faces were the faces of the dead,
and Cochrane, with a face of horror, looked round him,
and cried :

•"What is it?"

* "The crew's been poisoned!" exclaimed Black.

* "It ain't the first crew that's been poisoned by a
ship's cargo on the high seas. Smell now, mates.
D'ye smell it in the breeze?"

'They sniffed and snuffled, and Black said: Yes, he
could smell it.

'Probably it was imagination on his part. Young
Cochrane found the breeze sweet as usual. Cabbage
exclaimed that he wasn't going to stop in a stink that
killed men.

' "One of her boats is gone," said young Cochrane.
"Some, therefore, have escaped with their lives, and
that quite recently. You can get into the boat, men,

THE PLAGUE SHIP. 8i

and wait for me. I must see more, if I've got to make
a report."

'Cabbage said he wasn't afraid. Then Black joined
Overalls in the boat, in which he remained to tend her.
All the four dead men on deck were what people are
accustomed ashore to call ** common sailors." There
were no more figures visible. Very slowly, and snuf-
fing as he went, Cochrane entered the cabin, followed
by Cabbage, whose eyes roamed in superstitious alarm.
A lamp hung amidships, and was burning. It was about
half-past nine; the lamp possibly was not lighted
before dusk, and if she was abandoned the men who
had left her had gone away but an hour or two before.
It was a plain little cabin, strong and snug, with two
berths on either hand. In one of those berths Coch-
rane caught sight of a figure on the deck prone on his
face, with his arms out, and his fingers clenched.

* **If it ain't the cap'n, it'uU be the mate," said
Cabbage.

* And they turned him over, and holding the lantern
to his face saw, as though the truth were written upon
his brow, that he was dead. This was a good-looking
man, dressed in a gray suit, and was. probably the mate
of the ship. Cochrane mused a minute upon him.
Cabbage, who continued to snuffle, exclaimed :

* **It's blowsy strong here! I'm not for smelling
merely to die of my curiosity. Why, I may have
cotched the plague in the very breath I'm a-drawing!"
saying which he left the cabin, and Cochrane, lantern
in hand, inspected the berths for information of the
ship. He discovered that she was the Euphrasia^ of
six hundred and fifty tons, bound from Calcutta to
Dundee with jute, linseed, and other commodities. He

82 ROSE ISLAND.

could undeniably taste a smell down here which was
oflfensive and oppressive, though subtle. It might
have arisen from the sweating of the cargo, or of such
of it as could yield the miasmatic stench which rose
through every opening into the men's quarters, and
aft into the cabin.

'Arthur did not choose to linger. He had seen
enough. He was not a superstitious man, but some-
how he did not like the idea of being alone with that
body in the little cabin, nor had he any notion of
poisoning himself because his father wanted an account
of the ship. He went on deck, and whilst passing the
main chains to regain the boat, he looked at the sea on
the port side, tind clear in the wake of moonlight was
a spot of ink. It was a boat. He shaded his eyes
from the brilliant luminary, and made sure that it was
a boat. He then sprang into his own boat, singing out:
* **Push off; there's a boat to the eastwards."
*They thrust the boat clear, and went away with a
steady pulse of oar for the boat, answering the
schooner's hail by saying they saw her. The night
breeze was cool, the starry scene of night serene.
The water rippled against the sides of the stricken
ship, and filled the air with the sound of many foun-
tains. They heard Captain Cochrane order the helm
to be shifted: sail was trimmed, and the schooner fol-
lowed her boat to the other boat. It is scarcely to be
s^id she was moving. Perhaps they had given up
rowing now they saw the schooner and the boat mak-
ing for them. Two black stripes of oar rose and fell
in the moonlight with the languor of the arms of a
drowning swimmer. Young Cochrane was speedily
alongside.

THE PLAGUE SHIP. 83

'Oars! What boat are you?"

We belong to that ship there," answered the man
in a weak voice. **We caught sight of you beyond the
schooner in the moonshine and returned."

* **Are you two all of the crew who are living?"

* **Two have died," was the answer, "since we
shoved oflf. They were dying when we went, but they
were alive, and we couldn't leave them."

* **Have you buried them?" exclaimed Cochrane, in
a voice of consternation, whilst a murmur that sounded
very like terror sounded amongst his own three men.

'The speaker in the boat, silvered by the moon-
light, showed ashen as a ghost. He wore a beard, and
you could see the ice-like sparkle of the moonlight in
his eyes. He was clothed in the garb of a common
seaman, as was the other, who throughout remained
seated. The speaker stood for a minute or two, then
sat. The schooner was now close at hand. She was
thrown into the wind, and Captain Cochrane hailed his
son to come with both boats aboard.

* **Take our painter, for God's sake!" said the
speaker in the boat, **mymate and me can't row no
f urder. ' '

*This was done. The men were helped up the
schooner's side, whose boat was hoisted to her place,
leaving the other nibbling the water under the gang-
way. Captain Cochrane immediately saw that the
poor fellows were much too exhausted to tell their yarn
at once. He told them to sit, and gave them rum and
food. Rose looked on with tender pity, and the crew
of the schooner gathered about, and amongst those
who assembled, and watched the unfortunate men,
was Julius Nassau, whose arms were folded, whose

84 ROSE ISLAND.

head was hung, his right leg crooked and projected.
Arthur gave his father, and necessarily the crew, all
the information he had been able to collect.

* **What is she doing so far to the westward?"
exclaimed the Captain, in accents of horror.

* ** They're all dead," said Black, speaking loudly
to one of the crew. **My gracious boots! Ye should
see that chap, just like life, on the main hatch; and
they lies thick as the shadow of their shrouds against
the foremast."

* "They ain't going to stop here, I hope," said Old
Stormy. **As it is, they may have brought death
along with them, and dum me if I don't stink a stench
which certainly wom't here before they came aboard."

'He snufHed, and Overalls snuffled, and then they
spat in company.

*The grog seemed to do the two men good, and they
listened with interest to Arthur's account of his visit
to the ship. Then the man. who had spoken to Arthur
in the boat told the story — ^as much, at least, as he
knew of it. He said that all went well with them until
they arrived at the Cape of Good Hope. There two of
the crew deserted at Cape Town, and two others were
taken in their room. Both these men were Afrikan-
ders, or something of that sort, and two days after
sailing they were both taken ill and died suddenly, one
six hours after the other. Then one of the crew sick-
ened and died. Some sort of plague was undoubtedly
on board, caused, not by the linseed and jute, but by
the importation of the two yellow sailors at Cape
Town. Day after day the men died, and the captain
died, and the man the gentleman saw in the cabin
lying on his face was the mate of the ship. There

THE PLAGUE SHIP. 85

were but four alive when the ship reached these parts ;
two of them were very ill, but they were alive, and a
man doesn't abandon a living shipmate. There was
no navigation. The ship was anyhow, and the four
made up their minds to lower a boat and go away,
trusting to be picked up. That was only a few hours
ago, before the schooner hove in sight. The two sick
men got into the boat, and the others followed, with
some provisions and water, and they went away. In
an hour's time one of the sick men died, and was put
over the side, and a little later the other fell down into
the bottom of the boat, and when he was looked at he
was seen to be dead. That was the men's story.
They had nothing more to tell, except that the one
who spoke in the boat said that he had lighted the
cabin lamp to find some provisions in the pantry.

'Ladies and gentlemen, this seems an incredible
story of the swiftness of death at sea, but as surely as
the pitying angels looked down upon that shocking day
by day picture, so surely is it true. It was not the
cholera, it was a plague of some sort, but there was no
doctor there to name it. Neither man could explain
how it was that the ship was so far to the westward.
It was want of navigation, they supposed, and foul
winds.

Well, my lads, ' ' said the worthy Captain Cochrane,

I am glad to have preserved even two of you. Get
you forward, and rest yourselves."

*The pictiire was this at that moment: The two
men had been drinking rather than eating on the sky-
light. Around them stood the whole ship's company,
listening, all saving Wilkinson, who was afraid of the
plague, and went to the man at the wheel, and told

86 ROSE ISLAND.

f

him what he thought Dr. Johnson would have said of
such a dreadful business. The moonlight bathed the
faces ; nearest to the men were the Captain and his
son, Rose and Nassau. The silence of the night was
upon the sea, and the terrible significance of this tale
of death came like the very spirit of the tragedy itself
into the story from yonder ship, lying pale as snow on
a mountain-side — a floating coffin, with a lading of
unburied men. Now, no sooner had the Captain let
fall the words **and rest yourselves," than Old Stormy
exclaimed, in a voice of thunder:

* **No, by God, Captain! We're a good and willing
crew, but them two men aren't a-going to stop aboard
of us."

* **What?" shouted the Captain, in a note of pure
dismay and disgust.

* **We never shipped to die of the plague," said
Cabbage, **Them two men don't take no rest for-
ward, nor in this schooner. "

*The two poor fellows looked ghastly in the white-
ness, as, still seated in their weariness, they turned
their faces upon the speakers.

* **What would you have me do?" shouted the Cap-
tain, in a sudden great passion. ** These are English-
men — they are fellow-beings. Am I to send them to
their doom because some cowards amongst you fear
the consequence of a righteous act?"

* **Captain Cochrane," said Old Stormy, **we don't
want no fine words and no appeals. Them two men
aren't a-going to stop here. Is that right, mates?"

* ** Right — ay, of course it's right," growled the men
in chorus, in a tone that left no room for misinterpre-
tation.

THE PLAGUE SHIP. 87

* "And if they don't get into their boat of their own
accord," continued Old Stormy, whose voice seemed
to shake with terror and temper, **by God, we*ll heave
'em into it!"

* There was a moment's silence. Nassau, taking a
step which brought him close to Rose, exclaimed :

* **Lay your commands upon me, and I will do your
bidding."

* **She shuddered and recoiled, finding him so close,
and answered, in a voice tearful with the emotions of
that time :

* **I have no commands. Address yourself to the
Captain;" and she went and stood by Arthur's side.

* **You won't let them turn us out of this ship, Cap-
tain?" exclaimed one of the two poor men. ** There's
nothing wrong with me or my mate. We're alive and
well, and if we ain't 'earty, it's because of the suffer-
ings we've gone through. We're Englishmen like
yourselves, and we ask you, in the name of Jesus
Christ, to let us remain, and the Captain '11 find that
we'll do our bit as English seamen manfully and grate-
fully."

* **It'snogood," roared Old Stormy; **you're bound
to have the plague, and you may be giving it to us
whilst the Captain allows ye to stand and talk to us
there. Mates, I speak in your name, I think. If
them two men aren't off in two minutes, we'll put
them into their boat; for it's every man for himself,
and curse me if I mean to die like a poisoned rat in a
hole!"

* **You dare not send these men to their death!"
cried Arthur.

*This was followed by a chorus dangerous with

88 ROSE ISLAND.

mutiny, fierce in tone, the significance not to be
dreamt of in the mere repeating it

* "Goto hell! You're no mate of oum. Take the
gal along with the two men, and board the ship, if
you're so bleeding anxious to save those men's lives.
Let the nigger Nassau put 'em aboard. ' '

* **Come," cried the seaman Cabbage, stepping up to
the poor fellows, and speaking in a threatening,
determined voice; "we're sorry, but you must go.
Get into your boat at once. Our djrin' of the plague
ain't goin* to help you. Be oflf before we get it. "

'And then, all on a sudden, as stirred by one
impulse, the crew gathered about the two poor fel-
lows, and, without laying hands upon them, drove them
to the side, and watched them until, with feeble move-
ments, they had entered their boat. They then let go
the line that held her, and threw the end into the sea. *

CHAPTER VL

A QUARREL.

* Ladies and Gentlemen/ said Captain Tomson Foster,
when he resumed his story, * there are many strange
and terrible experiences which are undergone by the
shipmaster; but few, I think, parallel the horrible
dilemma in which worthy and hearty Captain Cochrane
found himself. His position was the harder, because,
first and foremost, he knew that his men had the right
on their side. What would be thought of him if these
two men came on board, and the schooner was after-
wards found floating with all her company dead? On
the other hand, what would be thought of him if it
were known that he had sent away two suflfering fel-
low countrymen to perish in an open boat at sea? The
action of the men had brought matters to a head.
They stood in a group near to where the boat's line
had been belayed, and every movement and posture of
their moonlit forms expressed resolution, deep, sullen,
tragic. The line had been an end of brace. This had
been cut to release the boat, but the schooner was
without way, and the boat remained alongside. One
of the two men, when the line fell, got up and made
the end fast to a chain-plate. All the time the poor
fellows were looking up with white faces down in the
shadow. Thus mutely they sat, imploring help and

89

90 ROSE ISLAND.

mercy. Cochrane, after a minute's reflection, called
his son and Nassau. Rose stepped close to listen.

* **It would be easy," said Cochrane, **for us three
men to arm ourselves, and compel the crew to receive
the two men. But, I say, if the men are admitted, the
plague may be admitted too. The whole of us may be
stricken. I am at a loss."

*He paused.

* ** Captain," said Nassau, **you would have no right
to admit the men. Suppose this schooner a house, and
those two men were fresh from a small-pox hospital ;
they ask to be let in, saying nobody would receive
them. Would the people of your house suffer you to
let them in?"

*Here he looked round, as though he addressed Miss
Island.

* ** Father," said Arthur, **let me see those two men
aboard their own ship. I'll help them aloft into one of
the tops, where surely they'll be safe from contagion.
I'll seize some canvas to the shrouds for shelter, and
place food and water for them. This done, father,"
said the fine young fellow, **we shall have attempted
all that the whole Christian world could expect of us."

* ** Don't let him go!" shrieked Rose, leaping upon
Captain Cochrane, and twining about him. **He can
do no good. He may catch the plague. He shall not
-be always tempting death for others. Arthur" — ^and
here she rounded upon him — **you are not to go."

* **I'll go," said Nassau to Rose. **If it were for
your sake only, I'd go a hundred times over."

* **Damn you!" shouted young Cochrane. **How

dare you But you'll not go, by God! Father, this

is my business. If I can catch the plague, I have

4 <(

A QUARREL. 91

caught it. You catch the plague by living in the ship,
not by a hasty visit. Come ! these two poor sufferers
shall not be driven from us in an open boat.*'

* **My son will not catch the plague by a second
visit, as he says," exclaimed Captain Cochrane.
**Those two poor fellows must be saved, if possible.
They'll surely be out of contagion's way if they keep
aloft. Arthur, you'll want help."

* ** Don't let him go!" murmured Rose, catching
hold of Arthur's hand.

Mr. Nassau will help you, ' ' said the skipper.

I'll go alone," answered Nassau, with a ferocious
look in the moonlight at Arthur.

'Arthur, turning his back upon Nassau, asked the
Captain for some brandy and provisions for the boat.
Wilkinson fetched these things, and they were lowered
to the two men, to whom Arthur cheerily called that
he would see them safe and out of harm's way on
board their own ship. When this was said. Overalls,
who stood with others in the waist, sung out :

* **If yer go, yer don't come back again."

* Captain Cochrane advanced a step or two. It was
strange to see the ink-black shadows of the men sway-
ing with the regular tick of the pendulum to the faint
heave of swell that rolled through the moonlight.
The Captain began by pointing out that his son had
been on board the ship once, and that he would have
taken the plague then just the same as now ; two other
men had been aboard the ship ; they had looked at the
corpses, they had tasted the atmosphere.

* **In all probability they have the plague as they
stand amongst you," he shouted.

Oh, that be damned!" shouted Old Stormy,

{ Hi

92 ROSE ISLAND.

nevertheless twining nervously on his quaintly-cut
legs.

* ** That'll be giving the plague to me for doing of
my duty," sung out Overalls.

*But, to cut this part short, after much remonstrance,
appeals, oaths, and the like, the men said, Well, if
young Mr. Cochrane chose to take the risk they warn't
for denying of him; but it was understood that he
didn't go amongst the corpses, but, as he promised,
took the two men right straight up aloft. So Arthur
descended into the boat.

*The schooner's sails were trimmed, and aslant the
ripples of that spacious, picturesque, beautiful scene
of sea she towed the boat to within a few strokes' reach
of the plague ship. It turned the blood cold in the
veins to see her close, to know what sort of figure
was watching near the gangway, what sort of ghastly
burden lay near to the foremast, close companions in
death as in the churchyard. The moon shone between
the sails, and made them by their ill trim a beggarly
suit for a ship. In the boat towing alongside the
schooner little had been said. Arthur explained his
ideas, and begged them count upon being rescued by a
passing ship before next day should have closed. One
of them, the feebler of the two, simply said, **God bless
you, sir!" but the other spoke strongly, nay, with a
fury of despair and grief, of the cowardly behavior of
the crew of the Charmer. They cast adrift when the
schooner's sails were shivering to the breeze, and
Arthur, throwing an oar over tibe stem of the boat,
sculled her to the main chains. The men filled their
pockets with the brandy and provisions. Arthur also
did the same, so that there was nothing left in the boat,

A QUARREL, 93

and they all three got into the main rigging, and
climbed slowly, like tortoises coming out of water, for
young Cochrane knew that the eyes of the schooner's
company were upon him, and that if he went on deck
before going aloft they might compel Captain Coch-
rane to shift his helm and leave him. The two men,
followed by yoimg Cochrane, scrambled in sickly fash-
ion into the main top, upon whose platform they
deposited their stock of provisions and liquor and
water, and sat down. Cochrane believed that neither
would be alive when the sim rose. After disburdening
himself of the weight he bore, he ran up the topmast
rigging, lay out upon the yard, and, with his sharp
knife, cut away as much sailcloth as he thought he
would need. He worked with wonderful energy; he
was a fine sailor, his heart was true and full of com-
miseration, and in less than half an hour he, with his
own hands — the men being too feeble to help him —
had seized lengths of canvas to the rigging and gear
round the top, forming a sort of roofless tent, in the
lowest part a little less than the height of a man. The
gallant fellow wiped the sweat from his brow.

* "There, my lads," said he. **This is a sort of
shelter. You can rest in it, and you will feel as if you
were cared for. Don't be afraid to ask God to send a
ship to save you, to take you off; and see that ye both
keep a good look-out. No more can be done. • Here
you are high above contagion, in the pure air of
heaven. Let that thought be your comfort, and so God
bless you!"

*They wanted to shake hands, but he was afraid to
do that, and sank like a spirit through the lubber's
hole, descended the rigging, sprang into the boat, and

94 ROSE ISLAND.

sculled himself aboard the schooner. The men had
gathered to receive him, and recoiled ostentatiously as
through fear when he sprang upon the deck. His
father came right up to him and shook him by both
hands. He was a man of few words. He merely
said :
* *'You have acted as I could wish, and as God will

bless. A passing ship will rescue them. You have
enabled us all to do ouV duty. "

*The fine young fellow smiled proudly at his father,
and then turned to Rose, who stood beside old Coch-
rane, and I am bound to say that the way they grasped
hands, and the words they uttered one to the other,
must have proved convincingly to the most sterile eye
that they were already sweethearts. Julius Nassau,
who had the look-out, and who stood listening to and
watching the foregoing near the skylight, crossed to
the rail, and just then old Cochrane sang out orders for
sail to be trimmed for a new start.

*This was done, the men making haste and working
with a will. Perhaps they were sensible that on the
whole they had acted like mean-spirited cowards, and
that henceforth the words, ** British seamen,'* were a
term of contempt so far as they were concerned.
They were in a hurry to get away from the plague-
ship, to sink her ghastly canvas behind the moon-lit
horizon, and in a few minutes the little Charmer was
leaning from the wind, her leeward rounds of canvas
pale and glowing to the moon, which was now wester-
ing, with the lurid tinge of the heaven of the west
upon her face, and several little clouds were flying.
The breeze had freshened, the schooner knew it, and
her wake was like a trail of jewels. Old Cochrane had

A QUARREL. 95

gone below. It was about eleven o'clock. Arthur
and Rose went to the schooner's quarter and stood
hand in hand, gazing at the receding plague-ship.
The rest of the sailors lighted their pipes, and those
who had the watch below turned in.

* "Is not the ocean a great graveyard!" said Rose,
mindless of the adjacency of the helmsman. Cabbage,
who pricked up his ears to hear them talk. **Your
white seas are funeral stones. Yonder is an ocean
spectre corresponding with the spirits v/hich stalk
abroad at midnight ashore."

* **The thing that will haunt me longest," exclaimed
Arthur, **will be my looking over the rails when I
sprang aboard that ship just now. The man sat almost
abreast of me on the main-hatch. I had forgotten
him. I had recollected the man in the cabin, and the
dead men forward, but I had forgotten him. He was
a terrific sentinel, as he sat, in his sleep of death, as
life-like as Nassau there."

**They conversed together for some time, watching
the ship growing pale and faint in the distance. The
smaller she became, the greater grew her significance
to the feeling heart. It was impossible to look up at
all those stars, and then upon the line of endless
dark waters, and not think how poor was the chance
of anything sighting that midget, that pallid spot,
that death-bearing toy, in time enough to rescue the
two poor fellows who were lying together in her
main-top.

* **But wherever the sailor is the cherub is," said
Arthur, and after a silent look at the ship, which was
already almost absorbed, they went below, Rose to bed
and Arthur to smoke a pipe and drink a glass of rum

96 ROSE ISLAND.

with his father before he went on deck. Whilst father
and son were at table a voice was heard in the com-
panion way, a deep voice, evidently proceeding from a
broad chest.

* "Can I see the Cap'n, please?" it said.

* ** Who is that?" called out the Captain.

* ** Overalls," was the answer. **Can I speak to yon,
sir?"

* * * What is it? Come below. ' '

*The man lumbered down the steps. He stood
upright, and twisted his cap, and looked first at Cap-
tain Cochrane and then at his son. He then
exclaimed :

* "What d'ye think? Damned if Old Stormy and the
others will allow me to sleep in the forecastle, *cos,
says they, I may have the plague!"

* "Perhaps you have," said Captain Cochrane, with
an expression of contempt.

* "Then, by God," said the sailor, growing excited,
"if I've got the plague, I'll rub myself against every
man aboard the schooner! I'll lay hold of them, I'll
wrestle with them, and bloomed a man but shall get it
from me."

* "Don't make a fool of yourself, and don't let the
others do so," said the Captain quietly. "Go forward,
tell them that I say you have not the plague, and turn
in as usual. If you have the plague, all have the
plague ; but the plague is not in this ship, so go for-
ward and, if needs be, fight for your rights."

*The man, with a manner of surly dissent, climbed
the steps and disappeared.

* "Did you ever hear or read of such a set of cow-
ards?" said Captain Cochrane.

« «i

C ««'

A QUARREL. 97

' **They could make out a good case for themselves,
though," answered Arthur.

*They dropped the subject, and old Cochrane, after
a sip at his glass of rum, and a stout pull at his hand-
some pipe, said to Arthur with a sideways nod at
Rose's berth:

Aren't you getting fond of that girl?"
Yes," answered Arthur quietly, without a smile
or change of countenance.

' **Well," said Captain Cochrane, ** there's been
many a woman led to the altar without half her
beauty. I remember hearing that she had a tidy bit
of money of her own. Her father died in comfort.
She seems to have taken to you as a kid to a cabbage
leaf. It's been nibble, nibble, ever since we picked
her up. ' *

* Arthur pointed with solemnity to Rose's berth.

* **But the law of the ocean should be that a sailor-
man should not get married," said Captain Cochrane,
sucking thoughtfully at his pipe, and looking at his
son. '*He leaves a wife and family ashore, and that
is dangerous. He follows a beggarly calling, and
never can put by for them. How I've managed — well,
well !" — ^he tossed his hands with his pipe. * * It's come,
anyhow, to a small schooner, and I'm lucky at that."

*He grinned sardonically, and looked up at the little
clock, which was hard upon midnight. Then, knock-
ing out his pipe, he went on deck to take a look round,
returned, and said it was a fine night, with a nice little
wind, and went to his bunk to rest

'The clock showed that Nassau's watch had come
round. From midnight till four is called the middle
watch at sea, as, ladies and gentlemen, you doubtless

98 ROSE ISLAND.

know. And this was the middle watch, and Arthur
went on deck. It was a fine night, indeed, with plenty
of small white clouds flying, and the wind lifted foam
in the water alongside. The schooner was going at
eight knots, which meant that it would not run into
many days to bring Kingston within hail. The decks
wore a dull light in the moon. The sails curved in
dim whiteness, and were like the wings of seagulls
rounding to the wind. Nassau stood near the 'com-
panion, awaiting the arrival of Arthur. The custom-
ary sentences were exchanged, and Nassau was walking
forward, when Arthur sang out *'Stop!" in a voice
that brought the powerfully made nigger fellow, with
his white breeches and half-boots — ^that brought him
up, as sailors say, with a round turn.

Do you speak to me?" said he.

Step to the rail," said Arthur, not intending that
the helmsman should overhear them.

*They walked to the bulwarks, Nassau staring hard
at Arthur by the midnight sheen.

* **What d*ye want?** said Nassau.

* **In offering your services to take the plague-men on
board,** said Arthur, **you made an allusion to Miss
Island. You know what I mean. You will easily
recall the exact words by an effort of thought. I don't
ask you to apologize to me on behalf of the lady, who
is my friend, for I believe you are incapable of fram-
ing an apology or understanding one. This I will
teach you,** continued Arthur, who talked with
dangerous vehemence: **it is not for you to make
yourself offensive to the lady whom accident has cast
amongst us, and who, as I suppose you are aware, is an
old playmate of mine."

( it

{ Hi

A QUARREL. 99

'Nassau stared a minute, and the red rays were in his
eyes with the moon looking at them, but scarce seeing
them, so deep-sunk they were. He then said:

* "Although you are the Captain's son, you shall not
be sheltered by that for being insolent to me, who am
your superior."

* **Your superior!'* echoed Arthur with haughty
disgust

* **You are a damned second mate, and I am chief
mate, and only mate, and by the heart of my mother,
you shall not be insolent to me!"

* '*I am not a second mate. I have nothing to do
with this ship,** said Arthur. **I am not on the
articles. I am a passenger, as you know, and have
known, with a willingness to lend my father a hand.
But it would not serve you even if I were a second
mate, and I give you my word, chief mate or only
mate,** he added with a sneer, **that I will kick you
round this deck if you presume to address Miss Island,
unless courteously, at a distance, and in a. few words.**

* **Kick me round this deck!** said the nigger mate,
both his hands involuntarily clenching, and his power-
ful frame knitting as though for a struggle. He
paused. ** Second mate or passenger, you are a:
damned impudent fellow to address such language to
me, who am better than you, whether as a gentleman
or as a sailor;** and he loosened one fist to hold it up
and snap his fingers.

^ ** Leave the lady alone, all then will be well,*' said
Arthur, whose posture was one that expressed him
prepared for any assault Mr. Nassau might attempt.

* ** My mother,** said Nassau, in a voice harsh with
fury, **was the most beautiful woman in Kingston.

loo ROSE ISLAND.

She sprang from one of the oldest families. If she
was not as white as you" — ^he pronounced the word
with great scorn — **her loveliness was not the less
admirable, and she refused offers of marriage from
persons of high distinction "

* **What is all this to me?** broke in Arthur.

* **My father,** continued the coloured mate, "owns
some plantations, and was universally respected wher-
ever his name was uttered. He could have sold you
and your father up a hundred times over, and I doubt
if he would have cared for the society of either of you.
Do you, then, dare tell me that I am not to address a
lady on board this schooner?**

* **Not as you addressed Miss Island. Observe that,
and lay it to heart!** exclaimed Arthur. **Keep your-
self in your place, and all will go well.**

* **I helped to save Miss Island's life, and I have a
right to address her, * * said Nassau.

* **You helped! Yes, by looking on. You helped as
that quarter-boat helped. She does not want you to
address her, and I advise you not to do so. Besides,
though I don't know in what sort of ships you have
sailed, you must be aware that it is a law of the sea for
oflSicers of the vessel not to address passengers.*'

'Having said this — and the provocation was not
sufficiently great in the coloured man's speech to
justify the kicking that Arthur had threatened — ^he
went below, and the mate, after pausing a minute or
two, turned- on his vigorous legs, spat violently, and
moved slowly in the direction of the helmsman.

*Now, as if incident had not been sufficiently
crowded since we fell in with the Charmer^ a singular
experience befell Captain Cochrane in the morning of

A QUARREL. loi

the day which had just begun. At sunrise he was on
deck. He watched, with the admiration of a poet, the
beautiful rosy vision. The breeze was abeam, a pleas-
ant sailing wind. The sea ran in little flashes, touched
by the rose of the distant sky. In the east it was still
pure violet, fining into azure where the schooner was
sailing. After admiring the sunrise, the old seaman's
sight travelled round the horizon, and to leeward,
hull-down, he spied a ship. She was sailing fast, and
the schooner was sailing fast, and they were both
going almost the same road, saving that the ship was
looking up about two points, bringing her bowlines
taut. Captain Cochrane inspected her through a tele-
scope, and with the sea-going eye of the sailor instantly
knew her to be a British frigate or corvette. How was
this? The truth is, that no experienced eye can be
deceived in these matters, for the sails of a British
man-of-war of those days were cut and set as were the
sails of no other ships of the State, call the country
what you will. She grew even as Captain Cochrane
watched her. How beautiful is a ship seen by sunrise !
The pearls of the sky rest upon her, and she moves
stately in spires of pearl, gleaming and ever memorable
to the ardent spectator. Rose came on deck. The
planks had been washed down ; the men were swab-
bing forward; the smoke curled black from the galley
chimney. It was a fair morning, full of the life of the
sea. Its music was at the bow, and its jewellery
danced astern. It was hot soon after the sun rose,
and his flash sank in glory, broken by the tremble of
the waters. Rose was glad to come on deck quickly.
Small blame to her! Her berth was scarce a den, and
dark as a, rpotn in a thunderstorm ; but she was not to

I02 ROSE ISLAND.

be better served in the way of accommodation. The
schooner was a little ship, and Rose's berth was tiny.
She looked fresh, dark, sweet, and glowing as she
saluted Captain Cochrane, giving him what I would
like to call a serpentine bow, if I did not fear your
laughter, but serpentine is the word, nevertheless, to
express the motion; and when she shook hands she
reminded you of a tendril of creeper, full of the
exquisite grace of nature, consistent with her own rare
grace, her rare form, her singular and beautiful
movements.

* "Why, you have a ship down there, I see!" she
exclaimed. **What a welcome sight is a ship! It is
like meeting a man in a desert.'*

* **A man in a desert is not always a welcome sight,"
answered Captain Cochrane. **He may carry a
hatchet, and wear a less lovely countenance than Mr.
Nassau. * *

* **I do not like that man," said Rose, with a look
towards the fellow, who was superintending some busi-
ness on the forecastle. **He's thrusting, impertinent,
almost audacious. I wonder you shipped such a
beast!"

* '*So do I," said Cochrane, **but we must take the
best that comes. At sea we pay no regard to looks,
and very little to manners. We are the roughest body
of men in the world. The sea makes us so. Ladies
find the sea always rough, and the sailor is always
rough; but as a practical seaman — I won't say navi-
gator — ^Julius Nassau has no equal in my experience."

* **You praise him highly. He may be a good sailor,
but in my opinion he is a dangerous man. An artist
would take his face as a portrait of the devil, ' * And

A QUARREL. 103

here the girl laughed, and added: **May I look at that
ship?"

*She pointed the glass, and Captain Cochrane sup-
ported it. Just then Arthur arrived on deck. The
girl was all blushes and delight when she saw him,
told him there was a beautiful ship in the distance,
and pointed to it. Arthur laughed and looked love at
her, and the foam alongside rushed past, widening into
drifted snow astern, and the invisible angels of the
morning sang sweetly in the shrouds and rigging. I
knew young Cochrane when he was well advanced in
years, and easily supposed that when young he was
the handsome man all who saw him declared him to
be. There is nothing, then, remarkable in the sudden
passion of love with which he had inspired Rose
Island, and then there was the platform of early days,
of childhood, of the playground of a ship's deck, for
the affections to dance on.

*The girl could not but shudder when she saw Nassau
coming aft. Arthur had relieved the deck. Julius
knew the cabin breakfast would be ready in a minute,
and the coloured gentleman was hungry. He glared
at Arthur, then, stepping up to him on violent legs, he
gave him the course as is customary 'twixt officers
relieving each other at sea, turned his back upon him
with a gesture of hatred and contempt, and followed
Captain Cochrane and Rose into the cabin, whither the
rashers of bacon, the coffee, the galley rolls, and one
or two other matters had preceded them. Julius
washed himself and brushed his hair before seating
himself, but his face discovered no marks of the marine
soap he used, and his hair was wool despite the brush.
He bade Miss Rose good-morning with a languishing

I04 ROSE ISLAND.

look, and his gaze was full of deUght in her beauty. She
faintly answered him, and took the greatest pains not
to see him. The skipper was in a good humour; his
ship was sailing briskly; it was a fine morning; he felt
well; he knew he should enjoy his pipe after breakfast.
He was pleased with the society of the charming girl,
and perhaps out of the natural kindness of his heart he
tried to make something of Nassau.

* ** There are few men, I reckon," said he, **who have
seen more of sea-life than you."

* **I reckon none,** answered the coloured coxcomb,
with a look at the young lady. **I have washed across*
the Channel in a gale of wind in a barge loaded with
stone from Cally, and never knew what had become of
the barge until she'd been blowed into smooth water.
That's seeing the sea-life. Miss Island," he added.

* **Ever been a pirate, Mr. Nassau?" asked the Cap-
tain with a half laugh, perhaps finding something in
that moment humanly repellant in the man's face.

* *'Once," he said. **We were taken by pirates, and
I had to serve."

*And here he looked wickedly, and the Captain
began to think that he was a liar.

Ever held command, Mr. Nassau?"

'Ay, of one of the finest American brigs out of
New York. She was called the Bloomazelle^'' he con-
tinued, speaking rapidly. * * She carried sky-sail masts.
She could waltz round this boat in speed, and met her
fate after two voyages by fire."

How old are you?"

Thirty-two," answered Nassau, looking at Rose,
as if everything that was in his mind had particular
reference to her,

C (t

i id

A QUARREL. 105

i (f

You went to sea very young, I suppose, Mr.
Nassau?*' said the skipper, with a side glance at the
young lady of mischief and contempt.

* ** Yaas, sir, soon as my mother let me go. She was
the most beautiful woman in Kingston. Did you
know her, sir?*'

* **I had not that pleasure.'*

* **You did hear of her, I reckon?"
*'*No, sir."

* **Not of the beautiful Mrs. Nassau of Duck Place?"
*He gazed with hideous astonishment at Miss Rose,

and was clearly about to bestow some fragments of
autobiography upon his companions, when the skylight
was darkened by the figure of Arthur, who cried down :

* * * The ship to leeward is an English frigate. She
has hoisted her colours, and has some signals fljdng. ' * '

CHAPTER VII.

Nassau's passion.

*The skipper received Arthur's news with a gfrave nod
up at the skylight, and after finishing his breakfast,
which occupied some minutes, during which he ven-
tured on several conjectures as to the motive of the
frigate in signalling, he rose, lighted his pipe, and
stepped on deck. Miss Island also rose, and put out
her hand to the locker to take her hat. In that instant
Nassau sprang to his feet and stood between her and
the foot of the companion steps. He was as pale as a
coloured man can very well turn. His arms were out-
stretched and his fingers tightly linked. His posture
was one of piteous appeal, absolutely grotesque. His
face was crumpled by the passions of his mind, his
little eyes shot redly, his teeth chattered for a moment,
and as his lips were spread in a grin his teeth made
him look at a little distance as though he frothed at
the mouth.

* **May I speak to you a moment?" exclaimed this
striking, fantastic, almost appalling figure. His voice
was harsh with feeling, it was moving, and even so the
whole of the man had something moving about it.

* **What do you want?*' asked Miss Rose, turning as
pale as a rose that is white, and looking up with a
hurried glance at the skylight, through which she was
prepared to shriek for help.

io6

NASSAU'S PASSION. 107

* **Miss Island — Miss Rose — Rose," began Nassau, in
a stammer, maintaining his attitude of grotesque
appeal, **I admire you with such admiration that I can-
not tell you how beautiful and adorable I think you.
Oh! hear me," he cried, as she started and made as if
to push past him. '*By the eternal God who created
me, and by the heart of my mother, who loved me, I
am no wild beast, and it is not because I do not possess
the purely white man's whiteness of skin that I am less
a man than he— oh! hear me," he cried again, as she
stood trembling and pale, silent, and most beautiful in
his sight. '*My face has the dusk of Ethiopia, but my
mother is white and I am of her colour, as you shall
judge," and to Rose's consternation and horror, with
passionate hands he tore open his coat and shirt, and
exposed his breast. It was of the hue of the butter-
cup, and some device in Indian ink trailed amongst the
wiry moss upon it.

* **Pray consider that you are keeping me from going
on deck, ' ' said the girl.

* **But why will you not hear me?" cried the infatu-
ated man. **I love to look at you. You are sweet and

fair. In Jamaica but in this wide world, there is

no woman who is your equal. Do I insult you by say-
ing this?" he continued, dropping his voice into a
plaintive tone as though he was entreating somebody
not to hurt him. **What greater compliment can a
man pay a lady than to fall in love with her, admire
her as I admire you, and fling himself at her feet?"
And here this extraordinary seaman dropped on one
knee.

*Rose stared at him as if he were a toad. She had
no pity; she was not .flattered. Her heart was not

io8 ROSE ISLAND.

hers, and had it been, she would rather have sunk the
carving-knife on the table into it than have allowed
yonder sturdy coloured mountebank to have anything
to do with her.

* **I will make you a lady in Kingston," he con-
tinued, still kneeling. **I shall be Captain Nassau, for
the next voyage I shall be in command of a ship. All
the money I make shall be yours. You shall be
dressed in silk and satin, and hold your head the high-
est at the routs; you shall have horses to ride and
drive, and slaves to do your bidding, for I, Julius
Nassau, know the sea, and it is a field of produce and I
know how to reap." He sprang to his feet with a
smiling face of incomparable triumph, and said: **Oh,
give me leave to hope!'*

* Rose had had already too much of this. She thought
the man mad at root, consumed with vanity, a fluent
liar, and company by no means to be desired. Not
one human touch came to help him — ^all was gross,
farcical, hideous. He still obstructed the ladder, but
at that moment Arthur called to her through the sky-
light to come and see the beaiitif ul frigate, and Nassau,
taking a swift backward step, bent himself to her in a
low bow whilst she hurried up through the companion.
Arthur stood by the companion waiting for her, other-
wise she would have been glad to calm the agitation she
was under by walking right aft and pausing a little.
Instantly he noticed that she had been troubled.
There yet lingered a startled look in her fine eyes, and
her face wore a pallor that was not its natural tender
complexion. He went up to her, and said in a low
voice :

* **What is the matter, Rose?"

NASSAU'S PASSION. J09

'She now coloured, and answered:

* **Oh, something has happened that is truly too
ridiculous to tell you about. **

* **Has Nassau been troubling you?" and he went to
the skylight to obtain a glimpse of that gentleman,
who he knew must be below. But the coloured
mate was in his berth, and Arthur returned again to
Rose.

* **What do you think of that for a sight. Miss Rose?"
called out Captain Cochrane from the rail, where,
with telescope in hand and pipe in mouth, he was
gazing at a spectacle the like of which has been swept
for ever from the seas she glorified.

'Rose, with a smile at Arthur, went to old Cochrane's
side. The sight was a noble, English frigate that had
risen her hull, in the splendid pace that her canvas
was giving her, to the height of her yellow metal,
which, catching the sun's rays, shot stars of dazzling
light across the windward rush of seas. Her canvas
was milk-white, and swelled to the breeze as though it
would burst in fragments from its bolt ropes. Plume-
like fountains of foam leaped at her bows, and each
time she sank her stately length in a lofty roll to wind-"
ward, the water made a splendour of sunlight about
her, and the scene was a poem. Some signal-flags flew
from her gaff-end, but they were on a line with her
spanker and were indistinguishable. She was on the
port quarter, but well to leeward, and far away. She
was coming along hand over hand, in bursts of crystal
smoke, in fierce plunges to the tremendous strain of
canvas. On high streamed the noble flag of St.
Greorge. She was a fifty-one gun frigate, possibly the
handsomest of her t3rpe afloat at that time. Cochrane

no ROSE ISLAND.

stuck to his course, and as the frigate was looking up
two or three points, the vessels were closing, the
frigate drawing astern.

* **What do you think of that?" said old Cochrane,
pointing with his telescope to the ship. **A11 those
black ports have guns in them, though they are too far
oflE to be seen. Aren't you proud of belonging to the
country that owns such a vessel as that? And only
think of the memories she carries! Not but that she
might be a few years old. I mean simply that the
British frigate is the queen of the seas, the most peer-
less beauty, and the most dangerous enemy that the foe
can contemplate or fire into. Think of Nelson on
board a frigate ! Do you know that two Spanish ships
of the line pretended to chase him, very well knowing
that he was on board, and when he ordered his mizzen-
topsail to be laid aback to pick up an officer who had
gone with a boat's crew to rescue a man who had
fallen overboard, the mighty Spaniards, shivering their
topsails as well as their breeches, turned tail, gave up
the pursuit, and sailed back their colossal bulks to the
safety of Algegiras."

* ** There never was a greater seaman, Captain, than
Nelson," said Rose, straining her eyes with admiration
at the frigate, as though she could almost believe that
Nelson was on board.

* **Yes, he was a great hero, a very fortunate cap-
tain," answered Cochrane. *' There were men who
were his equal, but they never got his chances and
they never made his name. "

* Suddenly Arthur cried out:

* **Look, father, my lord has heard you. See that!"
And he pointed to the man-of-war, from whose bow

NASSAU'S PASSION. iii

was spreading a veil of white powder-smoke, thinning
as it blew down the wind.

* ** Could it have been a blank shot?** shouted the
skipper with great excitement. **What does she want,
and what does she mean by firing at a friend? He
knows the red rag,*' he continued, looking up at his
colours, ** although he may despise it. And what right
has he to fire at anything that carries that signal of
nationality?*'

*Pouff! Another white leap of powder-smoke from
the starboard bow of the frigate! The report camo
clear and sharp. It was impossible to mistake the
vesseVs meaning. With adamantine throat, in her
imperious way, she ordered the schooner to stop, and
Cochrane at once shortened canvas and hove his little
ship to. It was fine to watch the frigate tearing
through the seas, rending each surge with irresistible
stem, bowing the beauty of her forward canvas to the
blue and creaming slant of the water. She shortened
sail as if by magic as she approached, intending to
heave-to.

* **What can she want?** exclaimed Captain Coch-
rane, lost in wonderment.

*The shot had sorely troubled his speculations about
her meaning. Nassau had come on deck.

* **Ha! a noble British frigate!*' he cried in a
theatrical way. "She means to board us ; she distrusts
us.**

* **How the devil d*ye know?** exclaimed Arthur,
looking at him with eyes of contempt and hate.

* **I heard her send a shot at us,** answered Nassau,
showing his teeth and trying to catch Rose*s eye, but
the girl looked strenuously at the frigate. ** British

112 ROSE ISLAND.

ships do not behave with that sort of impertinence
-unless they have a very good reason indeed. Here we
have mistrust. Ha! I think I understand. We were
spoken and overhauled by a corvette twenty leagues
to the nor*rad of the Dead Chest, and we, who were a
harmless drogher, were asked to produce the negroes
we had kidnapped."

*01d Cochrane was intent on the frigate's manoeu-
vres, and the others kept silent. Arthur stepped to
the side of Rose, but asked her no more questions then.
Julius admired the frigate with his arms folded, and his
right leg crooked. If they had this man fair in the
frigate's glass, her people would fancy they knew what
to think, without taking the trouble to inquire. The
frigate swung the sails of her main. Topsail, top-
gallant-sail, royal and hauled-up mainsail, came round
swiftly to the wind, as though they had been one
yard. Soft pencil shado wings curved from each leech,
and floated upon the white canvas like something
apart with the steady and gracious bowing of that
arrested frigate. Rose, looking with enthusiasm, saw
the red-coated marines, active sailors, thronging like
bees; several officers, shining in buttons and the
raiment of their noble calling, moved upon the quarter-
deck ; and one stout chap, evidently the commander,
stood with his foot on the slide of a carronade.

Schooner ahoy!**

Hillo, sir!** bawled Captain Cochrane in reply.

'Why did you not bring to when you read our
signal?*'

* **We have no book of signals, and therefore could
not read yours. Besides, you showed us your flags end

C i(

on.

NASSAU'S PASSION, irj

C Ci-

Not all the while, sir," was the shout. **What
schooner are you?"

* **The schooner Charmer ^ of and from " and

here the skipper gave the particulars asked for.

* All this while there was much levelling of telescopes
at the schooner on the quarterdeck of the frigate.
Some might have thought the attraction was Rose, but
that this was not so was suggested by the eager posture
of the gazers fore and aft. It was not difficult to read
the word ** Prize-money" along the line of that ship's
bulwarks.

* **I will send a boat aboard of you," 'came the cry
from the frigate, and in a minute a boat descended into
the sea, with six or eight bluejackets in her for the
oars, a midshipman for the helm, and a lieutenant for
the confab.

*This gentleman was short, stout, with a comedian's
face upon him. His mouth was^wry, his nose had
been cocked in a fight, he had a humorous eye, and
you thought of Buckstone, or Harley, or Wright, on
looking at him. He came over the side, and was
received and saluted by Captain Cochrane, to whom he
said:

* **Are you the commander of this vessel?" drawling
out the word "commander" as if it were a joke.

* **Yes, I'm her skipper," c^pswered Cochrane, by no
means boastfully.

*The lieutenant paused and took a look around him.
His eyes first sought Rose. This was natural. Hand-
some and charming girls were seldom to be met with
at sea in those days in trading schooners. The lady of
that sort of craft usually wore a shawl round her head,
and in fine weather sat in the companion-way, darning

114 ROSE ISLAND.

her husband's stockings whilst he steered. The lieu-
tenant then glanced at Nassau, but his gaze became a
keen regard, and his attention began to grow uncom-
fortable, when he wheeled round with a look aloft and
a glance along the decks, and asked the Captain for a
sight of his papers.

' "Oh, certainly," answered Cochrane, with the easy
smile of a man who knows he has nothing to fear; and
he called to his son to accompany them.

'The papers were produced ; all was found perfectly
right. It was clear that the captain of the frigate had
made a mistake. They were la search of a notorious
pirate vessel called the Pearl, and this vessel was as like
her as two sea-boots. But the lieutenant had been on
board the Pearl when she was a peaceable ship, lying
at anchor at some port in San Domingo. He knew by
the internal equipment that this Charmer was not the
vessel. Captain Cochrane laughed at the idea of being
mistaken for a pirate. And then the Captain asked
the lieutenant what he would have. There was rum,
and there was whisky. The lieutenant chose rum,
and Arthur gave him a caulker. In those days the
naval men drank hard — they all drank hard in the
Navy. In these days one never hears of drunkenness;
on the contrary, the naval man is held up as an
example of sobriety. For my part, I am disposed to
think that a little driuTc helps a man on at sea. It
freshens the nip of his dull, hard, briny routine. They
substituted cocoa and coffee for mm in the merchant

NASSAU'S PASSION. 115

i i«

C Hi

1*11 go on deck, " said the lieutenant; and 1*11 ask
you to lift your hatches.**

* *' Whilst it*s in my head, sir,** said Captain Coch-
rane, **let me make you acquainted with a singular
incident which befell us quite recently. Arthur, tell
the lieutenant the story of the plague-ship.**

*This he did, with great modesty and a charming
address. The Lieutenant seemed as much struck by
his presence as by Rose*s. He showed his apprecia-
tion of the young fellow*s heroism by his critical atten-
tion, and then the father said :

* **It is more than probable that those two men are
still alive in the maintop where my son left them.**

You have a brave crew," said the Lieutenant.
They certainly are not pirates, sir," answered
Arthur, laughing.

* **And pray, sir, what may be your rating on board
this vessel?** said the Lieutenant kindly, as with a lik-
ing for the young man.

* **Why, sir, I am my father*s son, and nominally the
Charmer's second mate. But I am not on the articles,
and am therefore a passenger.**

But you are a sailor?** said the Lieutenant.
Ever since a little boy,** said the skipper, looking
proudly and fondly at his son.

* **You should have entered him under our flag,'*
said the Lieutenant, turning and leading the way to
the companion-steps. **Your flag is no flag.**

*It is doubtful whether Cochrane heard this, other-
wise he must certainly have made some remark which
would have led more or less to a strong argument.
They all went on deck. The main hatch was opened.
The Lieutenant peered down.

ii6 ROSE ISLAND.

• ••Oh, yes," he said heartily; ''it is all right An
apology is due to you, Captain. But why the deuce
are you so infernally like the Pearl in rig and hull?"

•Again he caught sight of Nassau, and seemed to
minutely observe him. Then, turning to the Captain,
he said :

• ''Who is that man?"

• ''A man named Nassau, my chief mate," was the
answer.

' •*! am sure," he continued, gazing at Nassau, who
stood at a little distance out of hearing, **that I have
seen that chap before. We boarded a brig loaded with
tobacco and rum. She had been captured by pirates,
and I could swear that that fellow was one of them.
His damned ugliness took my eye. Of course, I may
be wrong. Not all the gang were hanged, and yonder
fellow, if he is the man, may have regained his liberty
by an admissible plea."

• ••He is infernally ugly, as you say, sir," answered
Captain Cochrane; ••but I have found him a good
sailor, and, allowing for his manners, which are tiiose
of a baboon, I have no fault to find with him. "

' •*Well, sir, keep your weather-eye lifting," said the
Lieutenant. ' • I may be mistaken ; but human hideous-
ness of that sort, even in the Antilles, is uncommon.
And now, as to this plague-ship ; we will get the two
men if they are alive. "

*He entered the particulars of the plague-ship's lati-
tude and longitude in a little pocket-book, bowed to
Miss Rose, who stood by with Arthur, an interested
listener, and, shaking Cochrane by the hand as a man
very superior to his position, and bearing a name of
renown in the navy, he got over the side, entered his

NASSAU'S PASSION. 117

boat, and went away in a dance of foam, the precise
oars of the seamen dipping and flashing in single
pulses of light. The schooner remained hove-to
until the frigate got under way, which was soon, for
they are not commonly slow in the Royal Navy. Her
boat was hoisted, her yards swung; she was leaning
from the breeze on a north-easterly course, and froth-
ing each hurl of sea at her bow, with the glorious
crimson cross like a fragment of rainbow at her peak,
in the time that it would have occupied a merchant-
man to have thrown his topsail braces off the pins.
Meanwhile, Cochrane, Rose, and Arthur talked as
they watched, and Nassau watched also, but alone,
from the aftermost part of the quarterdeck.

* **It is curious," said Arthur, **that that fellow
Nassau should have owned he*d been a pirate, having
undoubtedly been one ; for I trust the memory of those
lieutenants."

* **It is not fair that his ugliness only should convict
him," answered old Cochrane. **He may have been a
pirate, and yet not the man the Lieutenant thinks.
But what are his antecedents to us? Most sailors have
a past whose pages they would not much enjoy hearing
read aloud. How daintily she goes!" he cried, refer-
ring to the frigate. "Watch the royal curtseying grace
with which she sinks her counter to the lift of her
bows! Keep that flag half-masted in token of farewell
and good wishes and respect!" he cried to Nassau, who
had thrice dipped the flag in ordinary sea courtesy.
**Ah," he exclaimed, **England has little to fear whilst
the ocean is whitened by such keels as those, with her
flag at the mast-head!"

* Indeed, the old fellow was a great enthusiast, and.

ii8 ROSE ISLAND.

being a poet also, he was so lost in love with that
ship, he could talk of nothing else, scarcely referring
again to the quest he had been the means of despatch-
ing her on. But it was now approaching the hour
when the sun in that place crossed his meridian. The
schooner was started afresh in a few shouts of Nassau,
to the bidding of old Cochrane. The flying-fish darted
out of the curl of the head-sea of her bow. The
glorious heavens were high, and beautiful with fine
weather. The breeze was steady, and frothed the
waters. All was blue in the valleys, and flashing at
the peaks. Even the schooner was good to admire,
despite the frigate ; and the skipper seemed to think so
as he looked aloft and around him, and then went
below, followed by Nassau, for his sextant. Rose
and Arthur were alone. They stood a little abaft
the lee main rigging, clear of the ear of the man
at the wheel. Arthur seldom troubled himself to
take sights. A little schooner hardly needed three
navigators.

* **Now, Rose,** said Arthur, **we are alone, but not
for long. Tell me what that nigger said to you to
mortify and distress you in the cabin after breakfast
when my father and I were on deck. "

* **He*s an impudent fellow,'* answered Rose, colour-
ing with something like a glow of shame in her eyes,
**and I do not care to remember what he said.**

* **Was it so bad as that?*' exclaimed Arthur, after a
pause. **You must tell me, and I beg to know the
facts; for, in any case, you have admitted that he
insulted you, and I can do no less than knock his head
off for that. * *

•She reflected, and then said:

NASSAU'S PASSION. 119

• '*Well, I may tell you that he wanted me to marry
him/'

'Arthur whistled, with a face which made Rose
burst into hysterical laughter.

* **To marry you!** he cried, almost theatrically, as
Nassau might on a like occasion. **To marry you!
Does he know he's a nigger? Do you know that in
America they would lynch him for this? Did he
actually ask you to marry him?"

'Just then Captain Cochrane and Nassau came on
deck with their instruments. Nassau looked at the
couple, then turned his back upon them, and raised
the sextant to his eye. Captain Cochrane stopped
inconveniently close, and Arthur put his hand upon
Rose's arm, and drew her a little distance forward.
He looked dumbfounded. He stared aghast at the
girl. He was taking it with tragic seriousness; he
could not see the humour of it.

' **He knows that I am in love with you," he said,
looking towards the dusky dog's back as he stood on
straggled legs, white trousered, half -booted, **and he
knows that we are sweethearts. How shall such a
beast be dealt with? I thought that there was a limit
even to audacity. But this fellow is the hellish incar-
nation of impudence, triumphing over his ignoble
extraction, over the detested blood that blackens his
repulsive face, with utter disregard of those whom he
addresses, or what may be said and done."

It is not worth growing angry over, Arthur."
He will make you a fine lady — ^you will be the
Princess of Jamaica!" cried Arthur, with a hoarse-
sounding laugh which brought the nigger mate's face
round upon his shoulder in a swift insolent stare.

C («

« ii

•■»■- -»^

I20 ROSE ISLAND.

^'He is to have command of a splendid ship next
voyage. The lying hound! But enough of it, Rose.
I am sorry you should have met with such an insult in
my father's vessel/*

* At that moment the sun showed that it was noon,
and it was made so by a little bell struck on the fore-
castle by a hand who had stationed himself there for
that purpose.

* ** Please let the subject drop, and say nothing to
your father about it," said Rose. **Let the voyage be
made in peace. He is an animal who acts after his
kind. I suppose the toad has no sense of his ugliness.
Neither has that man. He is not likely to trouble me,
and if he does, your father will quietly put a^stop to it. "

*This she said laying her hand unconsciously on
Arthur's arm, and looking up with all her beauty glow-
ing with pleasure and pride in her lover ; and Nassau
had the satisfaction of witnessing the caressing hand
and the eloquent gaze as he left the deck after Captain
Cochrane to work out his sights. Forward the men
were getting their dinner. The breeze had slackened.
It promised a quiet afternoon, with a wide dominion of
sky of mares'-tails south-west. The light tropic heave
of the sea was from that quarter. The frigate was a
square of white, flashing a sheen of satin with her dis-
. tant faint motions; but over the beauty of the sea
brooded the terror of its mighty solitude. They dined
in the cabin at half -past twelve. By custom, the mate
always kept a look-out whilst the Captain dined, and
then went to dinner when the Captain relieved him.
Arthur often acted good-naturedly in reality the part
of second mate by keeping a look-out for Julius Nassau
whilst that beggar ate with his father. But this day

c c«

NASSAU'S PASSION. 121

he did not offer to take Julius's place, and the nigger
buck, to the great relief of Rose, was not present at
the dinner-table.

* **It is a very curious thing," said Captain Coch-
rane, after a prolonged thoughtful look at Rose, as
though he was considering her beauty rather than the
subject that occupied his mind, **that for the pasttwo
days I have found the schooner out of her course, set
to the westward."

By how much?" asked Arthur.
By fifteen miles."
'Arthur delivered a prolonged whistle.
' **Who cons this hooker when you and I are
asleep?" said he. **Who is the man at the wheel on
those occasions? What has Mr. Nassau to say about
it?"

* **He is greatly surprised. He solemnly swears
there was no bad steering in his watches. He
believes that the compasses are out, or that we have
gone away on the drift of a current. "

'There was a pause.

' "What object," said Rose, "would anybody in this
schooner have in prolonging this voyage by steering a
course that makes it fifteen miles longer?"

* "I think that chief mate of yours, father, a
scoundrel," said Arthur, with a look up at the- sky-
light, which lay open, as if he would catch Mr. Nassau
listening. "He is a double-faced liar, and is capable
of concocting schemes which would easily account for
this vessel's westing."

'Old Cochrane shook his head.

* "No," he said, a little impatiently. "The man has
nothing to gain. He is a dutiful sailor and a good

123 ROSE ISLAND.

navigator — a damned monkey, if you please. Who
values his airs or his lies? Who would scoff at his
face, which the God of Mercy clothed his skull withal?
Keep the peace, Arthur, and let the voyage be sunny
to the end, if only for the sake of this charming girl,"
and he bowed with kingly dignity, a manner not
easily to be found in the cabin of a schooner, to Rose,
who, saying, **I quite agree with you. Captain Coch-
rane," beamed her sweetest smile upon him.

*In the second dog-watch of that same day the sail-
ors, with the exception of the man at the wheel, were
lounging about the windlass on the forecastle. Nassau
had charge. Arthur overhung the bulwark rail
abreast of the mainmast, pipe in mouth. Rose was
reading a book in the cabin. Captain Cochrane was
enjoying a doze in his berth. The mares* ;tails had
gone out of the sky, but the draught had travelled
round with the swell, north-west, and was blowing a
soft, hot, pleasant wind. The stm blazed in pink and
sultry glory. Low down and far abeam were two ships
sailing abreast, and over them were small curls of
cloud, like flocks of seagulls. Says Ben Black, on the
forecastle, coming out of the galley with a lighted
rope-yam, at which he sucked at his pipe, holding his
head on one side, and the bowl inverted :

* *'What was that there Johnson that you're always
a- talking about?**

* **He wrote books," answered Wilkinson, at whose
side lay a concertina.

* **What sort?" inquired Cabbage.

* **He wrote a dictionary," replied Wilkinson.

* **What in blue brimstone's that?" cried Old
Stormy.

NASSAU'S PASSION. laj

C Ci'

Why, a book which shows ignorant men how to
spell," answered Wilkinson.

* **Do it give sailors' words?" asked Black.

* **Ay, scores."

* **Was he ever a sailor?" inquired Old Stormy.

* **No."

* "Then what should he know about sailors' words?"
said Old Stormy, spitting on the deck with contempt

* **Did you ever hear a sailor that was called a doctor
in all your life," asked Cabbage, **if he ain't the ship's
cook, and he's no sailor!"

' ** What was this here Johnson doctor of?" inquired
Black. **Did he physic men?"

* **He wrote books, I tell you," answered Wilkin-
son.

'**Foralivin'?"
Ay."

'And he actually got money for his books?" said
Black.

* ** Pounds in scores," answered Wilkinson.
'**Well, blast me," exclaimed Black, **if ever I

could understand this 'ere trade of selling books!
Books wrote by a man's own hand, and sold by him for
good money! Who buys *em? If a man were to come
to me with a bundle of writing, and said it was fust-
class readin', and asked me to buy it, wouldn't he make
me feel as if I was only fit to be something in a
menagerie? Doctor! Would ye give a month's wages
for one of that there old Johnson's pieces, if he brought
it to you in a bundle of writin', and tells ye it was
made up of words, some of them sailors'?"

Blow me if I would!" said Cabbage.

'Ain't we had enough of this here Wilkinson's

t (C

xa4 ROSE ISLAND.

doctor?** exclaimed Black. "Give us a toon; I'll sing

ye a song, mates. It shall be "

*He did not tell them what it was to be. He was
arrested in his speech as though struck by lightning.
The others sprang erect, and stared with all their eyes,
too astonished, perhaps, for the moment to utter a
word; and, indeed, on the quarterdeck of the schooner
was a sight which the men would in the instant stare
with amazement at '

CHAPTER VIII.

THE picaroon's BOAT.

* Ladies and Gentlemen,' said Captain Foster, lighting

the pipe filled with black cavendish tobacco which he

sometimes smoked during the delivery of this story, *I

left the people in the after-part of the schooner thus

placed. Old Cochrane and Rose were below; the other

two were on deck. Arthur seemed to be thinking of

the two ships sailing abreast, the scene of which was a

lovely, tranquil bit of ocean canvas, with the sails

reddening to the western light, and the shrouds and

backstays descending to the decks in lines of gold.

But once he looked round, and sent a swift glance at

Nassau, who was patrolling the deck near the wheel,

dressed as usual, only this evening he wore a blue

coat, short in the skirts, braided down the front, with

some suspicious ornamentation on the shoulders as of

epaulets; further, he had adorned his wiry head with

a cap shaped like a Turkish fez or a common smoking

cap. It was of pale-blue velvet, and sat jauntily over

against one ear. He had been at some pains to dress

himself; he knew in all this fine weather that Rose

would be much on deck, and he was persuaded she

could not view him long in several attires without

beginning to contrast him with Arthur, not wholly to

the advantage of the latter. All of a sudden Arthur

125

126 ROSE ISLAND.

knocked out his pipe, put it in his pocket; and walked
across the deck to Nassau.

* **Do you know anything of this westing," said he,
**that my father is complaining of?"

* **It's a drift of current, or bad steering in your
watch," answered Nassau morosely.

* **You insolent dog!" exclaimed Arthur, scarcely
able to articulate for the sudden rage that possessed
him. **I am not going to call you a negro, because if
you were you could not help it. But the colour in you
should keep you modest, and that you can't be," and
he looked at him as if he were some loathsome animal.

* **What have you come up to me to say?" said
Nassau. **I do not want to quarrel with you or have
words with you."

* ** Perhaps you don't," said Arthur. **But I have
come up to you, as you call it, to tell you a truth, and
then to punish you. You are a low, black, dirty rascal.
You know that Miss Rose Island is my sweetheart, and
you dared this morning, after breakfast, when I was
out of hearing, to distress and humiliate her by an
offer of that dirty yellow paw of yours. You! It's
not to be credited."

* **I have as much right to fall in love with Miss
Rose as you have," answered Nassau, whose fingers
had unconsciously clenched themselves into fists, and
who was very sensible, not only by the cruel insults in
Arthur's mouth, but by the steely light in Arthur's
eyes, that a crisis was at hand. **It is not my fault that
she is beautiful ; it is not my fault that my skin is a
little darker than yours. I am as good as you, and the
sweetest woman in the world shall find it out — ^in
time."

THE PICAROON'S BOAT. 127

i ii-

You may be as good as I am, and better," cried
Arthur, with laughter involuntarily tumbling out of
his mouth in a tumult of mingled dangerous passions.
**But all the same, for daring to approach this lady, for
daring to glance at her, save with a respect she would
get from any nigger in her kinsmen's employment, I
mean to punish you. Stand up to me, Mir. Nassau."
'Nassau drew back a step. His nostrils were as
round as two shillings, the crimson in his eyes was as
clear as the crimson in the west.

* **Mr. Cochrane," he said in a low voice, level yet
vibratory, with the singular intonation of the African
utterance — throaty I have heard it called, and throaty
it is when it laughs — **I do not want to have anj^hing
to do with you. I wish to keep away from you in this
ship. I respect your father, but will not tell you that
you have a right to say that you are better than I am.
Better! Your looks would count because they're
white. But how are you better? Aboard this ship I
am your superior officer, anyhow."

* **You are a liar!" said young Cochrane.

' **For all your fine name," continued Nassau, whose
face seemed gradually to wither as he talked, until his
skin took the appearance of an old red cabbage, *'you
are a nobody when you are at home. I am much more
than you when / am at home. What can you do for
the lady you would marry? Shall I tell you what I can
do? She shall hold her head amongst the highest in
Kingston. She shall wear the finest silks and satins.
She shall be driven in a carriage of her own to her
friends. She shall be the wife of the commander of a
splendid sailing ship."

* **You damned liar!" burst in Arthur. ** Stand up

128 ROSE ISLAND.

to me, you scoundrel nigger!" and he whipped oflE his
coat, flung it on the deck, and, forgetting his request
that Nassau should stand up to him, grasped him by
the shoulders, turned him round with lightning speed,
kicked him the length of his own height, sprang and
kicked him again, this time not so far, but all in con-
formity with his earlier threat. This was the sight
which had arrested the sailor's speech, and which was
keeping the hands staring with gaping mouths.

'Nassau, however, was not to be kicked any further.
He turned, his coat was oflf in a trice, he flung down
his cap, spat in his hands, and the two men faced each
other. One by one the men on the forecastle drew
aft, and the schooner was off her course by three or
four points, whilst the helmsman gaped thirstily at so
delightful a sight as a fight between a first and second
mate on board their own vessel. Nassau was short ; I
have often said that he was powerfully built and stood
on legs that would have strained a cart-horse to move.
His fists were heavy, and hard as lumps of coal, and
now that he was in the fighting mood, now that the
dark passions of his soul were stirred up out of the
ooze on which, crocodile-like, they slumbered, his face
grew horrible with all the savagery of his antecedents,
and if you had asked for a correct portrait of the devil
at that moment, there he stood, with his fists advanced.
Young Cochrane, on the other hand, was tall and
slender, but of a most robust frame, nevertheless; his
staying powers were great, he had breath enough for
half a dozen, and he had that which the dandy darky
who stood up in front of him had not — I mean science,
which implies coolness and caution. Yes, young
Arthur had picked up the art of boxing from various

THE PICAROON'S BOAT. 129

people at sea who knew how to use their fists, and he
instantly saw by Nassau's posture that, scientifically,
he was no match for him.

'I will not enter into the particulars of this battle;
the ladies would not thank me. The men from steal-
ing came running aft, and circled the two to see fair
play, and watch the glorious scene of a fight between
their officers. In a very short time patches of blood
might be seen on the deck, and the face of Nassau
streamed with a blow which had widened his mouth
into his cheek. The fellow struck out with the savage-
ness of the brute, and once young Cochrane was felled
and Nassau sprang upon him, but the men literally
kicked him oS with howls of execration, and whilst
this was doing, loud shrieks and cries for Captain
Cochrane were to be heard from the companion-way.
Rose had been reading in the cabin, as I have told
you; her attention had been called from the book by
the voices of Arthur and Nassau on deck. She
listened. The two men went a little away, and not
being able to hear. Rose closed her book and sat
straining her attention at the dim sound of voices
which floated down to her through the skylight. Pres-
ently she heard a noise of scuffling and shuffling,
immediately followed by a rush of feet from forward.
Her heart beat fast. What had happened? She
feared that a mutiny had broken out. She was afraid
to go on deck alone, and walked to Captain Cochrane 's
cabin. But before she could knock at the door, she
gathered most unmistakably that a hand-to-hand fight
was proceeding between Nassau and her sweetheart,
on which she rushed up the steps, and seeing blood,
and the two men hammering each other, she shrieked

t (i

130 ROSE ISLAND.

aloud and called upon Captain Cochrane to come on
deck and prevent Mr. Nassau from murdering Arthur.

*At this precise moment Nassau uttered a peculiar
cry — ^it was lonely, it was weird, you might hear such
a cry on some midnight in an African forest — and
lowering his head he butted that wire-covered cannon-
ball slap into the chest of Arthur, who, with a gasp as
though his heart had burst, fell backwards his whole
length and lay motionless.

They have killed him!" screamed Rose.
By God! if that's the nigger's style of fighting,
you shall try the game on me, and we'll play it out
together," shouted Wilkinson, who came flapping and
wildly driving his arms round about him right up to
Nassau, dancing and curvetting like an educated goat
in a fair. But the coloured mate, spitting blood, with
a mad working face of rage, folded his arms, and stood
looking at the man he had thrown with his head, with
his breast panting, and his nostrils showing larger even
than shillings.

* Captain Cochrane was awake and overhauling a
locker. On hearing Rose's screams, and guessing that
something terrible was happening, he thrust a pistol in
his breast and in a few bounds gained the deck. The
lower limb of the sun was close to the horizon; the
evening was purple down to the eastern confines. The
swell swung sleepily through the deep, and the
schooner rocked languidly as though she knew she was
off her course and was in no hurry to proceed. Cap-
tain Cochrane, with his hand in his breast, saw his son
lying on the deck with Rose kneeling beside him. He
saw Nassau standing with folded arms. There was
blood on the nigger's face, and blood in several places

THE PICAROON'S BOAT. 131

on the planks. He saw his crew assembled, and
instantly suspected that the men had risen, killed his
son, voted Nassau skipper, and taken possession of the
little hooker. He walked right up to the side of his
prostrate boy, and the men recoiled a little, and
Nassau looked at him earnestly as if the beggar would
weep. Before Cochrane could speak, the half-blood
said:

' **I call these men to witness: I knocked him
down "

* **With your 'ead!** shouted Wilkinson.

* **But not before he had made a disgraceful attack
upon me. I, as a mate, am his superior officer whilst he
acts as second mate, and he comes to me with the men
looking on, and kicks me twice** — and here Nassau
slapped himself — **and, naturally, I then fought him.
Look what he has done to me** — and he pointed to his
mouth — **and all for what? Because I dare take the
liberty of admiring that young lady!*'

*0n this Arthur, who had been slightly stunned, sat
up, and Rose stood up and helped her lover to his feet.
Captain Cochrane was a kind man, but he could often
be what the Yankee sailor calls **a hard case'* when
angered. His hand fell from his breast. He would
not need a pistol. He saw with the falcon*s eye how
things stood. It was a quarrel of jealousy; he believed
Nassau's story, which, indeed, was perfectly true.

* **Go forward, men!** he said sternly to the fellows,
who still lounged about the spot. **Get to your
quarters;*' and the men trudged towards the forecastle
talking, with now and then a hoarse laugh. The man
at the wheel sneakingly got the vessel to her course,
and steered with a squint of attention.

isa ROSE ISLAND.

( «Ci

'This is a fine example to show the men!" said
Captain Cochrane with a glance at the bloodstains, and
a swift look over his son to note what damage he had
received ; but Arthur had come ofE with a black eye,
and a little blood in one nostril. In fact, nothing had
hurt him but the blow of Nassau's iron-hard head in
his chest, and the concussion of his skull with the deck.

* **Mr. Nassau tells me, Arthur, you were^ the
aggressor."

' **I have punished him for his infernal impudence to
this young lady," replied Arthur, grasping Rose by the
arm.

' **You were guilty of an intolerable breach of
discipline in striking your superior officer,*' said Coch-
rane with a very stem face and manner, which, seeing
that he loved his son and did not love Nassau, might
be something simulated. **you know how you would
be dealt with on board a man-of-war."

* **My superior officer!" exclaimed Arthur, with
great scorn ; and Rose thought, in spite of his black
eye, he never looked a handsomer, dearer man. **I
am a passenger. This fellow is no officer of mine. He
impudently made love to this young lady this morning,
and the dirty dog asked her hand in marriage."

* ** Dirty dog!" said Nassau through his teeth; and
the skin of his brow came together in folds like the
corrugated iron they use in buildings.

* **Mr. Nassau," said Captain Cochrane, ** there was
provocation certainly. This young lady is under my
protection!" and he lifted his figure, which years of
seafaring had slightly curved, into a highly dignified
air. **Her friends are known to me, and already she
has attached herself to me by the virtues which I

THEf PICAROON'S BOAT, 133

witness in her. You have, therefore, my command not
to molest her "

* "Not to address me," broke in Rose.

* **Nor even to address her," continued Captain
Cochrane. **It is an affair that is no business of
yours, sir. It does not concern the navigation of the
vessel, nor the discipline aboard of her," Cochrane
went on.

*Here young Wilkinson began to play the concertina
on the forecastle. It was a well-known negro song of
that day — sl sort of hymn — beginning, if my memory is
accurate:

'Let de nigger know de right.

To him de good God gib His light,

He is a man, tho' he ain't white.'

* **Aft a hand and clean this mess up," shouted Cap-
tain Cochrane, referring to the bloodstains. ** Arthur,
step below, sir. Mr. Nassau, I am sorry 'tis my son
that is concerned in this business. It may be unneces-
sary for me to say that after this you will cease to pro-
voke my son, whilst I, on the other hand, engage that
he gives you no cause of offence."

* **He charged me with causing the westing," said
Arthur.

He charged me/** cried Nassau, in a snap of fury.

'Whoever has the watch in which it occurs," said
old Cochrane, **is guilty of gross inattention and
undutifulness. A schooner is easily conned. The
Charmer lies marvellously close. If this is not done
for a motive," said he, looking at Nassau, **it is bar-
barous inattention, which might easily end in the loss

< t«

134 ROSE ISLAND.

of the vessel. I count upon your seeing to this, sir.
Arthur, step below, as I ordered you just now.'*

'Arthur went into the cabin, followed by Rose, who
had put his hat on, and was holding his coat. Coch-
rane followed, and standing under the skylight, and
raising his voice so that Mr. Nassau should hear him,
he rated his son as though he had been a forecastle
hand, and said that he should punish him and end a
grave difl&culty, which was entirely owing to want of
tact and discipline, by transferring Rose to the first
comfortable ship that would receive her.

* **I*11 not leave Arthur, Captain Cochrane!" cried
Rose, in part tearful, in part wrathful. **If you send
me away, he will go with me. But you will not send
me away?" she cried, with charming, subtle, incom-
municable serpentine motions of her form and neck as
she pleaded. **What has been my crime that I should
be sent away? Could I prevent that horrible man
from insulting me this morning? How dared he look
at me! How dared he think of me, the nigger puppy!
Oh, Arthur, if I go, if I am forced from this dear little
schooner which saved my life, you will not let me go
alone, dear — dearest, my dearest! you will not let me
go alone!" and she flung her arms round Arthur's
neck, and wept in passion.

'This was enough for old Cochrane, who was a sailor
at root, with a contempt for emotional exhibitions, and
he ended the matter by going into his cabin to put
away the pistol.

'After this nothing particular happened for two or
three days. Neither Nassau nor Arthur exchanged a
sentence, save the utterance of the ordinary words
when the watch is changed. Nassau did not attempt to

THE PICAROON'S BOAT. 135

speak to Rose, and it was contrived by Captain Coch-
rane that the coloured mate was never at table when
Rose was present. But nobody could stop him from
looking, and at every opportunity he stared at the
charming girl with his little eyes illuminated by red rays,
inflamed by a passion which by his countenance and
demeanor he certainly made no effort to conceal. His
mouth healed and Arthur's eye whitened, and the
little schooner drove quietly along her course to the
southward and west'ard, and there was no more
unnecessary westing in the next few days.

*But one thing was observable: Nassau hung much
about with the men forward. It is idle to speak of the
discipline of that schooner, for, as you have seen, there
was only just enough to carry on the day's work with.
Yet it was strange that Nassau, who at all events was
chief mate of the craft, should condescend to talk to
the men forward. When his watch was up, instead of
going below — I am speaking, of course, of the morn-
ings and afternoons — ^he would go to the galley, light
his pipe, and yam with any of the men who had leisure
to yarn with him. He generally spoke in subdued
tones, so that the meaning of his words never travelled
aft; but what he said seemed of deep interest, and
when the yarning was over the listeners would walk
away slowly and thoughtfully, as men who revolved an
important subject in their minds. Arthur called his
father's attention to the mate's familiarity with the
men. His father's rejoinder was:

* *'He springs from that breed. He is a fo'c's'le
hand by rights. It is natural he should make his way
forward as often as he can, No doubt he finds the men
good listeners to his lies, and that pleases the fellow.

1 1

i
i

■i

136 ROSE ISLAND.

I never met a more conceited half-blood. Better that
he should hang about the men than trouble Rose. I
want no difficulties aboard our little vessel. All has
been smooth sailing so far. The presence of Rose adds
to our obligations as seamen, and our duty and busi-
ness is to get our ship into Kingston Harbour as soon
as possible, and without any disturbance."

*Well, ladies and gentlemen, it is my pleasure now
to relate to you a very singular incident. You, of
course, know that in the times with which I am deal-
ing, piracy at sea was only a little less common than it
had been in the days of **Tom Cringle," who has
written of the pirate better than any man ever has, and
perhaps ever will. Desperate fellows fitted out brigs
and schooners, and wandered about the waters in
which the Charmer was sailing, and they swarmed
about the islands, their mastheads up a creek being as
familiar as the cocoanut-tree. English ships of war
had dealt this bloody and dreadful trade heavy blows,
and sloops and brigs and corvettes of the State were
ever on the alert, chasing everything suspicious, but
unfortunately not always capturing, for the pirates of
those days were careful to do their business in swift
bottoms. The worst offenders were the Spaniards, and
they, of them all, were the nimblest of heel, the most
desperate in the assault, the most barbarous in their
triumphs.

*The third morning, dating from the day of the
battle on the quarterdeck, broke in true tropic pro-
fusion of splendour, and flaming spaciousness of sky
and scene. The men washed down the decks as usual,
and the reflection of their figures trembled in the wet
planks as they trudged about with buckets and scrub-

THE PICAROON'S BOAT. 137

bing-brushes. There was the heat of storm threatened
in the dazzling pink of the risen sun. A hot breeze
blew from the south-west, and the schooner was oflE
her course with the luflfs of her fore and aft canvas,
and the leeches of her square cloths hollowing in as
she bowed to the Swell. The noise of running waters
was in the air; it was in the ripples, and in the gush of
the scupper-holes. Shortly before breakfast Captain
Cochrane came on deck. He wore a light dressing-
gown, and a pair of slippers, and looked a very com-
fortable sea-captain. He cast his eyes round the sea,
and admired the freshness of the morning and the
glory of its birth. He noted in the disc of the sun the
tropic heat it portended. There was nothing at first
sight visible upon the surface of the deep. He then
went to the compass and mused upon it a little, throw-
ing attentive glances aloft, and next he walked over to
Mr. Nassau, who was standing near the mainmast.
They exchanged a few civilities, for Cochrane, ear-
nestly desirous that no trouble should arise in his little
vessel, continued polite to his coloured mate, though
after he had heard Rose and Arthur in full his mind
took a change.

* **You have knocked about so long in fo'c's'les, Mr.
Nassau," said he, **that the habit of attachment
remains with you, and you would rather smoke your
pipe forward than aft?"

* **I am fond of sailors' company," answered Nassau,
looking warily, with a slight exhibition of his teeth, at
the skipper, and speaking in a voice whose note ren-
dered it audible to the seaman at the wheel. **They
have seen more than anybody. They most of them
know ships and shipmates of yours, and their yams are

/

y

138 ROSE ISLAND.

always pleasant talk to me, because they recall old
associations. The men forward are lively hearties,
saving Wilkinson, men after my own heart, deep-
water and square-yard men, and I like to smoke a pipe
with them."

* '*It is not customary,** said Captain Cochrane, with
a steady look at Nassau, **for chief mates of ships to
associate in familiarity with the men whom they
officer."

* ** Officer is scarcely a word to attach to this craft, is
it, Cap*n?*' responded Nassau, with a curious sneering
smile. **I did not creep into the sea-life through the
cabin window. I know the customs and discipline of
big ships, and all ships, and I know that aboard a craft
of this sort a mate is reckoned no more than a man.
You know how the men speak of me and to me, sir.*'

* **It is your own fault,** said Captain Cochrane,
with some degree of sternness. **You should not be
hand in glove with the men as you are. I do not
understand it."

* Nassau shrugged his shoulders with Haytian grace.
At this moment the man at the wheel, levelling his
arm through the light that blazed round above the
bright brass binnacle-hood, sung out:

* **Is that speck out on the bow there a boat, or is it
a fish?*'

'Cochrane, though an elderly man, had excellent
sight. He spied the object in an instant, and walking
to the companion, took the telescope and levelled it.
He immediately perceived that it was a boat, and so
excellent were the lenses he directed, that he was able
to count the number of men in her. They were nine :
eight men at the oars, and one man erect, like a hat-

THE PICAROON'S BOAT. 139

pooner, in the bows, holding something white in his
hand. In the telescope the pulsing stream of flashing
oars was distinctly visible, and it was also gatherable
that the men were straining their whole souls out of
their bodies to come up with the schooner before she
should drive ahead. The boat was being swept
through the water at a great speed. She was a long
boat, without a mast. She had the look of a ten-oared
galley, and the water was shredded into milk at her
bows, and the toilers at the oars strained their backs
with frequent glances over their shoulders at the
schooner.

* **Take this glass, Mr. Nassau," said the Captain,
'•and tell me what you make of yonder boat".

•Julius pointed the tubes; his inspection was severe
and thirsty.

• ''The man in the bows, sir," he said, still keeping
his eye at the glass, '*is holding something up. It is
white. It may be a fish ; but you will not find fisher-
men hereabouts in open boats, sir. I should recom-
mend that they are not allowed to board you."

•Captain Cochrane looked at the boat again.

' ••They seem a queer lot, certainly," said he.
"They are decidedly not fishermen. I have heard of
ships being taken, and their people miserably ill-used,
by innocent boats containing apparently shjpwrecked
seamen."

•Captain Cochrane then sang out to the men to lay
aft. They all arrived in a run. They had been watch-
ing the approaching boat, and 'twas a God-send, with
business and excitement in herj^wake, perhaps, that
broke for that day, at least, the eternal monotony of
the deep.

I40 ROSE ISLAND.

' **Men,'' said Cochrane, pointing to the boat, "d'ye

know what she is?" '

*"Yes," said Old Stormy, ** she's a bloody pirate/
•*No," exclaimed Nassau, ** they are pirates, if yon

please; but, in any case, they've lost their ship."

• "They are not to be allowed to board us!" cried
Captain Cochrane. "What does that man hold up in
the bows?" and once again he levelled the glass.

• "It's a fish," he said presently.
'Nassau laughed.

• "A painted fish!" he cried, speaking rapidly,
"They make 'em out of thin planks, and paint 'em.
They hold 'em up as if they had fish for sale, and so
dash alongside and board you before you can guess
what they would be at."

'Arthur arrived, with Rose following him. Nassau
studiously looked away from the pair. There was
something of elation and sympathy in the gaze he
fastened upon the boat, as, bow on, she came along in
a smother.

A shipwrecked crew!" cried Rose.
Pirates, by thunder!" cried Arthur.

*On this Cochrane ordered the men to arm them-
selves. The guns and pistols were brought up out of
the cabin, loaded and distributed. The men were
told to keep them concealed, and the schooner's helm
was put up, which slightly smartened her pace, and the
boat, that was now about half a mile distant, was
brought almost abeam; but she shifted her course with
the schooner's, and her drive through the sea was a
lateral one. The man in the bows began to shout.
His pantomime with the fish was vehement; but
though he yelled with his hand to the side of his

t C«'

THE PICAROON'S BOAT. 141

mouth, nothing but his voice could be heard. For a
few minutes there was silence ; the scene was pictur-
esque, and belonging to old times. The schooner was
sliding nimbly through it, but so was the boat, with a
visibly faster motion, so passionate was the toil of the
rowers. The seamen of the schooner, grasping their
muskets in readiness until they should be called upon,
crouched about the bulwarks that their weapons should
not be seen ; 'twas clear they liked as little the idea of
being boarded by those nine men as Captain Cochrane.
The skipper. Rose, and Arthur were grouped together
near the main-rigging. Both father and son grasped a
musket, and sometimes Arthur sent a wary glance at
Nassau, who stood apart always with folded arms and
right leg crooked and advanced in the heroic Napo-
leonic posture.

*The boat was now nearing the schooner, slowly, but
with certainty. There could be no question that in a
very short time she would be alongside. Her crew
had become easily distinguishable. They were as
romantic a set of villains in attire and looks as ever cut
the throats of homely merchant skippers, or compelled
the trembling passengers to walk the plank. They
were variously attired in red, blue, and dirty-white
shirts, breeches of drill or something of that sort, and
one or two wore little round caps like British soldiers,
and others straw hats, and others coloured caps like
night-caps. The man in the bows suddenly dashed down
the thing he held, and now his voice was clearly to be
heard, and his language was Spanish. Captain Coch-
rane very imperfectly knew that tongue, Nassau,
who was not armed, exclaimed :
Shall I speak to him, sir?"

C ill

142 ROSE ISLAND.

* **Yes, if you can make him understand you,"
answered Cochrane.

* With a superbly hideous grin Nassau leapt upon the
rail, and shouted in as good Spanish as was ever heard
spoken in the West Indies:

* **I know you, Garcia, and am alive to your tricks.
You know me, of course?"

* ** Captain Julius Nassau, by the Holy Virgin!"
shouted the man in the bow with a yell of surprise.

*At this the rowers, raging at their oars, looked
behind them, necessarily slackened the pace, and the
boat lost a little ground.

' *'Pull!" shrieked the man in the bow. '*We have
been wrecked, and we have fish to sell," he continued,
whilst the ruffianly crew once again whitened the
water round about them into boiling foam. **You will
receive us. Captain Nassau, in pity?"

* **Tell him," shouted Captain Cochrane, '*that if he
approaches any closer we will fire into him."

*This was delivered by Nassau in excellent Spanish.
He had the terms of the sea in that tongue. He might
have passed as a half-blood Spanish sailor.

* **We are hungry and thirsty, and are destitute of
food and water," screeched the man in the bow. **My
God! in pity receive us on board! Do not abandon us
to a dreadful fate!"

* And still the rowers swept the boat nearer and
nearer, until they could see that the man in the bows
squinted, and that he had a crimson scar down one
swarthy cheek, and they saw his long, black, snake-
like hair lifting and falling upon his shoulders and
back to the rush of the wind.

* **He says that he has no food, yet wants to sell us

i

THE PICAROON'S BOAT. 143

fish/' said Arthur, with a loud laugh. **If they board
us 'twill be a bloody business, and I mind Rose here."
*The threat of shooting produced no eflEect upon the
man in the bows and the rowers. The boat was pass-
ing through the water faster than the schooner. She
was creeping up close to under the port quarter. It
did not appear that the ruffians were armed ; no signs
of weapons were visible, neither weapons nor fish.

* **Keep off," shouted Captain Cochrane, "or we will
fire into you!"

'Undoubtedly his plain English was understood. It
produced no effect, and the boat was now within reach
of the heave of a rope's end when Cochrane, taking
aim, fired. The man in the bows, with a scream, fell
back.

' **I am killed!" he was heard to cry in Spanish.

*A11 but two or three of the rowers paused. Then
there rose yells of execration and cries in Spanish that
every creature on board the schooner would have his
throat cut for that piece of work. The boat lost way,
the schooner went ahead. Then again the infuriate
men buckled to their oars.

* **Give them a dose, and put an end to it," said
Arthur.

*The order was delivered. Five muskets were
levelled and fired slap into the thick of the people.
Two sank under the thwarts. One jumped on to a
thwart as though he would leap overboard, then fell
headlong into the bottom of the boat. They ceased to
row, and the boat dropped swiftly astern.

* "Get your fore-sheet to windward," sang out Cap-
tain Cochrane. ** Break out a cask of water, and buoy
a cask of bread."

144 . ROSE ISLAND.

'This was done, and Nassau, standing upon the
taflfrail, yelled a hail to the boat, pointing with his
finger at the casks that they might pick them up.

'Well, ladies and gentlemen, there is no other sequel
to this yam than this: that sometime afterwards
Arthur Cochrane got to know that the boat was
manned by nine pirates who had formed a portion of
the crew of a well-known Spanish picaroon. This
vessel had sprung a leak about thirty miles to the
southward of the spot where the Charmer had fallen
in with the boat. She sank so rapidly that she barely
gave time to the men to escape. The boats separated.
The boat which had flourished the sham fish contained
two breakers of fresh water, but no provisions. The
fish, I may say, had formed a part of the boat's equip-
ment. Every boat had one, and by flourishing it and
representing themselves as shipwrecked fishermen
they succeeded in boarding ships without fighting,
which exactly suited the curs. '

CHAPTER IX.

sailors' pleasure.

'Ladies and Gentlemen,' continued Captain Foster,
whilst he smiled at the pleasant attention which he
noted amongst his hearers, * before I continue my
story, it is right that I should say I claim nothing
heroic or spirited in the behaviour of Cochrane and his
people. They were armed, the pirate crew was not—
at least, they had no firearms, though every man
carried a long murderous sheath-knife strapped to his
hip, and there was no question, had they succeeded in
gaining the deck, it would have gone hard with the
Charmer^ seeing how they would, by hunger, by the
dread of coming across a man-of-war, and by the cir-
cumstance of the Charmer being exactly the sort of
craft they wanted, have fought with the pluck and
rage of demons. They could not better the falling-in
with this schooner if they could work fortune out of it,
and how they would have fought had they been
unwarily allowed on board as distressed fellow-
creatures you may guess. I say that Cochrane did the
right thing, and the only thing that was to be done. It
was what / should do were I so beset, and what was
done by a captain with whom I served as third mate.
We were overhauled in the Malacca Straits by a boat as
suspicious as Cochrane's friend. We fired a round

145

146 ROSE ISLAND.

shot into her, and they plugged the hole and departed.
'Cochrane and his son talked a little over this matter
when the boat had diminished into a point of black far
astern. Where Arthur was, Rose was ever near. She
stood close, and never did her eyes meet his but that a
smile of love made deeper the beautiful glow of them.
The girl was no doubt desperately in love, and so in
truth was Arthur.

* **What do you think of Nassau's part in to-day's
business?** Arthur asked of his father.

* '*Why, if he knew the man I shot, he did not act as
his friend,** answered old Cochrane, with a laugh.

* **I should think he knows most of the pirates," said
Rose. **He was called by the man Captain Nassau, as
if he had commanded a pirate. "

He is undoubtedly a pirate, ' * said Arthur.

His yams don*t fit in with thatnotion,*' exclaimed
old Cochrane. **He has certainly served in other
ships than pirates. He was ready with his Spanish,
though, and he speaks it wonderfully well, with a
remarkably good accent. Now, to a certain extent, I
trusted him. I believe I should have credited his
assurances, and I consider that, pirate or no pirate, he
has been honest enough to bring us clear of a very
ugly job.**

* **In my opinion,** said Arthur, in a voice of cool
conviction, **he is a pirate steeped to the finger-tips,
and he has an eye to this schooner. What*s the mean-
ing of our mysterious westing?*'

*His father looked at him very gravely, but not as if
he was being convinced.

* "What is his object," pursued Arthur, "in going
among the men and talking to them? Keep your

C i«

SAILORS* PLEASURE. 147

weather eye lifting, father," said he. **I should be
glad to hang Mr. Nassau. ' '

* •*You are prejudiced through Rose," replied
Cochrane.

*Rose coloured, and replied that Nassau was a
hideous baboon of a man, who dared approach her in
speech which made her feel humiliated ; but that these
things did not constitute a pirate, nor could they con-
cern his determination to seize the schooner.

' ** Seize the schooner!** cried old Cochrane, with
proud contempt. ** Single-handed, or by the aid of my
men?"

* **I don't know," answered Rose languidly.

*It was, in truth, burning hot, and they were talking
in the sun. The girVs demeanour or voice was a hint,
and Cochrane, after a prolonged stare forward at the
crew who were visible, went below for his sextant. It
continued to blow a baffling air all that day and night.
Cochrane came on deck shortly after midnight; the
sea spread black and trembling, but the moon was
making a great light in the south, though she rose late,
and by the roll of the shadow was now become a piece
of moon. The fires of the sea sprang in the coils of
the running ripples. The skipper walked straight
to the binnacle, and looked at the compass-card.
It was Nassau's watch on deck. No schooner ever
looked closer to the wind than the Charmer. The
skipper observed that she was a point off the course
which the wind would have permitted the helmsman
to keep. He shouted to Nassau :

* **Is this,** said he, pointing to the card, and speak-
ing with angry sarcasm, **that drift of current which
has been giving us so much mysterious westing?"

148 ROSE ISLAND.

*The helmsman luflEed. He was Jacob Overalls.

* **It was my fault, sir," said the man. **This lamp
gives a blasted bad light. My vision ain't what it
was, and I let her fall off."

* **It can only have been for a minute, sir," said
Nassau. "'She was as she should lie a few moments
ago."

* Cochrane rated the man at the wheel in strong
terms, told him that the binnacle lamp burnt brightly,
and shed a light in which a bat could see. He recom-
mended Nassau, in a few emphatic words, to keep a
stricter con, if he did not wish the schooner to run foul
of some cay or other. Nassau, in a transport of
earnestness in which his voice trembled, swore that
throughout the voyage, during his watch, the schooner
had never been far off her course unless the wind
headed her, and then 'twas always as close a luff as he
could keep. Did not the Captain believe him? If not,
let Mr. Arthur take his place, and he would go for-
ward. He had served as a man before, and he could
serve as a man again. The Captain answered by say-
ing, in a speculative voice, whilst he pointed to the
binnacle compass with a hand of shadow:

* **Keep your luff, sir, and if she breaks off call
me.

*He was up again on deck at three o'clock, gliding
like a ghost from the companion to the binnacle-stand.
The schooner was then lying half a point closer to her
course than she could have kept when he had first
come up after midnight. The wind promised a fair
breeze presently, if it did not fail and fall a flat calm.
He saw the coloured mate standing motionless like a
block of black and white marble at the weather main-

i

SAILORS' PLEASURE. 149

shrouds, but without addressing him returned to his
cabin. He pondered this matter closely, and made up
his mind to conclude that Nassau had spoken the
truth. He therefore said nothing upon the subject to
his son. He did not want any trouble on board; he
knew how his son would misinterpret this stroke of
bad steering — ^how, indeed, it might lead to further
acts of violence between him and the coloured mate.
The voyage would be ended soon, he hoped; he would
get rid of Nassau, and terminate a worry and a diffi-
culty. Moreover, he was an old man, and he loved to
step the smooth roads.

*At diimer that day in the cabin, after some brisk
chat — ^for Rose was an excellent talker, and the two
men in their several ways had seen life in the vast
variety of the sea — ^the conversation turned upon
music; not a subject you would think quite likely to be
discussed by the skipper of a bit of a schooner and his
son, but both these men, as I have told you, were a
considerable touch above the average merchantman.
It came about by Rose saying that .the song of the sea,
in the little open cabin porthole, sounded to her like
the strains of a harp played in some windy distance on
a hillside. In fact, a nice draught was blowing, and
the schooner, close hauled on the port tack, was again
holding her course.

* '*Are you fond of music, Miss Rose?" asked old
Cochrane.

* *'I should never be without it, and it should be of
the choicest, both in singers and in instruments, if I
had wealth enough to indulge in such delights. * '

* **They say there is music in everjrthing, ' ' exclaimed
Arthur. **They tell you there is a music you can't

ISO ROSE ISLAND.

•

hear; the tones are too deep for the reception of the
human ear.'*

*Rose smiled incredulously. Cochrane asked her if
she could sing.

* "Jiist a little," she answered, with a flash at
Arthur, and a downward look at her fingers, on which
gleamed a couple of rings, one a little serpent with
emerald eyes. Cochrane surveyed her thoughtfully,
clearly meditating another matter, then addressing his
son said:

* **I am for giving the men some pleasure. The best
way to deal with a mutinous crew, with men,' here he
smiled, *who might rise and seize your ship, is to treat
them as men, be kind to them, to let them taste a little

sailor's pleasure now and again. I am thinking ' '

He broke oflf and looked at the skylight. **This is
splendid weather. Suppose we fill a dog-watch
to-night with music and singing?"

'Arthur's face lighted up.

'Will you sing. Miss Rose?" said the skipper.
I will do anything to please you," she answered,
with engaging emphasis, and one of those serpentine
motions of her form which were among her fascina-
tions in the sight of young Cochrane.

* "They have a concertina forward; I dare say they
play it well enough," said the Captain. **I am rather
of opinion," he continued, *'that the mate possesses an
instrument representing a banjo."

* •*Yes," said Arthur, looking at Rose, and bursting
into a laugh, **he owns such a thing; he once showed
it to me. He has never produced it in public, but I
have heard him strumming softly in his berth and
whistling an accompaniment. But we won ' t have him. ' '

SAILORS' PLEASURE. 151

' "Oh, yes, he shall sing, certainly, if he will," said
the skipper with warmth,

' "I would not lose the chance of hearing him sing
for a great deal," said Rose.

'Thus they discussed this unimportant matter.
Rose's eyes were lighted up. You saw she looked for-
ward to some amusement. It was settled that the
men should have grog served out to them ; that such
lights as the schooner yielded should be hung about
the decks to give the plain fabric a character of
festivity when the sun went down. They would start
with the concert, and the Captain left the task of draw-
ing up the programme to his son. The schooner
carried amongst her consignments a number of cases
of cakes and boxes of sweetmeats, and the men were
to be regaled on something choicer than the flint-hard
biscuit, the peepshow of the weevil. After dinner
Arthur went forward, and saw Old Stormy sucking an
inch of black pipe on the coamings of the fore-hatch.
He said to him;

' "Bring the men together, I have something to say
to them."

'Now, the man at the wheel was Cabbage, but the
others who arrived were Jacob Overalls, Ben Black,
and Wilkinson. These formed the crew, and a
sufficient crew for that ship, whose cook had died three
weeks after they had left port.

' "Men," said Arthur, "it is proposed to have some
fooling to-night in the second dog-watch. Whi
you say? There'll be drink, and cakes, and si
meats."

' "Oh, we're all agreeable to that," said Overall

' "There will be singing. The lady will sing to

iSa ROSE ISLAND.

The mate will be asked to sing. He owns a banjo,
and should sing a good song. All of you will be asked
to sing. Are you willing?*'

*The fellows looked at one another with the awkward-
ness of cattle. They seemed to accept the proposal
as a duty on the whole. They were blockheads, and
needed time to realize a thing.

' **What shall I be expected to sing?" says Ben
Black.

* **Oh, my lad, you'll just turn to and pipe up any
old ditty that your grandmother may have taught you.
YoUy a sailor, wanting a song!"

'Black looked at Arthur as though he hunted in his
mind for recollections of old airs.

* **You own a concertina, don't you?" says young
Cochrane, turning upon Wilkinson.

Yes, sir."

What can you play upon it?"

'Why, anything I've once heard."

Dummed if I won't say this for the Doctor,"
exclaimed Overalls, **that what he says is true! I once
sung him a toon they sings in Iceland, and wither my
leggings if he hadn't got it next minute on that there
organ of his!"

* **A11 right," said Arthur, "you be the accompanist.
We shan't expect you to sing, but there'll be dancing
after the chantings are ended, and the job of plajring
from truck to kelson will be yours."

*The fellow looked delighted, and Arthur told Old
Stormy to collect all the lamps he could muster, and
get them hung about, and place anything that should
answer for seats on the quarterdeck.

'Well, ladies and gentlemen, as you know, the second

c a-
( (i-
( ii'

SAILORS* PLEASURE. 153

dog-watch is from six to eight in the evening, and it is
needless to tell you that it is the sailors' holiday watch,
in which they lounge, yam, smoke, sing, and do, in
short, what they please. Six o'clock that day brought
around a rich evening of western lights of heaven,
Oriental in splendour of shafts of burning gold, and a
pleasant breeze off the bows still sweetened the heat;
the sails slept, the sea was of a deep blue which I have
never seen anywhere save in a woman's eyes. At this
hour they had raised a sail right ahead, and already
they knew that she was going their way, and that she
showed the mast-heads of a square-rigged ship.
Shortly after six the scene of the quarterdeck of the
Charmer a little abaft of the mainmast was this : over
a hencoop, through whose bars a few surviving hens
had ceased to dart their crested heads in astonishment,
was spread the Union Jack, and a seat formed of a
plank on two inverted tubs ran down the foremost side
of it. At this table was seated the crew — the whole of
them — Captain 'Cochrane having taken the helm.
They had cleaned themselves up for this occasion. Old
Stormy looked more nautical than any nautical figure
in Cruikshank's travesties. His straw hat was at the
back of his head, his throat lay open, he wore a jacket
over a blue shirt, and the ends of a great silk necker-
chief hung as low as his belt. The others were of the
average type, in their attire more or less nautical, and
merchantmen to the finger tips. They gaped about
them like countrymen in a theatre, as though they had
never seen the schooner before, so innocent in char-
acter are sailors, so easily pleased and amazed by
trifles. Upon the table was placed, in a couple of jugs,
enough rum and water to supply each man witji fthr^e

154 ROSE ISLAND.

good glasses, also an open box of round cakes, plum
and seed, with knives for cutting them up, and a small
case of various sweetmeats at which Old Stormy, while
he chewed his tobacco, looked with contempt. A few
cakes of tobacco were scattered over the table for each
man to use, with liberty to pocket the remainder. It
was a sumptuous regale and entertainment, unheard
of aboard such a schooner as the Charmer^ and, ladies
and gentlemen, I must admit, never to be heard of in
my experience aboard any ship flying the British flag.
A couple or three chairs brought from the cabin were
placed upon the quarterdeck. They faced the men.
Miss Rose occupied one. Her wardrobe consisted of
the attire in which she had floated to the schooner.
She had no dress to change, but looked, nevertheless,
a very sweet girl as she sat, glowing in the sun just
clear of the small awning, with her large, dark liquid
eyes of light, scarcely suppressing the emotion of
humour which you felt stirred in her, glancing in a
floating manner over the sailors opposite her.

* Arthur, standing beside her with his hand upon the
back of her chair, sang out, ** Heave ahead, my lads,
with your drink and cake, then get your pipes. Look
alive, Wilkinson! We shall be wanting that concertina
of yours very soon. "

*A fine fellow he looked; his face was coloured by
the weather, his melodious voice had a note of com-
mand in it that was inborn. He bore no extravagant
traces of the sea, but you would have known him as a
sailor on seeing him. The men poured out the rum
and water and began to eat and drink. There was a
certain grimness about them. They were watched by
JuUi|i:J Nassau, who stood a little apart from Arthur

SAILORS' PLEASURE. 155

and Rose. It was clear he was going to help in the
entertainment. His banjo lay upon the skylight and
himself was dressed in his best. The more he accentu-
ated himself by apparel, naturally the more repellant
he looked, and this evening Julius Nassau, who was a
real marine beau in his go-ashore clothes, might have
passed as something in the gorilla line, which had
escaped from a menagerie and stolen a civilized man*s
dress. It was scarcely the shore-going costume of
those years, ladies and gentlemen. I don't know
whether the ** Spencer*' was then in vogue. His negro
blood loved straps, and his striped calico breeches
were tautened to the soles of his boots. He wore a
coloured shirt, the collars of which, there being no
starch on board, lay limp : but he contrived to support
them into the aspect of stick-ups by a heavy green
cloth pierced by several pins connected by chains, all
of them various, one being a death's head. Through
these limp stick-ups stared his grotesquely hideous
face, and his eyes were red as sunset.

'After some time, during which Rose and Arthur
conversed whilst kind-hearted Captain Cochrane
steered, and Julius stealthily looked on apart, Arthur
sung out to Wilkinson to bring his concertina, and the
young fellow, the extraordinary admirer of Dr. Samuel
Johnson, was aft in a bound or two. It had been
agreed that Rose should question him as to his musical
knowledge.

* **What songs do you know?" she asked, looking up
at him with the whole sweetness of her beauty and
her desire to please warm in her face. Wilkinson was
a little embarrassed by standing so close to this fine
girl, and being talked to by her. Nassau watched, and

156 ROSE ISLAND.

his lips frequently worked with the sensations of his
soul. The young fellow, knuckling his brow with an
old-fashioned scrape aft of his right foot, named a
short list. Most of them were sea-songs, some of them
of the **Bully-in-the- Alley" type; not likely that any
young lady would have ever heard of such songs. She
named a few herself, and it turned out that he knew
** Annie Laurie,** *'Home, Sweet Home," and "The
Last Rose of Summer." This would be good enter-
tainment for the sailors, who loved sentiment. It is a
mistake to suppose that the sailor's song is the work-
ing chorus which pours in hurricane volume from
throats winding round the capstan or heaving at the
windlass. When sailors are called upon for a song in
festive moments, away from the duties of shipboard,
they will sing sentiment. It had been arranged that
Rose should start the concert. She stood up and
looked at the row of sailors with a smile. The fellows
lighted their pipes and took pulls at their glasses.
Wilkinson played the opening bars of **Home, Sweet
Home." He played them well; he was determined to
do his best. This is a song whose melody and theme
have taken a deep and lasting hold of the English
heart. The roughest will pause and listen, or slacken
their pace whilst they pass on humming in sympathy.
I am aware, ladies and gentlemen, that it is customary
for people who write books or tell stories to represent
their heroines as gifted with finer voices than any to
be heard among the pick of the Italian Opera. Yet
this you may believe, on my word of honour: Miss
Rose Island had a rich and far-reaching contralto
voice, which, though she had never gone into training
with it, she could use with an innate art that is denied

SAILORS* PLEASURE. 157

to many who spend a little fortune and years in the
cultivation of their gift Her soul was in sympathy
with the song she was singing; her voice rang with a
tremor of tears in it to the heights of the sleeping
canvas, and away into the stillness of the homeless
sea. The men were moved. They pulled their pipes
from their lips and opened their mouths whilst they
listened to her. One or another would shake his head
with admiration. It is true that **Home, Sweet
Home" should be one of the very last songs to affect
the sailor, for there is no man so homeless as he ; there
is no home for him, unless it is the Sailors' Home,
which he detests. When ashore the sailors' home is a
boarding-house, where he is drugged, stripped, robbed,
and sometimes rolled like a barrel aboard a vessel by
the boarding-house keeper, who claims and gets his
advance money. So much for the **home, sweet
home" of the sailor, ladies and gentlemen.

*The study among that band of listeners was Julius
Nassau. He flung himself into several attitudes, each
of which was expressive of rapt admiration. He
rolled his little red-bright eyes in their sockets till
sometimes the pupils vanished in the upper lids and
left nothing visible but the dirty whites. Old Coch-
rane, at the wheel, laughed at him. Arthur never
looked at him. It was no piece of acting, but a genu-
ine expression of emotion. The man was deeply
touched by the charm and beauty of the singing, and
could not contain himself. The sailors were so
enraptured by this song that they encored it with a
thunder of fists upon the hen-coop and of feet upon the
plank of the deck. Then Arthur gave them **The
Bay of Biscay." And now it was Julius's turn to

158 ROSE ISLAND.

favour the company. He walked in his striped trousers
and cut-away coat to the skylight, took up his banjo,
and came with it to the third chair, next to Arthur.
He pulled the seat a little forward, that the girl might
obtain a good view of him ; then, making her a low
bow, he turned to the seamen and bowed to them,
seated himself, and fell a-strumming. The mere tones
of the banjo delighted the sailors, who are great lovers
of this instrument, and associate it with negro min-
strels, and the blackened humours of the music-hall.
But instead of singing a comic song, which everyone
expected, Nassau broke into something from one of the
Italian operas. It was a love song, and the beggar
sang it in Italian, proving that he was acquainted with
several tongues. The sailors, who did not care for
this, because to them, though a beautiful melody, it
had not the flavour of the ordinary music they were
accustomed to, treated it as though^ it were a comic
song, and grinned continuously at the singer. Nassau,
putting on faces which he might suppose to express
the tender and impassioned sentiments of the words,
was ludicrously hideous betwixt his collars. His
mouth yawned as if he would swallow a baby, and his
hair stood up like the bristles of a scrubbing-brush.
But, nevertheless, he sang with wonderful taste, with
perfect appreciation of the music, and in a voice in
which the guttural of the negro was not to be detected.
He sang at Rose, he sang to Rose ; it was clearly for
Rose only that he sang this song. Possibly he hoped
that she knew Italian. She kept her face averted.
Arthur stared at him, but the negro mate sang on,
strummed his banjo with passion, sang his heart out to
the charming girl in a language which nobody under-

SAILORS* PLEASURE. 159

stood but himself, and so enjoyed the luxury of mak-
ing love to her, without risk of having his mouth cut
open, as if he had got her alone up in a corner. When
this song was ended the sailors did not howl encore,
but yelled for something comic. Nassau got up,
bowed to Miss Rose with a leer as though he had
established an understanding between them, bowed to
the sailors, making a hideous face at which they
roared, sat down, placed his banjo on his knee, and
swept into a real negro song, not such as the negroes
really sing, but such as they are represented to sing by
clever composers of music. It tickled the men to their
very souls. If ever there had been a doubt as to their
partiality for the mate, their reception of him, their
enjoyment, the applause they gave him, would have
settled it. Then Rose sang **The Last Rose of
Summer." Her sweet voice and fair person made it
beautiful to hear, and the sailors listened as though
they were in church. Nassau followed this perform-
ance with contortions of admiration, and Arthur from
time to time eyed him sternly and almost menacingly,
as though he believed that the coloured dog was trying
to reduce the girl's singing to an absurdity. 1*11 not
weary you with a description of the singing, or a state-
ment of the songs. One extraordinary feature I will
describe: just before Old Stormy stood up to dance the
hornpipe, Nassau, addressing Miss Rose, but in a voice
that all might hear, asked if she would like to see the
Pirates' Dance. There was a general shout of **Ay,
ay!" **0h, yes, give us that!" and Rose exclaimed,
**Pray dance it, Mr. Nassau."

'On this Nassau rushed to the companion and disap-
peared. He emerged in a few minutes, dressed in a

i6o ROSE ISLAND.

red shirt, blue sash, the fez or round cap we have
already seen him in, and by his side dangled a cutlass.
He wore his striped trousers as before. Bowing to
right and left with a ridiculous gravity, he made a
short speech, addressing himself to Rose. He said he
had learnt the dance he was about to give them from
the pirates of San Domingo and the Tortugas, where
he was kidnapped and forced to serve, whereat there
was a rumble of laughter from some of the men seated
at the hen-coop. Nassau, with an unmoved face,
added that this dance was to be seen to perfection only
when executed by five or six men of good bearing and
agility, but they could see what it was like. He began
by marching round and round, as in the common horn-
pipe, he then broke into a peculiar whistle with which
he timed his extraordinary antics. It was absolutely
tuneless, and yet had a measure of its own. All in
a minute his eyes flashed, his face took on a horrible
grin, he drew his cutlass and leaped half the breadth
of the deck, always whistling. His dartings and rush-
ings, the flourishing of his cutlass, his horribly wild and
eager looks, all indicated that the pirate had hove a sail
into sight. They were giving chase, they were com-
ing up with him; they drew alongside of him and
boarded. Allthis was most incomparably indicated by
savage but eloquent motions, by his wonderful jumps,
his thrusts and parries, and almost all the time he con-
tinued to whistle, as though he could not dance with-
out this noise. Whether it was his own invention, or a
dance really danced, cannot be known. It was not
only a prodigious feat of agility, it marked an extraor-
dinary power of pantomime. He looked a formidable
figure as he sprang, cutlass in hand, and it was plain

SAILORS' PLEASURE. i6i

that he danced for Miss Rose and at Miss Rose, and
the sailors shouted with excitement and enjoyment,
and Arthur clapped his hands, and old Cochrane, still
at the wheel, was heard to cry several times, ** Bravo!"

*The sun had set when Nassau ended and the skipper
called a hand aft to relieve him. Some of the men
sang a few songs, and then they lighted the lanterns,
and bringing them together made a fine light, in
which Old Stormy stood up and danced the sailor's
hornpipe to the notes of the concertina. Ah! 'twas
then a scene for the eye of a lover of nautical pieces
to dwell upon; the subtle beauty of it pervading,
dominating everything, like the incense breathed by
the earth in summer; and the purple light of the sun
that was gone, and the pink effulgence that dwelt in
the zenith softened into delicate violet into the far
recesses of the east. In this light were all things
bathed, and the schooner, with her dancing sailors,
and her galaxy of lights amidships, and her sails
descending from a dim purple into a dim whiteness,
rippled through the shadow that was now upon the
sea, and right ahead, risen at this time to her top-
gallant-sails, was the ship they had sighted before the
festivity began.

* **I wonder what ship that can be," said Rose to
Arthur.

CHAPTER X.

THE ELEUTHERA.

*The weather at sea is the first consideration of a man
when he arrives on deck. This is true whether he is
a sailor or a passenger, unless, indeed, the passenger
is one of those unfortunate, narrow-headed, asinine
specimens of humanity who, on board ship, can think
of nothing but cards, the smoking-room and its stories,
the meals, and the bar. It is not, therefore, wonder-
ful that in all sailors' descriptions of the sea a plentiful
accoimt of the weather will be found. Their logbooks
are full of it. It is impossible to tell a story of the sea
without talking of the weather, and this constant
reference is perfectly consistent with truth and art;
because, when you are upon the ocean, the weather is
about the one thing you see, taste, suffer, or enjoy,
betwixt your ports, and luck and calamity are con-
tained in the word. I have spoken much of the
weather, ladies and gentlemen, in connection with the
schooner Charmer ^ and with your good leave I must
still continue to introduce brief descriptions of it All
night, long after the amusements of the second dog-
watch had come to an end, the wind had continued to
blow a light air. When the moon was a half, and
slowly stemming like a red boat through the south*

western ether, dropping blood in the water for a wake,

162

THE ELEUTHERA. 163

and making the semi-circle of light in the midst of
which she floated pale and dreary with her peculiar
dark-red face, as though some pestilential wind was to
blow straight out of her presently—when the moon was
in this situation the night-air freshened, the schooner
leaned and creaked with a pleasant flap of canvas
throughout the heights of her, as though she were
some huge bird of ocean setting her wings ere sailing
into the void where the stars were shining; but it
passed, slackened down into the old soft breathing,
and at sunrise it was as yesterday: smooth, delicately
wrinkled, and full of the promise of bright, baffling
calm weather.

*At six o'clock in the morning Captain Cochrane
came on deck and joined^ his son, who had been keep-
ing the look-out since four, and who now stood leaning
over the bulwark-rail, whistling softly to himself, with
his eyes fixed upon a large ship, going the schooner's
way, between two and three miles ahead. She was
under all sail, but the light breeze was on the bow,
and she showed no studding-sails.

* **That will be the ship we sighted last evening!"
exclaimed Captain Cochrane. "She has no chance
with this schooner in light winds and her yards fore
and aft. Evidently bound to Kingston. A West
Indiaman apparently. They rig those ships too loftily,
and the steeve of their bowsprits is a danger to the
whole fabric."

* **I can't help thinking that I've seen that ship,"
said Arthur. **I have been working at her with the
glass, but can't make out her name, though you can
just catch sight of the white letters trembling in
refraction as she lifts to the swell. ' '

i64 ROSE ISLAND.

*01d Cochrane examined her with the telescope.
He could see people moving on the poop, but the
name, owing to the slant of the letters, was not dis-
tinguishable.

* **We*ll be up with her in an hour or two," said the
skipper. **I should be pleased to command that ship.
They give you good pay, and room in cubic feet for a
venture. What did you think of last night's jollity?"
said the old chap, stepping to the skylight to lay down
the glass. **Do the mens seem pleased? Do they
show any signs of a better disposition? I shall have
stuck for once in my theory of seamen if this crew give
us any trouble."

* **I have not spoken with the men," answered
Arthur, casting a glance at one or two of the fellows,
who were coiling down after washing the decks. **I
do not think they will say anything, and I do not think
your entertainment will have made them wholesomer.
Let St. Peter open the gates of heaven to them, and
let them get a view of their beloved friends who have
gone before, and of the glories and the bliss which
await the just; they would curse St. Peter for keeping
them waiting, though the saint had whipped out his
key as soon as ever he had heard them knock. But do
you really expect, father, contentment amongst a set
of men who live on equal terms with their chief
mate, which chief mate is a damnable pirate at heart?"

* **I don't care what he is!" exclaimed old Cochrane
a little testily. **We have made the voyage so far in
peace, and we must end it in peace. Rose's floating
aboard was somewhat unfortunate. The nigger's
fallen in love with her, but who is to help it? and who
cares? Ill-blood has come aboard with her, and it is a

THE ELEUTHERA. 165

pity. Why did she fall out of the window of the
EleutheraV

* **I have such a strong dislike and suspicion of that
ugly beggar who danced the pirates' dance last night,*'
said Arthur, "that I'm for transferring the girl to
yonder ship, where she'll be safe, if she'll receive her.*'

***Safe!" exclaimed old Cochrane. ** What's to
make it less safe for her than for us? Not but that I
should be glad to see her in better quarters, and whilst
she's aboard you make love and she adores you, and it
all irritates the mate."

* **Damn the mate!" said Arthur. ** I'm for trans-
ferring the girl, nevertheless, that is, if the ship is
bound to Kingston ;" and he said this in heroic accents,
with a proud, defiant motion of his head, as though he
was galled but must endure it, for, to speak the truth,
the thought of parting with the girl on the high seas,
good as it might be for her, cut like a knife into his
heart. He went to the skylight to look at the ship
again through the telescope. Ladies and gentlemen,
you will probably think old Cochrane 's character a
weak one. You will say he was without penetration.
The fact is, when he took command of the Charmer^ it
was with something of sickness. He had commanded
in considerable tonnage ; he could not treat his handful
of a crew, amongst whom the discipline of the big
ship did not exist, seriously. He was advancing in
age, and all that he asked for was peace. His
schooner was little more than a coaster, and the life
aboard was much that of coasters. It was strange that
the men did not call old Cochrane to his face by his
Christian name, but they had a respect which stopped
them short of that. But the fact is, ladies and gentle-

i66 ROSE ISLAND.

men, though the yam I am spinning is as true as
yonder compass, 'tis a queer one — mighty queer, with
its mixture of Cochranes, nigger mate, and crew, and
how things fell out with them; if otherwise, I really
should not bore you. Whilst Arthur was looking
through the glass, struggling to make out the name of
the ship ahead. Rose came up and put her hand affec-
tionately upon his. An instant later she caught sight
of the ship, and after staring a little, whilst Arthur
was bidding her good-morning, and admiring her fine
eyes and the curve of her nostril, and the whole fasci-
nating contour, colour, and expression of her remark-
able and singular face, she exclaimed:

* **Good gracious, dearest! do you know that I
believe that ship there is the EleutheraV^

* **By George, I believe you are right!" said Arthur,
once again lifting the glass. **I ought to have remem-
bered those gilded quarter-galleries, and the big stern-
windows, and the square cut of her royals, almost the
size of her t'gallant-sails."

* ** Hoist the ensign," cried the skipper. **What
other ship than the Eleuthera should she be? Bound to
Kingston, of course. Bless me! not to remember
her, after lying together off the edge of that hurricane
for hours.*'

'Arthur sent the ensign to the peak end. It shook
its crimson folds sulkily; it wanted a strong breeze to
blow it into the flame and meteor that Campbell calls it.

* ** There's Rose's chance!" exclaimed Captain Coch-
rane, pointing to the ship. **Her clothes are there,
and the friends of her voyage." He glanced askant,
and perhaps archly, at her, ** There she'll be safe,
Arthur,"

THE ELEUTHERA. 167

* **I am safe here," exclaimed Rose, with a manner
of decision which tautened her figure from her hair to
her heels.

* **You will be safer in that ship, dearest," said
Arthur, caressing her arm soothingly. ** Father and I
were just now talking about the risks you run aboard a
little schooner, full of ill-conditioned men, influenced
by a beastly savage.* '

* **Mr. Nassau will not hurt me," said the girl, who
had turned very pale, with something like a little
dimness of tears in her eyes. **The men have been
always civil. How they applauded me last night ! Do
you want to drive me from you? If I enter that ship
and you remain here, we may never meet again. Oh,
Arthur, I had thought you loved me!'*

*01d Cochrane looked as if he believed his son was a
very lucky fellow.

* "We'll meet at Kingston, and you'll get there
without risk and in comfort," said Arthur, in the tones
and with the air of a man who combats his own strong
wishes. **Grod knows, I should be the unhappiest
wretch until I see you again, but I think of you only,
my darling, of you only."

* **You will have to force me out of this ship," she
said, looking at him with a face all awork with feeling,
and touching and beautiful with its involuntary play of
emotions. **I will stop here. I am with you, and
mean to remain with you," she added, with proud
decision and a putting forth of her little foot with a
stamp which was like clinching her meaning. She
added quickly: **But will you come with me if I am to
go? You're a passenger here: your father can dis-
pense with your services."

i68 ROSE ISLAND.

* **I don't know that/* said the skipper.

* **They would not receive me," said Arthur. **I'd
pay no passage money, and I'm not going to work
before the mast."

' * * Here I am, and here I remain, ' ' said Rose, flush-
ing with the vehemence with which she expressed her
determination, and old Cochrane cried out :

* **By God! I love your spirit. Rose, Arthur, here
she shall remain. ' '

•At that moment Mr. Nassau rose through the com-
panion. He stood with folded arms, contemplating
the ship with a frown. Then advancing a few paces,
he exclaimed:

* **That is the ship we were becalmed with."

* *'Ay, the same ship," said the skipper.

' **Are you going on board of her?" exclaimed
Nassau.

* ** Certainly, if we can overhaul her, and the captain
will receive us."

* **It is Miss Island's ship," said Nassau, with his
eyes fixed on the girl, though he did not address her.
**Is she to resume her place as a passenger on board
that ship?"

* **What the devil has Miss Island's intention got to
do with you?" shouted Arthur. "Father, is not this
coloured man to be taught some sort of discipline?"

*The two men looked at each other with hatred in
the short silence which followed. This silence was
broken by old Cochrane exclaiming:

* **By Heaven! I do not think she means to have
anything to do with us. Look!"

*It blew a light air, in which the motions of a full-
rigged ship would be sluggish. They watched the

THE ELEUTHERA. 169

vessel's head slowly paying oflE, whilst her yards came
leisurely rounding in with hands running aloft to star-
board and port, where, with something of the celerity
of men-of-warsmen, though they were comparatively
few, they rigged out the topmast and t'gallant stu'n-
sail booms, and presently the sails were to be seen
mounting.

* **By thunder! She is heading away from us!"
cried the skipper.

*He looked up at his flag. The Indiaman showed
no colours, but through the glass you might have seen
the people running about her in excitement, and
young Cochrane, looking, said that she had two car-
ronades of a side on the main deck, and he believed he
could see them loading the port guns.

* **Two guns on each side." said Rose. **It is cer-
tainly the Eleuthera.**

* **We must have your luggage out of her!"
exclaimed Arthur.

* And his father sang out orders to up helm, loose the
square sails on the fore, and slacken away all sheets
for a running chase.

* **I believe," said Nassau, **that I can tell you.
Captain Cochrane, why that ship is going away from
us."

*It flashed upon Cochrane in an instant.

* **You reckon she thinks us suspicious?"
'Nassau, with a glance at Miss Rose, bowed his head

over his folded arms.

* ** Perhaps they have caught a sight of Aiw," whis-
pered Arthur to Rose.

'Nassau saw the smile she returned to this.

How shall we prove our honesty to them?** said

i ii

I70 ROSE ISLAND.

the skipper, again viewing the ship through the glass,
and noticing the crowd upon the taflErail.

* **The wind's scanting; there will be little chasing
soon!" exclaimed Arthur. **I*11 go in a boat if you
like; it'll be a calm presently. She's not doing three,
and the boat would do four."

* *'Take Rose," said the skipper. "When they see
her, they will know it is all right."

'The light air dropped in a delicate gasp aloft even
as he spoke, but the ripples ran their dye of heavenly
blue along the sea where the air was still moving, and
on the face of the waters you saw swathes, and gleams
and large bland eyes of glassy calm, with the horizon
afar growing faint, and the bite of the sun took a fresh
sting. Bubbles rose in the deck-seams. The smell of
old paint blew along with the draughts, fanned by the
lower canvas. Hands were called to lower one of the
boats and bring it to the gangway. Three of the crew
entered her, and Arthur took an oar after settling Rose
comfortably in the stern sheets. The ship had almost
come to a stand. They could now see with the naked
eye the word Eleuthera painted in large white letters
on her counter. Nassau's ugly head, with rage, fear,
mortification, jealousy, in every line of his face, writh-
ing his lips till his teeth showed like a false set in a
dentist's window, fire in his eyes with that red light
which was, no doubt, the reflection on his soul of its
state of being after death, watched the boat with his
chin on his arms over the bulwark rail. The skipper,
seeing how it was to be with the weather, ^and desirous
of quickly putting an end to all distrust aboard the
ship, put his helm down, clewed up forward, eased
away aft, and his little vessel lay quiet, showing her

( ((

THE ELEUTHERA. 171

broadside to the now motionless Indiaman, whose lofty
canvas on that silent breast of sea hung from the yards
with as little motion as the banners of knights in
ancient roofs. As the boat approached she was hailed
by a man who stood erect on the taff rail.

You need not trouble to come nearer, ' '. he shouted.
We advise you to return to your captain and tell him
that we know him, and are prepared to give him a
reception that will go hard if he don't save the Jamaica
gibbets from weighing him and his people."

*This very far-fetched joke, which would seem more
the eflEusion of fear than wit, was attended by a rumble
of laughter that sounded curiously as it rolled over the
polished swathe, in whose heart the ship was reflected
with the gorgeous tints of the daguerreotype, the
lower stun'sail shuddering into the transparency like a
wide thin sheet of silver, the gilt badges of the quarter-
galleries burning in the surface of the calm like the
reflection of some splendid day star, streams of light
moving sinuously like sea-snakes in phosphor slowly
sinking, and the reflection of the man who was shout-
ing to the boat lay heels up in the sea under the long
white letters of the ship's name. Arthur had thrown
down his oar, and was standing up.

* **I can assure you," he shouted, **that we are not
what you think, but an honest trader, the Charmer ^
Captain Cochrane, bound to Kingston. We were
becalmed with you on the edge of the storm some time
since, and one of your passengers fell overboard, and
here she is," continued Arthur, pointing to Rose.
**She wants her baggage. Will you not allow us to get
it?"

*On this the man on the taff rail put his glass to his

172 ROSE ISLAND

eye, and examined the boat minutely. In spite of the
manifest tnith of Arthur's statement, the hero- of the
taffrail must needs make a further minute inspection
of the people in the boat. The pirates practised a
thousand tricks under all sorts of guises, and a beard-
less ruffian in woman's attire was no novelty. He
seemed satisfied; his glass sank. He spoke to those
about him, and tokens of astonishment in gestures, at
least, were visible. But he must still make certain.

* **What is the name of the lady passenger who fell
overboard?"

* **Miss Rose Island," shouted Arthur; and Rose
stood up and flourished a handkerchief.

* **Come aboard! come aboard!" yelled the man on
the tafiErail, and disappeared; and a few minutes later
a light accommodation ladder was thrown over the
side.

Now, ladies and gentlemen, it will be remembered
that Rose fell overboard through her cabin porthole on
the eve of the storm. There was no time or oppor-
tunity to miss her before the storm broke, and then
when the hurricane came raging down all was con-
fusion, with officers shouting, the ship on her beam-
ends, passengers scrambling for their lives, the seamen
yelling at the ropes, the sails filling the roaring on high
with a continuous roll of thunder. When eventually
things grew quiet, and the ship lay plunging in the
trenches of the sea, crew and passengers were mus-
tered, because several heavy seas had broken over the
ship, and no one could be sure that lives had not been
lost. Nobody, however, was missing but Miss Rose
Island. Great search was made for her throughout.
The Captain was filled with concern; she had been

THE ELEUTHERA. 173

placed under his particular protection. Her cabin
window was found shut, and the steward said that
when he shut it, and the gale broke, Miss Island was
not there, and he supposed that she was in the saloon
or on deck. So they very naturally gave her up for
lost She had been swept overboard ; she had fallen
overboard. Anyhow, she was in the sea, drowned
dead as a drowned flounder. Judge, then, the amaze-
ment with which the people of the ship saw this beau-
tiful corpse, her face full of the divine colours of life,
helped by a handsome sailorly young fellow up the
ladder and through the gangway. Captain Bahama
Shanklin stood at that gangway, and so did his mates,
and so did the passengers, and a body of seamen hung
like a cloud close behind. The ship looked a full ship
thetiy and Shanklin a man loaded with unenviable
responsibilities. Before oflEering her his hand he fell
back, stared at her, surveyed her from head to foot.

* ** After this, " cried he, in whose amazed face glowed
the full spirit of the West Indies, **I am a steadfast
believer in miracles! Do ye swim through hurricanes
which level forests, and which bend ships like mine
down to the very roaring salt till the stoutest cry *Lord,
preserve us!' **

*And here Captain Shanklin grasped her by both
hands, and then the passengers pressed forward, and
their greetings were cordial; they marvelled at her
rescue, and in their spirits, too, was the buoyancy
which attends the perception that an ugly danger has
been escaped, for you see, ladies and gentlemen, that
the Charmer was an honest trader, and no pirate.
The Captain shook Arthur Cochrane by the hand, and
in the heart of a body of passengers, thirsting to hear

174 ROSE ISLAND.

the girl's adventures, they went surging through the
saloon-doors, and sat down round about the table.
The hospitality of wine and cake was immediately
oflEered, but not before they were talking. They all
admired Rose — ^they thought she looked wonderfully
well; even the ladies found something beautiful and
delicate in her complexion, and a light not common in
her [fine eyes. She related how she had managed to
fall overboard, for her story was to come first. She
had floated on her back on coming to the surface, but
she was perfectly unconscious. Heavens, how wonder-
ful! To think of her as floating to safety, with the
giant fiend of storm, with flashing brows and the foam
of the sea about his feet, striding with the velocity of
the hurricane towards her! Her being picked up was
commonplace — a longshore wonder — nothing in it to
detain the attention ; but some marks of surprise were
exhibited when she spoke of Arthur Cochrane and her-
self as playmates aboard the ship his father com-
manded on a voyage to Philadelphia. The handsome
face of young Cochrane made this thing a romantic
coincidence, and the ladies fluttered a little.

* **We should have recollected your schooner," said
Captain Shanklin; **but the fact is, we were made
uneasy by a small brig who reported to us the notorious
pirate Pearly commanded by the fiercest cut-throat out
of Jamaica, who is haunting these waters for prey."

* **We were a long time in sight of you before you
squared away."

* **We could not make up our minds," answered
Shanklin. **Well, Miss Island, you are a wonderful
young woman, and, seeing that you are under my pro-
tection, I am very glad to have recovered you. "

THE ELEUTHERA. 175

C <C

I shall not proceed in this ship," said Rose
sweetly.

'The Captain started and stared, and the ladies
looked hard at Arthur, and the gentlemen smiled.

* **In what ship do you propose to proceed?" said
Captain Shanklin.

* **In the schooner commanded by this gentleman's
father, who saved my life," answered Rose.

* **What!" shouted the Captain, who did not imme-
diately see the truth as most of the others did; "aban-
don a splendid ship and a beautiful cabin, and all the
comfort and safety which such things provide, for a
little schooner! A pretty little schooner, I admit,** he
continued, with a friendly nod at young Cochrane;
**but this is a fine passenger ship."

* **I am going to Kingston in the schooner Charmer^''
said Rose to Shanklin softly and tenderly, and then
looked at Arthur and smiled ; and by the light of that
smile all saw how it was, even the Captain.

*Love is love, and women will go through much for
the men they adore ; but many there were present in
that cuddy or saloon who imperfectly understood how
it was that Rose should go so far as to choose the damp
and dark accommodation of a little coasting schooner
for the light, the life, the agreeable assurance of
safety, yielded by the lofty Indiaman in which she had
originally embarked. Captain Shanklin did not know
quite what to do. He asked her to step into his cabin.
She followed him, and he closed the door upon an
interior brilliant with the sunlight that was flowing oflE
the sea, sparkling with rays darted by brass nautical
instruments, and hospitable with carpet, pictures,
books, and the like.

176 ROSE ISLAND.

C tt

( ii

i (Ci

I am thankful to God- that you are safe, Miss
Island,** the sun-roasted man began. **But you must
consider you are placed under my protection, and that
it is my duty to see you to your destination."

I can't help that. Captain Shanklin,*' said Rose.
I am going to Kingston in the schooner. You saw
Arthur Cochrane? I knew him when he was a little
boy. We are sweethearts, and engaged to be
married.**

* ** Already?** half murmured the Captain, with lifted
eyebrows.

* **It is not likely that you would dream of separating
us?** said the girl, with one of those serpentine
nlotions of the body which betrayed in her the rising
emotion.

What is he aboard your schooner?**

To oblige his father, he acts as second mate,**
answered Rose; **but, as he is not entered on the
articles, he is really a passenger.**

* **Then, let him make the remainder of the voyage
with us as passenger,** said Captain Shanklin.

* **I love his old father, if only for memory *s sake,'*
said Rose, with eyes which began to burn. **I will not
leave his little schooner. Arthur would not leave his
father alone with an intolerable mate in whom he has
no confidence. We shall be at Kingston before you.
I am perfectly comfortable and happy, and have come
on board only for my luggage, which I trust. Captain
Shanklin, you will give your men orders to place in the
boat alongside."

*She spoke with a decision that was not wanting in
heat. The Captain eyed her, not without an expres-
sion of admiration in his gaze.

THE ELEUTHERA. 177

I a

I wouldn't ask a young lady how old she is, '* said
the plain sailor, who was evidently puzzled as to how
to act; **but I'll allow that you are over twenty-one,
and, as your protector appointed by your friends, I
have no lawful control over you. But you'd better
stop."

* **No, thank you," responded Rose, making a move-
ment towards the door ; for there were two very pretty
girls at the table who had looked very hard at Arthur,
and Rose was a woman, and she wanted to be at her
sweetheart's side.

* **This love-making and marriage business is very
sudden, ain't it?" said Captain Shanklin, stepping to
the door, and pausing whilst he grasped the handle,
•*It was only the other day you fell overboard."

**Have you looked into his eyes, and do you know
his character?" answered Rose.

* **I can look a man in the eye as well as another,"
answered the Captain; **and I dare say his character is
as beautiful as you think his face. But being at sea
accounts for everything. These love-jobs ought to be
allowed to grow. They want to be watered and put in
the sun. I don't ask you to stay for the flower; but,
at least, wait till the bud peeps that you may guess
what you're going to pick and wear. This is no fault
of mine."

'This he seemed to say to himself, whilst Rose's
impatience was growing into pain.

* **Your luggage shall be put over the side, and I
wish you joy."

*He bowed, opened the door, and she walked through
the saloon immediately to Arthur's side. All the pas-
sengers had kept their seats. They were listening to

C ii'
C (((
i Ci'

178 ROSE ISLAND.

Arthur's description of the boatful of pirates, and
seemed charmed by his conversation, and the two
sweet, fair-haired girls who sat opposite to him never
removed their eyes from his face, and Rose saw them
staring at him when she sat down. A sunny scene to
enter was this same old-world saloon, bright with
mirrors, gay with the brush of the artist, with the
central dome full of singing birds and flowers, courting
the eye through the open casement to the stately
heights of canvas on the main.

' '*What*s that about a pirate boat?" said Captain
Shanklin, standing at the head of the table.
'Arthur repeated the brief story.

Was it a ruse of the Pear If** said the Captain.

She was not in sight, sir."

We must keep a bright look-out," exclaimed the
Captain to the chief ofl&cer, who had come down the
companion steps, and paused on hearing of this pirate
boat. **So your father shot the gentleman with the
fish through the heart? He deserves a Gazette all to
himself."

'Then, after some further conversation, he requested
the mate to see the young lady's luggage into the
Charmer* 5 boat under the gang^vay, and they all went
out of that radiant and comfortable saloon into the
sunshine upon deck, or into the shadow of the long
awning upon the poop. The ladies plied Rose with
questions. What were her feelings when she fell into
the sea? What were her sensations when, on return-
ing to consciousness, she found herself in the cabin of
a schooner with a handsome young man, like a prince
in a fairy-tale, bending over her? Arthur Cochrane
talked ayart with Captain Shanklin. The young fel-

i (i
( n

THE ELEUTHERA. 179

low spoke of the westing that had been mysteriously
made in the navigation of the schooner, and Captain
Shanklin inquired who that Mulatto-looking fellow was
on board the Charmer^ for faces were easily visible
through glasses.

* ** There can be no doubt," said Shanklin, after
Arthur had talked pretty freely about Julius Nassau,
•*that the intention of the pirate boat's crew was to
steal your schooner. Perhaps this had been pre-
arranged by Nassau."

Hardly, in England, sir."

She is a smart little vessel," said Shanklin, look-
ing at her. **She has a sweeter entry than any
schooner yacht that ever I saw. . Her lower masts have
a pretty rake, and the topmasts are stayed to a hair.
She sits upon her own reflection like a swan. She
should be a fast schooner. She would make a first-
class pirate ship."

* Shanklin then began to speak of Rose, and said that
she ought to stay in the ship. Arthur, with a mounting
colour, assured him that that was his wish, but that he
could not prevail upon the girl to remain.

* * * Well, I have done my duty, * * said Shanklin with a
shrug, **and a man can do no more."

'Shortly after this Rose, followed by Arthur, went to
the cabin she had formerly occupied, to collect the
things out of a chest of drawers, and pack what
remained in the berth. The stewardess came in to
help. Until this business was over* Arthur remained
looking through the porthole in silence, though the
girl chatted to him a little about her sensations in the
instant when she climbed through the embrasure and
found herself gone. Then, when they were alone for

i8o ROSE ISLAND. '

a minute, young Cochrane, passionately taking his
sweetheart by both hands, entreated her to remain in
safety and comfort on board this fine ship.

* **The Captain's your protector,** he said, **and
everybody seems to be in love with you.'*

* ''Everybody seems to be in love with me but you,**
she exclaimed, looking at him with that sort of anger
which is the heat of love that believes itself wronged.

* "Under heaven, you are the dearest of all things to
me, my sweet girl ! Do I wish to be separated from
you? You know I should be as miserable as yourself,
but this ship will arrive in Kingston, and I shall be
there, and there is no Nassau in this ship *'

' ''Nassau is nothing to me,'* she cried. "I have
said that I will remain with you and in your schooner,

and if you determine for me otherwise *' And, in

her incommunicable serpentine manner, her eyes all
on fire with temper and resolution, she pointed to the
porthole with every eloquence of gesture that a con-
summate actress could have communicated to the mute
indication. Arthur kissed her on both cheeks, held
her face in his hands, and kissed her on the mouth
again and again, and they left the cabin. The crowd
that received them assembled at the gangway to wit-
ness their departure. The ladies kissed Rose, the
gentlemen shook hands with the manly young sailor.
A pleasant breeze out of the east had sprung up,
brushing the sea into little lines of foam, and in the
east were clouds, and a clear look of dry wind through
which the horizon ran delicate as a line of quicksilver
in a glass tube. On the top of Rose's luggage, in the
stem sheets of the Charmer* s boat, lay a case or two of
champagne and some boxes of cigars, the gift of the

THE ELEUTHERA. 181

Captain to old Cochrane. The boat shoved off; the
ladies ran to the poop to watch her. Rose kissed her
hand and waved her handkerchief, and Arthur flour-
ished" his cap. In a few minutes the lovers and the
luggage were on board the Charmer, '

-|,. ^ ~^_ . __ ^ "-: '"■*-

CHAPTER XI.

cochrane's dream.

'Well, ladies and gentlemen/ continued Captain
Foster, who was gratified at the attention his story
received, *I have told you that the boat of the Charmer
regained the schooner, and that a pleasant breeze was
brightening into whispering lines of silver the dark
blue surge of the ocean. Old Cochrane stumped his
quarterdeck, pipe in hand, awaiting the return of his
son and Rose. One or two men lounged over the rail
awaiting the summons to trim sail for the start, and
Mr. Nassau was in the gangway. It was his watch
below, and he profited from the spell of liberty and
comparative license to smoke a long paper cigar,
which consisted of ship's tobacco finely cut and rolled
up by the nimble fingers of the coloured mate in paper
made for that purpose. Rose was the first to step on
board. The mate made her a very low bow, and with-
out regard to the trifling circumstance that she cut him
persistently, and was ever on the alert to escape him,
whether in the cabin or on deck, he said to her, with
the light and spirit of his feelings very strong in his
ugly face:

* **I, for one. Miss Island, am overjoyed that you
have returned to us. I believe I can save you here,

but I could not save you there," and he pointed with

182

COCHRANE'S DREAM. 183

his cigar, from which smoke was blowing like a
chimney, at the West Indiaman. An idle greeting of
welcome would have been returned by Rose in some
murmur of speech and a stiff bow, but she was startled
by his words, and stared at him, pausing.

* **What do you mean by saving me, Mr. Nassau?"
she exclaimed.

* **I hope it may not come to it," he answered, and
with another low bow he walked a little distance away,
and stood watching her with devouring eyes as she went
to Captain Cochrane. But there could be no talk for
the moment. Sail was to be trimmed, the luggage
handed over the side, and the boat hoisted. This
filled the little ship with hurry and business, and Rose
stood beside Captain Cochrane, watching the beautiful
spectacle of the West Indiaman making a start.
Strange that the two vessels should have been in com-
pany twice. Rose looked at her with liking and even
fondness. Yonder ship had borne her in safety over
many leagues of water, heavy and hollow with storm,
calm, and full of shadows and gleams as glass. You
cannot make a voyage in a ship, if your humanity is up
to the common level, without a fondness for her grow-
ing up in you, which will deepen into a life-long
memory of kindness and obligation, as towards some-
thing living. But she must be a sailing ship. I do
not believe you can fall in love very easily with a
steamer. The steamer steers a straight course for her
destination. She is like a railway train ; she is like a
hotel lift. It is sheer mechanism, and you feel that the
whole merit of her passage through the sea lies in the
revolution of the screw at her stern. But with a sail-
ing ship the struggle is human. She edges aslant

i84 ROSE ISLAND.

through the head wind; she stnps for the affray with
such instinctive knowledge and perception of the forces
which the heavens and the deep hurl at her, that if she
were gifted with an immortal soul and her hawse-holes
were living eyes which she turned about, ever watchful
of the headlong rushes of the storming brine, she
could not behave with greater wisdom and prudence.
Do you smile, ladies and gentlemen? I aln an old
sailor and know the sea, and I swear that every ship
has a spirit which informs and will guide her; she will
take up the secure position in storm if you will allow
her; in the calm her sails whisper, and her rigging and
shrouds are melodious with faint songs, which the ear
of the faithful, as he climbs aloft, may hearken to and
interpret as vocal legends of the elements and wild or
tender traditions of the deep.

*A fine sight, I say, was that which Rose stood
watching by the side of Captain Cochrane, when the
Eleuthera manned her braces for the wind, and when
her metal forefoot broke the sunny and foam-edged
ripples into curves, graceful as the backward send of
the pearly arm of a swimming girl. Shadows of the
daintiest violet trembled in the soft eclipse down the
sunward leeches of her tall topsails and other sails, as
the yards came slowly round, and the canvas swelled
yearning as with a strained vision from mainsail to
royal for the haven under the sea. Her passengers
watched the schooner from the poop. The sailors ran
about coiling down, glass sparkled, brass work flashed,
the white plank of the deck, visible in part in the slight
list of the ship, gleamed like lengths of satin. She was
a noble picture, and the little fountains which her bows
tossed into rainbows kissed her sides as they passed.

COCHRANE'S DREAM. 185

* **The mate Nassau, when I came on board/' said
Rose, ** coolly informed me that he could save me if I
remained here, but that he could not save me had I
remained in the Eleuthera, What does the impudent
fellow mean, Captain Cochrane?**

* **He is a sea-puppy, ** returned the Captain. **Save
you! Save you! What does he mean to save you
from either here or there.?*' and he laughed a little.
"He is an impudent brute to accost you after what has
been said on the subject. Pray give him and his
words no heed whatsoever. I don*t want to send him
forward amongst the men, because revenge may cause
him to act treacherously. I wish him to stay where he
is, as a man whose services I can*t easily do without;
and really I have no excuse for breaking him. It is
not for me to take notice of his cheap brag. Don't
repeat what he said to Arthur. There will be another,
row between the men, and any further trouble of that
sort will anger me excessively.**

*He spoke in atone of irritation. The girl simply
said, **I shall not repeat a word to Arthur."

*Sail by this time had been trimmed, and the
schooner was bearing down upon the Indiaman, that
Cochrane might thank Shanklin for his gift. Arthur
came aft and talked to his father about what had
passed aboard the Eleuthera, Rose watched the pic-
ture of the beautiful ship, and the eyes of the infatu-
ated negro mate were seldom off her as he slowly
paced the deck smoking his paper cigar, and willing,
though it was his watch below, to linger above to see
the schooner pass the Indiaman. It happened in due
course, for though sail had been trimmed with the
precision of a frigate's canvas, though white and swell-

i86 ROSE ISLAND.

ing studding-sails had been swung handsomely aloft to
the yard-arms and the boom-ends to the music of men's
throats, the Eleuthera had not the keel of the
Charmer^ and was bound, in the particular bright,
royal breeze that was then blowing, to overhaul the
Indiaman and be out of sight of her in a few hours.
The Charmer was steered very close. The ladies on
the poop of the Indiaman were delighted ; all this was
indeed a break in the monotony of a long voyage. It
was seeing the sea life as the sea life was lived in
reality. The ocean was baring her bosom, they were
beholding a little of what is only visible to the sailor.
A pistol-shot would have measured the distance
between the two vessels. Beautiful was the prismatic
flow of the water between, lustrous with foam bells,
shot like the white of the oyster-shell, glorified by the
blind, low, sailing leap of the flying-fish. Rose could
see the stewardess looking at them out of a porthole ;
several binoculars were levelled at the schooner, and
Mr. Nassau appeared to be the chief object of this
inqtiisition of lenses. The creaking of the fabric aloft
ran like a sound of castanets through the musical wash
of the waters between. She bowed often and stately,
for the swell from the east had a little weight, and her
figure-head, that was some black goddess, curtseyed
with splendid grace to the radiant billow as it rolled
athwart.

* **Ho, the Eleuthera ahoy!" shouted Captain Coch-
rane.

* **Hillo!'* answered Shanklin, Standing on top of a
hencoop grasping a backstay.

* **Many thanks to you, sir, for your kindly gift"

* **You are very welcome. I owe you thanks for the

COCHRANE'S DREAM. 187

preservation of the life of Miss Island. She is so well
treated aboard of you that she declines to return to
us."

'The ladies, taking this tip, flourished their handker-
chiefs. Rose was of the colour of the flower she was
named after. Arthur stood beside her, and Captain
Shanklin shouted:

* **We all wish the young couple much happiness,
and we will take care to drink their healths."

* Again more flourishes, cheers from the Eleuthera^ a
scowling look at the ship from Julius Nassau. The
schooner was forging ahead of the Indiaman. The
noble panorama of lofty white sail, of chequered side,
of delicately curved bowsprit and jibbooms arresting
the flight of white wings, which softly shadowed one
another over the sea, was passing, and in a few min-
utes the schooner was ahead, with her flag dipping
her farewell, and her sharp stem taking the swell in
bounds which often clouded the wrinkled folds with
foam.

*In the afternoon the Indiaman had been sunk out of
sight. A blue mist had gathered round the horizon,
and the sea ran in steady pulses of foam, aslant of
which the schooner sprang with the white spray smok-
ing over her figure-head, and a white swell of sea bil-
lowing in steady adhesion at each counter, though the
foam of it went away into the wake and the schooner's
pleasant speed could be measured by that in this
pleasant freshening breeze. At about three o'clock on
the afternoon of the day on which they had spoken the
EleutherUy they sighted a small schooner on the port
bow. She was a mere toy in the distance, a something
for a baby to stretch its hands at. She sailed close

i88 ROSE ISLAND.

against the very confines of the thickness, as though
the delicate bank of vapour were a wall. Captain
Cochrane took a look at her through the glass, but
made no remark. Arthur, taking the glass from his
father, steadied it against the rigging and gazed
earnestly. He found this out: that she was long and
low — so low that her top-gallant-rail dipped from the
altitude of the Charmer's quarterdeck. She was
passing against the mist like a steamer; apparently
she was nearly twice as lofty in rig as the Charmer^
with immensely long heads to her fore and aft canvas,
and the square sail which she was carrying was big
enough, to use Jack's expression, to hold wind enough
to last a Dutchman a week. Julius Nassau at this
moment came up from below, with a pipe in his mouth.
His first glance was at Rose, who sat on a chair against
the skylight under the awning with a book upon her
knee and her speaking dark eyes fixed upon the distant
schooner. Julius had been sleeping; he did not look
the sweeter for his slumbers. His eyes, after dwelling
upon the girl, roamed away in the direction of her
gaze, and on seeing the schooner he started as if he
had been bitten, and crossing to Arthur asked him for
permission to view the vessel through the glass.
Arthur, with an air of dislike, handed the telescope to
the man, who levelled it, and after looking a few
minutes returned the glass to young Cochrane with a
singular expression on his face.

* **She has all her kites aboard," said he. **She has
plenty of them, and by the heart of my mother, I
never saw such a head to a gaff-topsail in a schooner
of her size before. "

* **Do you know her?" said Arthur dryly, conde-

COCHRANE'S DREAM. 189

scending to talk about yonder vessel with this man,
with whom he rarely exchanged a sentence.

* **Put me closer and I'll tell you," answered Julius,
after a suck at his pipe. **She is a beauty, and she
can travel.**

* **Something bound to Bristol, do you think?'* said
Arthur, in the same dry voice.

* **Orto Liverpool,** answered Nassau, baring all his
teeth.

* **If she is up to the hatches with wool, she's not
bound to Europe, is she?*'

'Arthur, without further remark, joined Rose, and
the two watched Nassau straining his sight at the dis-
tant streak of whiteness upon the horizon until it had
disappeared in the mist. Captain Cochrane came
lounging along to his son and Miss Island.

* **That was a beautiful schooner,'* said he. **She
must have been a yacht. Who knows, miss, but that
she may be the property of some great nobleman, who
is on board, and is making the round voyage to the
West Indies for his health?**

* **She had more the look of a slaver or a pirate, I
thought/* said Arthur.

* **Why should a slaver be travelling her way?**
exclaimed the skipper, *'and as to her being a pirate — **
He paused, looking into the misty distance in which
the vessel had disappeared. **I do not think,*' he
added, **that you will find pirates doing their business
in vessels of that pattern."

* **If," said Rose, with a smile and a half glance in
the direction of Julius Nassau — **if there is eloquence
in the spirit of a coloured man to betray his convictions
into his dark face, then. Captain Cochrane, the

190 ROSE ISLAND.

schooner that man there Ijas been watching is either a
slaver or a pirate. His blood does not colour his face,
it adds a shade to it; but the mounting blood was
visible all the same, and there was a curl of enjoyment
at the comers of his leathern mouth whilst he kept his
eye at the telescope Arthur handed to him."

' Nassau turned his head, observed them regarding
him, and went forward to the galley under pretence of
lighting his cigar, but in reality to fall into conversa-
tion with any lounger he found there.

*That same evening, in the second dog-watch, it
came on to blow a strong breeze right ahead. This
was a great mortification to Captain Cochrane, who had
made an unusually long passage so far, but was now
about a week's fair sail to Kingston. He reefed down
and fought awhile, and the schooner, hard pressed,
tore through the blackening' ridges, whose lightning-
like lines of foam seemed to flash like the levin brand
itself against the soot of the sky from the horizon to
the zenith. But the weight of the black billow
. knocked her head off. Her ducks and swoops were
cataractal. It was more froth than way, and with the
thunder of the violent wind in her rigging, and with
phantasmal avalanches of white water sheeting across
her deck, she was hove-to a little before sunrise next
morning. However, all this foul weather had blown
itself away, and the coming of the sun was another
revelation of one of those mornings of tender loveli-
ness at sea that are to be met in the parallels which the
Charmer had arrived at. All about the sun the sky
was filled with feather-tips of clouds, each burning like
gold, and they looked like plumes of the wings of
heavenly beings. Beneath ran the sea in long lines of

COCHRANE'S DREAM. 191

glory. It was a calm morning, ladies and gentlemen.
I fear that I weary you with my descriptions of the
weather; but the breeze and the calm enter as largely
into this part of the story of the Charmer as the
coloured man who was her chief mate, as the girl who
is my heroine, as the crew who were just then busy in
washing down. Nothing in sight to greet Rose's eyes
when she stepped on deck, nothing visible but the
beauty and the splendour of the morning, and the
height of the sky over the swinging trucks, and those
shining pavilions and palaces in the east which seemed
like the abode of Grod Himself.

*As the girl stood with her hand upon the com-
panion-hatch gazing round her, do you think she was
growing a little bit weary of this voyage and of the
Charmer? On the contrary, had the schooner been a
magnificent sailing-yacht her heart could not have
taken more pleasure in the sight of her, as the water
flashed like steel from the buckets of the men washing
down, as the tiny canvas floated to right and left with
the cradling of the swell, as the tar-blackened rigging,
taking the radiance of the eastern seaboard, climbed
like lines of twisted metal to the mastheads. Then,
like the lover she had strangely found, and loved in
return to the very divine depths of her maiden spirit,
she was never alone when alone in looking at the sea
and finding its life and its pictures in its surface.
Nassau paced the weather side of the deck. He had
made a profound bow to her when she emerged, yet
had not ventured to speak; but his observation of her
was ceaseless. The man, in a word, was madly in
love, and was rejected with scorn and hatred of his
colour in return. This simply should effectually estab-

192 ROSE ISLAND.

lish the beggar's state of mind; but, unhappily for
Julius, Rose loved another. He was in the schooner
and was constantly in her company, to her great
delight. Though Nassau was coloured, he might
freely admit, in the language of Lord Nelson, that he
was a man, and could not help feeling as a man.
Even now, whilst he and she occupied the deck alone,
saving of course the presence of the inevitable helms-
man, Arthur must needs come on deck. But he did
not know that Rose had left her berth. He sprang to
her side with love and pleasure, and they would have
pressed lips, but the coloured mate stalked to wind-
ward. She caressed his hand as it lay upon the
bulwark-rail, and kisses could not have made sweeter
to his heart the love-lighted eyes she greeted him
with, and the sudden smile of delight with which she
welcomed him.

* ** Anything in sight this beautiful morning, Rose?"
said he, scanning the horizon, and taking in the whole
little ship with the swift, exacting eyes of a sailor.

* ** Nothing,*' she answered, **but a sunrise whose
early glory I think we have both lost, though were the
heavens ever painted with more beautiful designs?
See to the left of the sun. It is a magnificent tapestry.
I do not wonder that the Parsee worships the sun,"
she continued. **Why not the majestic orb which fills
the land with the apple-blossom, and the violet, and
the divine variety of the fields, meadows, and gardens,
rather than the odd little eflSgies in wood and wax with
which the interiors of some of the most splendid Chris-
tian edifices are defaced?"

* **It is strange," said Arthur, **that my father
should carry such a poetical eye. There is nothing

COCHRANE'S DREAM. 193

rarer than a sailor that will give you one dump for all
the grandeur he sails through."

' "Sailors do not go to sea to interpret its myster-
ies," said Rose, laughing, whilst Nassau across the
deck strove in his pendulum turns to overhear even a
syllable of what the lovers were saying; but they
talked with subdued voices, and he could hear but a
laugh and no more.

* **How would that miracle of beauty, the iceberg,
when lighted by the sun, affect our friend, the Only
Mate?" said Arthur. **Once, in the South Pacific, I
saw an iceberg capsize. The lights of the rainbow
leapt from its blow of the sea. I said to the second
mate: *What do you think of that for a fine sight?* — *I
wish it was out of sight, ' he answered. He could see
no beauty. To him it was the old story of the prim-
rose."

( <<

I fancy," said Rose, with a glance that brought
Nassau into the comer of her eye, **that the Only Mate
must have a vein of sentiment running through him,
else why should he dress himself so romantically?"

' '*D*ye know. Rose," said Arthur, **that the acts
and appearance of the pirates of old were grossly exag-
gerated by their chroniclers? They make the villains
picturesque, when they were as commonplace as any
vulgar seaman out of Wapping. They clothed them in
horrible preposterous garments, girded them with belts
into which they stuck enough pistols to furnish orna-
ments for area railings. There was a man named
Teach; he plaited his beard and struck lighted fusees
for letting off guns behind his ears. He would cut off
the head of a man who contradicted him. At table he
would draw forth a brace of pistols, and, holding them

194 ROSE ISLAND.

low, blaze away at the legs of his companions. Do
you believe in all this wild stuff? Would any crew, do
you suppose, long endure the atrocities perpetrated by
this scoundrel on his own people — ^his own men? - A
man named Johnson (the publishers called him Cap-
tain) wrote two volumes of the lives of the pirates.
They are queer reading ; he is disgusting in the minute-
ness of his details, and yet I believe that most of his
narratives are founded upon gossip he picked up in the
low ale-houses which were frequented by seafaring
men in his time. It was in this way that Defoe got his
knowledge of *Pyracies.* Dampier was a noble pirate
and a great seaman, and a bold, but imfortunate cir-
cumnavigator. Defoe was constantly in his company
when he was ashore, and so * Captain Singleton,' and
other piratic yams, all full of lies, came to be written. "

* **But you believe, Arthur," said Rose, **that the
pirates were a bloodthirsty lot? They enjoyed that
tradition at home, and I know it was so in the West
Indies."

* **I am certain," answered Arthur, **tliat the pirates
did not murder people merely for the sake of shedding
human blood. I have met several captains who, in
their day, were overhauled and sacked by pirates. As
no defence was made, no outrage was committed. The
pirates took what they wanted, and with a smile and a
bow left the ship they had plundered, all as quietly as a
tax-collector leaves your door when he is paid."

* **What do you think of Scott 's pirate, Cleveland?"
asked Rose.

* **He is finely imagined," answered Arthur. *'But
I don't remember that he does anything in the book to
justify his title. "

COCHRANE'S DREAM. 195

* ** There is a great deal of love-making/* said Rose
demurely. *'How sweet it all is! Cleveland talks a
little too sumptuously, I think, as a pirate. Scott was
getting on in years when he wrote that book, and the
wonder to me is how old men can make love in
imagination."

*This made Arthur laugh, and, unfortunately, in
laughing he turned his head and met the full gaze
of the coloured mate. With a horrible frown, that
crumpled up his face and buried his eyes, Nassau
stalked away aft. To his sensitive ear all the laughs
that proceeded from the couple opposite were intended
for him. The conversation of the lovers was inter-
rupted by the arrival of Captain Cochrane, who, after
exchanging a few words with the mate, crossed the
deck. He carried a tired manner, as of a man who has
not slept In his gravity lurked the shadow of care.
He looked down as if he had aged on a sudden, or had
passed through some heavy calamity which had bowed
down his heart of oak, despite the sterling qualities of
his spirit as sailor and man. Arthur and Rose
instantly noticed the change that had come over him.
He spoke impatiently whilst he looked round.

Always fine weather and light airs," he said.

Gorgeous studies for the poet and the painter, but the
length of this voyage begins to harass me. We are
due in Kingston. We ought to be half-way on the road
of our departure. It seems to be in these seas that if
you get a breeze of wind that blows you onward it falls
to a calm, till the same breeze has had time to shift and
blow you backwards again."

* **We shall arrive at Kingston before the Eleutheray
at all events," said Rose,

c c<

( (I

196 ROSE ISLAND.

*The skipper looked at her, and said:
You can be sure of nothing at sea."
'You are a bit down, aren't you, father, this
morning?" said Arthur, stud3dng the Captain's face.

*The old fellow glanced from one to the other, then
took a view of his little ship, then at the few sailors
who were at work upon the deck. He seemed to
reflect, and then with a doubtful sort of smile, as
though it helped him to confess his mind, though he
was sensible of his weakness in doing so, he said:

* **I have had a bad dream."

*Rose seemed a little astonished. She did not know,
as the Captain's son knew, that a considerable element
of superstition went to the making of Captain Coch-
rane *s mind. Arthur gazed away to sea. He had no
idea of asking silly questions about silly things. Rose
said:

What was your dream. Captain Cochrane?"
I dreamt that I was murdered," he answered,
speaking with an eagerness that was almost affecting
in a man of his sort and calling and age, to Rose,
whose dark, illuminated eyes of the prophetess, whose
strange and beautiful gestures, and enchanting supple-
ness of form, expressed her as the right sort of person
to whom to talk of dreams. Arthur leaned with his
back against the bulwarks, watching his sweetheart.

* **Do you believe in dreams, Captain?" said the
girl.

* **I believe in dreams that come true," he answered
with a smile which the expression of his eyes deprived
of all mirth. **I was once mate of a barque, and
dreamt that a man was alive, and naked and long-
haired, like Peter Serrano, upon a rock some four

COCHRANE'S DREAM. 197

leagues to the southward of our course. I was so
impressed by the weirdness of this dream that I
resolved to urge the captain, who was a humane, sim-
ple sort of sailor, to put the ship's head off, so that we
might sight the rock, anyhow. This was done, and the
rock was duly hove into view. We saw smoke, and I
took the jolly-boat and two men, went ashore, and
found standing waiting for us upon the beach the same
wild, hairy, shipwrecked, naked seaman, whom I had
seen in my dream."

* **How did he make smoke?" inquired Arthur.

* **By a burning glass out of a Jelescope which had
been washed ashore."

* **It was a wonderful dream," said Rose. **But
what is not a dream? My rescue was a dream. We
see with dreaming eyes, and the world is full of
visions, which we hug only to be mocked. '

*She looked at Arthur.

* ** There are some visions which are rather danger-
ous to be hugged," said he. **They don't mock you,
either. Be hugged by a bear; be hugged by Nassau
yonder."

* **I should not allow my mind to be depressed,"
said Rose, with a smile at the Captain, **by dreaming
an ugly dream."

* **It was too minute," he answered gloomily. **By
God, Arthur! I felt the plunge of the knife in my
heart, and with my dying eyes I saw the face of the
murderer,"

* **Who was it?" said Arthur, faintly impressed by
his father's emphatic manner.

* **It was the devil, I think," said Captain Cochrane;
and he turned and looked hard in the direction of

198 ROSE ISLAND.

Julius Nassau. **Come," said he, **let us change the
subject. This is a fine morning, and we will make a
good breakfast."

* And as he spoke Wilkinson passed on his way to the
companion-hatch with a tray-load that made the air
savoury— coffee and ham, and a dish or two of canned
meats, hot and good as cabiii fare then went. But,
though he suggested that the subject should be
changed, he recurred to it promptly at table as some-
thing that fascinated him and would not leave him.
Ladies and gentlemen, this Captain belonged to an old
race of seamen. They are fast dying out; they are
being beaten under water by the thrash of the "pro-
peller. The foreigner is called in to do their work,
and the romance of the sea lies buried with other
romantic conditions of human life — such as those, for
instance, which Cervantes tilted against, that the
Trouveres and Troubadours sang about. It is, to my
mind, the least wonderful thing in the world that sail-
ors should be superstitious, considering the tomes of
legend and superstition which have descended to
them. It is not easy to shake clear of the faith of your
grandsires. We have done so, and may we be
thanked ! It had not been done when Cochrane was at
sea. Sailors then believed in Russian Finns who sold
them knots for winds, and were so masterful in the
art of sorcery that, when on board ship, they have
been known to cause a head- wind to blow for fifteen
days, and they have been seen to sit and talk to a rum-
bottle as if it was a man, which rum-bottle, though
they took copious draughts from it, they always con-
tinued to keep half-filled. Hark back again to the
superstitions of the seamen as told in full in old

COCHRANE'S DREAM. 199

H^luyt and Purchas. A sailor in those days would
come across a strange fish — sl manatee, a seal — ^and on
his return home he would swear on the crucifix that he
had beheld a beautiful female half in and half out of
the water; and he had also seen another person look-
ing like an old man, slightly intoxicated, in the act of
slipping oflE a thin beach of ice. The ancient mariner
had plenty of time to think over these fish. Men took
their leisure at sea in those times, and, like the wind
which urged them, blew along much as they listed.
The ancient mariner ^yould think of the manatee, and
relish it and garnish it as a wonderful discovery, and
long before he arrived at Wapping his nimble super-
stitious imagination had crowned the fish with a head
of golden hair; he gave her two speaking eyes of
liquid blue; her wistful little mouth pouted for kisses;
her arms were of the brilliance of sifted snow, and in
one hand she grasped a kind of harp. In vain the
ancient mariner had sought for legs; finding none, he
gave her a long and beautiful tail, armoured in rich
scales which shone like gold. Of course, his story
was credited. The poets are never far off; they seized
upon this old seaman's narrative, and imported all the
machinery with which we associate the legendary
mermaid. They explained that she played upon the
harp merely as an invitation to ancient mariners to
jump overboard, and dwell with her in coral palaces
lighted by lamps of the sea-glow, green and wonderful
in long beds of waving plume-like marine vegeta-
tion. So of the rainbow, so of the waterspout, to be
exorcised by nothing but the swords of the seamen
held aloft cross- wise. Out of imaginations of this sort
sprang the Flying Dutchman, Ladies and gentlemen, '

200 ROSE ISLAND.

said Captain Tomson Foster, *I am fond of this sub-
ject, and could cheerfully pursue it; but you are
weary, and you want me to resume my story. Let this
digression, however, be accepted as an apology for
Cochrane. '

I

CHAPTER XII.

A MISSIVE FROM THE SKY.

'Ladies and Gentlemen,* continued the commander of
the Australian liner Suez, after watching the men
trimming sail to a breeze that was steadily drawing
ahead, *it is fortunate for the generations already
bom, and those awaiting the Divine call to come, that
the paddle-wheel and the screw should have been
invented. I wonder what, in the olden days, the hoary,
hook-nosed, glittering-eyed seaman would have
thought of the man who told him that a day of splen-
dour was beaming below the horizon that girds the
centuries, in which the sailor would not give a snap of
his two tarry fingers how the wind blew, so far as con-
cerned his getting under way, and stemming with
ceaseless thrust the troubled ocean?

* During three days after they had spoken the
Eleuthera, the Captain of the pretty little Charmer was
cat's-pawed here and there until he thought he was
bewitched. The comparative adjacency of the
coast of Jamaica rendered these flaws and mocking,
ruffling draughts as irritating as a scab in the
eye. Nothing in these days hove into view save
one strange object, which grew amain when first
seen at the flying jibboom-end, and passed slowly,

within easy reach of the naked eye, aslant the mast-

abi

202 ROSE ISLAND.

heads of the Charmer. It was a balloon ; it was a sign
of cities and human interest at no great distance, and
it was looked up at with wonder and pleasure. It was
a large balloon, but the telescope levelled at the car
did not reveal more than two persons. Ballooning was
much in its infancy in those days, and the souls of
heroes must have animated the two men who formed
the crew of that balloon to take mid-air so coolly
leagues away from land, making for the ocean, which
was limitless to a balloon if it was to depend upon the
wind — and what else had it to depend on?

•••Two philosophic numskulls, no doubt," said old
Cochrane, looking straight up. '*They don't give us
particular heed, because at their altitude they compass
a field of brine which probably yields several ships to
their sight. What's their hope and their idea? The
balloon will fall into the sea, and the men be drowned. "

* **They are plucky fellows, no matter the theory
that sends them up to heaven," said Arthur, viewing
the balloon with unaffected admiration.

'•'When I was in England," said Rose, "I knew a
young man who could talk of nothing but balloons.
He bought or made one, and got into the car, and went
up in full view of about six hundred villagers. He
disappeared in a cloud, and was never again heard of.
The villagers," she added, smiling, "thought he had
become an angel. * '

'Rose was prettily dressed this day. The outfit she
had brought from the Eleuthera was a good one. It
contained some truly choice articles in the way of
dress. She was also the ownel* of some sparkling
jewellery, which she showed Arthur, and wished him
to choose one of two or three diamond rings. He had

A MISSIVE FROM THE SKY. 203

laughed and said no, the boot was on the other leg;
they would be finding out by-and-by who was to
choose the ring. When she had put on a fresh dress
and a fresh hat, the frock fitting her as a sail fits its
yards, Julius, who stood near the companion when she
stepped forth, stared with his little wild eyes of red-
dish gleam in secret adoration of the figure she made.
Heretofore she had gone clothed in the dress in which
she had floated to the side of the Charmer. Now she
showed as a beautiful young woman attired in some
light silky substance or material. She wore a large
hat, which took all imaginable grace from the face
beneath it. How purely splendid were her eyes under
the shadow of that hat ! how delicate was the tinge of
her cheeks in the soft protective shade ! Julius could
have tumbled down upon his knees, and grovelled and
adored her. She made her way to the side of Captain
Cochrane ; but all the while that she remained on deck
Julius feasted his eyes. She was prettily dressed now
as she stood by Arthur's side looking up at the
balloon.

• "They are an exploring party," she said, ** Ameri-
cans in search of a new continent, their own not being
quite big enough."

' **They are evidently from some near island," said
Cochrane, **and why the deuce are they sailing north
when they must know that every rock high and dry
enough to receive a little colony of mussels and winkles
is known to the hydrographer? I grant you there are
lands which never have been seen save by the people
who reported them. I once kept a bright look-out for
an island said to be a trifle to the south of St. Paul in
the Atlantic, and I certainly fell in with something

204 ROSE ISLAND.

that would have convinced a captain who took no
trouble to draw close, or was too drunk to see the
truth, that the thing was an island. Instead of which
the object consisted of hundreds of trees which
appeared to have been blown oflE an island by a hurri-
cane, and interlacing their boughs had started away on
a northern jaunt. "

*The balloon dwindled into a speck in a straight line,
which proved the existence of at least two currents of
air, one not, perhaps, much deeper than the middle
space betwixt the balloon and the schooner. This
diversity of air-tides galled Captain Cochrane to the
quick. He likened himself to Vanderdecken, and said
after this he should believe in the phantom ship. Rose
asked who Vanderdecken was, and Cochrane answered
that he originally hailed from Amsterdam. In 1662 he
set sail for Batavia. He was a strange-looking man,
with a tall narrow forehead, down which his white hair
fell like straw from a thatched cottage. His eyes were
deep-set, of piercing light and spirit, and as he was
generally admitted to be somewhat mad at root, he
was regarded as a genius by his friends. On his
voyage home, when nearing the Cape, he met with
head- winds and gales, and these he submitted to ; but
at last an agony of impatience was wrought in his
spirit. He would march to and fro his little poop,
shaking his fist at the viewless thundering enemy that
with mocking howls and sweeps of shrieking passion
was heading him oflE now to port, now to starboard.
One day, heedless of the wrath of the Father of
Compassion, and rendered ferocious by raging days of
headlong and useless endeavour, he fell upon his
knees, and lifted up his hands and swore in effect that,

A MISSIVE FROM THE SKY. 205

let the wind continue to head him as it chose, he would
weather the Cape yet, and he defied God to stop him.

* ''How dreadful!" said Rose.

* "Scarcely had he spoken the words," continued
Captain Cochrane, looking earnestly at the girl, whose
interest was unaffected, **than a stroke of lightning
illuminated the whole of the dark mid-day sea as
though the sun's glory had beat through a rift in the
clouds. A roll of thunder followed. It was a suc-
cession of heart-shaking detonations rushing across the
path of Vanderdecken from about north to almost
south, and it seemed to all hands as though it were a
barrier of the sound or voice of Heaven in rage past
which Vanderdecken never was to get."

* **I hope it won't come to such things with us," said
Rose, smiling. **It is a wonderful legend. Who
invented it, I wonder? Not the Dutch. They can
invent nice little clocks and cheeses which, when
good, are very good indeed. But to think of a Dutch-
man as a dreamer r^

* **They tried to improve upon the Death Ship," said
Arthur. •'They invented a ship that was so immense
she could not be turned in the English Channel. A
young man who went aloft to furl a sail was found on
his descent to be bald or gray, so long a time did it
occupy to climb those masts. How clumsy is all this
compared to Vanderdecken!"

* **I never met with light airs so continuous and
accursed," said Captain Cochrane, **as they blow about
here. Blow, did I say? Why, the shutting of a door
in a room will give you a breeze compared to what we
have been having."

You may get wind, and plenty, soon enough.

4 (i-

2o6 ROSE ISLAND.

father," said Arthur, looking with concern at Captain
Cochrane ; for there was nothing in his words, which
were idle enough : 'twas the skipper's whole manner
that made the son attentive to his speech.

* **I hope there is no curse upon this little vessel,"
continued Captain Cochrane. **I am not a superstitious
man, but I do not understand this infernally long spell
of variable winds, as they're called."

• "There is nothing of Vanderdecken in you, Cap-
tain," said Rose, laughing. ** You're a pious man.
Besides, you're not likely to tempt Providence by such
an inglorious piece of profanity as keeps the Phantom
Ship to leeward of the Cape. ' '

*He looked at her for a little fixedly, and there was
assuredly some trouble of the spirit in him. He then
went to the rail, and thoroughly searched the heavens
for any signs of weather that should be useful to the
Charmer. No; the ripple ran athwart, and carried the
steadfastness of a painted thing. The swell was in the
south-west, and each lift bore a burnished brow. It
went with the ripple, and the skipper could behold no
change in it. On high, on the margin of the light-blue
ether sloping north-west, was a scattering of white
clouds, and here and there upon the face of the
heavens a cloud looked down like an eye upon the
deep, and now and then it would pause over a swathe
as though in love with the reflection it found in that
ice-like break of pale-blue brine. Then, removing his
hand from the rail, which was nearly as hot as a kettle
on the fire. Captain Cochrane sent a forlorn look up at
the canvas, and another look in the direction in which
the balloon had vanished, then walked aft, where he
stood with Mr. Nassau in conversation. Their talk

A MISSIVE FROM THE SKY. 207

evidently concerned the ballcx)n, the ghastly mockery
of the light airs of these parallels, and other matters
connected with the slow progress of the schooner.
They fell into an argument, and Nassau raised his
voice and Arthur and Rose, who were on the other
side of the deck a little way forward, heard him
say:

* **You shall steer it straight as the arrow flies, sir,
and I give you my word of honour," and here he
clapped his thigh, clothed in the inevitable white
trousers — rather dingy, by the way, pretty often, ''that
in twenty-four hours a ship shall find her westing ten
leagues in excess of her reckoning. You have no
soundings here. You could not blame the officer of
the watch for not heaving to and trying the vessel's
drift by dropping the deep-sea lead over the side."

* **No currents are indicated in the chart,** Captain
Cochrane answered.

* **How should the men who draw up the charts
know?" exclaimed Nassau. ** You do not see the cur-
rent you drive with. Your chart-makers sound in
waters with a bottom to feel with their lead, and even
then you can't trust them."

*He spoke with a certain dictatorialness. To
Arthur's ears nothing could be more oflEensive. Rose,
looking at the dusky monkey-face of the man, whis-
pered some comment of disgust. In fact, had you not
known, you'd have reckoned Julius Nassau the captain
of the schooner, and Captain Cochrane his mate. The
skipper went below. "Nothing but the strange mood
that is upon him," said Arthur to Rose, "would have
permitted him to allow the tone of the fellow's speech
to pass. But he knows that I heard him, and I'll

2o8 ROSE ISLAND.

make bis mouth wider yet if he does not use it with

more civility."

■ • **To me, somehow, it seems," said Rose, "that this

fellow exercises a sort of malignant influence over your

father."

* '*I don't know about that," answered Arthur, who
was not very well pleased by the suggestion, **but I
think that the dear old man has made voyages enough,
and that it is about time for him to say in earnest the
words which he has often sung, *Then fare you well,
my pretty young gell.' "

•Rose gazed at her sweetheart attentively. There
was musing and speculation in her fine eyes. Her face
was full of beauty, and he gazed at her in return as
though her look meant merely a caress.

* "Arthur," she said softly, "but I must tell you — ^it
is strange— you will wonder when I say that I, too,
dreamt that your father was murdered."

*She laid her hand upon his arm in her girlish way,
thinking he would be startled. A shade of surprise
crossed his face, but he merely said:

* "It is a coincidence. Such things sometimes occur.
I remember telling a dream to a man who told me that
he had dreamt the same dream. It was about nothing
worthy an instant's curiosity. You remember the
dreams that are verified, but never the dreams that
are false. There is nothing in your dream, Rose."

* "Of course not, Arthur."

* "How ran your tragedy in your vision of the
night?" he asked, with a smile at his own big words.

* "Your father was stabbed by some shadow whose
face was a shadow," answered the girl, speaking as
though she subdued an emotion of awe.

A MISSIVE FROM THE SKY. 209

* **Did the shadow bear any resemblance to yonder
brute, whose face is a shadow?" asked Arthur, and
they both looked at Nassau, who, standing close beside
the helmsman, received their gaze with a steady frown.

' ** Don't let us talk of him,** answered Rose, and she
then turned the conversation, making much of the-
balloon and its object, and walking to and fro, side by
side with her sweetheart, in the shadow of the awning
that stretched from the mainmast to within a few feet
of the wheel. On the other hand, Nassau patrolled
the weather deck, and as often as was practicable he
looked at the charming young girl to leeward, pausing
often to admire her when she passed him, and even
Overalls at the wheel could see that the unhappy
wretch loved her madly. All that day the Captain
preserved his gloomy manner. His son stepped into
his father's berth to reason with him.

* **You are allowing a dream to depress you, father.
Is it worth it?*'

* **It is no dream that depresses me, Arthur,'* he
replied. **I am perhaps out of health. Even sailors
are permitted to fall ill occasionally. I grow weary of
this life of the ocean. The eternal monotony of it,
that endless girdle that they call the horizon, binds a
man round and round, as a fly is bound by a spider.
The bound man is a sailor, and drink and determined
poverty devour his soul, as ulcers consume the eyes.
It binds him round and round, and the spider-like
sucker, the owner, drinks his full of his blood, and the
maimed, travel-burnt husk is flung overboard to the
fishes, who fly the horror."

'Arthur listened with a growing face of concern.
He had never heard him talk in this strain. Was it

2Z0 ROSE ISLAND.

possible he was growing a little mad? He continued
to reason with his father, and to explain things from a
sane point of view, but when he quitted the berth he
was pretty nearly as dejected as his father. The calm
day of glassy tracts of water, of sweet, faint gushings
of delicately ruffling air, of a sky that was noble all
south-west with the gradual rise of linked vapour, so
gloriously interwoven that it looked like a coat of mail,
resplendent with the colours of the sun, shot with gold
and purple, with violet and faint blue, whilst all its
central heart was stately whiteness ; this day passed,
and it grew to eight bells, four o'clock, the first hour
of the first dog-watch. Whilst Wilkinson was striking
the bell, with his eyes fixed on the sky over against the
starboard yard-arm of the schooner, he suddenly
shouted: "Sail ho! from the skies ! Another balloon,
mates. See how she hangs!*' and having finished
striking he rushed to the side and pointed high into
the air over the sea.

'A cry at sea always carries importance; an order
from the poop will make men jump and run; a cry
from aloft instantly calls the attention of the men from
below, and the necessary rejoinder is yelled. And now
a balloon was in sight. Wilkinson had said so, and
was pointing.

' "Well, I'm damned!" said Old Stormy, after sur-
veying the object under the sharp of his hand, pressed
against his brow, "is this here sky a randy- voo for
balloons?"

* "Ain't it the same balloon a-going home?" asked a
man.

• "They can't steer balloons. They never will,"
said Wilkinson. "It's just like your cap when it's

A MISSIVE FROM THE SKY. 2x1

blowed oflE: it goes where the wind do. They'll never
get a balloon to steer, and old Johnson's with me, for
don't he somewhere represent a man constructing of a
pair of wings for near half his life, then getting on top
of a cliff overlooking a lake, and jumping and falling
into the water, and being hooked out half -drowned?"

* **What do I know what that there blooming old
Johnson says!" exclaimed Ben Black. "There comes
a balloon, and I allows it's the same as this morning's,
and maybe as it's travellin' this way it's going to
bring a fair wind with it."

*By this time the news had spread fore and aft, and
the Captain had come again out of his cabin, and with his
spy-glass had easily determined that it was the balloon
they had before seen, now harking back on some cur-
rent of wind which was evidently a deeper stratum of
air than the occupants of the balloon cared to sound
with their machine. As it was, the thing was floating
much lower than when first beheld in the earlier part
of the day, proving that they had exhausted as much
gas as they chose to part with, and through the glasses
she was clearly made out, a huge bronze-coloured
shape, fretted with holding cords at the extremity of
which hung a small car, and after she had been float- ^
ing in the direction of the schooner for some twenty
minutes or so, the men in her (two) were to be distin-
guished by the help of the glass. The balloon was
certainly bringing a fair draft of wind along with her,
for when she was off the starboard bow about a
quarter of a mile, plumb with the zenith, but how high
in the air I could not tell you, the sea, that had been
sparkling and glancing, and trembling, and streaming
for a little in some mocking trouble of a catspaw,

212 ROSE ISLAND.

composed its face into a steady violet line that gradu-
ally came creeping down along the waters, which had
the variety of the hues of the flower-garden in blues,
and whites, and yellows, and pinks, and the Captain
exclaimed to Mr. Nassau, in about the cheerfullest
note he had delivered that day :

* "Here comes a breeze, sir, and I hope it's going to
last."

*As he pronounced these words someone uttered a
cry forward, and all hands, looking aloft at the balloon,
saw that she had burst and collapsed, and was
descending. She lolled over all agape, and as attenu-
ated as a cashmere shawl which you may draw through
a ring, whilst the car, after a wild swing, like a thing
of life vibrating ere it plunges, turned completely
over, and the spectators of the schooner easily saw the
two men drop out of it, one man going headlong, the
other revolving like a wheel, other things were to be
seen falling out of the car, but they could not be
distinguished.

A general groan of horror broke from the schooner's
decks. The wildness and the awf ulness of it lay in the
suddenness. One minute a lofty commanding balloon
was sailing in safety through the beautiful weather
over the sea, the next, she was rent and ragged, flut-
tering like a torn flag, sinking in pursuit of its car.

* **My God!*' shouted Captain Cochrane. **What a
dreadful thing to happen ! Must a man come to sea to
witness such horrors? Arthur, take a boat and row as
hard as you can towards that car. The men may be
floating, but I see no signs of them."

*A boat was lowered, but not with expedition.
Merchant seamen are little used to handling boats, and

A MISSIVE FROM THE SKY. 213

when they are called upon in a hurry they usually
make slow and clumsy jobs of a manoeuvre that ought
to be as easy as flinging a life-buoy. A boat was at
last lowered. Rose overhung the rail in agony at the
departure of her sweetheart. The three men gave
way with a will, and Arthur stood up in the stem-
sheets, and searched the sea where the balloon had
fallen. The spot was within half a mile; swollen
bodies of silk were slowly settling. The car had disap-
peared ; there was nothing visible on the face of the
deep that way in the shape of struggling men. Close
to a floating chair, which was the only visible piece of
equipment of the car, was a large dead bird, as big as
that bird which is called by sailors the booby, but it
was not the same species. They are to be found in
great flocks on some of the deserted cays of the West
Indies, and they are often taken at sea, though chiefly
for wanton purposes, as they are not good to eat. The
oil they spill is a worthless fluid, and they seem but
an idle, noisy creation of the air. About twenty fath-
oifis from this bird was angther of the same species.
It had life, but it was fast ebbing; it lay a little on one
side, and feebly used the scarlet leg that was half out
of the water. Both gull's wings had been cut. The
helpless fall from the immense height had killed out-
right one of these wretched sea-fowl, and perhaps had
killed the other out of hand, had its wings been less
closely cropped than its fellows. Arthur caught hold
of the dead bird, and lifted it into the stern-sheets.
Around its neck was apiece of strong white tape, which
was secured backwards by a knot under one wing, so
that the tape could not slip off the bird. To it, at the
breast of the dead fowl, was attached a small bottle,

214 ROSE ISLAND.

which looked as if it had contained medicine. It was
tightly and most securely corked, and inside of it was a
scroll of paper. The other bird was then approached
and easily handled, being nearly dead. It bore no
missive of any sort, though its plumage and wings
were narrowly searched for any sort of message. The
bird was left to die upon the sea — a funeral couch it
would doubtless have chosen in preference to the bot-
tom of the boat — and Arthur returned to the schooner.

'Again, ladies and gentlemen, I am obliged to own
that there was very little discipline maintained aboard
the schooner Charmer. When, therefore, the bird was
brought aboard, all hands together came about it, and
a stranger would not have known Wilkinson from the
skipper. Cochrane pulled out his knife, severed the
ligature, gave the bird to a sailor to hold, and with
some trouble pulled out the cork from the bottle. He
then extracted the piece of paper that was rolled up
like such a piece as you would light your pipe with.
He was safe in handling it ; barring Nassau, Arthur,
and Dr. Johnson's admirer, there was probably no man
in the ship who could read. The writing was in
Spanish, and in very black lead pencil. It was dated
noon that day, and, after scanning it, the Captain gave
it to Nassau to interpret to the men; the coloured
mate grinned as he read in silence, and then inter-
preted aloud:

* **A large sailing ship is being plundered by a
pirate. I cannot tell how they bear. They are prob-
ably sixty miles distant, at this time of writing, north-
west."

*No signature was attached to this.

'And scarcely had this been written when the

C C(

A MISSIVE FROM THE SKY. 215

balloon burst and the poor fellows lost their lives!"
said the Captain, bending a melancholy pair of eyes on
the spot where the balloon had sunk.

* **They cut oflE the wings," said Nassau, looking at
the bird in the sailor's hands, **that it might not fly
away with its message. Why did they drop it at us?"

* **Why," said Old Stormy, ** 'cos they reckoned we
was more likely than them to fall in with a man-o'-war. ' '

* '* Never heard of a message falling plump out of the
sky like that," said Ben Black.

* '*What were those wretched men doing up there?"
exclaimed Rose, who had been stroking the dead gull,
now casting her eyes aloft.

* **Why didn't they relate their story?" said Arthur.
"There was another booby already unthatched for the
heave."

* **They were probably philosophers making experi-
ments," said the Captain, **and were no doubt satisfied
to find themselves returning home on the wings of a
pleasant wind."

* As he spoke the wind that had come along in a field
of sparkling green from one quarter of the horizon to
another, was all about them, gushing like a song of
summer insects in the rigging, swinging each space of
canvas till the full bosom of it looked like the human
breast deeply breathing with rejoicing. Sail was to
be trimmed for the fair course to Kingston. The boat
was hoisted to the davits ; the skipper, the mate, and
Arthur stood in conversation on the quarterdeck, and
Rose at the bulwarks watched the dead bird at a dis-
tance floating slowly astern. The talk, needless to
say, concerned the balloon and the ship in the clutches
of the pirate.

ai6 ROSE ISLAND.

t (d

Seeing us,'* said Nassau, '*I guess those men,
suddenly finding themselves bound over our mast-
heads, and nothing else in sight, determined to make
the condition of the, ship known, little guessing,"
added he with a wild grin, "what was to be their own
condition shortly after. So they made out that writ-
ing, which ain't sufficient, for it don't tell the name of
the people, or tell where the balloon's owned, and they
cut short the feathers of the birds, and dropped one of

em.

* **But why unwing both birds?" exclaimed Captain
Cochrane.

* ** Because they meant, I calculate," answered
Julius, **if the first bird wasn't picked up by us, they'd
reserve the other for the next sailing ship they sailed

over."

* ** Which is the ship those cursed pirates have got
hold of?" exclaimed Arthur.

* Nassau's deepset eyes burned redly with true dra-
matic effect as he replied, looking with hate at Arthur
in every pucker of his baboon face :

' ** You'll find she's the ship Miss Rose Island came
aboard of us from. "

*In the brief silence that followed. Rose drew from
the side and joined the party.

* **You mean," said the skipper, **that the Eleuthera
has been captured?"

* **The EUutkerar* cried Rose. "Who knows this
for certain?" and she shuddered and looked with a
light of eyes that was not wanting in fierceness at Mr.
Julius Nassau.

* "Well, as for certain," answered Nassau, making
the girl a low bow, and smiling and ogling her, "noth-

A MISSIVE FROM THE SKY. 217

ing is certain in this world, Miss Island ; no, not even
marriage, which it is true the law can't make certain,"
here he sent his little devil eyes at Arthur. **But
what ship is she, if she ain't the Eleuthera? That
vessel can't be far astern of us, and it is not long since
that the beautiful schooner, which most of us admired
against the bank of mist, passed on her way to the
capture of the doomed craft."

' *'I have no doubt it is the Eleutheray'' said the
skipper, looking at the piece of paper he held, and
speaking in a voice that was little removed from a
groan.

* **If I am right. Miss Rose," continued Nassau, who
seemed to delight in an excuse to addres her, **you
have been rescued from a greater danger than the
danger you escaped when you fell out of the port-hole
of the ship. I believe I know the schooner who has
captured her, and, if she is the same ship, she is com-
manded by a man whose acquaintance I made at King-
ston when I was last there. I know her captain, and
can tell you that you've escaped the most dangerous
and brutal animal, soft as silk and as fair as a woman,
that flies the black flag in this part of the world. "

*He folded his arms and stalked off, and at a little
distance leaned against the bulwark. Captain Coch-
rane, after much further talk of the missive from the
sky with his son and Rose, went below. But the other
two kept the deck, for the sweetness of the air that
was now gushing gaily over the breast of the waters,
and the schooner was striking white feathers off either
bow, and leaning to it, which is a pleasant part of a
fair wind.

CHAPTER XIII.

THE DEATH OF THE SKIPPER.

*It was the morning of the day following that of the
explosion of the balloon, and its headlong dismissal of
two men, one as the stick of a rocket, the other as a
wheel, to eternity. It was four o'clock in the morning,
and the morning watch, as it is termed at sea, was
beginning with the music of the sailor, as eight bells
were rung in silver notes on the forecastle head of the
Charmer, It was still dark, but the brilliants of the
night hovered with something of faintness in the wide
field they tipped with silver points, as though the
' morning were not far distant, and the pallor of its
face, fresh from the embrace of the hag Darkness, was
rising upon the ocean line. It still blew the gentle
wind of yesterday, and the schooner with all wings
abroad, dropping fire into her wake, and trimming her
sides with fire, whereof played a fountain at the cut-
water, stole across the sea and through the beautiful
later night, and all seemed well with her.

*It was Captain Cochrane's place at four o'clock to
relieve the deck, whereon stumped the infernal figure
and dark face of Nassau, like to that veiled prophet
whose disclosure of countenance smote the sweet girl
to whom he showed himself into a fit at his feet. At
midnight, however, after a long talk about the

exploded balloon, its object, the manifest intention of

218

THE DEATH OF THE SKIPPER. 219

the men to label the second bird with a report ready
for a man-of-war, and also after much discussion about
the plunder of their unfortunate temporary consort,
the fine West Indiaman, the skipper had asked his son
to stand his watch from four till eight, as he felt
exceedingly weary, very sad of heart, he knew not
why. He believed slumber, which he now admitted
had been denied him some time, would refresh
him, and he hoped to be able to get some sleep
from the present hour until it was time to turn out
again.

* ** Captain," said Nassau, who had stood by and
overheard much of the conversation betwixt father and
son, **I will stand your watch with pleasure, that you
may be sure of rest, so that Mr. Arthur here may go
on enjoying his privileges as a passenger."

* Arthur thanked him bluntly, and said he would
relieve his father at four. A little while before the
hour of four Nassau stepped down the companion-
ladder, and walking to the berth or hole which Arthur
Cochrane had occupied since Rose had been fished up
over the side, entered and stood a moment before put-
ting his hand upon the sleeping man. The cabin-lamp
was usually kept alight all night, the wick being turned
low. The lustre diffused penetrated the berths all
round when the doors were open, and the shape of the
sleeper was easily visible to the coloured mate. Sel-
dom would be the interior of a wooden ship so quiet,
even on such a night as this, as was the Charmer; only
now and again a sound was made by some slightly-
strained timber, a strong fastening creaked, and you
would hear, dim in the hold, the squeak of that uni-
versal mariner, the rat.

220 ROSE ISLAND.

' **What do you want, Mr. Nassau?" exclaimed
Arthur.

'Nassau started and said:

• **I was about to awaken you. It is eight bells, and
your watch has come round."

* ** Thanks," said Arthur, and the mate withdrew, a
little disturbed by having discovered that Arthur,
apparently asleep, had been watching him in that
pause and stare.

*In a minute Arthur was dressed, and on his way to
relieve the deck. It was hot to suffocation in the cabin,
though the skylights were open, and he stopped at the
table to get a drink of fresh water before mounting.
He then thought he would like to peep in on his father
and discover if he was, or had been, getting the rest he
needed. Undoubtedly it would be a bad symptom for
old Cochrane to suffer from sleeplessness. Of old,
Arthur had dimly heard through his mother that his
father had once upon a time shown himself as distinctly
off colour: in other words, something more than erratic.
They talked of it as due to an illness, but Arthur
afterwards heard that this disturbance of mental func-
tions in the bright, brisk, gallant sea-captain was, in
reality, a family misfortune, and the only bequest, sav-
ing a family Bible and an old parrot, which had
reached his hands. He stepped to his father's door
and listened, thinking he might hear the skipper
moving. All being silent within, he lightly turned the
handle and advanced his head and shoulders, so that
the full light in the cabin should not pass into the
berths. Now, ladies and gentlemen, it was the custom
of Captain Cochrane to keep a light in his berth burn-
ing all night. This he made a rule of, without regard

THE DEATH OP THE SKIPPER. 221

to the lights outside. The interior was dusky, for the
lamp burnt low, but all points of equipment were to
be readily distinguished after the pause of the eye for
a few moments. Arthur's sight went at once to the
open bunk, or bedstead, in which his father lay.
There was scarcely more than that and its sleeping
inmate in the little room : a couple of chairs, a little
table, a washstand screwed to tie bulkhead, and so
you have it.

'The outline of old Cochrane, as he rested, clothed
in white drill-trousers and white shirt, was easily made
out, and so, too, was his posture, which caused Arthur
to reach his father's side in a swift stride of alarm and
horror; for, by the faint light that was burning, he
saw in his father's face, in the uplifted ^ye, in the
fallen jaw, that the old man was dead, and he also saw
the cause of his death in the handle of a common
carving-knife used at their meals, the blade of which
was sunk in the dead man's breast. Owing to the
cleanness of the drive-home of the steel, but little
blood was to be seen upon the shirt round about the
knife ; the right arm lay across the breast, and two of
its fingers touched the blade of the knife. It might be
that the man had let go the haft in the agony of the
death-wound, or it might be that the arm had been
placed by his murderer in that position after the man
had been killed. Arthur stood motionless. The sur-
prise was so violently sudden, so tragic, in his. con-
ception beyond all degrees of possibility, that he could
not realize the reality of the hideous and tremendous
spectacle he contemplated. He bent his ear to the
dead mouth. He stood erect, with his arms uplifted in
a posture of wailing; for, indeed, he had loved the old

322 ROSE ISLAND.

man; he was his only son, and all through his life he
had known him as a good, generous, loving father.
Who could feel hate towards such a man, to outstep the
limits of natural passion by the most cruel and wicked
of human deeds? Arthur knew, indeed, that a strong
spirit of insubordination worked in the crew, whose
criminal attitude in this matter had been heightened
not a little by the familiar conversation and intercourse
of Mr. Julius Nassau. But could he have dreamt that,
there being no mutiny in evidence, murder would
stalk forth on a sudden, and in that little ocean sleep-
ing-room make a floating hell of the schooner lifting
on the light swell slowly forward in the dusk of the
morning?

*By the faint light the poor young fellow stood look-
ing. Then a passion of rage and terror fired him; he
rushed through the cabin-door, leapt up the com-
panion-steps, shouting ** Murder! murder!" till the
word of frightful import was echoed again and again
along the vessel's decks and up in the hollow canvas.
Nassau stood close to the companion, apparently
awaiting the arrival of Arthur, who, after yelling the
word, turned in furious wrath upon the coloured mate,
and shouted, *'My father has been stabbed to death!"
And he shouted again to the man at the wheel, whose
face was indistinguishable, **My father has been basely
murdered by someone who has stabbed him through
the heart in his sleep!" And then, rushing forward
until he came near the caboose, he stopped, and, at the
height of his voice, raved, ** Murder! murder! My
father lies murdered in his cabin!"

*At any time the murder of a captain at sea rises to a
height that is beyond the moral enormity of the deed.

THE DEATH OF THE SKIPPER. 223

It is thus felt by sailors. Let him be what he will, the
commander of a ship is a power; he walks the weather
side of the quarterdeck, controls the navigation of the
ship, is responsible for her, and is a god-almighty in
his way. It was not necessary, therefore, for Arthur
to shout long and lustily. Before he had gained the
companion-hatch, the crew, leaping out of the fore-
castle, were at his heels, and, with the exception of the
man at the wheel, down they fell pell-mell into the
cabin, and in a trice the poor skipper's berth was filled.
At the foot of the table stood Rose, whilst she waited
for the men to rush by. She had swiftly shrieked a
question to Arthur ; but he had hastened to his father's
berth with an imploring gesture, and she remained at
the table, white in the cheek, with eyes which burnt
like the lamp that lighted them, but in an attitude of
expectation and preparedness. No man glancing at
her as he ran past, but must have witnessed the
heroine latent in that lonely, beautiful, erect figure.
Not a sound was to be heard save the muffled sob of
the rudder, and the cold and cheerless creak of its
gear, whilst the men gazed at the dead figure. Then
Arthur, rounding suddenly upon Nassau, who stood
close, cried out, in a wild and broken voice :

• **Who has done this?"

• "Why do you ask me of all the others?" inquired
the mate, whose red eyes showed, and whose white
teeth gleamed in the dusk of his face against the
imperfect light.

• **Who has done this?" shouted Arthur again, in a
sudden frenzy of rage, and a sense of deep and utter
loss.

• **It was his father," said a voice.

^-

224 ROSE ISLAND.

^ **I know nothing about it,*' said Nassau, bending
over to catch a view of the dead man's face. **But
who should know anything about it? Why, he mur-
dered himself! That's the handle of a carving-knife.
His hand is close against it. By the heart of my dead
mother, it touches it, men! See them two fore-fingers?
This is no murder. "

*He shot erect, and, seeing Rose in the doorway,
bowed and smiled, and said :

* **It is no murder, Miss Rose; it is suicide. He
went to bed depressed. I overheard some of his talk
with his son. He has been dejected for some days. It
is not murder; it is suicide."

*He shrugged his shoulders, and crossed his arms
upon his breast in an attitude of defiance and convic-
tion. Arthur stood dumbly looking at his father. He
continued dumb, whilst the men, talking gruffly, drew
close to the bunk, the better to judge of the accuracy
of Nassau's conjecture. After plenty of peering and
muttering, one said:

* **Why, of course it's soo'cide. Tell ye what,
though : no man who kills hisself stabs hisself ; they
all cuts their throats. ' *

* ** Wouldn't 'e 'av' kept a hold of the knife had he
done it?" said the sailor Black.

• '*J^s^ what he wouldn't do," said Old Stormy.
** Fingers was bound to come away." And then,
steadying his voice into the tone of a man who accepts
the gravity and responsibility of an important state-
ment, he added: **That genelman lyin' there died by
his own hand. There's no good in walking round the
notion, and making of it out to be something else. By
this killing himself he proves all us men innocent of

THE DEATH OP THE SKIPPER. 225

the crime. 1*11 put my mark to any document that's
drawed up describing the body, and the "and, and the
'andle of the knife, in proof that this is as clear a case
of soo*cide as if the crew had seen 'im jump over-
board.'*

'Arthur, with his eyes fastened upon the corpse,
listened in silence, and Nassau, after taking another
view of the body, said to young Cochrane :

' **I am very sorry, and sorrier that so good a man
and so fine a sailor should have found life too heavy a
load. I'll keep your watch, sir;" and he went out.
Rose shrinking to let him pass, and disappeared on
deck.

* Arthur joined the girl without making any reply to
Mr. Nassau's civil speech; and, after hanging about
the body for some time, whilst they all proved con-
clusively one to another that old Cochrane had killed
himself, that nothing could come of any other man
killing him, that they had ** drawed too close to
their port to make such a job as this likely as a calcu-
lated murder," the crew went on deck.

* "Has he killed himself, Arthur?" said Rose.

* **No," answered Arthur, whose voice shook with
the grief of his heart; **he has been murdered, and
the arm placed so as to suggest suicide."

* **Who did it?"

* ** Nassau," he said.

* After a pause, she exclaimed:

' **If there is a man in the crew capable of such a
crime, it is Nassau. What would be his object?"

' **I must think," answered Arthur, wiping his brow
with distracted hand.

Horrible it is in either case, Arthur," she

• <t

326 ROSE ISLAND.

exclaimed. **But, oh, to think of him as having been
coolly murdered by one of his men! It cannot
be," she continued, softening her voice till her sylla-
bles hissed between her teeth. ** Nassau and your
father were on good terms. I cannot imagine any»man
amongst the crew whose hate reached to the height of
deliberate murder. His talk, his moods, point to the
truth. It is shocking; but, oh, Arthur, it is best so!"

* **They placed his arm,** said Arthur, **but they
could not make the dead fingers grip the haft."

* •*It is impossible to be sure, Artiur."

* **Go back to bed. Rose. I will cover my father's
body, and go on deck to take the watch he asked me
to keep."

•He sobbed dryly, and Rose went into her berth.
He stepped into his father's berth, and, with resolu-
tion bom of the desire of vengeance, he drew the knife
out of old Cochrane's heart, and, rolling it up in a
piece of canvas, placed it in a locker. He then
covered the body with^ a rough sheet, pausing a
moment to muse, all his thoughts ruiming in a manner
as though he were still thunderstruck. **Who has
killed him?*' he thought, **and why?" And, thus
thinking, he went on deck to keep the watch that his
father should have kept. Dawn had broken. It was
as faint as illuminated slate along the seaboard; the
ocean ran black against it, but the light paled as it
circled to the west over which the stars of the night
were still trembling. The schooner, with masts of
ebony, and sails like the raiment of ghosts leaning
slightly and heaving slightly, moved in a path of faint
light which the eastern gleam had not yet power to
extinguish. Nassau was talking to the man at the

THE DEATH OF THE SKIPPER. 227

wheel. The helmsman was Wilkinson, and the tone
of the nigger mate was propitiatory. It was an
unusual tone in the voice of a man who never
addressed this young fellow, this singular admirer of
Dr. Johnson, but as though he were a dog. When the
mate saw Arthur, without speech he went below, and
in solitude young Cochrane walked the deck of the
vessel. As he insisted upon thinking that his father
had been killed, his mind dwelt incessantly upon the
motive of his murder. In his heart he believed the
black mate the assassin; but still came in the **why*'
had he murdered him. To get command of the
schooner? He could not promise himself acceptance
of that post at Kingston even though old Cochrane
was dead.

'Suddenly he started and stopped. Might it be that
he desired to obtain command of the schooner whilst
she was on the high seas? If so, then his game might
be piracy or slaving; but had he the crew at his heels?
If not, who'd help him to carry his ship to a port
where he could fill up with a load of ruffians for his
purpose? But the mere idea of Nassau being in sole
command of the schooner brought him to think of
Rose, and this nearly drove him mad as he faced,
breathing short, the soft and silky wind which was
now blowing with the illumination of the east in it. If
Nassau got command, how could Arthur save his
sweetheart from the ruffian black who professed to
adore her? Had not Nassau killed old Cochrane with
the Idea and determination of getting hold of the
schooner, and with her Rose Island? This seemed the
answer that fitted all his questions, and the poor
young fellow walked up and down the deck with a

228 ROSE ISLAND.

distracted mind. For he was alone ; his rival for the
girl was a murderous, reckless ru£5an; the men, if
they did not choose to sail with Nassau, would leave
him, and a new crew come on board; Arthur himself
would be either murdered or sent away, and Rose
would be compelled to accept Nassau or end her life.
His walk brought him to the wheel ; there he paused,
seeking with an habitual eye the bearing of the
schooner's head. He glanced at the helmsman, and
observed that he was Wilkinson, who had come to the
relief at four. He said to the young man:

* **Were you on deck when my father's murder was
discovered?"

***I don't know, sir."

* **Did you see anybody sneak below, or come on
deck from the cabin at eight bells?"

*A pause followed this question. Wilkinson then
spoke in a tone of agitation; his voice was low and
broken ; he occasionally looked behind him, as though
by any possibility someone should be lurking betwixt
the wheel and the taffrail. It was brightening into
clear dawn. The light swell rolled with a delicate
pink tint on its brow. The breeze was small and
steady on the quarter, and the sea ran in an ashen sur-
face away to the heavens of night, which were faint-
ing to the coming of the rising sun. A couple of the
watch on deck paced in the waist; they puffed at their
pipes; their roll was the easy swing of the deep sea
deck ; they did not seem to make much of the murder
of their Captain. The others were not to be seen.

* **Mr. Cochrane," said Wilkinson in a low voice,
and after a prolonged stare at Arthur, as though, to
USQ the Scotch expression, h^ w^s taking a thought,

THE DEATH OF THE SKIPPER. 229

••if I tell you what's on my tongue, you'll swear by
your living God and mine — and Dr. Johnson once said
there was no stronger oath — that you'll not repeat it
as coming from me?"

* **What have you to say?" said Arthur quickly. **I
swear by your God and mine; so tell me what you
know."

* **It's merely this," said Wilkinson, with a little
whirl of spoke which brought the schooner to her
course again, **I'd got a bad toothache — I've got it still
— I couldn't sleep for it in my watch below, and a
little before eight bells, knowing it would be my trick,
I came aft, meaning to ask for a drop of brandy to put
to it. There was no one on the quarter-deck save the
chap at the helm. I stepped to the skylight to look
down, and I saw Mr. Nassau come round past the
ladder, where he stopped a minute looking forrard. I
went to the companion-way, and he came up, and after
staring at me as if I'd been the ghost of his mother,
who he's always a-quoting of, he sez, sez he, *What the
hell do you want?' I told 'im I'd got the toothache
crool bad, and was coming aft for a drop of brandy.
He damned me and cursed me, as his custom is, and
says that rum was good enough for the likes of me,
and that I must wait till noon, when it would be served
out. I sloped forward and got a drop of rum from
Black, and soon after it was eight bells, and I lay aft
again to relieve the wheel. Mr. Nassau saw me, but
never spoke."

* **This fellow Nassau," said Arthur, speaking in a
hoarse whisper, **was in the cabin a little while before
eight bells?"

Aye, sir,"

< ««

230 ROSE ISLAND.

t <l

And you saw him coming from the direction of
my father's berth?*'

• ''He certainly must have come that way. As old
Dr. Johnson says **

* *'What was his behaviour when he saw you at the
head of the steps?**

* "Well, Mr. Cochrane, he gave a violent start, as
I've said; the rest was Oh's!"

* ''You could not possibly have mistaken him?" said
Arthur.

* **It was the darkey Nassau, sir, him and no other."

* ''What do you think of my father's death?" said
Arthur.

*The young fellow, with another faint twirl of a
spoke, answered, after some hesitation, *'If you say I
think it, it 'uU cost me my life. Mr. Cochrane, it'll
cost the life of any man aboard this vessel who says he
thinks as I think. So I'm putting my life in your
hands when I tell you it's as true as that your father
lies dead that that black dog, Julius Nassau, who
means to go for a pirate in this vessel, drove the carv-
ing-knife into your father's heart."

* "Sail ho!" shouted one of the two men who were
walking in the waist.

* "Where away?" cried Arthur, in his usual voice.

* "On the weather quarter, sir."

•There, glowing white in the rosy light, was a star or
disc of sail. That she had not been passed was cer-
tain. She was therefore overhauling them, which
merely proved her aiaster ship.

* "Wilkinson," said Arthur, speaking quickly, as he
desired to end this conversation before the length of
it$ duration should be observed, "I thank you from my

THE DEATH OF THE SKIPPER. 231

heart for your sincerity and sympathy, and count you
the one friend Miss Island and I have in this cruel,
tremendous trial. I will take a chance of asking you
what you know about Nassau's intention with regard
to pirating. The 'young lady has no one to protect
her but ourselves against the villainy of that black
scoundrel and murderer below."

•This said, he left the wheel, for he did not want to
be observed in conversation with Wilkinson. It was
six o'clock when the young man's trick was up;
Arthur gave no directions as to the washing down of
the decks, the schooner flapped forward, the men
lounged about smoking and awaiting the preparation
of their breakfast, perhaps talking of the death of
Captain Cochrane. When Wilkinson came from the
wheel, young Cochrane asked him if he would step
below at eight bells into the cabin and stitch up his
father in canvas or in a hammock ready for the funeral.
Astern the star of daybreak was growing and glowing.
Almost mechanically Arthur picked up the glass and
resolved the point of light into a topsail schooner
tinder every stitch of canvas. He made nothing of so
common an apparition, but as he was putting the
glass into the companion. Rose came up. She wore a
frightened look, but determination deep as death was
in her face. Clearly she had been thinking, and had
decided upon a course, and the trouble in her face was
merely the shadow of a woman's heart barely darkei>-
ing the road she had chosen. She asked her sweet-
heart if he were now as convinced as herself that his
father had committed suicide.

•**No," he answered. ** Wilkinson — ^but you must
3wear not to repeat this, Rose," he added in a

232 ROSE ISLAND.

whisper, for the man at the wheel was not far oflE —
''swears that he saw the negro mate come down the
steps a little before eight bells."

'Her lips parted as to the motion of a shriek, and she
said, "If he is your father's murderer, you and I are
the same as dead "

* "He may kill me," said Arthur, speaking in a very
low voice, "and that will be his next step; but he will
not kill you. Oh, Grod! how am I to protect you from
him, if the men are with him and agree to sail with
him as a pirate, as Wilkinson has as good as said?"

'She stood motionless, regarding him. A curious
smile made the steadfast expression of her shining eyes
extraordinary. They did not participate in her smile.

* "I am not afraid of him, Arthur," she said. "Mr.

Nassau will not trouble me greatly. I, too " she

interrupted herself violently, and said, "Do not fear
for me, Arthur. See to yourself, darling. But who
can guard you by night, by day, against the sudden
attack of the black ruffian whose mouth you widened?"

* "Your safety is all I care for," said Arthur. "Be
out of his sight, Rose, as often as you can. Be with
me whether below or on deck when he is visible. I
am a passenger, and henceforth shall take no part in
the working of this vessel. I must go below, my
dearest."

'He left her, and went to his father's berth. At
eight bells Nassau came out of his cabin and went on
deck and stood looking about him for Arthur, and
then seeing the sail astern, which was now lifted
almost to the line of her hull, he examined her through
the telescope with a long, thirsty, searching look.
Turning, he saw Wilkinson approaching.

THE DEATH OF THE SKIPPER. 233

* **What do you want below?*' he asked, as he put
his hand upon the companion hood.

**Mr. Cochrane asked me to 'elp to stitch up his
father.'*

'Nassau turned away, and the youth descended.
Young Cochrane had been in his father's berth since a
little after six; at varying intervals he would step on
deck to observe that the schooner was held to her
course. He would then return to his father's cabin.
He occupied his time in deep thought, in contempla-
tion of his father, whom he loved, and whom from
time to time he would weep at the sight of, in going
through the poor old fellow's papers and his effects.
He was interrupted by Wilkinson, who, at the hour
of eight punctually, knocked at the door and was
admitted. He had brought with him the necessary
equipment of sail-needle, palm, and twine, and the
hammock in which the remains of the skipper were to
be stitched lay folded in a comer of the little room.
Whilst they raised the body to receive ♦lie hammock
flattened to its clews, Wilkinson said :

* **This 'ere poor old gentleman never killed himself,
sir."

* "Why do you say that?" demanded Arthur eagerly.

* ** Would the arm of a man who killed himself lay
like that?" said Wilkinson. **No, sir," continued the
young man in imitation of the style of his literary
hero, **it was to be made a picture of suicide, sir, and,"
said he, "that's just how they would go about to make
the likeness, thinking it first-class."

'Arthur made no reply. He had reasoned himself
into complete conviction that his father had been
pjurder^d, and tl^at tjie ass^ssi^ w^s th^ goloui-^d

234 ROSE ISLAND.

mate, and he was also persuaded that the object of the
barbarous, bloody stroke was to obtain command of the
schooner and possession of Rose. Their ghastly toil
was soon ended. Two or three round shot were
secured in the clews, and Arthur and his companion
went on deck to bring aft a blank or a carpenter's
stage to serve as a bier for the body. Young Coch-
rane noticed that the sailors were leaning over the side
watching the schooner astern whose hull was now
visible. Nassau was walking the deck with a telescope
in his hand. He took no notice of Arthur and the
other, though he sent a red and grimy glance at the
plank they carried. It was clear that the coloured
mate did not mean to deal with the question of look-
outs until after the funeral. The Charmer was going
along under leisurely canvas. She could have stun*-
sails, but it was evident that Julius, satisfied that
whatever canvas he showed was certain to be over-
taken by that press of shining white cloths astern, was
resolved to take it easy. In about twenty minutes'
time Arthur reappeared. He stepped up at once to
Nassau, who received him with a bow of the head
which was not wanting in melancholy.

* **I have come to report the body ready for burial,
sir," said Arthur, whose handsome, cold, firm
face compared to the mate's was as specimens of the
cannibal tribe to the manly beauty of the Anglo-
Saxon.

* **He shall be buried with due honours whenever
you will," answered Nassau, speaking to an tmusual
degree in his throat, as though he imagined that this
tone harmonized with his looks. **I wish to Grod he
was alive ! I was fond of your father ! May God

THE DEATH OF THE SKIPPER. 235

strike me dead if I did it or had a hand in it. May-
God smite me blind if it wasn't his own doing "

'Arthur held up his hand, but not menacingly.
**At ten o'clock, if you please," said he. **I presume
the seamen would wish to attend."

* **He should be buried as the fine and gallant sailor
he was," answered Nassau, with rounded nostrils.
Then observing Arthur to cast a look over the quarter
he said: **Yonder's the famous pirate Pearl — she who,
by the balloon account, sacked the Eleutkera, She'll
not be abreast of us till after ten, except she means to
heave us to by a shot." He glanced at Arthur, who
went forward to speak to Wilkinson.

CHAPTER XIV.

CAPTAIN CUTYARD.

'The full significance, ladies and gentlemen,' con-
tinued Captain Tomson Foster, whose audience proved
the interest they took in his yarn by the uniformity of
their attendance, *of Nassau's intimation that they
were being chased (as he supposed) by the pirate
schooner Pearl did not flash upon Arthur then nor for
awhile after. He was full of thoughts of his father,
and of the business of the funeral. At ten o'clock the
strange schooner was about five miles astern, having
as yet made no signal of flag or gun. The breeze that
had helped her was now helping the Charmer ^ and the
sea was rich with blue ripple, and beautiful with the
deep-blue dye of the fathomless ocean. At ten o'clock
Nassau came along the quarter-deck to as far as the
mainmast, and in a tone of authority and command he
shouted to the seamen to lay aft and attend with the
respect that was due to a fine seaman, and a worthy,
good-hearted man, the burial of their late lamented
commander, whose self-inflicted death he should
always remember with deep and sincere sorrow.
Arthur, who stood near the gangway when this was
said, looked away to sea, but by no token of manner
did he give expression to his feelings. Rose was

below in her cabin. There she had remained eating

236

CAPTAIN CUTYARD. 237

some breakfast which Arthur had taken to her, and
Nassau had made no inquiries about her before sitting
down at the little cabin table.

*Ten o'clock was struck. They kept their bells
going steadily on board that little schooner Charmer^
and presently the body of Captain Cochrane, shrouded
by an ensign, was brought up the companion steps by
Old Stormy and Wilkinson. The edge of one plank
with the feet facing the sea was laid upon the bulwark
rail near the gangway.

* '*Will you read in the Holy Book, Mr. Arthur?"
said Nassau, running his eyes over the men who had
collected about the funeral plank. It chanced that
Captain Cochrane had possessed a Church Service, and
this book his son had brought on deck and stood hold-
ing in a conspicuous way so that Nassau could not fail
to see it. That the negro mate knew what book it
was, and what it contained, was as doubtful as his
being able to explain why the yolk of an ^%% was yel-
low. Arthur began to read; the men, bareheaded,
listened, chewing hard. Nassau crossed his arms, and
attended with a bowed head, which he once or twice
turned to glance astern. There is nothing more
unobtrusively appealing and in its way obscurely sad,
than a simple funeral at sea. The plank is tilted, the
body flashes into the brine, which as a symbol of
eternity is as wide as the heavens which cover it. But
with the humblest sailor's death goes this beautiful and
solemn assurance — that when buried he lies in the
vaults of a more majestic cathedral than was ever built
by human hands. The poor skipper's body disap-
peared over the side. Arthur was in the act of closing
the Prayer-Book, and stepping to the companion

238 ROSE ISLAND.

hatch. Just then a puff of white smoke sailed out of
the chasing schooner's bow, lengthening down the
wind as it grew. None looked for the round shot, but
all guessed that that still distant dog had not barked
without trying to bite. Instantly Nassau shifted his
mock deportment of mourner into the full-blown com-
mander. The helm was put down, the schooner
thrown into the wind, and all way was shaken out of
her.

• **Mr. Arthur," said Nassau, as the young man was
going below, **a word with you, and let it be to the
purpose."

*He spoke in a commanding way, with a lifting of
his whole figure as though he would physically over-
shadow the fine form of the man who stood before him.
Arthur, with a frown, looked at him to hear.

* **I have said," exclaimed Nassau, '*that that
schooner yonder is the Pearly and I have no doubt
whatever that she is still commanded by the most reck-
less cut-throat pirate in West Indian waters. Now, sir,
attend to this. That man I may call a friend, and I
can control him to my wishes as regards this schooner
and her crew ; but he is a great lover of women, and I
warn you that Miss Rose's beauty will appeal to him in
language which will not be reasoned with by earnest
entreaties of mine. Therefore, as she is dear to you"
—he paused, and in that pause bit his lip till he drew
blood, whilst his eyes gleamed in red fury in their
sunken sockets — "you will at once," he proceeded,
resuming with an effort, **hide this young lady in the
lazarette — do it instantly — and see that her boxes and
all her woman's fal-lals which may be in her cabin— ^
see that these are hidden with her so that to the most

c «c

C ti'

CAPTAIN CUTYARD. 239

practised eye there shall he no signs visible of a woman
aboard. No words. Off, sir, and see that your work
is thorough."

•Instantly Arthur fled below. He guessed that the
man spoke with perfect truth as regards the scoundrel
that was approaching; he also understood that this
concealment of Rose was entirely in Nassau's interests,
and had no reference whatever to himself. But this
did not hinder him from rushing the desperate work in
hand. In a few breathless sentences he repeated
Nassau's instructions to Rose. All that she said was :
He is preserving me for himself."
He will have me to deal with in that part,*'
answered Arthur; and, springing to the lazarette
hatch, he pulled up the little cover.

•It was a darksome hole for a girl to hide in. When
the cover was on, the blackness was of the tomb. It
was a small afterhold, in which were kept the cabin
and other stores. Arthur peered down, and said:

' ** Crawl as far aft as the casks and stuff will allow;
I will lower your boxes."

*She looked at him, grasped him by both hands, and
kissed him. Then, speechless, she put her foot over,
and like a snake glided on hands and feet into the deep
shadow out of Arthur's sight. With the swiftness and
sure hand of the seaman, he lowered her boxes,
thrusting them when below clear of the gaze of any
spectator above. Other trifling belongings he also
concealed near these boxes. Then shouting out, ** Are
you all right?" and receiving in reply, "Perfectly
right!" he sprang through the manhole, replaced the
cover, and went on deck.

•Nassau was in the act of addressing the men. He

240 ROSE ISLAND.

had explained to them the character of the schooner
that was now almost within gunshot. He said he
believed he knew the captain of her, and if so they and
the Charmer would be safe; but he informed them
they must speak of him as commander of the Charmer
if they did not want to be cut to pieces, and every
man must swear that he was going for a pirate under
Captain Nassau, for it was more than likely that the
man who refused to say this, and who by refusing
implied that he was an honest, steady sailor man, would
be hanged at the yard-arm. He also told them not to
breathe a syllable about a young lady being on board.
The man that did this he himself would shoot through
the heart, and he pulled out a pistol and flourished it.

* **In fact," he yelled, "you're a small band of men
going a-pirating, with me as cap'n, and all you know
of my intentions is that we are bound to Silver Cay,
where we shall take in guns and munition, and where
we shall find a band of seamen awaiting our arrival. ' '
Then, turning and seeing young Cochrane, he said in a
fierce voice and a flourish of his arm: **Go forward,
sir, and remain as much as you can out of sight.
You're a pirate, and you're the schooner's cook. Go
and make up for your part, sir, and be found in the
galley should yonder schooner throw some men
aboard."

* There was too much fimk and agitation, and the
emotions which the presence of such a pirate as the
Pearl provoked amongst the stoutest in those times, for
the laugh and the jest which would otherwise have
attended Nassau's orders to Arthur. The yotmg man
walked in silence to the galley, and at the same
moment the fine schooner, putting her helm down and

'

i

CAPTAIN CUTYARD. 241

shortening sail as she did so, came rounding to, with a
graceful sweep of cut- water and low height and har-
monious length of broadside, till the manoeuvred arrest
brought her stationary within a biscuit toss of the
Charmer. She was apparently full of men. Her star-
board side and forecastle were crowded with them.
There was little of that picturesque element, so fre-
quently and always so admirably described by Michael
Scott, to be found in the crowd of villains. There
were a great many blacks, most of them simply attired
in dungaree shirts and cotton trousers. Most of the
others were dressed as the average seaman usually
goes, in coloured shirts and loose, airy trousers and
wide straw hats. But they were all armed to the
teeth, as the novelists say; that is, they carried pistols
in their belts, and knives and daggers in their breasts,
and cutlasses on their hips, and these things made the
devils deadly dangerous. Her guns were light carron-
ades ; her real office lay in boarding, not in broadsid-
ing, but on her forecastle and aft she carried a long
gun — formidable weapons in the sight of the honest
merchantman dragging her heap of canvas without
hope of escape in the stern chase that might last a few
hours. She was sheathed to the bends with copper,
and the glance of it above the silken line of brine was
like the lightning stroke. She was a vessel of about
two hundred tons, built at Philadelphia with the con-
summate skill of the shipwrights of that city, and
being captured, she had for four years served her
owner, who was her commander, as a pirate, and was a
terror throughout the seaboard of the Antilles, and
northwards on the American coast. Again and again
she had been nearly captured, but a wonderful success

343 ROSE ISLAND.

attended the black flag she flew, and she proved hope-
less to the efforts of the swiftest corvettes and cruisers
stationed in those seas. Her captain stood on the rail,
holding on to a backstay, and looked in silence for a
moment or two at Nassau, who had similarly perched
himself. The man was about the most picturesquely
dressed of the whole gang. He wore an embroidered
velvet smoking-cap, with a tassel which dangled upon
his shoulders. He was dressed in a velvet jacket, and,
strange to say, in the white drill trousers and half -boots
like to those in which Nassau had introduced himself
to us. His arms consisted of a couple of silver-
mounted pistols in a belt, and a fine long sword, rich
about the hilt. That he had been, and was still at a
loss, is certain, for the custom of the pirates was to run
alongside their victims and throw their men aboard,
when the bloody havoc commenced, and as a rule the
ship was speedily a prize, for they mainly fought the
defenceless. There was no going to and fro in boats,
no parleyings from the bulwarks. The silence follow-
ing upon the arrest of the Charmer was broken by a
shout from the man in the velveteen cap :

* "Ho! the schooner ahoy! Who is your captain,
and what is your trade?*' And with that he looked up
at the Charmer's mastheads, his own running naked
from the rigging into the suggestive decoration of a
brilliantly gilt ball at the head of each pole.

We are the schooner Charmer y' shouted Julius,

and we will tell you our trade when we can converse.
Our commander is Captain Julius Nassau, who has the
honour of addressing Captain Henry Cutyard, an old
friend, who has for some years commanded with mar-
vellous success the schooner Pearl,**

t c«

CAPTAIN CUTYARD. 243

* **I believed I knew you/' bawled Captain Cufyard;
**but where are your gi;ns, and where are your men?
Stop, I'll come aboard of you. You shall give me the
news."

< II

Let me go aboard of you!" yelled Nassau, who
with Rose in hiding little relished a visit from Cutyard.
**You have a beautiful ship there. I have never seen
over her. ' '

* **No, no," shouted Cutyard, **I*11 come aboard of
you;" and Nassau fell silent and stared, whilst, with
the agility of a cruiser's cutter, a fine long-boat, pull-
ing six oars, with a negro in a white hat steering,
rowed Cutyard to the Charmer's gangway. In six
strokes 'twas done. The water foamed about the
boat; in a graceful lift and fall the Pearl glanced
shadow and shine into her canvas, as though in saluta-
tion, and Cutyard was aboard the Charmer^ whilst five
heavily armed men who had followed him went about
the Charmer's decks, viewing her, attended by two or
three of the schooner's crew, who asked questions of
the pirates, and got into talk. Arthur was repeatedly
in and out of the galley. He had grimed his face, tied
a red handkerchief round his head, stripped to his
vest, kicked off his boots, turned up his trousers, and
looked a good example of a sea-cook. His eyes went
forever aft, and he watched the two pirate chiefs as a
tethered ferret would watch a brace of rats. Captain
Cutyard was as unlike all ideas of the pirate, both of
this and past centuries, as if he had been a grocer's
assistant out for a spree on the high seas. His face
was comely. His eyes were large and blue, arch and
intelligent, and you would have thought the soul of
kindness dwelt in them. His nose was aquiline and

■r «v

244 ROSE ISLAND.

very handsome, his mouth well shaped. He was
clean-shaved, and his throat and neck had the delicacy
and grace of a woman's. He stood a taller man by
nearly a head than Nassau, who by his side looked the
most contemptible, the dirtiest, the most repulsively
grinning scoundrel that was ever afloat.

* **Why, Julius,** said Cutyard, thrusting Nassau
backwards with both hands and a loud laugh, ** trying
your fortunes again, eh? I said to myself, *She is one
of us, * as soon as ever your mainsail had risen into my
glass, and I followed you for information, and to test
my heels. You* re a beauty,*' said he, speaking with a
roving gaze, **but 1*11 give you the horizon, and you
shall name your wind, and 1*11 be alongside you in
seven hours.**

* **I guessed you was hereabouts," said Nassau.
**You met with good booty a day or two ago. It
should set a plain man like me up for life."

* **How d'ye know?" exclaimed the other, and a
strange look darted into his eyes, as though he spoke to
a man who had betrayed him.

* **It fell from the heavens,*' said Nassau, looking
up. **She was the Eleuthera; we were in her com-
pany some days. She was a rich ship; I'll give you a
thousand pounds for your share.*'

* **We saw that balloon," responded Cutyard, with-
out change of face. ** Damned if news don't travel in
roundabout ways in these fine times. Tell you what,
Nassau: I've got a prize aboard that schooner there
that I'd not take twice one thousand pounds for. Oh,
she's sweet as honey! There were two of them; I
chose the loveliest. She shall learn to love me, and
she's a girl to do honour to the name of Cutyard,"

J

t ii

CAPTAIN CUTYARD. 245

* **You stole the wenches as well as the goods?** said
Nassau.

* **One only,*' replied the man. **Got anything in
that line aboard?"

'No; I always wait till I come to court for it.**
How long have you been at this work without

guns and a crew?** said Cutyard, with an air of

mingled suspicion and curiosity.

* **Why, when I shipped as her chief-mate,*'
responded Nassau, '*I made up my mind what her
trade should be, and that I should command her. The
Captain's been knocked on the head, and I*m in charge
of her with those few who are my men, and Tm sailing
straight either for Rum or Silver Cay to ship hands and
cannon.*'

* * 'I'll keep you company,** said Captain Cutyard.
'•Rum Cay will do my business.**

*This proposal was little to Nassau's liking, but he
was an artist with his countenance, and Cutyard imag-
ined him highly delighted and proud. Their talk in a
little while grew desultory. They had news to
exchange, chiefly piratical incidents. Several times
Nassau proposed to go aboard the Pearly but Cutyard,
for -some perverse reason of his own, chose to remain
on board the Charmer, Arthur, standing in the door
of the Charmer's little caboose or galley, overheard a
few words of conversation between Old Stormy and
two of the pirates. Both these men were Englishmen ;
they hailed from the part of England Old Stormy was
bom in. Above all, they accepted Old Stormy without
question as a pirate.

* **I never heard of a pirate," said Old Stormy,
** looting the prize of its women. They takes what

246 ROSE ISLAND.

liberties pleases them whilst they're aboard, then
leaves 'em to their luck."

* "She's a fine girl," said one of the pirates, "but
it's booty, as you say, not proper for pirates to meddle
with. But beautif uller gals you never set eyes on, and
we was content that he should take her, because you
see she'll go to his share, and that'll make more money
for us, bully."

* **Had she any relations on board?" said Old
Stormy, who did not show himself much affected by
this relation of an atrocious deed.

* "There was her mother and her sister; that's all I
know," was the answer; and the three strolled oflf,
leaving Arthur trembling; for every second he had
feared that Old Stormy would tell the two men that
the Charmer also had a beautiful woman on board,
and his heart turned sick with helplessness and pity
when he realized that the girls whom the men
talked about were the two fair young creatures who
had complimented his manly beauty with their glances
of delight and appreciation when he was in the cabin
of the Eleuthera. Meanwhile Cutyard and Nassau
stood upon the quarterdeck engaged in eager conver-
sation, as I have said. When Nassau asked Cutyard if
he had heard lately of their mutual friend Israel Boom,
he answered that when he was last at San Juan he
counted Boom's bones as they hung in irons on a
gibbet. He had no further news to report as to Boom,
he said. Several experiences were exchanged on both
sides, but it was quite clear to Nassau that it was not
Cutyard's intention to invite him on board the Pearly so
he called to Wilkinson and ordered him to furnish the
cabin table with the best repast the Charmer could yield.

CAPTAIN CUTYARD. 347

C Cii

Of course we can't show your hospitality," he
said to Cutyard, with a horrible grin. "We have cap-
tured nothing, and possess but our original stores.
If I cannot give you good wine, you shall drink our
health in excellent rum."

'Wilkinson surveyed Cutyard with awe and fear,
and made haste to be off when he had received his
instructions. The two pirates strolled about the
decks, and Nassau caused the main hold to be thrown
open, that Cutyard could see the character of the
commodities the Charmer was lightly freighted with,
a piece of polite attention which Cutyard himself
would not have insisted upon, though with the prac-
tised gaze of one who had been bred in this sort of
seamanship, he swiftly took, full and convincing
observation of what his large blue eyes sped over.

* **If I was you," says Cutyard, after going to the
side to look at his beautiful schooner, and see that all
was right with her, as she still continued to lie almost
within musket-shot of the Charmer^ **! would not
mount more than four carronades; they frighten the
women, and are of use in that way. I advise an eight-
een pounder on your fo'c's'le. You have a flaring
bow and a fine spring, which will stand the weight of
an eighteen pound gun. A smaller piece should be a
stem chaser. How seldom they are used! Where do
you get your money from, Julius?"

* *'I have a few hundreds," answered Nassau, with a
careless shrug, **and I can mortgage the earnings of
the schooner, if not the schooner herself."

* **Got any cruising ground in mind?" asked Cut-
yard.

* "Now, why take a cruising ground?" inquired

248 ROSE ISLAND.

Julius, and it then seemed to come into his head to
relate the incident of the man-of-war which had over-
hauled the Charmer^ mistaking her for the Pearl.

* **Oh, ho!" cried Cutyard. '* Thank ye for that.
But why stop till now to give it to me?*' and he sent
the suspicious, frowning stare of the pirate right
round the horizon.

* **It never occurred to me till this instant/' said
Julius.

* **rm damned if I'll stop with you!" said Cutyard, |
gazing with a heavy face of gloom and anxiety at his
companion. **We sighted a topsail yesterday. She

may be within the compass of this field. "

* Again he swept the horizon with the penetrating
look of a vulture. He seemed to take fright on a sud-
den. He easily recognised the man-of-war from the
accurate description Nassau had painted, and was per-
fectly conscious that he was her special quarry in those
waters. He shouted to his men to man the boat, and ,
before Nassau could well recover his astonishment at |
the actual hurry of terror which his brief statement '
had flung the handsome lion-hearted Cutyard into, the

bold buccaneer was in his boat, which in a few flashes
of oars placed him aboard the Pearl, The moment he
gained the Pearl the boat was hoisted and sail trimmed.
The same steady breeze the little ship had brought
with her was blowing. She leaned in it like a beauty
in her lover* s arms; the thin white line of broken
coloured waters streamed aft alongside, and she was
making a wake as white as moonlight, whilst her
crowds of men were rushing here and there, and
whilst the sheet was flattening, and the yards of the
fore slowly rounding, and whilst Cutyard was waving

•^^.F-A.

CAPTAIN CUTYARD. 249

farewell to the Charmer, Julius was amazed, but he
was equally delighted to be cheaply rid of so deadly
and dangerous a visitor. He gave no orders, that he
might watch the direction Cutyard meant to head on.
No cry of any sort came from the Pearly no reference
of any sort to their meeting at Silver Cay or else-
where. It was clear that Captain Cutyard, not want-
ing the Charmer^ had wanted nothing else, for
certainly he did not bear the character of a man who
denied himself, and Nassau understood that if the
inhuman devil in the smoking cap had made choice of
any object in the schooner it would have been Rose;
and his black heart leapt up, and his thick negro lips
squared into a grin that fell little short of an expres-
sion of ecstasy. How little he knew! he thought,
whilst his few seamen stood about the deck watching the
schooner and awaiting orders. **Talk of the Eleuthera
girl he's got aboard — ^had he but set eyes on Rose!**
and here the dusky scoundrel executed a caper of pure
joy, which the man at the wheel observing, interpreted
into a further sign of farewell to Cutyard, who was
quite visible, though his schooner, on wings wider in
proportion than those which the albatross curves over
the Andean heights of the Pacific, was bearing him
north-west with gathering speed. When Cutyard was
fairly a mile away, sweeping through the brine, which
the schooner whitened with the clipper* s buoyant rush,
Julius ordered sail to be trimmed and told the helms-
man to keep the Charmer's head at west; then, seeing
Arthur standing near the galley, he called to him:

•**Mr. Cochrane!**

'Arthur went along to the negro mate. He had
reclothed himself, and cleansed himself with the help

250 ROSE ISLAND.

of a bucket of brine drawn from over the side, and
was again the Arthur of the quarterdeck passenger,
or second mate as he pleased. Nassau eyed him from
head to foot with the utmost temper and contempt,
which the ugly rascal's countenance was capable of
assuming at command. Arthur eyed him in return
with a look which was easily interpretable into "'You
diabolical murderer of my fkther! But I will avenge
him yet!"

• •*! got you out of that mess pretty easily, I
reckon," said Nassau, with a nod in the direction of
the PearU "If I'd uttered a word, her skipper would
have found a good man in you."

' "I should not have gone without Miss Island," said
Arthur. **Rest you assured of that;'' and he made,
with a curious motion of his wrist, his hand hanging
by his sides, as though he would strangle Nassau!

* ''Jump below and liberate Miss Rose, and tell her
not to leave the cabin until I see her," exclaimed
Nassau. **If you don't know that I'm captain here,
by Grod, you shall find it out in a fashion I'm no new
hand at! Away with you, and be back again on deck
in a trice, as I want you to hear what I'm going to
tejl themen!"

•It was wonderful that such a mere grimy ape of a
man, with the weight of the deformity of manners,
face, and colour for ever dragging him back into the
irresponsible contempt which he sought, by fine airs,
wide smiles, and a costume not wanting in Napoleonic
suggestiveness, to free himself from, should have been
able in a moment to have put on such an air of com-
mand and accustomed captaincy as that with which he
addressed Arthur Cochrane, with his sunburn coloured

CAPTAIN CUTYARD. 251

to the hue of mahogany, and his wrath sparkled in
both eyes with as dangerous a light as ever crimsoned
the little orbs of the coloured man. But all in a
moment, before the passions could command him, he
thought of Rose — ^how that now, if the men were in
favour of Nassau, she was absolutely in the nigger
fellow's power, and how that her purity, safety, and
life must depend upon the judgment, prudence, and
foresight of himself. He looked the coloured mate
full in the face for an instant or two, and then said,
** Right, sir;" and with that he walked straight to the
companion-way, and entered the cabin. He made at
once for the little trap-door with the ring upon it,
lifted it, and, dropping into the lazarette, called Rose
by name. She immediately answered from a little dis-
tance buried in blackness :

* •*! am here, Arthur, perfectly safe. Am I to come
out?"

* **Yes. Be very cautious, my beloved. If I approach
and extend my hand, will it help you?"

' **I can see your figure dimly," she answered. '*I
am nearer than you think;" and, even as she spoke,
Arthur faintly discerned her form crawling over a
barrel, and a minute later they stood under the little
hatch breast to breast, and lip to lip.

* Ladies and gentlemen, the heroic young lady was
not in trim fit, for example, for attendance at Court.
A nail in a stanchion had pulled down her hair; the
bosom of her dress had been ripped open by a hooked
spike; she was covered from head to foot with all those
ends of chaff, shavings, yams, and the like, which the
clothes of people who scramble about the holds of
ships usually gather.

25 i ROSE ISLAND.

* ''Has the pirate gone, Arthur?** she asked.

* **Yes, and what do you think?** looking at her
sweet face in the dim light shed by that little square of
hatch. **Do you remember two pretty girls who
stared at me as we passed through the cabin of the
EleutheraV

' ** Perfectly. The Miss Mackenzies. We were great
friends. Ellen and Mary, and then there was their
mother. What is the news of them?**

' ''Why,'* answered Arthur, **! learnt from the con-
versation of some men belonging to the pirate that
the scoundrel Cutyard had stolen the prettier of the
two ••

* **Mary!" interrupted Rose, in a voice that was half
a shriek.

' *'And that she was on board his ship,"

•Rose was about to speak. The voice of Nassau was
heard yelling, ** Cochrane! Cochrane!*' through the
open skylight.

' ** There is much to be said, and something to be
done," said Arthur; **but that black scoundrel is in
command, and it is my policy to obey him whilst I
watch and think.*'

'He sprang through the hatch, and helped Miss Rose
on to the deck, which was, of course, the deck of the
cabin. Nassau's body was half-way through the sky-
light of this same cabin.

* **Have ye had much of a hunt?" he yelled. "Come
along on deck; we're waiting for you." And, as
he spoke, the form of Overalls shoved to the sky-
light alongside the coloured man, and looked down
also. **My congratulation upon the success of your
hiding, Miss Rose!" cried Nassau. Then, catching

CAPTAIN CUTYARD. ^53

sight of her, and pulling off his cap in the skylight with
many horrid grins and grotesque contortions: **That
was a clever comb that ploughed your hair to its per-
fection of length. I shall hope shortly to have the
pleasure of hearing you in person on your experiences
in the lazarette; meanwhile, you are safe from the
pirates."

*He withdrew his ugly face and head of hair that
made you think of a chimney-sweep's brush, and Rose
said:

* **I understand it all. Go on deck, and obey him as
if he was a gentleman and your true captain."

* **He will be seeing you alone. Rose," said Arthur,
pausing a moment, so great was his dread of Rose
being in Nassau's power.

* **Better for him had his father cut the little beast's
head oflf when he was bom than that he should lay a
finger upon me!" said Rose, with a smile so brave, so
full and inspiring with the light of meaning and
capacity, that Arthur, smiling to its influence with one
passionate look of love, bounded up the companion
ladder.

CHAPTER XV.

THE NEW SKIPPER.

*I HAVE been at sea many years,* said Captain Tomson
Foster, 'and have witnessed a good deal of its happen-
ings, and I have read much that has amazed and much
that has amused me; but I cannot recall from the
Marine Records anything more original and out of
the way than this incident of the voyage of the
Charmer which I shall endeavour to relate to you.
But, first, I must say that the characters of several of
the people are very hard to draw. They would be
hard to draw by the first-rate hand of the artist
in marine colours, but what is to be done with
them by a poor sea captain, who knows very little
of human nature, and who went to sea for all the
education he got? I find Nassau so complicated, so
involved of white and black, that often in ending this
yam for the time, I feel that I have not made out even
so much as his boot-lace successfully to you. Michael
Scott could have been trusted with him, but other
hands superior to his in the shore-going page would
feel their weakness when they came to this mixture of
black and white blood, of the airs of the sailor's danc-
ing-rooms, combined with studies of genteel life and
high life, as they may be found illustrated amongst the
marine parts of the city of Lrondon ; of a negro-like

254

I

THE NEW SKIPPER. 255

capacity of delivering quaint ideas in forms of expres-
sion which made them striking- and grotesque. Then
take Wilkinson. You doubt there was any sailor alive
or dead* who relished Boswell's book about Johnson and
quoted it to you. Yet I was ship-mate with a young
ordinary seaman, whose father was a small cobbler in
the regions of Wapping, and this young man, who had
taught himself to read and write, would quote page
after page from Lord Byron's poetry, and recite the
verse so well, that on the skipper hearing of it, he
invited him aft, and made him deliver whole poems by
Byron— cantos and separate pieces — to the wonder and
admiration of the passengers, who before arriving at
Calcutta presented the fellow with a purse of fifteen
guineas.

*But to proceed with my story. It was now the
afternoon, and in the far distance, as I have said, fast
turning blue in the blue air, hung the white plumage
of the pirate Pearly steering north-west, for what recess
of ocean or for what point of Cay could not be con-
jectured. Every inch of cloth that could catch the
least sigh of the rich and sparkling breeze she had
spread; in fact, as it afterwards appeared. Captain
Ciityard was perfectly well aware that a man-of-war of
heavy metal, which in strong breezes could easily fore-
reach and fore-weather upon him, was hunting those
waters in search of him, and he had also known that
she could not be far distant. But how near she was in
reality he was ignorant of until Nassau gave him the
truth, when, of course, in the swiftness of a flash, the
safety of his neck became his first consideration. Very
well was he conscious that his crimes had hove ahead
of the ordinary bloody qualities of the pirate when he

256 ROSE ISLAND.

kidnapped Miss Mackenzie, a British female, a young
British subject, with the intention of adding her to the
stock of wives which he kept up and down the coast at
wide and wise intervals, heaping the proceeds 'of his
calling upon them, and allowing them all the license
during his absence which the wife of a pirate might
have a right to expect. His fleet and beautiful vessel,
of a type to exactly suit the taste of Fenimore Cooper,
whose skimmer of the seas must be well known to you
in his pages, was the only object visible in the majestic
sweep of liquid blue, in a corner of which in the tail of
the wind a few large clouds, with patches of bronze
upon their brows, were showing. But the human
interest girdled by these shining seas was to be sought
on board the Charmer,

*When Arthur sprang on deck, he found Nassau
standing abreast of the mainmast in a posture which
he was fond of assuming — Napoleonic in short — the
head bowed, the eyes lifted to the level under a frown,
the arms crossed upon the breast, and one leg, with its
hint of cucumber shin advanced. His shadow softly
swayed at his feet; it was black, and a good likeness
of NassaJ;^. At the wheel stood Wilkinson, keeping the
schooner a steadfast west under the impression he was
heading her direct for Kingston harbour. The rest of
the crew lounged about the quarterdeck in the neigh-
bourhood of Nassau. Two or three of them smoked,
the others chewed. Their attitudes and behaviour
proved that they now considered themselves all bosses,
good as Julius, good as young Cochrane, and infinitely
,better, though they respected him in life^ than the dead
man sunk far astern, with a red rent in his shirt just
over his heart. Forward, there was no life, for the

THE NEW SKIPPER. 257

small collection of live-stock which the Charmer had
started on her voyage with had long since been eaten
up ; the coop was empty ; no cheerful grunt from under
the keel-up boat amidships pleased the ear. She was
an abandoned schooner from the waist forward, and
marks of neglect were already visible; the decks had
not been washed down, or if washed, a single sluice
had sufficed ; the ropes were roughly coiled upon the
pins. Nevertheless, the canvas was well set fore and
aft. As a matter of fact, an extra drag had in a some-
what [furtive manner been got upon the gear, which
wanted tautening, very soon after Captain Cutyard had
unceremoniously spread his wings.

'Arthur went to the rail, and posted himself with his
back against it. Some of the sailors glanced at him
out of the comers of their eyes. It was quite clear
that the crew had been called together to hear a state-
ment, or take counsel with Nassau. When this
coloured man's eyes fell upon young Cochrane, he said
to him after a pause, which was filled up with a
frowning stare, **I suppose you guess now that^ Rose
has had the narrowest shave that was ever heard of at
sea."

•Arthur, after a little, that his pause should appear
as full of contempt as Nassau's, answered briefly:

***She*s better here."

* **I suppose you know," said Nassau, letting fall his
arms and pulling out of his side-pocket the materials
for rolling up a paper cigar, **that, your father being
dead, I take his place?"

* Arthur looked here and there at the men as though
this matter was as much theirs as his. Cabbage
answered instead of Arthur:

358 ROSE ISLAND.

C C(,

Course, when a master of a wessel dies at sea, the
mate becomes skipper."

* ''I am skipper," said Nassau, with one of his
revolting smiles and an air of cruel triumph in the
gaze he fastened on Arthur, whilst he slowly rolled up
some tobacco in a piece of paper, **and more. As
skipper I am the shipmate of you all, and you will
know me as from the beginning to be as much a 'fore-
mast hand with fo'c's'le feelings and likes as though I
had never held command, nor been said 'sir' to, as
though I were a dog. This I may say by the heart of
my mother, and when I swear that oath, God A'mighty
looks down and approves."

*01d Stormy burst into a laugh.

* **By God, Cap'n," said he, *'is it a yam of your
country's that makes the first man called Adam that
was ever put into a garden in the Heast Indies, to be
a nigger?"

' **I said I am more than captain," continued Nassau,
stretching his figure to its fullest inches, and taking
not th^ least notice of Old Stormy 's interruption: **I
am a part-owner of this schooner, the Charmer^ and
the rest of yer share in her, like and like, from Black
to Wilkinson. "

'Here Wilkinson was observed to shake his head as
he steadied the wheel with a long-armed grip of spoke,
and as though he imagined that Arthur Cochrane
would observe the gesture. But Arthur's eyes were
upon Nassau, who, pulling a burning-glass out of his
pocket, fired his cigar by the light of the sun, which
still shone with glory and heat, with the violet faintly
crimsoning under him. Nassau smoked. All were
silent, waiting for Arthur to speak. He said, after

THE NEW SKIPPER. 259

waving his foot across the plank in a motion full of
nerve and reflection :

• **Of course you know, Mr. Nassau, that my poor
father, who was cruelly murdered this morning, was
part owner of this schooner, and that what belonged to
him now comes by every decree of law and reason to me. ' '

* ''Well, you shall share," said Nassau, contemptu-
ously spitting over the rail. ** Share and share alike, I
said. You're' in luck, and wise to turn pirate. By
God, the black flag g^ves ye more money, more jools,
more beautiful things to make the ladies swear by the
love in your eyes, than a fleet of footy schooners could
get for you, though they have fine young men like you
as part owners. Men!" he shouted, sending his little
reddish eyes on a tour round the deck, so that all
should know they were addressed, ** think of the
chances of this fine young gentleman here. What was
Cutyard's talk of the Eleuthera? Now, Til tell yer.
Well, to be plain, men — and 1*11 take my burning oath
as to his words — ^he told me he'd sacked the IncHaman
to the value of eighty thousand pounds."

'There was a pause, whilst Old Stormy whistled low
and long.

' **Of that booty, there were three cases of hard
sovereigns — chests, my lads," continued the coloured
man, relishing his own words by slow delivery, and
garnishing them by a peculiar throaty tone. ** Chests
of gold!" he shouted, flourishing his paper cigar.
•*And this money he took, besides portable articles of
great value, bracelets, diamonds, earrings, and so on,
for the passengers were a rich company. Now, ship-
mates and all of you who are listening to me, as I've
told you, again and ag^ain, this is a sorrowful world,

( <«

26o ROSE ISLAND.

and a hard world, that is made harder than it need be
by hard men for poor men ; and what I says is, here is
an occupation called piracy — and a good name, too —
which will yield the poor man what the hard man pos-
sesses, mainly because he is hard, because if he wasn't
so hard the case of the poor man in this world
wouldn't be so dreadful."

*He paused, and a murmur ran about:

Damned if Julius ain't a prophet!"

Blast me if his views wouldn't convince a judge!"

• '*But it's always been this reasoning with him, and
that's why things with me is as they are."

'Julius overheard some of these remarks. His face
was full of triumph; he was impressed by his own
eloquence. He lighted his paper cigar again by the
sun, and when this was done, he proceeded:

* *'A man has no call to lead a dreadful life, and I
contend that life at sea is dreadful as 'ard men make it.
How is the sailor fed? He is allowed to grow rotten
on grubs and worms, on pork that never came off the
pig, on beef that never came off the ox. He clothes
himself, poor devil, and goes half-naked, because his
wages are so low, so starvin*, so perishing to any
decent aspirations a man may have, that, by God,
men! as we all know, when the sailor steps ashore,
even arter a long voyage, he has scarce dollars enough
in his pocket to buy himself a coat and pants. He
may be called upon to work for twenty-four hours in
the day, and he is the only labourer in the world,"
continued Nassau, who was beginning to grind his
teeth betwixt his words, **who can't say: *To hell with
your orders! I'll work as a man, and not as the beast
you would like to make me!* "

THE NEW SKIPPER. 361

« <<i

Oh, it's all true enough, it's all true enough,"
growled Black, with a face dark with mutiny, and the
wrath kindled in him by Julius's words. **We are
beasts, and as such are we treated."

* **You are beasts," yelled Nassau, **but you become
men when you become pirates, as I found out. All are
equal. Booty is fairly divided. Every man stands to
make a fortune, with little peril. His life ashore is
filled up with sailors* joys, and at sea he has got noth-
ing to do but fill his pockets. Now, my lads, you are
men of sense, and we've talked the matter over often
enough, and I know your minds. You're agreeable to
become pirates under my command?"

* There was a general shout of "Ay, ay!"
'It was settled days ago!"
Hurrah for the jolly Roger!"

'Wilkinson at the wheel made no sign. Arthur
watched Nassau attentively, as though he was an artist
making a study of him. Nassau, rounding upon him,
said:

Will you be one of us?"

I'll help you to work the ship," answered young
Cochrane, in a cool voice, and with a cool face, **but
I'll not serve under you as a pirate."

* **We want no unwilling men," said Nassau, in low,
thick, gloomy tones. **You shall help us to work the
ship, and we shall expect no more from your father's

C H'

ft it

son. • •

( ii'

'What port are you bound to?" said Arthur.
'Nassau, with a wide grin, answered:
* **Just the port to please you. It's a good theaytre,
and there's a meetin'-'ouse round the corner. "
*This, somehow, was to the taste of the men, and

36a ROSE ISLAND.

there was a general laugh, Arthur remained silent.
Nassau, after watching him a little, said :

• "But, my lads, you are all aware that, failing Coch-
rane" (he seemed to find a particular pleasure in call-
ing Cochrane his plain name, as if he were a ship's
cook or a man before the mast), ** there is no navigator
but me in this schooner, none that could bring you to
any i>ort, just as you should decide, for the sale of your
booty, and for quitting the calling, if you're so dis-
posed ; therefore, in any case I was bound to be boss
when Captain Cochrane was this morning found bleed-
ing dead, a regrettable corpse, by his own hand."
Arthur started, recollected himself almost in the
motion of his impulse, and sank back in silence with a
single dumb movement of lip. **It now comes,"
Nassau went on, beginning to take short walks fore
and aft whilst he talked, **to our deciding upon who
shall be chief mate. "

*•** Suppose you offer the berth to Mr. Cochrane
there?" exclaimed Black.

• "He declines," said Nassau quickly. "He is a
passenger willing to sign as a foremast hand — ^none of
us, mates, but one to go ashore at the first chance that
comes along. He mate of the Charmer!^' He
laughed out of his huge mouth with great scorn.
"You shall choose a chief mate from amongst your-
selves."

*Some debate followed this. It was finally agreed
that Old Stormy should fill the post. His merits were
many. To begin with, he was about the most heart-
less old liar that ever drove a knife with wrath and
appetite into a ship's beef. He had followed the sea
all bis life, and knew every phase of it. He claimed

THE NEW SKIPPER. 263

to have seen much bloody service in a French buc-
caneer. He was a very strong man, and very active ;
could drink a small ship's company under the table,
and in many other respects was well qualified to serve
as mate of a pirate. When this was settled, Nassau
proposed that they should make a toast of Old Stormy
and drink his health. Some bottles of rum were
fetched from the cabin ; Rose was not to be seen there ;
glasses and biscuit and some eatable stuff, newly laid
in out of the lazarette, were provided. Nassau seated
himself upon the harness cask — a hooped cask, often
brass bound, and a fine piece of furniture in a lowly
ship's decoration, for the holding of a stock of salt
meat for the crew. The men gathered around;
Arthur volunteered to relieve the wheel that Wilkin-
son might join them.

* **Squat here, squat there, but sit ye down!"
shouted Nassau. * 'We're all as one man here," he
cried, laying hold of a bottle and fitting his round nos-
trils to the round hold of its neck,

*The seamen filed up rapidly. Old Stormy was
hoisted on to a capstan, and a full bottle and glass put
into his hands. A queer picture for that Atlantic sun-
set to gild! Melting now like a wreath of vapour in
the blue glory of the north-west was the topmost can-
vas of the Pearly and the sea was a surface of divine
tints, from the heaving gold under the sun to the deep,
soft, fervid dye of evening in the far and lonely east.
This age, ladies and gentlemen, could not produce this
picture. I do not mean because the pirate is dead, but
because most of the romantic conditions of the sea have
been entirely changed by steam, or by the transforma-
tioii which $te^m h^s worked in the sailing ship. The

264 ROSE ISLAND.

sea has been picturesque since the days of the coracle ;
if it has ceased to be so, I do not desire to say, nor to
hold that all the poetic and sentimental elements of
one of the most prosaic callings under the moon must
be sought in ships of this sort, and not in the steam
liner which passes through the night full of fire and
the clanging songs of engines. At the same time, the
sea will never more give you this picture of Nassau
and his men, with the imprisoned girl below, and the
faint, vanishing streak of the pirate north-west. But
then, and before, the annals of the ocean teemed with
high romance. The mariner's ship, no matter what
century you choose, seemed built for the painter's art,
and the ancient seanjan of Coleridge is no opimn-
inspired creation of one of the great spirits of his time,
but a phantasy very fit indeed for the manning of the
castellated hulks in which he is to be found, in one
time peering at you in a suit of armour, at another in
raiment which makes him look like a visitor from
another world. His **shippe" is a ''barke," and she
streams onwards towards the undiscovered land of vir-
gin gold, of that sweet singer the mermaid, and of
many enchantments hidden beyond the mountains —
forward, I say, she streams under low, round-bellied
canvas with tops like church-towers, whence blow her
pennons, whose tongues lick the blue breeze some dis-
tance beyond that queer spar called the boltsprit All
this has passed ; we remain, ' continued Captain Foster
with a glance of pride aloft at his own lustrous and
teeming pyramids — * we remain ; but, ladies and gentle-
men, the age of the Charmer lies dead amongst the
buried centuries. Yet she, and only such as she, gives
us the picture of Nassau and the revelry of his men.

THE NEW SKIPPER. ^65

*It was not long before some of them showed marks
of intoxication. Cabbage had carried a glass of grog
to Wilkinson, who declined it (though he could suck
from the can as thirstily as another), on the grounds
that he would drink as a seaman, but not as a pirate.
So Cabbage swallowed the pannikinful in the face of
Wilkinson, and was slightly the drunker therefor; if
he repeated Wilkinson's saying to Nassau, the coloured
rascal took no notice of it. It was to be a fine dog-
watch, with the gorgeous western sky and a tender
breeze that promised the radiance of stars and the flash
of the running phosphorescence throughout the night,
and it was not until half -past six that two of the
Charmer's pirates lay motionlessly drunk, one with a
bottle in his hand, the other with a can; they lay
against the scuttle-butt, which was secured hard by the
starboard fore-rigging. The others at this hour were
lurching in the direction of the forecastle, where all
had been arranged as regards the routine, sleeping-
places and the like ; and Nassau, who was as sober as an
empty hook-pot, stretched himself a moment before
proceeding to the cabin to engage in a conversation
with Miss Rose. Just then Arthur Cochrane, who had
kept forward during the greater part of the men's
drinking and yarns, seeing Nassau making his way to
the cabin, followed him fast, and Nassau stopped on
looking behind and seeing him.

Captain Nassau," exclaimed young Cochrane,

can I have a word with you?"

What do you want to say?" asked Nassau.

* **I presume I am to occupy the berth," said the
young fellow, **that I have slept in since the rescue of
Miss Rose Island?"

K

366 ROSE ISLAND.

•Nassau never hated this young man so bitterly as
when he put on a natural easy air which went as far
beyond the coloured man's reach as his bright hair
and handsome looks.

' ** You're a foremast hand, and you'll sleep with the
men," answered Nassau, in one of the brutal ways he
had. •*! shall \vant your cabin for the chief mate;
you're too old a soldier, I reckon, to suppose that fore-
mast hands, whether you call them men or boys, sleep
in the ofl&cers* quarters."

* **I am willing to do the work of a foremast hand, it
is true," returned Arthur, with a face which made
Nassau instinctively knit his frame together; in fact,
he saw quick death and damnation to him in the eyes
and slight frown of the tall young man who stood
before him, and so his perception shaped his arms into
readiness. **But," continued young Cochrane, '*I am
a passenger. I am not a stowaway; you cannot com-
pel me to work. I can use this ship as I did when my
father was alive "

*A sudden shiver of a passion that had nearly
mastered him left his face white as it swept through
his form when he spoke of his father. Julius stepped
back a pace. Young Cochrane went on:

* **I shall sleep in the cabin, if I occupy but a locker.
Do you object?"

'Nassau muttered to himself. His face was full of
rage, but there was fear in it too. **You shall sleep
where you please!" he exclaimed. **And you shall be
a passenger, and you shall not work — d'ye hear? But
this is a fact : Old Stormy, who is chief officer of this
schooner, shifts to your berth this day."

'Arthur looked him up and down; then in sil^noe

THE NEW SKIPPER. 267

walked right aft, and seated himself near the wheel.
Evening was now at hand; its darkness was upon the
face of the waters across the stem of the schooner,
and the glittering tapestries of the west were slowly
fading out, but the light in that corner of splendour
still suffused the heavens to the zenith, and the
schooner was illuminated, and her sails were spaces of
cloth of gold, and the light was upon the deck with
dark shadows moving in time to the unheard music of
the delicate swell, and the men forward, and the two
drunken seamen were perfectly visible to their good
angels, let alone to Nassau, who was their bad one.
The coloured pirate put his hand upon the companion,
and was about to descend when he bethought him that
when' he had left the deck there would be no lookout
kept. He stood a minute looking forward, and spying
his chief ofl&cer. Old Stormy, leaning over the windlass
end, he hailed him, and told him to step aft and
keep a look-out till the watches were settled. But
Old Stormy answered by a drunken shake of the
head, and Nassau, seeing that he was too tipsy to
obey orders or understand things, turned to Arthur,
and said:

• "Will you keep watch whilst I am below?"

• **As a passenger, I am willing to oblige you to that
extent," answered young Cochrane.

'No further words were exchanged. Nassau sank
down the companion way, followed by the eyes of
Arthur, who thought of Rose.

• **I don't know," said Wilkinson, **how long they're
a-going to keep me standing 'ere. My trick was up
more than an hour ago. If I ain't relieved soon, I
shall let go the wheel, get some supper, and turn in.

a68 ROSE ISLAND.

and take my chance. What would Dr. Johnson
a-thought of them swillers as pirates?"

'His laugh exposed a wonderful grin of yellow
fangs. **You are not one of them?" said Cochrane.

* **I am not a bloody pirate," answered the young
man. **I came to sea to work a better traverse than
that Why, them men will never fight when it comes
to it. In my opinion, it's mere mutiny with the word
piracy wrote under it by ignorant men to give it a
meaning."

* **They are a bad lot," said Cochrane.

* **A worse you couldn't find; but if it should come,
to fighting "

*The young fellow broke oflF, laughing loud and con-
tinuously. Cochrane, looking at him steadily, spoke
with trembling lips :

' * * I am sure you are an honest fellow, and are on the
side of myself and Miss Rose. You know the crew
better than I do, and Nassau, by his own confessions,
has been a pirate. He's the author of deeds for the
lightest of which they would hang him if they could
bring it home. Tell me now, as an honest man, who
killed my father this morning?"

'He began to shake as he asked this tremendous
question, and a look of awe entered Wilkinson's face,
and he seemed to be struck with consternation and a
deeper sense of the assassination than had before
visited him as he answered, holding a spoke with one
hand, and resting his clenched fist upon another spoke :
. * "So help me God, then, Mr. Cochrane, it was that
black dog Julius Nassau, or his father the devil."

' "You have no doubt?" said Cochrane.
'Who is the man outside him to doit?" was the

« ((■

THE NEW SKIPPER. 269

answer. **I know the crew; I've lived long enough
with 'em to know them. There is no man aboard
would have killed your father in his sleep if it isn't
that stinking nigger. He did it to seize the vessel.
It was arranged amongst the men that if any accident
happened to your father so that Nassau took com-
mand, he and all the hands were to possess themselves
of the Charmer as their own property, Nassau bossing
'em, and they were to go to a island where they'd get a
few men and some guns and stuflP proper to a pirate,
and cruise about in the manner of the Pearl till they'd
got as much money as they wanted, when they'd give
up and disperse, and all this I knew was agreed upon."

* **He killed my father to get command," muttered
Arthur. **Oh, the bloody, fiendish hound! So kind!
so good! a prince amongst sailors! to be sent to his
death by the blsCck hand of the vilest coward that ever
slew in his sleep a harmless gentleman!"

*He could speak no more, and turned his head aside
to hide his tears. '

CHAPTER XVI.

THE lovers' dilemma.

*The low, almost level, sunshine slanted o£P the dim,
mean, open skylight of the schooner, and her cabin
was dark because her ports were* small. Nassau
unhooked the lamp and lighted it, and hung it up
again, and waited until he could see easily. The
interior was empty. Miss Rose Island, then, was in her
little berth, and there she must have been nearly all
day. Captain Nassau was come to pay his court. To
qualify him for the romantic pleasure, duty and obli-
gation he contemplated he went into the cabin or berth
which Captain Cochrane had occupied, lighted the
small lamp in it, and washed his face and brushed his
hair, and put on a plum-coloured short coat with yel-
low embroidery, and he tied a cravat round his neck,
which expanded into a large spotted bow under his
chin. He. did not look very much like a sailor, nor,
indeed, a pirate. In fact, he very well resembled that
which he was — a 'longshore dandy half-blood. But it
must always be said that he was an excellent practical
seaman, and that for purpose of navigation he knew a
great deal about the sun, moon, and stars. He was in
the late Captain Cochrane's cabin, and stood looking
about him for a few moments. His eye particularly
paused upon the bunk which henceforth he would

270

THE LOVERS' DILEMMA. ajt

occupy, for this was noW his cabin as captain of the
schooner, and most of his effects, including his banjo,
had been carried into it, and they were mixed up a
little with certain belongings of the late skipper —
boots, ailskins, and the like. Whatever may have
been the reflections which passed through his mind at
sight of the bunk, they did not detain him. In a
minute, after beautifying himself, he stepped out of
his berth into the schooner's cabin or living-room, and
straightway knocked upon Rose's door. The girl
opened it instantly, clearly prepared for his visit, and
you saw she expected him and not Arthur by her swift
opening of that door, and a resolved air as her eyes
went in a flash to his dusky face. The strange fancy
of a serpent of beautiful shape and fascinating in
motion would, I think, have been strong in you had you
seen her framed in that small open doorway, though
she stood motionless — ^yet not motionless, for her small
beautifully-shaped head moved as with the vibration of
a serpent's upon her delicate neck whilst she waited for
the man's accost. His teeth looked white in their
dark setting, and his smile produced nearly all he had
in that way. He made her one of those bows which
can only be described as reaching the very height of
finish and elegance in the opinions of the ladies whose
company is kept by such men as Mr. Nassau when they
are ashore.

* *'Pray, Miss Rose," said he, giving her another
bow of the same exquisite sort, in which the spotted
tie figured as well as the wide negro grin, **let me lead
you to the table. I have not had the pleasure of see-
ing you for many hours. I beg you will make yourself
perfectly easy in mind. In me," and here his voice

272 ROSE ISLAND.

sounded like a bray, heard at a distance, **you behold
one who adores you, and who will be as a shield of
steel to you, let what will happen. You are as safe in
this little vessel as you would be amongst your friends
in Kingston. Can I say more?** he continued, with a
grin of passion, and an expression of sincerity in his
face which rendered his horribly ugly mask endurable
as an illustration of the human visage. He held out
his dark hand, which she took with a slight curtsy
without a moment's hesitation, without shudder or
visible aversion, and he led her to a chair at the table,
himself standing beside her, but not offensively or
alarmingly close.

' '*Is Mr. Arthur Cochrane in the ship?'* she asked,
scarcely glancing up at him.
Oh yes.**

Has the pirate you made me hide from gone?"
Long ago,'* he answered, trying to languish at
her, but with so little success that you could have
thought of nothing but a hedgehog. *' Haven't you a
single word of thanks to offer me for rescuing you
from the terrible clutches of the most bloodthirsty
pirate now afloat upon the ocean?**

*She slightly bowed her head.

* ** Don't you know, my sweet Miss Rose," said he,
stooping his repulsive face by about half a head closer
to hers, **that this dreadful Captain Cutyard not only
pillaged the Eleuthera^ of which you were a passenger,
and might have been a passenger again, but stole a
beautiful girl out of her to make a wife of, which will
be the seventh ; and he certainly would have stole you
before her had I allowed him to clap eyes on your
face."

C It

THE LOVERS' DILEMMA. 473

< tc

It is true, then," she exclaimed, starting in her
chair and staring up at him with a countenance that
looked as though chiselled out of marble in the sea-
light that swung over the table, **that the young lady,
a girl I was friendly with on board, has been seized by
this pirate Cutyard, who is taking her away to one of
the places he haunts?"

* **He says so. I did not see her. The notion of a
ship of war being on his track made him in a hurry
on a sudden," said Nassau.

*The girl looked straight across at the opposite
bulkhead with her under lip awork, and her eyes were
never more flashing or scornful. The black standing
by her side could have fallen on his knees and wor-
shipped her. Such extraordinary beauty he had
never heard of. Oh, what a glorious creature to pos-
sess I But with his exalted admiration was mingled
perception that it was not very difficult to raise hell in
the heart of that wonderful, beautiful, serpentine
creature who had floated to the schooner's side for
him and for him only. Suddenly she looked up ; some-
thing in phantasmal fashion — a, human face, faintly
touched by light — had passed the skylight, but out of
the line of Nassau's vision. Julius was about to speak;
she interrupted him.

* **Has the murderer of Captain Cochrane been dis-
covered?" she asked.

* **How can it be discovered?" he answered, with a
low, deep laugh. ** They'll want more fathoms than
go to the deep-sea lead who search for him. He is
deep in the sea, my Rose, for the hand that murdered
Captain Cochrane is stitched up in sailcloth, and lies at
the end of the man's own right arm."

274 ROSE ISLAND.

* ** Where are you steering this schooner to?" said the
girl, after a short silence, during which she directed a
glance at the skylight.

* **To one of the most romantic islands in the world,
but we have not yet shaped a course for it," he replied;
and he added very irrelevantly: **You have two pretty
rings on your finger; I will take care that all your
fingers shall be gloriously adorned. You are made for
beautiful clothes and rich gems, and you shall walk in
splendour. By the heart of my mother I swear it
You shall not desire anything in vain."

*This man, whose appearance was that of an ape
tethered to a street organ, dropped on one knee at her
side, and with a face grotesque with passion laid his
heavy lips upon her hand. She glanced again at the
skylight, but she did not remove her hand. On a sud-
den she stood up.

I suppose I am at liberty to go on deck?" she said.
Certainly," he answered, getting up off his knee.
You are no prisoner, but mistress of this schooner,
and of the man who commands her."

*She scarcely strove to disguise her disgust at this,
though it is certain she had in a few hours schooled her
mind to an attitude from which nothing could make her
depart, and perhaps in rectification of her oversight she
softened and sweetened her voice to say: **The mis-
tress should always command, and I desire you will
tell me when I may hope to find myself ashore at
Kingston amongst my friends."

* **You shall command — you shall command," he
replied in a sort of guttural murmur, and added, **but
you shall see an earthly paradise first, and the sight of
it will fascinate you and enchant you. You will be the

C ii
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THE LOVERS' DILEMMA. 275

princess of it, and the wish to return to Kingston will
trouble you like a bad dream. "

* **I will go on deck now," was all she said in answer
to this. **I should like to see Mr. Cochrane."

' '*Oh! he is alive and well, and as a passenger he is
keeping my watch to oblige me," he answered, with a
curl of nostril, and bringing his brows together, and
then in a dramatic manner which he could frequently
adopt, no doubt being persuaded to the depth of his
soul that he was a fine actor, and had missed his
chance of great fame and greater wealth by going to
sea, he said: ** Surely you have had nothing to eat or
drink this long day!"

* **I have taken what I needed, thank you," she
answered, indicating by a motion of the head the little
place in which the cabin stores in small quantities
were kept. She entered her berth to fetch her hat.
He watched every movement of her form. When she
came out she said: **Who will occupy the Captain's
cabin?"

'He placed his hand upon his heart and bowed to
her.

* **In what berth does Mr. Cochrane sleep?" she
inquired.

' **He will make use of this cabin," he answered.
**He will leave this vessel at the first opportunity. He
is a sailor," he added, with his wild, wide grin, **and
he can sleep, whether his couch be a plank or a
feather-bed."

'Ladies and gentlemen,' said Captain Foster, *I am
endeavouring to make this man speak as he often chose
to speak, and believe I am placing a fairly accurate
picture before you. Where Nassau had picked up his

276 ROSE ISLAND.

language, his command of the English tongue, his
knowledge of other languages, I am not able to tell
you. But it is certain he could unfold his mind with
fewer errors of grammar, and fewer blunders in effect,
than many who would laugh at him as a black spouter.
Often he sank to the level of the fo'c's'le, but his
vocabulary, nevertheless, was large, liberal, and even
rich. Miss Rose, without further reference to the
subject of Arthur's quarters and his condition in the
schooner, went on deck, and Nassau followed her. It
was now early night upon the ocean. The breeze still
softly sang, and the schooner was making fire in the
sea. The last scar of sunset was gone, and the figure
of the helmsman slowly rose and slowly fell against the
soft scintillant dusk that floated in flashings of stars
over the vessel's mastheads. Wilkinson had been
replaced at the wheel by Cabbage, who was not too
drunk to steer. Rose instantly looked for Arthur, and
saw him standing a little forward of the mainmast.
She immediately joined him. They kissed, there was
nobody near to observe their greeting.

* •* Where is the black?" he said in a low voice.

* **He followed me on deck, and he is there — speak-
ing to the man at the wheel," she answered.

* **What has he been talking about?"

* **Oh, he is going to make me a princess, and he is
going to steer the schooner to a glorious island," she
answered. **He is to cover me with jewels; you are
to leave the vessel at the first opportunity. I believe
he is mad."

* "My God!" muttered Arthur. **You put the idea
into my head; it may be so."

He was not offensive in his speech," she con-

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( iC

it

THE LOVERS' DILEMMA. 277

tinned ; * *lie was disgusting only in his presence. What
does he mean to do with me? If he sends you out of
the ship I shall be alone."

* ** He'll not separate us," said Arthur, preserving
his low tone. **The crew are with him; but they
did not ship as pirates, and they may be reasoned
with."

No, he'll not separate us," said Rose quietly.

Are not we strong enough to recover this vessel?
There is Wilkinson. I believe he could be trusted.
There are firearms in the cabin. "

*She was proceeding. A man came lurching out of
the shadows forward.

* ** Where's the land of knives and forks?" said he, in
a drunken voice. ** Blast me, if you don't need to
strike your eyes together to get a light. Hillo! is this
you, my young cock?" he exclaimed, halting opposite
Cochrane, without taking notice of the girl. "I'm
chief mate — Old Stormy they calls me. I'm to cccupy
your berth as a hoflScer of the ship by command. I'm
a-going to take a look at it. It's good that it's dark.
Smother me if I should like the lady to see the bundle
of straw which makes my bed. Do pirates sleep on
straw? I'll take your'n, and the skipper shall find you
another," and he lurched aft, singing.

* **Are you armed, Arthur?" asked Rose, after
watching the drunken sailor, whilst Nassau still con-
tinued in conversation with the man at the wheel.

* **No," he answered. **If I drew a weapon upon a
man I know how it would go with me, and if this
schooner keeps you on board, she keeps me also."

*She seemed to hesitate before she asked the next
question, then in a low voice said:

378 ROSE ISLAND.

* ** Where is the knife your poor father was murdered
with?''

*He told her how he had wrapped it up, and placed
it in a locker in the Captain's cabin; it might be useful
as a testimony. He did not seem struck by her ques-
tion.

**I am utterly at fault," he said, ** because your
presence on board makes it impossible for me to accept
the ideas which occur to me. You speak of Wilkinson.
We dare not say that he can be certainly trusted, and
if he betrayed us in some drunken mood, they would
make no more trouble of tossing me overboard than of
wringing the neck of a fowl. You would then be left
alone — alone with Nassau — a, frightful thought to me,
Rose; and so it is that I dare not dream of taking any
steps which might result in our being separated."

*As he was talking they heard a man singing and a
loud shout in the cabin. His roaring voice, which was
full of drink and merriment, caught the ears of others
who were forward. The two men who had sat down,
overcome by the fumes of drink, stood up. A shadow
passed staggering on the other side of the deck.
Then one of the people, observing that Old Stormy
had got hold of a decanter half full of some sort of
drink, yelled applause, staggered round to the hatch,
and disappeared down the steps. In a few minutes
they began to sing, and Old Stormy 's voice was loud.
Nassau stepped below to hunt the men on deck again
and silence the shindy ; and the lovers, who with the
fellow at the wheel were the sole occupants of the
schooner's decks, continued in deep and earnest con-
versation. It was clear that Rose had made up her
mind to a course. Arthur seemed perfectly sensible

THE LOVERS' DILEMMA. 279

that she had framed an intention, which to be sure
might be conditional, but which, as a resolution, was
supporting and even animating. She suggested several
schemes. The crew were few, she said; could not she
keep the man at the. wheel covered with a pistol, whilst
Arthur secured the men in their fo'c's'le under
hatches? What should prevent them killing Captain
Nassau as a pirate, and with the schooner's muskets
shooting down the crew, leaving one or two who might
plead for mercy, and keeping them to help navigate
the vessel to Kingston? This was a girl's suggestion,
bom of desperation, willing that every creature aboard
should be murdered in cold blood, so that she and
Arthur were not separated, Arthur, whilst she talked,
glanced aloft at the stars at the yardarms, and noticing
that the particular star that had swung to and fro like
a jewel at the yardarm of the little topgallant yard,
had disappeared past the sail, he pressed Rose's wrist
in token that he would return to her, and walked
swiftly and lightly to the wheel. He glanced at the
little illuminated disc of compass card, and imme-
diately observed that the course had been changed
since^ Nassau came on deck with Rose. It had been
west, it was now west-north-west. Probably the
change had been made without attempt to trim sail to
it, because of the state of the men. He was about to
rejoin' Rose, who remained waiting for him at the
mainmast, when Cabbage, who grasped the wheel, said
in a voice still a little maudlin with drink:

'Where are we a-going to?"

'Why, we're a crew of pirates, aren't we?"
answered Arthur, **and we're going to an island
where we shall fill up with guns and men, and then we

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t*'

28o ROSE ISLAND.

mean to sail the ocean until we are chockablock with
minted gold."

* **You bain*t one of us, are you?** asked Cabbage;
but Arthur was walking forward when this question
was put to him, listening as he went to the shouts and
songs of men in the cabin, and the one voice that
soimded highest, and whose laughter sometimes
reminded you of the bleating of a sheep, was Nassau's.

*Arthur stepped to Rose's side.

* **The course has been changed," he said. **What
fine land can the black devil have in his mind? If he
touches anywhere, it must be at a cay. Anything at
all answering to a fairyland fit for a princess must be
hunted for in seas which this course will eflfectually
keep us clear of."

* **0h, what is to be done?" cried Rose, clasping
Arthur's arm whilst she sobbed once or twice.
** Cannot you tell his motive? It may be piracy, too;
but his main idea in stealing the schooner was to steal
me with her, and how can I escape him unless by some
desperate efforts which you dislike because you know
that failure might end in brutality and murder, and
leave me helpless and alone in possession of Nassau?"

* ** Whatever we do, Rose, must be triumphantly
done," he said, after seeming to think a little. **Give
me time to reflect upon a scheme which shall not fail,
and do not wonder at anything I say or do. We are
together now. I believe the heart of the wretch who
murdered my father would halt at the idea of butcher-
ing his son, but "

'At this moment Nassau and the others in the cabin
came tramping and roaring up on deck, and Nassau in
cordial notes shouted:

THE LOVERS' DILEMMA. 281

« ii'

Now, men, away forward ! ' ' and with this he shoved
one, and braying in feigned laughter, he shoved
another, whilst the men were singing brokenly certain
strange songs of the sea, whilst Black danced with all
his might, yelling, **This is how they do it in our
alley, bullies!"

* Nassau crossed the deck to Rose and Arthur.

* ** Will you give me the pleasure," said he, in a voice
utterly changed from the hilarious negro-like tones he
had employed in shouting to the men, **of taking you
for a charming evening stroll up and down that
quarter-deck? I know you are a lover of the beautiful,
and the sea is as beautiful this night as the divine
painter can represent it."

*It was astonishing to hear such fine words in the
mouth of such a man. He bowed and flourished as he
spoke as though he were a Frenchman. He seemed
wholly ignorant that Arthur existed, and addressed
himself to Rose.

* **Oh, it will give me pleasure to walk with you,"
answered Rose, in a voice which was a clearer intima-
tion that she had resolved upon a distinct line of con-
duct than any she had yet betrayed.

* ** Cochrane," said Nassau, **you see the state of the
men; keep an eye upon *em, and keep my look-out
whilst I get some supper for Miss Island. When I
return on deck, you have all night in before you."

*So saying, he offered his arm to Rose, who, after a
pause that was perhaps unnoticeable in that darkness,
passed her hand through his crooked elbow, and they
walked slowly aft.

* **You seem to object to Mr. Arthur. Why should
not he join us?" said the girl.

283 ROSE ISLAND.

* **I am jealous, my love," he answered, trying to
speak softly; but his mouth was too wide for softness,
which comprises sweetness and delicacy of utterance,
and Nassau's voice in softness was the true voice of
the negro gasping in slumber.

*In truth the black dog owed more than his colour,
and perhaps his hair, to his father. Cochrane walked
slowly forward as far as the fore-rigging, keeping to
windward, so that he held the weatherside of the
quarter-deck in view. Two men were sitting on the
forecastle-head, smoking and arguing, and still the
worse for the doses they had drained down. They
talked of pirates and piracy, and the little that yoimg
Cochrane could collect was this : that they both praised
the life, and that one was more enthusiastic and blas-
phemous on the subject than the other. Another,
apparently asleep, rested his back, with his head lolled
against a bulwark stanchion. Ladies and gentlemen,
I will not insist that at this critical juncture Arthur
Cochrane exhibited the spirit and courage you had a
right to expect from him after considering his char-
acter by the light of the earlier part of this narrative;
but I am an old sailor, and know the diflSculties and
perils of the ocean, and I am at a loss to tell you kow I
should have acted had I been in this man's place. It
is easy for writers of romance to represent their heroes
as passing through adventures at whose absurdity the
sailor laughs, and who performs prodigies of valour at
whose impossibility the sailor laughs more loudly still.
How young Cochrane would have acted had he stood
alone it is idle to conjecture. He had great spirit and
the fearlessness of the British seaman. But in this
trouble he had Rose and Rose's safety to consider.

THE LOVERS' DILEMMA. 383

He could take no step which would imperil her purity
and life, so far as they could be provided for it by his
presence. She had talked, in the true wild romantic
vein, of shooting and battening down. But could
matters be so nicely arranged — as they would be, of
course, by the hand of the novelist — as to insure that
the men could be battened down in their forecastle at
the moment that Nassau was shot? If not, miscar-
riage was inevitable.

*His mind was crowded. Again and again he turned
over the projects which thronged the chambers of his
brain. It worked like madness in him to see his Rose,
his beautiful Rose, on the arm of the wretch whom he
knew to be the bloody and ruthless assassin of his
father. But let him in his righteous wrath rush to the
man and lay him dead at the foot of Rose. What
would be the attitude of the sailors? How would they
serve him, who they knew could stretch their necks to
the sun by proclaiming them pirates and relating the
story of the voyage? The breeze was sweet and cool.
The plash of the curl of sea at the bow was as pleasant
to the senses as the rain-like music of a fountain play-
ing in the dark. The young fellow in the shadow of
the shrouds of the foremast thought of his father, and
the tears of manhood, which seldom visit the eyes
though they fill the heart, tightened in his throat, and
he looked over the side at the black surface of water,
in which the sea-lightning flashed with the f aintness of
the gleam of a distant storm across the hills, and in
imagination he saw his father in the white shroud in
which he had been launched, and he cast up his eyes to
God, and prayed for him whom he had dearly loved.

*By and by, on looking towards the quarter-deck, he

284 ROSE ISLAND.

noticed it was vacant, and he walked slowly aft. The
frame of the skylight submitted a considerable square
of the little interior well illuminated by the cabin
lamp. He saw Rose sitting at the table resting her
cheek in most forlorn posture in her hand, and then
suddenly Nassau appeared within the square, bearing
sweets, cakes, wine, and other stuflf, which he would
exactly know where to find. What he said Arthur
could not hear. He spoke throatily, as though emo-
tion were overmastering him. His white smile, the
colour of his skin, his absurd costume, formed one of
those pictures, with the rough table and the cake and
wine upon it and the girl sitting at it, which make you
think of some masterpiece of Hogarth as you look.
Rose ate and drank, and the black, sitting close by,
gazed at her with a devouring passion as he sparingly
sipped his wine. It was impossible to hear what the
coloured coxcomb said, and young Cochrane would not
deign to listen, though once he met the gaze of his
love looking upward, but unconscious that her sight
rested upon him, for he stood in the darkness. Pres-
ently Julius disappeared, but immediately reappeared
with his banjo, which he fell to strumming, sitting
within two chairs of Rose, that his music should not
be too loud to be sweet. He sang songs in Spanish
and English; they were love songs; his little eyes,
deep in their sockets, reddened, perhaps to the
demoniac hue of his soul ; his leaning attitude was as
though he would overwhelm her with his banjo and
songs, striking by the magic of music, and by the
'*Dorique delicacie** of his singing, and by the impas-
sioned gaze he fixed upon her, and by the tremendous
sincerity he expressed from hiswiry hair down to his

THE LOVERS* DILEMMA. 285

half -Wellington boots, through the bitter prejudice the
unfortunate colour of his skin had excited in her. The
fellows forward, being pretty well drunk, did not lay
aft to listen, but Wilkinson's tall knock-kneed figure
might have been seen hovering near the skylight.
The banjo ceased ; Arthur on passing the skylight saw
that Rose had retired A few minutes later Nassau
came on deck. His voice betokened him as in an
exalted mood. He sang out to Arthur :

* **You can go below and turn in for the rest of the
night. Make no noise ; the young lady has gone to her
repose. ' '

He then began to whistle and dance, all very softly,
snapping his fingers till they sounded like castanets ;
and in this way he capered to the man at the wheel,
whilst Arthur, almost convinced that Rose was right
when she said that the man was mad, descended the
companion-steps to the cabin. Nassau had cleared the
table; he had turned down the wick of the lamp, and
it burnt dimly. Young Cochrane paused before his
sweetheart's door, then, with a shake of the head and a
look up, passed forgetfully to his berth — I mean the
little hole which he had occupied since Rose was
rescued. He opened the door ; there was light to see
by; a bushy-faced man, with one leg over the edge
of the bunk and his arms folded across his breast,
lay in the four boards which had been nailed together,
and which left about room enough to hang up an oil-
skin coat. Arthur, forgetting the matter, was aston-
ished at the sight of a man coolly stretched upon his
mattress, but before he could speak the man in a deep
voice, without lifting his head, grumbled out :

'Who the hell are you? Ain't I to get no rest in

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386 ROSE ISLAND.

this blasted rat-trap? He's been a-singing fit to turn
the stomach of a shark, and now he's done 'ere you

come "

'Cochrane shut the door, recollecting that Old
Stormy was chief mate, with the right to use this
berth, and, laughing a little, he took up an old hair
pillow and lay down upon an athwart-ship locker fac-
ing the companion-steps. '

CHAPTER XVII.

THE SLEEPWALKER.

'I HAVE said that Arthur Cochrane stretched himself
upon a locker, with an old hair pillow under his head.
It is supposed that a sailor can sleep an}rwhere and
anyhow, even amid the greatest uproar of thunderous
storm and smiting seas. This is not exactly true.
Sailors are much more like human beings in appear-
ance, prejudices, passions, and the like, than is com-
monly believed. On board ship, at all events, there is
no person more profoundly respected than the sleeper
in his watch below. For him the deck is lightly
trodden ; for him the laugh is silenced, and the hoarse
loud voice subdued into a mere rattle of whisper.
Had all been well with the little schooner, doubtless
young Cochrane would soon have been making a long
off-shore stretch. But his mind was too heavily
burthened to admit of sleep. He lay in the shadows
forward, and his brain spun rapidly, and his eyes
remained open, and his gaze alternated betwixt the
cabin his father had slept in and the cabin which was
occupied by Rose. In the open frame of the skylight
the stars ran to and fro, like marbles of quicksilver
kept running on a velvet board whose sides were
invisible. The voices of the sea sung their songfs of

the night in the small open portholes. The hush was

287

288 ROSE ISLAND.

broken by the sounds which the timbers of a ship make
when she is lightly lifted and softly sunk by the swell.
Shortly before midnight the young fellow fell asleep.
He woke on a sudden, and saw Nassau standing at his
side gazing down upon him. The expression on the
nigger's face was extraordinary, so far as it could be
read in that dim light. It was a mixture of loathing
and fear, with a thin veiling of blackness, as though
the man saw something that dazed him. Arthur met
his gaze, and the coloured man without a sign passed
straight to the little hole in which Old Stormy was
sleeping. He called to Old Stormy to rouse up. It
was eight bells, he said, and his watch on deck. Old
Stormy exclaimed :

* **Ay, ay; it's all right. I'm a-coming. Cuss these
watches! They're always a- waking of a man up.'

* Nassau passed Arthur without looking at him, and
softly and slowly went along the cabin, and mounted
the companion-steps to await the old seaman. Arthur
could hear the voices of Nassau and the man at
the wheel, but not what they said. Watches are
changed by good men rapidly; no good sailor will keep
his brother-sailor waiting for his relief. In a few
moments Old Stormy appeared, and Arthur, sitting up,
said to him :

* ** You're using my mattress. Bring down your
own when you come. You've got something softer
than a plank in your fo'c's'le bunk, and I'm damned if
I'm going to make shift with the lid of a locker."

' **Who wants your mattress?" grumbled Old
Stormy, in the level tone of a seaman who begins a
working song, in the chorus of which all hands will in
a minute join. ** What brings the likes of you to sea?

.J

THE SLEEPWALKER. 289

Lockers too 'ard, are they? You stop at 'ome when
you get there, and sign articles for nothing ashore that
ain't soft."

'The growling old salt, who was scarcely awake,
pushed himself to the companion by thrusting at the
table with one big tarry fist. He vanished, and then
there was the noise of three men talking on deck, but
no word came into the cabin. Arthur pulled his mat-
tress out of the bunk, and laid it along the locker, and
then lay down. But not to sleep. His mind was full
of thoughts of his father, and a good idea as to the sal-
vation of Rose and himself would enter his head, only
to prove, after a close view, that, even if practicable,
even if possible, the scheme would be too perilous,
with its danger of exposure to Rose afterwards.
Whilst he lay awake thinking, Nassau came into the
cabin. He paused at the table, looking forward in the
direction of Arthur ; then turned the reddish gleam of
his eye upon the door of Rose's cabin. Arthur
watched him. He was unarmed, but some knives for
cabin use lay in shelves almost within arm's reach
when the young fellow should jump up; and Arthur
lay still as though in sleep, and watched the dusky
man, erect and motionless, at the table.

'It was a false alarm, however, for, after whistling
softly to himself, Nassau walked straight to the cabin
which had been occupied by the skipper, and which the
coloured devil had now made his own. He closed the
door. It was evident that the man was going to "turn
in," as they say at sea, and take all the sleep he could
get out of his watch below. Then came, as a wave
through the cabin with its dim lantern lightly swing-
ing, the former hush, with its music of the night in the

*- ■» T ^-mm .«MV «^

290 ROSE ISLAND.

portholes, and now and again the tread of a shoe along
the plank above. Wearied out at last, Arthur closed
his eyes and slept. He was awakened by a noise, as of
a box or light case having been overturned. Like
most sailors, he was swift in his awakenings, and when
awake all his dormant faculties informed and illu-
minated as one the tower and look-out of his brain.
They were acting at once. This splendid and useful
quality of leaping into life from the very verge of the
black stupor of sleep is the gift of the sea. Aroused
by the noise I have mentioned, Arthur lifted his head,
and saw Nassau coming out of his cabin. Dimly as
the cabin lantern burned, it revealed to Arthur
the white face of the clock under the skylight, and the
hour was a quarter to two. The weather was as it had
been at midnight. Sounds easily caught the attention.
The squeak of a rat in the hold was as plain to the
hearing as the creak of a block high aloft. Arthur
knew that Nassau's watch did not come round till four
o'clock, which would be eight bells of the middle
watch, • and then it was for the coloured captain to
stand the watch that followed — ^namely, the morning
watch. Nassau came out of his cabin walking stiffly;
the buoyancy of the ocean was not in his legs. He
looked right ahead of him, and, still keeping his head
fixed in a way that was like a sentry's marching up and
down, he turned and went on deck.

*Now, there is nothing whatever unusual in the
master of a ship going on deck in the night to see how
things stand. The officer of the watch is sometimes
surprised by his apparition. A bad officer of the
watch may be discovered by his skipper asleep, and the
ship at the mercy of the helmsman and the weather.

THE SLEEPWALKER. 291,

Had Nassau been any other captain, Arthur would
have thought nothing of his going on deck at that or
any other hour. But the man who had, in strange
walk andstiflE figure, vanished into the open night
above was a murderer, as Arthur believed — a, foul and
dangerous villain, to be watched as you follow the
motions of a deadly reptile at large,

' **He cannot rest," thought young Cochrane, "Of
course he has committed other murders. But this is
one of a few hours' since ; the blood is in his damned
nostril ; the knife is still clutched by his damned hand ;
he cannot sleep. . . ."

*A man was speaking near the open skylight; this
was some five minutes after Nassau had gone on deck.
It was the voice of Old Stormy, and Arthur heard him
say, presumably to the man at the wheel:

' **Curse me, if I believe he's alive! He's a-walking
and a-talking just as a ghost would!"

*A question was asked from the wheel. Still stand-
ing close to the skylight, so that Arthur could hear,
Old Stormy answered:

* "He's walking forwards. He don't turn his head.
He's gone deaf. He's a-talking to himself. If he
ain't the corpse of himself, what is he?"

*Then another man, evidently moving in a hurry,
arrived at the skylight, and stood near Old Stormy. It
was Cabbage. The crew were few, and Arthtu: easily
distinguished them by their voices.

* "What's he a-hunting after?" said Cabbage. "He
went past me with his head straight, and I heard him
say, in his natural voice, *By the heart of my mother,
I'd wade through a sea of blood to get her, and it's but
the one way of doing it. A patient, good-natured old

292 ROSE ISLAND.

man, who never — who never ' He broke off, and

went ronnd the windlass, and I heard him muttering,
but it wasn't sense."

'The two men strolled away from the skylight.
Arthur sat upright upon his mattress, waiting to see if
Nassau, whether awake or asleep, meant to return
below. He wished that the black dog would walk
overboard. He listened attentively. Yes; he even
listened for the sound of a splash. He could catch the
grumble, but not the articulate sounds of voices on
deck, and judged that the men were commenting upon
Nassau's movements. Excitement in him grew
rapidly, and he was in the act of rising to go on deck
and see what was happening, when he saw one of
Nassau's legs in the companion-way, and the whole
man showed. He entered in the same strange manner
in which he had quitted the cabin, and turned, stiff as
a ramrod, with set face as though his neck was bound
in some iron collar, to survey his berth. It was his
sleeping-place now, though, as you know, and as I
venture to remind you, it had been the cabin occupied
by Captain Cochrane. The coloured man halted and
stood looking. He seemed as though buried in pro-
found meditation. Arthur could hear him talking to
himself, but he spoke softly as though there were some
sleeper at hand whom he would not wake. He con-
tinued for a while muttering and seemingly meditating
as his face remained turned upon the Captain's door.
Then, with a sudden wild gesture of arm as though he
were one who had solved some desperate problem, or
to whom had come some illumination of tragic import,
he faced about, and walked slowly down the cabin.
Arthur Cochrane sprang erect, but 4id npt thiu^ tg

THE SLEEPWALKER. 293

arm himself with a knife, seeing quite clearly now that
the man was walking in his sleep. Presumably the
men, when Nassau went below, imagined that he had
returned to his cabin to turn in. Their voices could be
heard, but they did not dodge in the skylight, or fol-
low down the companion-way as men interested in the
coloured man's movements would. Nassau's little
eyes were open, but they had no more speculation than
those of Banquo. His face in the light was an extraor-
dinary sable mask; his lips lay apart, as though he
breathed as a runner might. His lifeless stare was
firmly fixed ahead of him. But now there occurred
sundry small movements in the posture of his head,
and he seemed to look slightly from side to side. One
hand was tightly clenched, and lay upon his breast.
The fingers of the other moved swiftly as though he
played upon a musical instrument, or talked to the
deaf. He came along down on the starboard side — it
was, indeed, but a few paces — and, looking a little
from side to side with incomparable effect, as though
he had been a marvellous marionette put together and
worked by an invisible intelligence almost Divine, he
went straight to the two or three shelves in which the
cutlery for cabin use was kept, and seemed to take a
knife from a number. He weighed it, tested the
sharpness of the blade as though he were purchasing
or reasoning about it; but in reality he had taken no
knife — ^he toyed with a phantom, and with other phan-
toms which he took from that shelf of knives, until he
had satisfied himself, and, without a knife in his hand,
he put on the motions of a man who is armed and must
move stealthily, and walked in his blind living way, as
though dead and galvanized, to the cabin he occupied.

294 ROSE ISLAND.

His coloured face, his grotesque exhibition of hair, the
red shirt he had put on when he had turned in at eight
bells, were all the perfect counterpart and untravestied
presentment of a Coburg stage murderer; but the
reality made the diflEerence — ^he was a frightful figure
walking in his sleep. Arthur followed him close; he
did not pause to grasp a knife — ^he knew himself more
than the equal of the wretch whom he would rather
hang by lawful measures than kill in a melodramatic
shipboard aflfray. Just as Nassau grasped the handle
of his cabin-door, the door of Rose's cabin was opened
a little way, and by the small light Arthur saw his
s weetheart . Sh e had hastily wrapped a dressing-gown
about her. He lifted his hand in a gesture signifying
**Hush!*' and then pointed to Nassau, who at that
moment passed into his cabin, closing the door behind
him.

* **He walks in his sleep," whispered Arthur. "Do
not awaken him. ''

*He stepped to the door, the handle of which he
lightly turned. The door opened on soundless hinges
with the droop of the stem in the swell, and the light
of the cabin lamp came into the berth. Arthur imme-
diately opened the door, and left it open, that he might
see what Nassau did. Into the swoon of the keel-
whitened swell the Charmer ^ with clock-like regularity,
dipped her counter, and the clothes and other thingfs
which hung against the bulk-heads slightly swayed,
and shadows entered which flitted. There was then a
semblance of life even in the dead furniture of this
little interior with its table and chair and the like, not
to mention the bunk in which Cochrane had slept, and
in which he had lain dead yesterday morning. Close

THE SLEEPWALKER. 295

to that bunk stood the figure of Nassau. His form had
lost its ramrod stiffness, his figure moved to the
motion of the deck with pliancy, and his neck was
supple, and gave his head full play. He stood looking
down into the bunk, which was furnished simply with
a mattress and bolster, with strange gestures of his
arms. He then turned his face to the right, and
Arthur, who stood near, shrank, so lifelike were the
lifeless eyes in that dark, corrugated, brute-like face,
and in starting he saw Rose standing in the doorway.
For the second time he lifted his arm in motion of
silence. When he looked afresh at Nassau, the man
was in the act of approaching the bunk close, and still
his arms and his left hand — ^the right hand seemingly
clasping a weapon — ^betokened in the black devil's soul
a horror and agitation which made him as frightful to
watch as a human being tortured by savages. And
now he began to talk aloud in a thick and tremulous
voice, but his speech was Spanish, and neither Arthur
nor his listening sweetheart could understand him.
Suddenly he raised to its full stretch the arm whose
fist clutched the visionary weapon, and with a singular
moan, the words having clearly some reference to pity
and Mary in heaven, he brought the knife of his sleep-
walking imagination down into the mattress with a
force of stab that must have carried a real blade clean
through the heart and body of any sleeper in that
bunk.

* "So, Rose, 'tis God forcing him into confession!"
yelled Arthur; and in a spring he grasped Nassau by
the throat, and bore him heavily to the deck.

'Ladies and gentlemen, it is not customary, I
believe, nor a process recommended by the faculty, to

296 ROSE ISLAND.

awaken the sleepwalker by knocking him down. In
fact, great care is needed, great discretion must be
exercised, in following and observing him, lest he
should be suddenly awakened in alarm and hurt him-
self. Nassau, however, was not to be regarded or
thought of at this particular juncture from the side of
humanity. He fell heavily to the deck with Arthur's
strangling grip on his throat, and Rose screamed
aloud. Nassau was a sailor, and very easily awak-
ened, but no sailor, however easily awakened, can
make much of things whilst he is being strangled.
With the strength of a man in a struggle for life or
death the coloured sleepwalker hove his assailant away
from him and got on his legs, with a tremendous
scraiyible of hands and play of feet. He looked round
him ; his amazement is not describable. He had half
torn the shirt off his back in his struggle to throw
Arthur off his throat, and stood up looking about him,
a ragged figure of coloured terror and astonishment,
expressed by a play of features of stupendous merit in a
dramatic sense by the vast variety of the movements of
his soul. Arthur was about to close with him. Julius
started back with a wild ** Hallo!" Rose's scream had
been heard on deck, but Nassau's bellow would have
abundantly sufficed to let all hands know that some-
thing very much out of the way was going on below.
Old Stormy came rushing down ; he was followed by
Black, Wilkinson, and the rest, leaving one man at the
wheel. Who he was I cannot remember. Though it
might be said that Nassau was wide awake, his senses
had barely shown their heads above water, and after
he had bellowed ** Hallo!" he cried out in his thick
braying voice ;

THE SLEEPWALKER. 297

' ''Why, in Grod A'mighty's name, am I dragged
from my bed to be choked npon the deck?"

* **What*s gone wrong?" shouted Old Stormy, bun-
dling in at the door, and by his clumsy entrance forc-
ing Rose into the Captain's sleeping-berth.

*As he asked this question the rest of the men came'
clattering down the companion-steps.

* *'This villain," shouted Arthur, in a passion of
excitement, and red-hot with the discovery he did not
question he had made, **has been compelled by the
devil to betray his bloody secret in his sleep by acting
over again unconsciously his murder of my father!"

* *• What do you say?" cried Nassau, lifting his voice
almost into a scream. *'That I in my sleep have acted
the part which I was guiltless of when a waking man?"

*The sailors stared at him. Rose had stepped to
Arthur's side, and was clinging to him in a shrinking
attitude. The red lights of Nassau's eyes travelled
over the men's faces and rested in the momentary
pause upon Rose, and he then cried out again, almost
in the same screaming tone, "I swear, my beautiful
lady, my princess, my adored, that I am innocent of
the murder of this man's father, and that if I have

acted the assassination over again " He broke

oflf, adding in a deep and thrilling voice, "It was a
dream!"

' ** You've been a-mousing about the deck, you
know," said Old Stormy, **talkin* a mucking rum lot
of stuff."

'Another said, not quite accurately:

' **Why, you was round by the fore 'atch, swearin'
you'd get her if you had to wade through blood."

•**A4r?aip!" $bpt|ted N^ssati. **J5 ^ man respon-

298 ROSE ISLAND.

sible for what he says and does in his sleep? Who saw
me play the part in my sleep of stabbing to death a
sleeping man — the man I respected, the man I could
have loved for his gentleness and goodness?"

• ••Yes," said a sailor. **Yer spoke very kindly of
him whilst you was gliding like a ghost round the
windlass. ' '

' ••/saw you," said Arthur, evidently speaking with
difl&culty, so overpowering to the physical degree of
almost setting his teeth were his feelings as he looked
at the coloured man.

• ''And I saw you!" exclaimed Rose, snaking (for-
give the only expression which occurs to me) out of
her shrinking posture into a full and swelling attitude
of hatred and defiance. "You appealed to the Virgin
Mary, and then you drove the knife, which you
believed you held, into the mattress, where, in your
vision, you imagined you saw the sleeping figure of
poor Captain Cochrane."

• **By God, I know nothing of all this!" said Nassau,
folding his arms and sinking his head.

• '*It ain't unusual for men to walk in their sleep,"
said Black. **rve been shipmate with a sailor who
used to tumble out of his hammock in his sleep, and
walk right aft to the officer of the watch, and when he
was kicked and pummelled and woke up, he'd swear
that all he wanted to know was if the men's dinner 'ad
been served out, as *e couldn't get the news in the
galley."

• •*Well," said Old Stormy, '^it can't be said that it's
out of the usual for folks to walk in their sleep. I
knew a cobbler who one night got out of his bed with
his eyes open and his mind shut. He was as sound

THE SLEEPWALKER. 299

asleep as was this 'ere black pirate just now. He
walks across the street, gets into the *ouse of his son-
in-law, and steals forty pound, the savings of years.
This cobbler was very fond of his son-in-law, and 'ad
'elped 'im to save the money which 'e was a-stealing
of. The son-in-law and his wife were up, disturbed by
the noise of thieves, and they watched him, and saw him
go to the cupboard and take the cash-box. They fol-
lowed him back to his own 'ouse, and when 'e was
comfortable in bed they woke the poor old chap up,
and after they had let him swear that it was all a lie,
they pointed to the cash-box, laughing fit to split their
sides, the box being stowed away in a closet over
agin the cobbler's bed, and then, as seeing was believ-
ing, 'e said 'e never could 'ave supposed that 'e could
be guilty of such a sin, waking or sleeping."

'Here Old Stormy spat, without regard to the com-
pany, upon the cabin-floor. This was a long yarn for
an old spouter, and he added, looking round, **What
says the Captain to a glass of grog?"

• ''Go and take what you want," said Nassau; and
all hands shuffled out.

'Whilst Old Stormy had been spinning his yam,
which was probably true, Nassau had stood with folded
arms gazing at Rose, from whom he seemed to draw
courage, confidence, and calmness. Yet he was still
greatly agitated, and, indeed, any man might be
excused for continuing in a state of agitation on top of
such a slaughterous awaking as Nassau had suffered.
The moment he had answered Old Stormy the coloured
skipper, addressing himself tp Rose, as though Arthur
were not present, and speaking with a degree of
moderation which proved him the possessor of a

300 ROSE ISLAND.

quality of control over passions of the most heated and
deadly kind, said:

' **Yoti heard, dear one, what the sailor said. Is it
not possible for a man to receive such an impression in
his waking hours as to repeat by action the dreadful
scene in his sleep? Oh," he cried, clasping his dusky
hands and holding them aloft, ** think how the crime of
this murder would come home to me, who am a man
of powerful imaginations and deep sensibilities, sus-
pected as I am by you — for your suspicions alone do I
heed. I slept,'* he cried, pointing to the bunk, **in the
place where he killed himself."

* **Liar and murderer!'* shouted Arthur, at which
time the men were returning with pannikins of grog in
their hands.

'Nassau waved ofiE the young man with a motion of
his hand.

* **It was his father," he said, as though speaking
to himself. Then, continuing to address Rose Island :
'*I slept in the poor man's bed. All day long had I
been thinking of him. I lay wondering, on the very
mattress on which he lay, why he had destroyed him-
self. I saw his body carried to the gangway and
dropped overboard. His face," the coloured man
went on, with much flourishing of his hands, "was
before me whilst I was still awake. I could follow his
motions about this cabin, and my vision of imagination
beheld him in life itself, kind, calm, as good a friend
as ever sailors had."

•Arthur looked at him as if he would tear him to
pieces. A grumble of applause broke from two or
three of the seamen, and one of them handed Nassau a
pannikin half full of red rum. The extraordinary

THE SLEEPWALKER. 301

creature, whose fertility oi speech was an astonishment
to all who heard him, despite the varying emotions
with which he was listened to, made a hmnble yet
impassioned bow to Rose, then drained the pannikin,
and returned the vessel to the seaman, who imme-
diately stepped out for more.

* ''Before I slumbered," continued Nassau, **I was
thinking much — indeed, I was thinking only of the sui-
cide — of the reasons for it, and wondered that he
should have chosen such a bloody method of self-
extinction when he could have silently, and in the
cleanliness and sweetness of salt water, drowned him-
self."

* "You murderous villain!" shouted Arthur, unable
to contain himself, though he was grasped by Rose
with the hold which had all the eloquence of an appeal
of the eyes or mouth.

Them's hard words!" exclaimed Old Stormy.
If Nassau's to be charged with murder, he ought to
be allowed a 'earin'."

So he ought," said Black.

I don't care," continued Old Stormy, "who 'ears
me, but I do say that, so far, he's conducted his case
first class. ' '

'And down Old Stormy 's throat went another drink
from his pannikin.

* "I wish ta convince this lady and you men,"
Nassau went on with a sort of general bow, "that,
having a habit of walking in my sleep, though I
haven't walked to my knowledge for some years, and
being a man on whose brain ideas stamp themselves,
as you stamp the sealing wax on letters, it is the most
possible and credible thing in the whole world that I

i it
•<

C (I

309 ROSE ISLAND.

should rise in my unconsciousness, walk about the deck
all unbeknown to myself, return to this cabin, and
repeat in a dream, not the truth, but the charge that
the suicide's son had brought against me/'

• ''You went direct to the shelves where the knives
are kept," said Arthur. **I£ you had not visited them
before in search of a knife with which you killed my
father, what moved you to the place in your sleep?
The fact! the deed!" he shouted, again losing self-
control. **You took the knife with which you killed
my father from those shelves, and in that act you
repeated the damnable work."

' **One word, Cap'n Nassau," said Overalls; "it
stands to reason that if the Cap'n killed himself, which
I most truly believe, *e must ha' used a weapon of
some sort, and the knife that was stuck in him showed
what weapon it was. Thinks you, in your sleep, a
knife was used, and knowin' as a sleepwalker where
the knives was kep', you went for to fetch one without
taking of it, which simply proves that in yer sleep you
had to act up to the whole bloody job just as it was
discovered."

***Well, look here," exclaimed Old Stormy, ''this
'ere schooner ain't watched, and something may run
into us which will cause confusion. I'm a-going on
deck," he added, with the cool impudence of a sailor
when he is in mutiny, and acknowledges no superiors,
**arter I've had another drain of rum. I think we're
all agreed. The skipper here 'as made out the case
for himself, and I don't know," he went on, with a
significant look at Arthur, ** whether any furder talk-
ing about it is going to 'elp. He's our captain, and
Cochrane don't acknowledge him, nor do 'e form one

THE SLEEPWALKER. 303

of us when we mount our guns and sail away for
booty. That's my opinion;** and very coolly he
wheeled round, went into the cabin, took a stout nip of
rum, of which there was plenty of bottles in the place
they kept the cabin food, and then went on deck, every
man following his example, especially in the case of
the rum.

*It was perfectly clear from this and what some of
the men had said that Nassau was in every sense com-
mander of the vessel, whatever Arthur might think or
do. They had agreed to accept his black colours, and
down to the present moment they were proving that
they knew their own meaning, and meant to stick to it.

'Nassau, Rose, and Cochrane remained alone, and
whilst the men were going into the cabin, the black,
with grotesque motion of arm, and a face that varied
its hideousness twenty times in the minute, so extraor-
dinary was his swift management of his mask of coun-
tenance, appealed in the most endearing language, and
in terms which he might have borrowed from a cheap
romance, to Rose, to believe his story, and not suffer
Mr. Cochrane to prejudice her against him. Then,
changing his whole demeanour, he said ferociously to
Arthur:

* "This is my cabin. Walk out of it. Return to
your locker, and,** he added, lifting his fist and shak-
ing it, **I would advise you to be very careful in your
foul-mouth speech of me to the men.*'

*His eyes glared redly. He had entirely recovered
from the rude shock of his awakening. Arthur stood
irresolute, with his blood crimson to his brow; but in
a few seconds Rose had decided him.

* **I am going to my cabin,'* she said. ''If Mr.

• 1

304 ROSE ISLAND.

Nassau is captain, he must be obeyed. Do what he
says;*' and with a look made up of fright and appeal
at the baboon who watched her with speechless delight
and admiration, she literally forced her sweetheart to
the door, muttering: ** Believe, for God's sake, in the
man's story. Yield to him, be patient, or, oh, Arthur,
another murder may happen!"

*She entered her cabin. Arthur threw himself upon
the locker, and at the same moment Nassau closed the
door upon himself. '

CHAPTER XVIII.

THE LOVERS* TACTICS.

'Sailors are a class of men who on board ship will take
matters which do not concern them very coolly. Let
a sailor drop dead out of the mizzen rigging whilst
going aloft; he is picked up, and, in a few hours, put
over the side, and in an hour or two later he is out of
memory. But let the allowance of sugar to the crew
be infinitesimally reduced, but detected, and the ship
is filled with murmurs and mutiny ; the seamen throw
down their serving mallets and their scrubbing
brushes, and swear in the various language of the fore-
castle that until the quantity of the sugar they signed
for is served out to them they'll see the skipper and his
blasted hooker at the bottom of the Dead Sea before
they lift a finger in work. This stands good of the
mariners of the schooner Charmer^ of whom and of
whose doings abroad, ladies and gentlemen, we have
been yarning night after night for some time, with
entertainment, I trust, to yourselves.

'The captain of the Charmer^ Cochrane, was dead.
He had either been murdered or he had committed
suicide. Now, to a company of rascals who were
making for a certain place to prepare for a series of
scoundrel trips under the black flag of Captain Julius
Nassau, it did not matter the value of a rope-yam

305

3o6 ROSE ISLAND.

whether Cochrane had been killed or whether he had
killed himself. Two or three of them were not
unfamiliar with bloodshed, and if the pirate hoisted his
black flag at the main-topmast head he would also often
send aloft to the fore-topmast head the bloody flag, as
the ** no-quarter*' rag was called. Naturally, if the
opinions of the men had been challenged, they would
have told you that on the whole they would rather that
Captain Cochrane had killed himself than that he had
been murdered, because a murderer who has com-
mitted the crime on board his own ship, and remains
undetected, is not considered choice company, though
there be murderers among his shipmates who are held
in no mean esteem for their exploits in other ships.
The truth is that the crew of the Charmer did not care
how it had gone with Captain Cochrane. They made
up their minds to believe that Nassau had spoken the
truth, and they declined to hear him in further confir-
mation of the subject when he went amongst them to
talk and explain, and to repeat how likely it was for a
man impressed as he had been by Cochrane's suicide
to believe in a dream that he was the murderer, and to
rise and act the part.

• ''It's all right," said the crew in effect. •'His
death ain't no business of ourn. When are we a-going
to sight this here island of yourn?"

*And they drifted into familiar talk with their
skipper, for all men were equal in that little ship, and,
as a matter of fact, Julius Nassau had sunk himself
below the general equality by his going amongst the
crew during the voyage whilst Cochrane was alive, and
talking to them of pirates, and hinting, not, indeed,
very vaguely, of some scheme of seizing the Charmer

THE LOVERS' TACTICS. 307

and manning and arming her. Aft, affairs, as you may
suppose, stood in a somewhat different posture, of
course excluding Old Stormy, who, though mate, was
very much of the crew. On the day following the
murder of Captain Cochrane Arthur found a good
opportunity for a long conversation with Rose on the
quarter-deck, under the shelter of the slender breadth
of awning. Old Stormy stumped the plank and did
not heed them. Black was at the wheel, and often
talked to Old Stormy, as the to-and-fro swings of the
old rascal brought him abreast of the helm. The crew
lounged anywhere and anyhow, and were doing any-
thing but work; some rum had been taken forward,
and the men tasted their tobacco in the aroma of it as
it went down their gullets. To illustrate the character
of life and the discipline on board the Charmer at this
time, enough perhaps if I add that Wilkinson sat on
the heel of the bowsprit playing his concertina and
occasionally interrupting the whistle with which he
accompanied his music by a short but steady pull at his
pannikin. The weather was still an enchanting time;
good for those men who are sick only when the ship
heaves, and good for the ladies who might be induced
to man ships on their own account if a temperature so
delicious, and a surface of brine so lustrous and gay
with the delicate sportings and caresses of the wind,
which should be always fair for square yards and easy
steering, could be warranted. Great, strange fish, like
men in silver armour, would leap in a splendour of
scales to the light, and vanish with a shake of black
tail in a foaming circle. A ship was in sight in the
dim distance, distorted in the swimming blue ether,
and hanging by refraction a little way over the flaw-

3o8 ROSE ISLAND.

less edge of the sea. Nassau had gone to his cabin.
He had drank freely at dinner and the figure that his
door' closed upon lurched as it disappeared. He was
just tipsy enough to fall asleep when he lay down, and
now you shall understand how it was that the lovers
sat together freed from the odious and oppressive
presence of Rose's adorer.

It was whilst Arthur was placing a chair for Rose
that a singular and deeply interesting vision formed
itself in the sky in the south-west quarter. The sailors
saw it, and lazily smoked and pointed, and looked at it.
Old Stormy, after a short stare, said:

• ** She's a schooner. Never but once saw the like.
Looks the image of the Pearls

*The lovers gazed. What was the heavenly picture?
It was the image of a schooner hanging in mid-air,
upside down, how high above the level of that portion of
sea on which was the real schooner she duplicated could
not be imagined. The vision was sailing through the
blue just as she was sailing in reality upon the sea. She
was under very small canvas. Her fore-topsail yard
was sweated fore and aft, and she was going to wind-
ward very leisurely, as close hauled as she could lie.
She was like a beautiful toy up there, how small you
may judge when you consider that she was the reflec-
tion of something behind the sea-line. She was a
beautiful and perfect painting; her small canvas was
exquisitely white with its mixture of cotton, and it
trembled in rills of shadow. Her being upside down
did not spoil the picture. You saw the light of the sea
in her glossy sides, and through the glass which Arthur
pointed at her, and through which Rose took a peep,
you could see the curl of white brine at her cutwater,

THE LOVERS' TACTICS. 309

and the flash of what was bright about her; but she
was too minute to determine human beings, if aught
were visible along her inverted line of rail.

* ** Bio wed if she don't answer to the Pearl!'' said
Old Stormy, handing the telescope to Arthur, who
placed it upon the skylight. "That wessel can't be
far off anyway."

*And then he strolled over to the helmsman to talk
about the vision, but not in the language of poetry; on
the contrary, he wanted to* know, in most prosaic
terms, why, if that schooner were the Pearly she was
cruising about under small canvas, instead of cracking
on, with her hold full of the plunder of the Eleuthera^
for the island her skipper had talked about. Mean-
while, the phantom of the sky slowly faded as you
extinguish your reflection by breathing, on a mirror,
and Rose and Arthur seated themselves to talk softly,
well clear of the wide-open ears of the skylight, of
matters infinitely more interesting to them than the
mirage.

* **The more I think of the man," said Rose, **of his
doings, looks, and behaviour to me, the more I am
convinced that he is mad. Would any man but a mad-
man address me, and go on making love to me, before
his men, as this strange creature does?"

* **Yes," returned Arthur quickly, **his business is
to let the men clearly understand that you are his pos-
session; they understand him, and will not meddle
with you, so long, at all events, as he is on board. As
forme, and what /may think, this madman, as you con-
sider him, is full of methods, and he has some design
against me which will keep him civil and quiet until he
can put it into execution. I don't think his design

310 ROSE ISLAND.

means my death. This devil is not red to the very
bottom of his soul. He has killed my father. He
would rather get rid of me by some method which
should not comprise my murder. Partly this, Rose,
for your sake, because, very well knowing how it
stands between us, he would not choose to take the
risk of what you might think, and of even what you
might do, by killing me. "

*The girl looked at him fondly and thoughtfully. A
slight shudder, which she strove her utmost to dis-
guise, shook her, and she said, putting her hand to her
breast, but quickly withdrawing it:

* ** It is a horrible situation — ^to be at the mercy of a
man who may kill you or me, but whom we may not
kill to save our own lives. All the same, Arthur, I
am convinced he is a madman. He is altogether too
strange, wild, and original to be sane. His sleep-
walking—does not that show something desperately
out of the common? I sincerely believe, dearest,
though I hate to say it, that he did not kill your
father."

* **My father had no reason to take his own life,"
exclaimed Arthur, in a voice so low and sad she could
scarcely catch his words. ** Nassau had a good reason
for killing him.*'

* **I don't want to believe him capable of this dread-
ful crime," she cried a little vehemently, ** until we are
safe ; otherwise, if he dared one murder, he would dare
another."

The scoundrel has turned pirate," said Arthur.
This is not the first time he has flown the black flag.
A fellow of his sort stops at nothing. There is that
inhuman Cutyard, of one of whose piracies I remem-

THE LOVERS' TACTICS. 311

ber hearing some men speaking in my last voyage.
He thinks nothing of kidnapping a young lady.*'

* **It is monstrous, horrible, if it is true!" exclaimed
Rose, with a glance at that part of the sky in which
the schooner had found a mirror, though the beautiful
illusion had by this time faded. **What will Mary
Mackenzie do? She is in the power, and at the
mercy, of a savage. I should say she is a girl of high
spirit. But would it enter her head "

'She stopped, catching her breath in a respiration, so
fierce, fiery, and sudden it was, you would have
thought the grip of death was on her throat. Arthur
looked at her with that sort of wonder which might
hang breathless on the verge of enthusiastic delight
and pride. After a short pause, during which they
continued to look each other in the eyes, Arthur with a
seeking expression, and the girl as though she would
have him read her without obliging her to confess
herself, said:

* **A young woman in the power of a fellow like
Captain Cutyard is the most helpless creature in the
world. The sailors won't help her. She is utterly
and absolutely alone."

* A faint smile that had something of the beauty of a
blush in it passed over the pale, pure, remarkable face
of Rose Island. He listened to catch its interpretation
from her lips, but whatever her meaning, it was not
betrayed by what she now said :

Arthur, what chance has Miss Mackenzie?*'
'Chance of what?" he replied.
Has she a chance of making her escape from the
man?**

* **She has the chance of escape through death,*'

• **(

318 ROSE ISLAND.

answered Arthur grimly. **She can throw herself
overboard, and that will be her escape from certain
dishonour and captivity in some little-frequented island
in the Spanish Main. This is the nineteenth century,"
he added, ''and we might be talking of the fifteenth or
the sixteenth. This seems an incredible crime, with
so much romance in the character of its villainy that
you would not get home-keeping people to believe you.
They'd say, *0h! she's been reading novels;' and yet
in the same year the thing is as true as any burglary
that might have taken place last night in the city of
London."

* **Cutyard said that he sank the ship after plunder-
ing her," Rose exclaimed, **and sent the passengers
adrift in their boats. One of those boats might be
picked up. The people would report that Mary Mac-
kenzie had been stolen. Would not that lead to infor-
mation being given, so that a man-of-war would be
put to work to find her out and rcQover her? And
would not her mother and her friends oflEer such a
reward for her as would insure her being delivered
up, not by the pirate himself, but by members of his
crew?"

* **I don't know what Cutyard may do; and, sorry as
I am for Mary Mackenzie, it is but natural. Rose, that
I should be sorrier for you, and be able to think of
nothing else but your deliverance," said Arthur, pull-
ing out a pipe, cutting up some tobacco, and filling- the
bowl, with a hail to Wilkinson, playing his concertina,
to bring him a light from the galley.

'This the young fellow did smartly, smiling at Rose
as he handed a little bunch of blazing rope-yams to
Arthur.

■ Tfl

THE LOVERS' TACTICS. 313

C if

Your pipe's bound to go out again/* said he, **and
you can't smoke without a light, sir. Dr. Johnson has
a good saying on this: *What can't be done won't be
done.' I'll fetch you a standing light;" and he went
down into the cabin, and returned with a little lantern,
which he lighted with a blazing rope-yarn, and placed
on the deck beside Arthur ; then returned to his con-
certina, upon which he struck up **For we are Home-
ward Bound."

'Arthur could enjoy his pipe as well as another; but
now he smoked to let the hands see that he could take
things with coolness and unconcern. By very small
strokes of behaviour are men judged in this world of
watchers of their fellow-creatures, this globe of critical
inspectors of their human fellows' conduct, who sum
up and utterly misunderstand.

* **I like that young man," said Rose, as Wilkinson
went forward. **He is obliging, and has an honest
face. He declines to be one of the crew of pirates,
and I am certain, Arthur, that I can easily induce
him to join us in securing Nassau, and getting the
other wretches under."

*It was brave to hear her talk. She had the lan-
guage of the salt when she chose to employ it. She
spoke low, but with an ardent heart, and her face was
flushed, and thrills seemed to run through the light
that shone in her eyes like the tremble of sunshine on
the water.

* **Well, you know my objection to taking any man
belonging to the crew— even Wilkinson, whom I do
not distrust — ^into my confidence when betrayal, when,
dearest, even a hint of the lightest sort might cost
me my life, and leave you to the mercy of Nassau and

^•JL

314 ROSE ISLAND.

his men," was Arthur's answer, after a short spell of
reflection.

* **Am I not at his mercy now?" she said, and imme-
diately after she faintly smiled.

* **No; he dare not harm you whilst I remain in the
vessel. If he did, and I was alive **

*He broke off; he was no idle threatener, but if ever
a man looked the resolution of assassination, Arthur
did when he abruptly halted and stared away to sea.
She gazed at him with devotion ; then, after looking
slowly along the starboard and port sides of the
quarter-deck, she said, in a soft voice — ^for Old Stormy
sometimes passed them close when he fell into his look-
out walk, though, for the most part, he stood yarning
with the man at the wheel:

* **Could not we escape in one of those boats?"

* ** Would not such an idea occur to me, Rose, do
you think?" he replied, in a voice that was almost one
of reproach; and, in truth, it was an elementary ques-
tion to put to a seaman who was at his wits* ends to
get away from the ship. **Had I not told Nassau that
I was a passenger, though I might be willing to help
the crew in working the schooner, I might have
thought twice of the idea of a boat, for in that case the
men might have been willing to allow me to keep a
look-out. But put the facts as they stand : First of all,
there is always a man at the helm. He would have to
be silenced, either with a knife or by garrotting him.
It is certain I would be obliged to kill him. Could I
throw him overboard alive to drown? The splash his
body made would bring others aft, and if he were a
swimmer his shouts for help would be heard. But I
should not have only to deal with the man at the

:->*i(fj

THE LOVERS* TACTICS. 31S

wheel. Either Nassau or Old Stormy is always on the
look-out. Is one or the other who is on watch to be
murdered, as in the case of the helmsman? Even
then, after clearing the quarter-deck by the killing of
two men, we have got to lower the boat and get away
in her. Could we manage this unperceived by one or
more of the people forward? Not likely they would
allow us to quit the vessel ; but, on the contrary, they
would chuck me overboard to keep company with those
already despatched. Our only chance," he continued,
**for getting away in one of those quarter-boats would
be by murdering all hands, and then, having the
schooner to ourselves, we should not want the boat*'

*She was convinced, and hung her head, and he
thought she would weep. Her dream for some time
had been of their getting away in one of the boats, and
now that she saw clearly it was not to be done, save
by the cutting of the throats of the whole ship's com-
pany, she hung her head, and, with bitter grief and
pain in her face, she asked herself, **What is to be
done? How are we to be saved?" Then, looking at
Arthur, she suddenly cried, **0h God! oh God!"

• **My brave, sweet Rose; it shall come right. Do
you remember my father's cry, 'Keep up your heart!*
I say, I do not fear this Nassau will harm me. If he
lets me live, and remain in the vessel, my great hope is
founded on the chances that must offer when we arrive
at the cay for which the fellow is certainly steering."
What cay?"

Silver Cay. It is within five days' sail. Till
then let my love support you as yours supports me;
treat Nassau as if you were willing yet to yield to the
fascination which the ugly devil believes he exercises.

c ^i^

3i6 ROSE ISLAND.

My own line of conduct you shall observe. Rose," lie
added, speaking in a tone of deep conviction, "if the
breeze holds, I predict that in a week's time we are
both out of this schooner, and you safe from the black
demon who has stolen her.'*

'Eight bells had been struck — four o'clock in the
afternoon. Old Stormy, wearied of his watch, had
instantly gone below to call Nassau; but the coloured
pirate had been evidently awake and was emerging
before he was summoned, and the two men followed
each other on deck. Old Stormy paused to tell Nassau
of the image in the sky, and said that he took it to be
the reflection of the pirate schooner Pearly and he
informed him how she was standing, and that she was
under small canvas.

* **If she is the Pearly'* said Nassau, **she is cruising
on the look-out for something big which she expects
to capture. Cutyard has now enough for a whale, and
when swallowed its tail isn't visible. / thought he

was cracking on for " He interrupted himself,

and then said, *' 'Tis clear that he satisfied himself
that the man-of-war which I gave him news of isn't
hereabouts."

* **It mightn't have been her either," said Old
Stormy, who thereupon went forward.

'Nassau stood a moment, and his sunken eyes rested
upon Arthur and Rose, both of whom remained seated.
He seemed to recognise their presence for the first
time. He was dressed in a grotesque garb, in which
the negro blood in him would delight. He wore a
striped waistcoat, and his jacket, that was cut like a
jockey's, was blue, with bright metal buttons. His
trousers were white drill, which descended to a pair of

THE LOVERS' TACTICS. 317

shoes with bows. The trousers were tightened by
straps; his flannel collar lay outside the collar of his
jacket, and the ends of a large white spotted bow shot
out from either side his chin. It was certain that he
was the possessor of plenty 6f queer garments, and
some of them might have served him to take a place
in a troupe of blackened minstrels on the Ramsgate
sands ; perhaps, however, he was more fitted for the
stage of an East End music-hall. In none of these
clothes had he ever made his appearance on deck when
he was chief mate, and when Captain Cochrane was
alive. On seeing Miss Rose, he pulled off his white
straw hat with a low bow, and walked straight up to
her, taking no notice of Arthur, who, on his beginning
to address Miss Rose, left his chair with a glance at his
sweetheart, and went below.

* **Well, my beautiful one!'' exclaimed this chim-
panzee of a man, who, as you have observed, filled his
speech to Rose with the most extravagant terms of
endearment, without the least regard to the presence
or the opinions of those about him : addressing her, in
short, as if she were his adorable sweetheart, presently
to become the wife of his coloured bosom, and the one
girl who worshipped the ground, or deck, he walked
on. And I may add here, that his language of passion
was very highly coloured indeed, as though he had
been a reader of poetry in his day, and had learnt by
heart the expressions of love to be found in Mrs.
Hemans, in Lord Byron, in Thomas Moore, and others
remembered or forgotten.

* **How have you enjoyed this beautiful afternoon?
I have been sleeping, and all my dreams were of you,
my sweet one!**

3i8 ROSE ISLAND.

•Considering he had turned in well primed with
liquor, this was a doubtful compliment. He made as
if he would take her hand. She evaded this by one of
those subtle, serpentine motions of her body which in
the effect they produced upon the eye was like gliding.
There was no snatching, no heated denial, with sug-
gestion of disgust. She kept her hand to herself, and
he continued:

* ** Aren't you very weary of the sea? I am, jny
loved one, and can think of nothing but the time when
you and I will be settled down together in the rich
island, rich in verdure, and the best of the glorious
beauties of the West Indies."

* **Are you sailing for that island?** she asked.

* **No. We are sailing for an island in which I
hope to find men and guns, for until we are armed
with the right sort to man our caimon, and to
leap aboard a stranger, it's idle to call ourselves a
pirate."

*This he spoke in an earnest voice, as though he was
anxious that she should now be admitted into the
secret of his intentions.

* **Is the island," she inquired, **you are making for
far off?"

Given a breeze, my beauty, it is five days. "
'And when do you proceed to your rich island?"
'We sail straight for it when we have done our
business at the Cay we are now bound to."

* **But are not you taking me to Kingston, where my
friends live, and where they are expecting me by the
Eleutherar' she exclaimed, clasping her hands, and
slightly leaning towards him in a posture ■ of moving
entreaty.

C «(

THE LOVERS' TACTICS. itg

'He smiled, he showed his grin of teeth; his deep-set
eyes glowed with their red light.

* **You are to be my wife, my honey," he answered,
in that throaty voice of his which he exerted when he
was moved, or wished to be thought moved. **You are
to be the princess of that island. You shall be richly
arrayed, and your home shall be enchanting, and all
about it. All the year round there shall be the colour
and perfume of the flowers of the Antilles. Birds of
gorgeous plumage shall gild the trees, and slaves for
every office shall watch yoiir lips for your wishes.
Your Kingston friends shall come and see you ; and
when you are satisfied that in me you have found a
lover and a husband whom you would not exchange
for the whitest man in Europe, you shall visit your
relations in Kingston, and wherever you go you shall
be the admiration and wonder of all who behold
you."

'There was something so extravagant and ridiculous
in this address, that, loathing him as she did, oppressed
by the very atmosphere he breathed; terrified, too, by
his talk about the rich island, she could not help smil-
ing. But with that smile the girl darted a keen glance
at the fellow, one of those glances which seemed to
pierce like a flash, and, almost in the instant of it, she
had averted her face and was looking at the horizon
abreast of her. In fact, her suspicions that he was
mad, and capable therefore of the acts of a madman,
were confirmed now by his talk of the rich island, and
the rest of the stuff. Yet it is hard to tell a madman
by merely keenly glancing at him. Nassau would be,
particularly, a difficult subject in this way. His dusky
hue and wrinkled, almost indescribable features, with

320 ROSE ISLAND.

their wide grin, and setting of haif which was not
wholly of the wool of the African — these things
baffled you ; and scrutiny was arrested and defeated by
his little eyes, which lay buried in a strange light in
their little holes. One reads of the blazing eye of the
madman, of the unmistakable expression you note at
once, or presently, in the eyes of one who is insane.
My own experience, ladies and gentlemen, is very
small, but I can tell you I once carried a passenger
who proved mad, though his state was not known when
he booked. He was a tall, handsome, melancholy
man, with as sober an eye and calm a gaze as you ever
saw in the head of one perfectly sane. And I also
remember meeting two insane ladies, who, though
their manners and speech were sometimes extraor-
dinary, never betrayed the unhappy condition of their
intellect by their eyes. Yet I may say this, that once
at Cardiff railway-station I saw a madman bound
around with ropes in charge of two keepers. This
man's eyes flashed each time he broke forth, whilst we
waited for the train, with a light that — I do not exag-
gerate — can be likened to nothing but the flash of sun-
light upon the water. He shouted, "I am Grod!" and
was raving mad, and in that horrible state a man's
eyes possibly deliver fire. But Nassau'^s little eyes
glowed redly in their little sockets, and were inscrut-
able, and if he was mad it was not by his face and eyes
that Rose judged him.

' **Do you like dancing?" he asked, pulling out the
materials for a paper cigar, and putting on a very
finical manner.

'Yes; I am fond of dancing," she answered.
Then," he exclaimed, with great vivacity, **we

ft iC

« m

THE LOVERS' TACTICS. 321

will have a sea ball to-night, and you shall be my only
partner, and the men shall dance together. By my
mother's heart, it will be enchantment, my beauty, to
hold you in my arms, gliding round these decks, which
will keep time to the tunes of the concertina. Did you
ever dance with a dark man before — with a man of my
colour? By the God that made me, my sweetest Rose,
I am not black as you think. Look at this face ; it is
deepened in colour by the suns under which I have
sailed. But judge of the reality of my skin;" and
dashing down his paper cigar, the infatuated ape, with
both hands and huge grimace, and with great vehe-
mence, tore open his light waistcoat and flannel shirt
and exposed his chest.

'Ladies and gentlemen, I will not trouble you with
the precise description of the exact hue of the square
of hairy hide which Nassau's clutch again laid bare. It
certainly was not black, neither was it white. Rose
looked, and fell into a fit of hysteric laughter. He
seemed to accept her mirth as a compliment, and
looked with great pride upon her as he buttoned up his
waistcoat and adjusted his cravat, the bow of which
had been twisted under his long ear.

' **One must not judge by appearances," said Rose,
sobering her face.

* **If Mr. Arthur should sneer at me to you, you will
tell him the truth. "

* **He will not sneer, '^ she answered with simulated
earnestness. '*He has his father's respect for you as a
navigator and a seaman."

* Nassau lighted his cigar by the sun without answer,
and stood a moment looking into the south-east
heavens, where the sky was dimly clouding. The fel-

I

322 ROSE ISLAND.

low had looked long enough to windward in his day to
understand the signs of the weather, and he found
nothing of stormy prediction in that delicate stretch of
dimness which lay upon the starboard quarter. He
returned to the subject of the ball with great eager-
ness, and Rose had too much tact to suggest that merry-
making that evening would not accord very well with
the recent mysterious dreadful death of Captain Coch-
rane. She let the fellow gabble, talk grotesque stufiE
to her that might or might not have been remembered
from some of the poets, agreed with all his proposals,
asked him what dances he knew, and where he had
learnt to dance, and if he would favour them again
with that spirited performance which the pirates
indulged in. She was, in fact, bent on carrying out to
the letter the advice of Arthur. Never was Nassau in
such high spirits. At two bells he shouted to Wilkin-
son to put tea upon the cabin table, and when this was
done he led the girl, with two low bows, to the com-
panion-way, and preceded her down the steps, followed
by a grumble of laughter from Cabbage, who was at
the wheel. Arthur was seated on the locker on which
he had slept. A little parcel lay behind him, and he
seemed to be reading a book.

' **You go to my cabin for your books?" said Nassau
in no ill-natured tone.

* "It contains my father's property," answered
Arthur, rising and speaking calmly. **I take the
liberty of fetching what I want. I shall seldom tres-
pass upon you. Amongst other things I have secured
this as a memorial. "

* He held up the parcel. Nassau said :
What have you got there?"

i it'

THE LOVERS' TACTICS. 323

* "The knife with which my father was stabbed,"
answered Arthur coolly.

' *'It is a horrid memorial to possess," said Nassau,
preserving his composure. *'I would not keep it in the
ship. What are your commands, my dearest?"

•He turned to Rose, and bowed his negro head to
her hand, and Rose, neither by face nor motion
repelled him. Arthur caught her eye, and swiftly
signified assent by a light movement of his head.

* **Give me that knife to preserve as a keepsake,"
the girl cried, extending her hand for the parcel.
**We were children together, and I loved your father
when I was a little girl, and you shall give me that
knife, with Captain Nassau's consent, to hold in
memory of him. "

*She turned to Nassau, and put on such a charming,
pleading look, approaching him close, and daringly
laying her white hand upon his coloured wrist, that the
wretch, with his dance of eye, his convulsions of
mouth, the triumphant look that sat in the ridges of
his brow, might have made you think he was drunk —
an extraordinary figure indeed, with his bow, and drill
breeches, and stripes.

* **My princess knows," he said, in a voice that
literally gurgled with passion and feeling — I have
taken note of that gurgle in the throat of a Zulu
woman fondling her boy — **that she need not speak to
command me. 'Tis a horrible keepsake for my adored
girl to preserve; but you will give it her, Cochrane?"

'Arthur had been looking at her inquiringly. With-
out a word he put the ghastly memento into her hand,
and with a smile at Nassau she went away with it to
ber cabin. Arthur said;

324 ROSE ISLAND.

* ** Shall I keep watch whilst you are at supper with
Miss Island?"

*At sea, tea, which is the last meal, is invariably
called supper.

' **Yes, you can," answered Nassau. "I'd be glad
for you to enter under my flag."

'To this Arthur made no response, but stepped at
once on deck, wondering what on earth Rose could
mean in asking as a memorial of his father the blood-
stained knife which she had taken to her berth. '

CHAPTER XIX.

Nassau's cay.

'I AM unwilling to trespass upon your time with an
account of the dance on board the Charmer. I have
elsewhere given you a narrative of this sort of fes-
tivity. It was scarcely a dance; there was plenty of
drink, and when the men got dnmk, they fell about
more to the measures of their bewildered feet than to
the pleasant noise of Wilkinson's concertina. Arthur
held the helm throughout the humours of the evening.
Once, whilst Nassau had gone below, he motioned to
Rose with his head, and said:

* '*What was your motive in asking for that knife as
a memorial?"

I want it," she answered.

I had brought it out," he said, ** intending to open
the piece of canvas that the scoimdrel might see the
knife and the blood upon it, and know that I retained
it. It is very ghastly as a memento, Rose. What
will you do?"

' **I want it," she answered.

*He looked hard at her; but just then Nassau's
dusky face reappeared, and she went a little way from
her sweetheart's side, and Nassau joined her.

*Yet, if I do not dwell upon the jinks of the schoon-
er's people this evening, I must pause a moment to

325

C ii'

326 ROSE ISLAND.

speak of Nassau's dancing with Rose. The men gave
them the quarter-deck to themselves, and Wilkinson
was perched near with his concertina. Rose's motions
in her dance had that serpentine wreathing and writh-
ing which I am unable to describe. If I had not met
with such a figure in one other woman, so supple, so
sinuous in movement that she seemed boneless, I
should not have ventured to submit even the portrait I
have attempted. *Twas undoubtedly a beauty in
Rose, but not perhaps of a kind that would be relished
by those who admire best the stately, and the gracious,
and the lofty in ladies. Nassau danced very well, but
a more ludicrous figure never spun beside a girl. He
wore the white trousers, shoes with bows, jockey-cut
jacket with buttons, in which he had been apparelled
during the day. Some of his graces might have been
thought recollections of the airs and capers of the East
End music-saloon; but he was dancing with a girl
whom he professed to adore — ^his soul was exalted by
spirits, and by the privilege he enjoyed in clasping his
beautiful one round the waist. Arthur, at the wheel,
watched them keenly. The g^l had started with the
resolution to act her part in all completeness — ^to make
the ugly scoundrel really believe that secretly her
heart was inclining towards his beauty, his grand airs,
and his masterly knowledge of languages. But Arthur
noticed that, before the sun had set, each time their
dance brought them near the wheel, her distress and
disgust, her loathing, fear and horror, were growing
more and more visible in her pale face. Once the
black baboon had dared to touch her ear with his lips.
Again and again he pressed her to him till she stopped
for release and for breath. His eyes were alight with

NASSAU'S CAY. 327

sucli passion as might kindle fire in the stare of some
wild and hairy horror loose in the woods. Again and
again, as they glided along or spun round, he poured
his frothy talk, in the guttural notes of a swine's grunt,
into her ear. He was never more impassioned, and
never more frightful.

*The poor girl's tortures ended at last; it was then
dark, and the few lamps of the little ship shed swaying
angles of light upon the decks. The concertina
ceased ; Rose threw herself into a chair, panting and
exhausted. Nassau fled to the skylight for a jug of
lemonade of his own making; but she refused the
drink, and he did not ask her to dance again. Now,
whilst the concertina was sounding on the deck of the
Charmer^ there had slowly risen and stretched on the
south-east quarter a mist or thickness which, catching
the crimson glance of the setting sun, had showed like
tapestry, with gigantic figures dimly inwoven. When
the night fell, that darkness proved no more than a
distant thunderstorm, with its heavy batteries hidden
behind the scene, so that the flash of the electric bolt
was scarce more than a tropic play of sheet-lightning,
which opened and shut like an eye of light in the
water beneath. The wind blew from it, and at nine
o'clock, or thereabouts, was little more than a five-
knot breeze. By this time Nassau had exhausted Miss
Rose^ The helm had been relieved by Wilkinson, and
the fuddled crew were drinking and smoking about the
decks. Suddenly a seaman, lurching to the schooner's
side, pointed into the heart of the electric play south-
east and sung out :

* **See that light, mates?"

'A light it certainly was, a small globe of light,

328 ROSE ISLAND.

crimson, and confounding. For even as it showed, it
was too big for a signal, and as it grew, even as the
eye rested upon it, it was impossible to suppose it was
a ship on fire. In those days, as of course you know,
ladies and gentlemen, nearly everything afloat was
sail, and as the spectators of that increasing light could
not hold in their imaginations any other idea of a ship
than a sailing-ship, they almost grew sober with aston-
ishment. What big fire was that which was coming up
hand over hand? The glass showed nothing but
flames, soaring high, and curling into volumes of
smoke which obscured the stars. Whatever that
travelling fire proceeded from was eclipsed by the
light it made, and it was passing over the water at
certainly not less than ten knots an hour. It was not
until it was about two miles distant, and a little more
than a point abaft the beam, that it could be made
out as a large paddle-steamer with two funnels, burnt
already to the water's edge, though it was clear her
engines were in full revolution, and she was still throw-
ing up such volumes of flame that the sea right away
round was illuminated as by the newly-risen moon.
Do not let it be supposed that this is the only instance
of a steamer abandoned by her engineers and crew,
and rushing onwards uncontrolled. I will not be sure
that the Amazon was not one of them. The steamer
which the Charmer's crew surveyed with tipsy aston-
ishment was something under two thousand tons. The
heavens were filled with the stars that the great fire
made. Her wake rushed from her in the colour of
blood; the paddle, as you know, churns into white
foam a great spread of brine, and the water fell in
purple cataracts from her sponsons, which still stood

NASSAU'S CAY. 329

some feet above the sea. No boat was visible by the
brilliance. She blazed with flame. Forward she was
beginning to look like a glowing basket. Whatever
her cargo, it burnt fiercely, and was plentiful.
Nassau, staring at her, said to the row of people of
whom he was one that she had been bound to the West
Indies. Old Stormy said she was a South Pacific
steamer, and hiccoughed out a lie by saying he knew
her. Even a tar-barrel will light up the ocean for
leagues ; imagine the almost noontide radiance, spread-
ing to the far recesses of the horizon, shed by the
masses of flame climbing out of a great hold of many
tons, filled with combustible goods! Once a sheaf of
rockets sped on high above the spangles of her smoke,
and filled the air with coloured lights, and it was at
that moment or thereabouts that both funnels went
over the side. The foremost, roaring in flame, fell
aft, and the steamer that had been barque-rigged came
to a stand. She was then about three miles on the
bow, and burning with a low thunder of sounds that
came along the ocean like the noises of the disruption
of fields of ice. Suddenly Old Stormy, who was stand-
ing close to Arthur, beside whom, with her hand
locked in his, was Rose — for the sight of that steamer
was too absorbing, with its elements of splendour and
terror, to permit of Nassau even thinking of his love —
yelled out :

* "Why, what ocean is this here? Look at that!
By all the little doUy-bpys they worships as Grod
Almighties in Jamakey, look at it!*'

* Every eye was turned in the direction indicated by
the sailor's arm, levelled straight from the shoulder.
*Twas sometimes light enough, in a sudden volcanic

330 ROSE ISLAND.

leap of that vast fire three miles ofif, to see the face by.
The shadows of spar and rigging were cast upon the
deck of the Charmer with a clearness of outline that
might have made you look round for sunrise. And in
the wide area of the light heading about south-south-
west, and some two miles distant from the Charmer^
was a large full-rigged ship towing a dismasted vessel.
Though there was plenty of light to have seen them by
a long way off, no one, until Old Stormy shouted it
out, appeared to have noticed them, and they formed
suddenly upon the eyes of the spectator as though they
had been magically uphove out of the heart of the
deep. The light of the burning ship was like the
betrayal of these two craft by a level stroke of sunset,
and all saw that the ship which towed the other was a
man-of-war under all plain sail, and they could see her
sails rounding like squares of silk to the breath of the
breeze that still blew at five knots out of the lightning-
trimmed coast of storm away south-east with a sulky,
southerly trend. They could see the white line broken
by open ports. They could also see by the cut of her
canvas, and a certain peculiarity in the aspect of her
rigging, which fluctuated and flashed vith the tar and
grease upon it to the great light that was hard by, that
she was a foreigner, and they could also tell that the
vessel she towed was a schooner which had been dis-
masted in action. Nassau rushed for the telescope ; he
had gazed thirstily and fiercely in deep and breatljless
silence at the two craft ; he flung himself down upon
one knee, and, resting the glass upon the rail, levelled
it first at the man-of war, which he studied as though
she were the only ship to be seen, then at the dis-
masted craft in her wake, which he did not inspect so

NASSAU'S CAY. 331

long. He sprang erect, brought the tubes of his glass
together with a ringing crash, and shouted in a voice that
rang in echoes in the stirless canvas of the Charmer:

* '*By the heart of my mother, men, yonder is the
Pearly captured by a Spanish man-of-war, and being
towed to her doom!"

* There was a dead pause whilst all hands stared at
the two vessels. The frigate was heading so as to pass
under the now motionless, burning steamer's stem by
about a quarter of a mile. Evidently her captain
meant to obtain a good view of the sight; perhaps
some higher thought of life-saving might have directed
the action of his helm. She passed on very slowly
with the dismasted hull, a forlorn black shape, follow-
ing her, and no notice was taken of the Charmer, The
apparition of a man-of-war, whether British or foreign,
was tolerably certain to sober the crew of the schooner,
and much talk ensued, and the glass was passed from
hand to hand ; and Arthur, after studying the schooner
through his father's binocular, told Rose that Nassau
was unquestionably right in pronouncing the schooner
to be the pirate Pearly dismasted, and a prize to a ship
of war that certainly did not fly her Britannic Majesty's
colours. Now, how could Nassau know that the ves-
sel was a Spaniard? But the light of the burning ship
was piercing, and every detail of the towed and the
towing craft was visible, and Nassau was promptly
believed. In truth, any sailor would have accepted his
assurance, when, half mad with the dancing, with the
drink he had taken, and with the marvellous apparition
of the pirate schooner, whose hull he knew as he knew
his large feet, he stood shouting to the men whilst
standing on the bulwark rail.

332 ROSE ISLAND.

* **She is the Spanish frigate Alhambra. I was on
board of her at the Havanas six years ago. Look at
those signs. Can they deceive me? A trysail-mast
for the spanker — I know no other ship with it. She
has royal cross-trees and flying royal masts, and tell
me of them in any other ship. She has two jibs for a
standing jib, and she carries no flying jib. Look at
her spring for 'ard! 'Tis like a Ramsgate smack's!"
he yelled, striking his thigh, and following the yell
with a roar of laughter. **The Alhambra^ my bullies,
and a fine rich cargo she tows astern. Cutyard will
not swing, by the heart of my mother; he's a man to
his heels. If he isn't shot, he's dead by his own hand.
Look how they fought ! By all the saints those dogs
believe in, the pirates must have been fearfully over-
matched, and when they struck," he shouted, **the
devils had nothing but a stump of mainmast to hoist a
colour upon."

'He danced and capered upon the rail as he shouted,
and his grotesque frenzy served not a little to heighten
the wild colours and the amazing scene lighted up by
the burning ship. Every man's figure swayed at his
feet, and Nassau's shape, painted by the blaze, hopped
and tumbled among the gliding lines of the rigging on
the planks like one of those penny monkeys which slide
up and down sticks, and godhead over heels.

* **If Nassau is right," said Rose, in a low voice to
Arthur, **Miss Mackenzie is saved."

* **He does not mistake," Cochrane answered.
**That vessel in tow is certainly the Pearl."

* **Thank God!" cried the girl, clasping her hands
with deep emotion in her voice.

* **And you will be safe, dearest. I watched the fel-

NASSAU'S CAY. 333

low closely whilst at the wheel; I now certainly believe
he is mad. He is fooling the men. He humours them
to the top of their bent with liquor and dancing; but
I'll swear that the scoundrel all the same does not
intend to turn pirate. * '

• **He must have some object," said Rose. **He
would not accept the risk of calling himself a pirate,
and sailing with the black flag in that box there;" and
here Rose pointed to the flag-locker.

'Arthur was about to answer, for all this time
Nassau paid no heed to anything but the frigate and
the prize and the burning ship, when in a broad
flash of light the steamer blew up. She was ill-primed
for such display, for the flame of the exploded maga-
zine made a poor show compared with the splendours
and the noontide effulgence, and the star-searching
forks and tongues of fire which had made the burning
of her a tremendous spectacle. In a second or two
after the leap of flame had vanished in the smoke-
blackened sky, the darkness of the night rolled down
in a dry obscurity that was denser than it actually was
to the eye that had been dazzled by the blaze, and
then there stole out, like visionary shapes summoned
from the world of shadows, the frigate and the prize
she was towing. Slowly they passed away, whilst the
stars came out one by one past the shroud of smoke,
which sailed with the vessels. It was certain that the
frigate had seen the Charmer^ but she took no notice
of her, doubtless deeming her some honest trader
bound to the westwards, and before midnight the
schooner was sailing softly with a wind sweet with dew
in the midst of an ocean that might have been deso-
late for a hundred leagues around.

334 ROSE ISLAND.

*And now, ladies and gentlemen, for the next five
days nothing happened material to the progress of this
intricate voyage. The incidents of those days were
not fresh ; they would not, at all events, appear so to
you, for I should have but to repeat sketches of the
ludicrous theatrical love-making of Nassau, the behav-
iour of Rose under the sickening and terrifying condi-
tions of her life, the conduct and general attitude of
Arthur Cochrane. In this time, however, it was
noticed by Arthur that Nassau was unusually familiar
with the crew. He would stay an hour forward, talk-
ing to one or another of them, with piuch demonstra-
tion of shoulders and arms, much exhibition of teeth,
and variety, all of the baboon sort, of facial expres-
sion. The only one who held aloof was the young
fellow Wilkinson. Nassau never addressed him except
to give him an order, and that invariably in the thun-
der of his throatiest and most commanding voice.
The fellow sat about a good deal playing the concer-
tina ; in fact, no work was done short of the absolutely
essential demands made by the needs of the schooner
upon the crew. They kept her decks clean, they
trimmed her canvas; now and again one or another of
his own accord would leisurely make right something
that was wrong in the chafing gear, in the stirrup of a
foot rope, or, if within convenient reach, he might cut
away an Irish pennant. The fellows were well sup-
plied with grog and the good things of the lazarette.
They were chiefly in that state which happy sailors
enjoy when they go ashore and are paid ofi^. That
there was a thorough understanding between them and
Nassau was as clear as the striped waistcoats which
their coloured chief from time to time wore. Arthur

NASSAU'S CAY. 335

was puzzled by it. In fits and moods of conjecture he
had striven to believe that the whole adventure was' to
prove a mock romance of the sea. He did not some-
times believe that Nassau meant to arm and sail the
schooner as a pirate. Nor did he sometimes suppose
that the crew had any notion of risking their necks as
pirates. What was Nassau's real meaning, and what
was his intention, which the crew seemed well to
understand? He observed that the vessel was occa-
sionally oflf her course in her navigation to Silver Cay.
Then, again, he did not believe that Silver Cay was a
pirate's retreat, and that guns and men were to be
obtained there. There were several Cays in that part
of the sea. Did Nassau intend to fool the whole of the
ship's company by carrying oflf Rose and leaving the
fellows to shift for themselves? How could he carry
oflf Rose without outcry and detection? The men
would murder him for any attempt of a treacherous
sort. What did the coloured rascal mean by this
dwelling upon the existence of a rich island of which
Rose was to be princess? Madness at root might
account for much, but not for everything, and Arthur
thought, and Rose agreed with him, that the black
devil never showed himself saner than during those
five days. In short, poor Cochrane bad to face a prob-
lem which he could only solve by waiting. Had he
stood alone he might have known what to do, but there
was Rose ; and it was impossible for him to act whilst
the Charmer remained at sea.

*In all this time the weather continued as fair and
clear, as helpful to the westerly course of the schooner,
as it had at the outset of this story been violent. The
day passed over the mastheads out of the liquid rose and

33« ROSE ISLAND.

the silver shivering of old ocean, like boundless shoals
of herrings, to the pure western crimson, with lines of
violet, lagoons of azure, soft as the blue eyes of a
maiden, amidst the hot glory out of which they looked.
The warm gush of the breeze was between. Now and
again a ship passed, white in the distance. At one
bell, half -past twelve, on the fifth day, the internal dis-
position of the schooner Charmer was this: In the
bows leaned Old Stormy, smoking an afternoon pipe,
black as the dark of his nails, and beside him, in loung-
ing posture, overhanging the rail, was Cabbage, and
the two were talking about the plans which had at
various periods been revealed to them by Nassau.
Arthur Cochrane walked alone in the waist, a part of
the deck that lies a little forward of the gangway. He
seemed lost in thought, yet had eyes for Nassau and
Rose, who paced the quarter-deck together. Black
was at the wheel. Wilkinson and one or two others lay
about the deck. The only persons in motion were
Nassau and Rose, and it was clear to Arthur that
Nassau was making love to his companion. The
black's manner was suggestive of great excitement and
expectation; he spoke rapidly and often, and quite
unconsciously made his walk fit for the merriment of
the surliest by his sudden springs into the air and con-
vulsive jumps, as though he was testing his legs for a
rush at a hurdle. Suddenly Old Stormy in the bows,
lifting his curved back, looked right ahead under the
sharp of his hand, and even whilst he stared Cabbage
shouted, ** Land ho!"

•It lay in a blue shadow, upon the edge of the sea,
and the horizon went from it on either hand in as clean
and perfect a circle as the pupil of an eye. The men

I

NASSAU'S CAY. 337

ran to the sides and overhung them, gazing, but with-
out demonstration. *Twas clear that shadow had been
pronaised to heave into a vision of land much about
that hour. It was expected, and therefore viewed
without the excitement which usually attends the mak-
ing of a landfall. Nassau picked up a telescope, and
gazed for a long time fixedly ; and Rose, heedless of
her black bugbear, joined her sweetheart in the waist.

* **What is that island, Arthur?" she asked, in a
breathless way.

* ''It is a Cay," he answered. **I have followed the
courses of this vessel and know her latitude and longi-
tude, and I also know that Cay is not Silver Cay, nor
any other Cay or island which Nassau talked to ns
about. There is no land for many leagues near it I
have looked at the chart too often not to know. **

' ''Why is he sailing to it?** said Rose.

***7'A^^/*J to be the villain*s secret, evidently,**
answered Arthur. '*The men are in his confidence
and know. How quietly they look at the land!*'

*He turned just as Nassau dropped the glass from
one of his little red eyes.

* * 'There is little to make out at this distance. Rose,
my love," he said, putting down the glass and
approaching the pair with a rolling, swaggering sea-
gait. ** Shadows and lines marking clefts — don't you
call 'em clefts? — in the cliflEs. Cliflfs there be. It*s a
sorter square, and you can see the foam twinkling
along the foot of the rocks, like your white fingers
pulsating on the strings of my banjo."

*He thought this a very fine image, and grinned
hideously with self-complacency.

* **I don't make out any houses."

338 ROSE ISLAND.

t (i'

Why, there be none. It's Desolation Cay, and
the crabs have large families, and nobody goes ashore
to trouble *em."

' **It is not the island I am to be princess of, Mr.
Nassau?" said Rose, with a smile that was sweet,
though 'twas feigned, and forced to the very extremi-
ties of her pretty lips; but the magical light that
always glowed with her smile, whether false or true,
was in her eyes.

* Nassau looked at her with one of his worshipping
expressions and answered:

* **The island of the princess is clothed with beauty. "

* **What are you going to do at that island?" said
Arthur bluntly, with a sidewajrs motion of his head at
the Cay, which was slowly shaping itself into clear
lines, the clefts, as Nassau called them, or ravines or
gaps, growing visible, and the line of white foam at the
base faintly fluctuating upon the gaze like a hair of
spider's silver web floating with the wind from one
tree to another.

* **Wait and you'll see," answered Nassau, scarcely
looking at him.

* **You'll find no men or ammunition on that rock,"
said Arthur.

Do you know?" exclaimed Nassau.

I know that yonder is a desolate Cay," answered

Arthur, **and " he was on the verge of losing his

temper, his hot heart burnt in his throat.

'He checked himself, looked steadily at Nassau,
whose eyes, unaccustomed to the steadfast, over-
powering gaze of this young man, beside whom,
though erect on his legs, he might have passed for
some filthy animal, something proper as an emanation

i ct
c tc

NASSAU'S CAY. 339

from the brain of Swift — I say, the black's eyes
dropped, and Arthur walked right aft, and was fol-
lowed by Rose. By five o'clock in the afternoon the
vessel was oflf the Cay, which certainly was not Silver
Cay, nor, in fact, as Arthur had said, any of the Cays
or islands which Nassau had talked about From time
to time the black had swept the ocean-line with the
telescope, and twice he had gone aloft on to the fore-
top-gallant yard with the glass; but no ship was in
sight, nothing was visible from the height of the fore-
top-mast, no blur of land was to be seen upon the
horizon, which ran unbroken as the edge of a burning-
glass. The sailors followed his movements, but
seemed perfectly to understand what was in his mind,
and from time to time they cast a look at Arthur.
They did no work and hung over the rail, until came
some swift orders from Nassau which brought the little
ship to a stand. No sail was shortened, no anchor
dropped, no cast of the lead taken. Nassau evidently
knew his whereabouts. The island might have been
called a Cay, but it little resembled the character and
formation of most of the Cays which, desolate all the
year round, or thinly populated, or visited only by the
wreckers, make a wide area of the waters of the
Antilles dangerous with currents and [ shoals, and
scarcely submerged rocks, to those who pass through
those parts. This Cay might have passed as a small
Table Mountain in appearance. A mass of yellowish
rocks grinned near the south-east quarter, and the play
of the sea there, the archings of foam, the half -savage
leaps of blue water, soaring into the hues of the rain-
bow ere they fell in garlanded feathers of sparkling
spume, formed one of those miracles of Nature upon

K.- -r

340 ROSE ISLAND.

whose lovely variety the contemplative eye could dwell
for hours without exhausting the revelations of those
waters to the heart. The island went round in various
altitude of cliflf, much of which was naked and repel-
lent, with several ravines and lengths of broken beach,
curiously shelving in places. The breakers of the
great ocean beat upon the base of this piece of land,
which might have been wrought out of lava, and the
corruptions spewed up out of the belching heart of the
volcano; and the curl of the comber corresponded with
the majesty and spaciousness of the ocean, out of which
it formed in volumes of white thunder, lifting to the
height of a ship's mast in parts, though the day was
serene, the wind soft, and the swell gentle and long-
drawn. The island was not without vegetation. Up a
ravine abreast of which the schooner was hove-to, was
the shadow of what resembled a valley, and you saw
clumps of cocoanut trees here and there, with spaces of
verdure as of guinea-grass; but on the whole it was
an arid piece of land, without signs of human life
upon it.

• **What does he mean to do, do you think?*'
exclaimed Rose, who had followed Arthur aft; her
face was pale, her expression was charged with fear
and foreboding.

* **6et this port-quarter boat lowered!" shouted
Nassau. ** Unship the gangway, and bring her along-
side it!"

CHAPTER XX.

NASSAU GOES.

* When Nassau shouted to the men to get a boat over
the side, he looked aft, and in that monient Arthur,
grasping the whole meaning of the fellow, turned
white as the plank of the deck, and then his face was
coloured with a deep crimson; he gasped, and said
with difficulty to Rose :

* **He means to put me ashore, and we are to be
separated. By the God of heaven, I will have his life
before he does it!"

* **I will go with you," said Rose, setting her teeth.

* * 'Cochrane!*' shouted Nassau, **step this way."

* Arthur stood stock-still, his arms folded.

* **Step this way— do you hear?" roared the black,
working himself up into a rage. "If you don't come
quietly, 1*11 have you carried."

* "You are not the captain of this ship; you have no
command over me,** answered Arthur. **If you lay a
hand upon me, you bloody black dog, you foul and
filthy fiend of hell, I will kill you as you killed my
father!**

'Sajring which, and before Nassau could reply or act,
Cochrane rushed to the companion, fled down the
steps, seized a cutlass from the cabin bulkhead where
the few poor arms were stocked, and was on deck
again in less time than it takes a girl to scream.

341

■*_ '•'!.

342 ROSE ISLAND.

( ii'

Now," said he, erect, dauntless, red as fire,
approaching Nassau, who stood, with a pistol in his
hand, waiting for him, having clearly interpreted the
motive of his swift descent to the cabin ; his eyes shone
like rubies, his horrible grin was surely without mirth.
The insulting langfuage of Arthur, in the hearing of
Rose, and in the hearing of the men, had maddened
him, and still you witnessed a degree of self-control in
his air, posture, and even in the expression of his face.
**Now," said Arthur, "what do you want?"

* ''Get into that boat," said Nassau, pointing to the
open gangway with his pistol.

* **Very willingly indeed, " replied Arthur; and he
beckoned with his cutlass to Rose, crying, **Come!"

* **Miss Rose," said Nassau, endeavouring to soften
his voice, *'I am at your feet, and you shall command
me in all things but one. I must now command you,
and entreat that you go below."

* **And remain alone with you?" answered Rose, in
a calmer voice than you would have looked for from
one with her white face of grief and horror. ** Arthur,
help me to enter the boat."

*She was coming to him.

* ** Touch him, and 1*11 shoot him like the dog that he
is!" cried Nassau. The men had drawn close around.
Nassau, having spoken these words, cried, with the
wildness of a maniac: "Help me, men! You know the
penalty of keeping him. Let no blood be shed. "

* As he spoke, he flung himself upon Arthur, striking
with cruel dexterity the young fellow's wrist with the
butt of his pistol, an old-fashioned, heavy weapon.
The blow was paralyzing; the cutlass fell to the deck.
Had Arthur had Nassau to deal with alone, even then,

« ii

Ci

NASSAU GOES. 343

though the nigger scoundrel was armed, he might have
met his end, for there was no man in the ship with
Arthur's strength, and it was a struggle for life and
love. But even as the cutlass dropped, even as Nassau
roared, Cabbage and Old Stormy, yelling out together,
'*We want no bloodshed!" flung themselves upon
young Cochrane. Nassau seized him, and in an
instant he was thrown through the gangway into the
boat. His back struck a thwart, and he lay motionless.
You wretches — you murderers!" shrieked Rose.
But I am coming, Arthur — I am coming;" and she
rushed to the open gangway. The powerful hand of
the ruffian Nassau grasped her arm. She struggled
with him with the strength and wrath of raving mad-
ness, shrieking again and again, '*You butcher — ^you
murderer 1 You shall not separate us."

*The strength of a man was hers then, and 'twas
marvellous that English seamen should stand by and ^
see a bright, brave young lady, who had ever had a
kind word and gentle smile for them, struggling with a
base scoundrel of a coloured seaman; but if man's
strength was hers, hers, too, was the weakness of the
woman. She fought furiously to liberate herself from
Nassau, then fell on the deck in a dead swoon,

' **Jump into the boat, Wilkinson!" now roared
Nassau; and, pointing to the girl at his feet, he said:
*Two of you carry her with all tenderness, look you,
into the cabin."

* "What am I to jump into the boat for?" answered
Wilkinson, who stood close by.

' **Jump, you traitorous rascal! — ^jump, you treacher-
ous villain! — ^before I send a bullet through your
damned head," was Nassau's polite reply, as he

■CMMHBHHPMaM

344 ROSE ISLAND.

levelled his ungainly weapon at the head of the young

man.

< (C,

In yer get ! ' ' shouted Old Stormy.

Can't I take my concertina?" shouted Wilkinson,
who did not seem in the smallest degree disconcerted
by the proximity of the muzzle of the pistol to his face.
'Nassau seized him by the scruff of the neck, twisted
him into the gangway, and, with a cruelly hard kick,
drove him overboard. He fell into the boat. Instantly
Nassau let go the line which held the boat to the
schooner, at the same time shouting at the open sky-
light to the two fellows below to come on deck at once
and trim sail. They worked as though a man-of-war
had hove into view, the topsail was filled, and in a few
moments the Charmer was sliding away from the boat
with her head at about W.S.W., undoubtedly in cor-
respondence with the scheme with which Nassau had
turned the heads of the sailors, and made rogues,
cowards, pirates, and, in sympathy, murderers of Eng-
lish seamen. Arthur had not been stunned ; the blow
on the spine had caused a passing feeling of faintness.
He was sitting up when the Charmer filled and sailed
away.

* **Have they kept Miss Island?" were the first words
he said, looking at Wilkinson with a moment's wonder
at finding him there. He could not be sure that she
had not jumped overboard and drowned herself.

* **Ay, she swounded and was carried below,"
answered Wilkinson.

'Arthur's fingers slowly closed; in the agony of his
thoughts, he beat in a strange mechanical way with
his clenched fist on the thwart on which he was seated.
His face was that of a high-spirited, determined man

NASSAU GOES. 345

in torture. She was lost to him, of that he felt as sure
as that yonder was a Cay, and that yonder was a
schooner leaving them to their fate. How am I to
express that man's grief? how am I to reveal the work-
ings of that manly broken heart? He had clung to a
faint hope that Nassau was a madman, and that,
through the agency of some outrageous behaviour of
his, he (Arthur) might bring the men to a sense of
their desperate folly and wickedness. He had dreamt
sometimes that if Nassau made the island he feigned
to be bound to, he would find an opportunity of escap-
ing with Rose. But the black devil had acted with all
necessary cunning. His scheme proved his sanity, and
the poor fellow, in the torments of his perceptions,
cried dumbly in his heart, **She is dishonoured; she
will kill herself; she is lost to me for ever."

* **I wish to Gubbins they'd have let me have my
concertina," said Wilkinson. **It was mother's gift,
and Nassau will be trying to learn how to play it."

'Arthur sat like a man who has been blasted by
lightning. He sat like a shape that has been carved
out of stone. There was never a ship's figfurehead in
any dock in London that hung more motionless under
the bowsprit than Arthur, who remained seated on the
thwart of the boat Suddenly he stood up, his throat
swelled, groans as of a dying man escaped him; he
extended his arms, and wept such tears as might fur-
row cheeks of iron ; he cursed Nassau in terms which
would have made even Nassau himself shrink. Wil-
kinson thought he was gone mad.

* **They'll sure to be taken," said he, **and the young
lady 'ull be restored to her friends."

'Arthur looked at him, and was silent for some

{•■

346 ROSE ISLAND.

moments whilst striving to conquer his passions, and
then said, **Why are you here?**

* ** Because I wouldn't turn pirate, and Nassau knew
it. I could give you several good quotations from old
Dr. Johnson as would fit this occasion to a hair and
please you," said Wilkinson. **But, to my notion,
Mr. Cochrane, the most sensible thing we can do, see-
ing that here we are, and not able to help it, is to get
ashore as soon as we can, and see what's to be done to
help ourselves and the young lady when we get there. *'

*This was plain and sober speaking. It fell cool on
Arthur's maniacal wrath. They struck the oars into
the thole-pins, and headed for a part of the beach
which opened into a foamless mouth, and formed
apparently a creek, terminating abruptly a little dis-
tance up a ravine. The boat was absolutely unpro-
vided, save with the ordinary equipment of oars,
rudder, and tiller, thole-pins, and in the bows a small
breaker which Wilkinson with a kick found empty.
There were no guns, no ammunition, no food or drink.
This was exceeding the barbaric custom of the pirates
when they marooned a man. To maroon is to set a
person ashore on a desolate place and leave him. But
always, ladies and gentlemen, if I have read aright,
the wretches who perpetrated this crime left a musket,
powder, and balls, with provisions. Nassau's inhu-
manity was, therefore, not traditional, but then, it is
true they had a boat. They rowed almost in silence
towards the mouth of the creek which yawned betwixt
the breakers. Arthur asked Wilkinson if he had
gathered from the crew the intentions of Nassau.
Wilkinson answered that ever since he had refused to
join Nassau as a pirate, the men had treated him as

NASSAU GOES. 347

though he had been a traitor; and if he happened to
stand near when they talked, they either broke off or
told him to go away to his concertina. He had left all
his clothes behind him in the schooner, and should be
as naked as Man Friday if they had kept the coat and
breeches he was now wearing. For his part he
thought that Nassau would fool the men and make off
with* the lady, which, in his opinion, was the sole
motive of the black in murdering Captain Cochrane,
and stealing the schooner to convert her into a pirate.
This fellow Wilkinson was a sort of Dick Swiveller in
his way, and spoke in a tone of unconcern, as though
'twas all one to him, and that he'd just as soon be here
as there. Arthur ground his teeth. But now they fell
silent ; they pulled over a smooth swell, and on either
hand of them was the roar of the breaker, which grew
in volume and beauty of form and splendour of light,
north and south, where the Cay was apparently steep
ta This roar broke off as they passed into the creek,
just as the whistle of the locomotive dies out of its yell
as the engine sweeps into the tunnel. High cliffs of
fifty or sixty feet rose on either hand, and the waters
of the creek, in which the pulse of the ocean was to be
felt for some distance, were stained with the shadow
cast by either side. They rowed to the extremity of
the creek, which was about half a mile from the
entrance. It was an oval, and the land was flat there,
rising somewhat precipitously further on. A slender
line of foam gave a more defined dye to the yellow soil
beyond. Several clumps of cocoa-nut trees were
visible, and some turtle were lying on the beach. The
suAi was behind the land, and in its light was the rich
crimson of the tropic evening.

348 ROSE ISLAND.

• •* We'll land here/* said Arthur, '*and get the boat
out of the surf. It looks like a lump of big hill that's
been splintered by some tremendous stroke of storm or
gigantic bolt.*'

*He said this looking about him. The island or Cay,
indeed, might have been the grim and gloomy pavilion
or dwelling-place of the spirit of desolation. They
sprang ashore, and both being young giants in
strength, they hauled the boat easily through the surf,
and up the slight incline, till she was keel-out They
then stood awhile, breathing deeply. This toil and
the labour of rowing had made them thirsty, and the
passion of thirst was increased by the spur of imagina-
tion, cruel of necessity by knowledge that the boat's
breaker was empty. Therefore they must hunt for
water forthwith, and the boat on the shore being as
safe as they could make her, they trudged inland over
the yellow soil, which here and there was tufted with
narrow growths of a sort of grass. After walking
some distance without seeing any signs of water, with-
out perceiving any signs of human being, no, not so
much as a black desolate ruin of homestead or rudest
shelter, they gained the side of a hill, and mounted to
the top of it, which was a climb of about eight hun-
dred feet. The top of this hill was covered with the
same sort of grass they had noticed on the yellow
plain. Its sides were very rugged and jagged, and it
was the counterpart of the other hills round about
They saw several valleys, and in the valley at the foot
of the adjacent hill they observed a quantity of skele-
tons, some of them of human beings, but most of these
startling remains were the bones of large birds, horses,
and other animals indeterminable.

NASSAU GOES. 349

* ''Why, is that there a cemetery?" observed Wilkin-
son.

* Arthur could only stare and wonder. It was years
afterwards, in speaking of this strange collection of
human and other bones in the valley, that he learnt
that a poisonous atmosphere lay low upon the soil in
that place, and that whatever entered it, man or beast,
died in a few minutes. It was supposed that the
human skeletons were either the remains of ship-
wrecked men or of pirates, who had come ashore and
roamed about to view the island. It was not known
how the remains of the animals and birds came to be
Ijring in that spot.

* **Is this here island haunted, I wonder?" exclaimed
Wilkinson. **I'm for returning to the boat, sir, and
digging for water down upon the beach, where I've
read it's often found, and then shoving ofif."

* **We must find water before we shove ofif," said
Arthur, whose thirst was great, and he called upon
God to curse the black scoundrel who had sent them
ashore without water or provisions. As he spoke the
words his eye was taken by a gleam in a part of the
rocks of the hill on which they stood. He gazed at it
intently, and presently saw that a black line upon the
cliff went straight from it, and was lost in the herbage.
Again he stared, then shouted, ** Water!"

'Wilkinson's eye instantly went to the spot.

* •* Water!" he shrieked.

•Both men were seamen, and seamen make no more
of crags and rocks than of ratlines and footropes.
They ran, they crawled upon their hands and knees,
they dropped, and then they arrived at the place where
the water was spouting. In truth, a sailor needs noth-

350 ROSE ISLAND.

ing but his eyelids to hold on by. The water gushed
from a rift in a rock ; it came out like a twisted hand,
and of that bigness, and its running made a black mark
down the rocks, till it vanished far below in some
hideous herbage. Arthur put his finger into the water,
it was warm ; he tasted it, it was slightly brackish ; it
also had a faint sulphuric flavour. It was apparently
one of those thermal fountains around which, had it
spouted in any part of great Britain, doctors would
have collected, and we should have had a library of
volumes and pamphlets, filled with lies about its mirac-
ulous qualities as a cure for gout and rheumatism.
But nauseous as it was, it assauged the thirst. One
after the other stooped and opened his mouth to the
flow, and in a few minutes each was as taut with the
drench they had swallowed as an air-ball.

* **I should like to go into that valley," repeated
Arthur, gazing at the skeletons, which lay more
plainly in sight at their present elevation. He was
much refreshed by the drink, and looked about him
with firmness and curiosity.

* **I*d not go for the love of all the saints," answered
Wilkinson. **Who wants to mess about with old
bones? I'm for getting away as soon as we can launch
clear of this bloody island. What belonged to them
skeletons may walk about in the night. I'm for tak-
ing some of this 'ere water to the- boat, and making
tracks."

* **How are we to carry the water?" said Arthur.
•He looked about him. Wilkinson shouted, **This

will do!" and in a jump or two he got hold of a piece
of rounded rock that was like pumice-stone, but not
smooth. It resembled a distorted turnip, or a rough

NASSAU GOES. ^i

attempt at the manufacture of a bowl. It was hollow,
and when filled it held about a quart. This they
agreed would serve for the night, and after some talk
they settled to sleep under the boat, and at dawn to
bring the breaker to the water, and then be off in
search of a passing vessel. But first they regained the
top of the hill, and after walking some distance, leav-
ing their natural bowl full of water handy for their
return, they ascended an acclivity from whose summit
they obtained a spacious view of the island and ocean
all rotmd. I call it an island, for it little resembled the
Cays of the West Indian waters. Its desolation was
soul-subduing, and the fearfulness of it as a solitude
was deepened to the complexion of the very grave
itself by the skeletons which whitened the valley
beyond the base of the hill. Little wonder that it was
never visited, that no hint of human habitation was
visible, nor was it remarkable that it was not occasion-
ally touched at for supplies of water, if the water it
yielded was everywhere the same that Arthur and his
companion had drunk. The sun was near his going,
and the rolling swell clad in purple, like gorgeously-
attired newsmen, carried the story of the setting of the
monarch of the day into the far east. Arthtu: and the
Qther looked around them.

*In a minute young Cochrane's gaze was taken by
the sight of a sail about five miles distant, the only
object upon the wide ocean. The breeze was light,
and she was sailing slowly, and she hovered like a
seagull with white pinions broadly spread over the
golden deep.

' ''The ChartPter!'' said Arthur; and as he looked,
once again, as in the boat, his finger-nails bit into the

3Sa ROSE ISLAND.

palms of his hands with the agony the thought of Rose
struck into his heart.

* •* There's my concertina and duds a-sailing away
for good and all," said Wilkinson, looking at the
receding schooner with the sharp of his hand at his
brow. "Wonder the island they're bound to ain't in
sight from up here. Why, she's like a little boat that
a boy swims," and he began to curse her.

* Arthur watched her in silence; his teeth were set.
Oh, if he could but have two minutes with Nassau up
here alone ! And the blood of his father was in his
face, and the murder of his father worked, as the poet
says, **like madness in his brain," and he thought of
Rose, his sweet, his precious, his lost Rose !

*He turned abruptly and said to Wilkinson:

* "Come."

'Wilkinson began to quote something consoling out
of Boswell's life, but he stopped suddenly when he saw
the look on Arthur's face. Between them, one reliev-
ing the other, they carried the slender stock of water
that was to serve them during the night to the boat.
They then turned the little craft on to her broadside,
took a couple of stretchers out of her, and propped her
gunwale, which made a sort of shed of her. By this
time the sun was gone. The ocean went fluctuating
away in gloom, and the stars shone brightly, and the
Cay thrilled as to the deep notes of an organ, to the
plunging strokes of the great white surf boiling along
its base. When the darkness fell, and when the boat
had been converted into a shelter for the night, Wil-
kinson, smearing the sweat off his brow with the
length of his sleeve, exclaimed that he felt as if he
could eat something.

NASSAU GOES. 353

• Hi

There were some turtle down yonder," said Coch-
rane.

'Both men looked, but the turtle had gone away.
Then Wilkinson said he would go and see if there were
any cocoanuts to be got. His fear of the relics of the
carnage of miasma did not dispose him to a close
scrutiny; he walked as far as the first clump of trees,
gazing fearfully on either hand, and after looking up
into the deep shadow of the tufted height, and after
staring all round upon the ground, he returned, say-
ing there were no cocoanuts to be seen, and he guessed
that the trees of this land didn't put forth as they
ought to. They sought for crabs, but the few they
saw crawling looked so black, and created so much
disgust as food, that they made up their minds to lie
down supperless, and to wait for the morning, when
they might hope to catch a turtle.

* Fortunately, both men had a pipe and a piece of
cake tobacco. They sat down with their backs against
the boat and smoked. How did they get a light? By
flint and steel, which Arthur had carried to sea with
him ever since he first went a-sailoring. I submit
that this was as perfect a picture of forlomness and
destitution as any marine artist could wish to place
upon canvas. The gap, or ravine, blackened the
waters of the creek into ink. There was the sense of
the neighbourhood of the field of skeletons, silent and
white under the stars. The ocean was a mysterious
and solemn presence to every sense, though invisible
where the men sat. Out of its thunder-like hymn all
around the base of the cliffs came the spirit of its vast-
ness, and your inmost soul, though you hearkened but
a minute, was subdued into awe and reverence for

354 ROSE ISLAND.

That which dwells beyond the stars. For awhile
Arthur could talk of nothing but his barbarous separa-
tion from Rose. But they slided into other discourse
presently, and spoke of getting away in the morning,
and in what direction they should steer. Wilkinson
said he was glad that they had the shelter of the boat ;
he would not like to have slept in the open. He
reckoned that spectres stalked out of that valley
yonder, and he believed in ghosts, he did; he once saw
one. Dr. Johnson also believed in ghosts. At about
ten o'clock, by the lights of the sky, they crawled into
the boat after a long and earnest look round, and
Arthur pulled off his coat for a pillow, and Wilkinson
found a bolster in his arm. They lay talking for a
little time. They rather feared the invasion of the
crab. Wilkinson had read of huge creatures, shaped
like a star-fish, with a hundred crooked legs; this
monster had strength enough to pull a man into the
water and drown him, and eat him up. At last they
slept.

*They were awakened by the boat being thrown
back again on to her bilge by the fall of the stretchers.
Each, with the alertness of the sailor, sprang to his
feet, though still almost blinded by the deep slumber
of the weary. It was dawn, and brightening fast, and
in the light they saw three men, who stood together
looking at them.

• **My God!" cried Arthur.

*The men were Old Stormy, Cabbage, and Black.
On the beach lay the boat they had arrived in, and far
beyond her, away past the dark waters of the creek,
about a mile distant from the coast, floated, with slight
curtseys to the swell, the schooner Charmer ^ framed

NASSAU GOES. 355

by the sides of the ravine, and fast stealing out of the
tender gloom of dawn into the brilliance of the risen
day. Arthur looked from the men to the boat and
from the boat to the Charmer y and then the whole
truth flashed upon him as though the full story had
been told, and the memory of certain mysterious sen-
tences which had dropped from time to time from
Rose recurred to him, and, I say, as though the full
story had been told, he understood with the velocity of
thought and intuition how things stood. His posture
was upright, his face white, he folded his arms, his
eyes glittered, he showed no signs of astonishment,
no marks of hope or delight. The men looked at him
in silence, and with scarce more than the shadow of a
frown he shot a gaze of fire into Old Stormy's broad
countenance, and said :

' **Is Miss Rose Island safe and well?"

' **Ay,'* answered Old Stormy promptly, "as safe
and well as me and you. She's aboard and a- waiting. '*

* **You can see her 'ead, over the rail abreast of the
mainmast,*' said Cabbage, pointing.

* "She's killed Nassau, and that's why we're here,"
said Old Stormy.

* "We've been nearly all night a-fetching the island, "
exclaimed Black.

Killed Nassau!" said Arthur, in a low, thrilling

i C(

voice.

She told us," said Old Stormy, "that he tried to
take liberties with her, and she pulled out of her breast
the carving-knife you found in your father's heart, and
stabbed the nigger dead. "

* Wilkinson clapped his hands and delivered a shout
that might have been heard aboard the schooner.

3S6 ROSE ISLAND.

Arthur looked intently at Old Stormy. Even that
rough son of a gun could interpret some at least of the
thoughts which were revealing themselves in the work-
ings of the fine young fellow's face.

• "Better cut this yarn short," said Black. •*We're
now without a navigator. We don't fancy any more —
none of us don't — of the dead nigger's notion of going
a-pirating, and if you'll take charge, and land us some-
where which will be a safe place for us men to tramp
from to where there's civilization, then you're welcome
aboard, sir; we'll obey your commands, and your lady
will be as safe from interference as if she was in her
own drawring-room at 'ome."

•Arthur pulled on his. coat, and saying, **I will do
what you wish: I will land you in safety, you shall
name your own place; this I swear by my murdered
father," he walked to the boat, and stood with his
hand upon the gunwale, waiting for the others.

*They followed in rolling gait, and there was much
talk, but silence fell when they grasped the gunwale
for the launch, and nothing was said when she was
afloat, but this question, asked by Arthur :

• *'Where is the man's body?"

• **We flung it overboard," was Old Stormy's
answer, and then they took to their oars, leaving the
other boat to rot upon the cay.'

When Captain Poster arrived at this point he faintly
smiled, touched the naval peak of his cap to the ladies
and gentlemen who had been listening to him, and
walked to the side, overleaning it as a man might who
is suddenly visited by sober, earnest thought. The
moon sparkled brightly over the sea, and the noble

NASSAU GOES. 357

clipper ship Suez^ which had long outrun the trades,
lay becalmed; and the westerly swell of the ocean,
faintly glittering with the gold-dust of the beautiful
fire of the deep, swayed the canvas of the ship into cool
refreshing draughts, and the sails flapped up in the
visionary heights with a sound as though many invis-
ible spirits had taken wing.

* Surely, Captain Foster,' cried a lady, a young one,
after some talk about the termination of the story had
passed amongst those who had listened, *you will not,
I hope, tell us that your charming tale has ended?'

The Captain returned slowly to the seated groups,
and said lightly:

*Why, Miss Howard, if I should be obliged to tell
the whole story you would require to make another
round voyage with me. *

*Ay, Captain,' exclaimed a gentleman, *but you
tantalize us by leaving the boat approaching the
schooner with the girl awaiting her lover. *

*You know,' said Captain Foster, gravely, 'that Miss
Rose Island was alive and safe, and that she had killed
Nassau for attempting to caress her. She was the girl
to do it, and since the murder of Captain Cochrane,
she had made up her mind to do it. I am no hand at
describing love-scenes, and I should prefer to leave to
your imagination, which has helped me much in my
narrative, the scene of the meeting of Arthur and
Rose, and how in a few words she told him that
Nassau had gone below after the schooner had started,
but not before. On awaking to consciousness, she had
hidden in her bosom the knife with which Captain
Cochrane had been killed. Nassau's behaviour grew
free. She threw him from her, drew out the knife.

358 ROSE ISLAND.

and, with the spring of a tigress, buried the weapon in
the scoundrel's heart. The men then, as you know —
accepting Nassau's death as coolly as if he had been
a pig under the long boat — finding themselves without
a commander or navigator, returned to the island. '

Here Captain Foster again paused as if he would
make an end.

*Have you nothing to tell us. Captain, about the
further adventures of Rose?' asked Miss Howard.
*Did they arrive in safety? Were they married?*
' * Ay, and what became of the men?' inquired some
one.

'Ladies and gentlemen,* said Captain Foster, smil-
ing, *it is nearly nine o'clock, and before two bells
have struck I shall hope to have satisfied your curi-
osity. A certain Cay, far to the north of the Cay they
had left, was chosen by the men from the chart which
Arthur unrolled before them. One of them knew that
Cay, and it was agreed that they should go ashore in
the long-boat well stocked. In that boat they would
easily make their way to an inhabited island. This
being settled, Arthur steered a course for the Cay, but
before two days had passed — that is, in the after-
noon of the second day of their leaving the Cay— •
they sighted a ship which signalled to them to heave
to. The sailors of the schooner, guessing her to be a
man-of-war, cracked on their vessel, but it came on to
blow, and next morning the stranger, which proved to
be a heavy British corvette, was within gunshot In
helpless plight the Charmer was hove to. The second
lieutenant of the corvette came on board; to him
Arthur told the whole story of the intricate voyage of
the schooner, and the Charmer* s company, cursing and

NASSAU GOES. 359

swearing, were sent on board the corvette to be
carried to Kingston, where they would be tried as
pirates. Rose and Arthur also went on board the
corvette and a prize crew took charge of the schooner.
On the arrival of the vessels at Kingston, Rose was
charged with the murder of Nassau. The excitement
was universal. As a sensational trial, it stood high
above all others in the annals of the island. She was
acquitted, of course; they made a heroine of her; they
loaded her with gifts, and the day of her marriage to
Arthur was like one of public rejoicing, so dense were
the crowds, and so resolved were the negroes to make
the utmost of any excuse for getting drunk and other-
wise enjoying themselves. '
Two bells were struck as the Captain ceased.

THE END.

AUG30^o?o

- ■ T \ l -l ^i lrf *"

PRINTED BY R. R. DONNELLEY
AND SONS COMPANY AT THE
LAKESIDE PRESS, CHICAGO, ILL.

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